Posts Tagged With 'Lysette Anthony'

Night and Day

Posted in Time Capsule by TV Cream | No Comments »

ALBION MARKET…with attitude! Stoic attempt to make ITV look all upmarket and posh and pretend that its viewers are aching for a soap opera that crosses TRAINER with SO HAUNT ME. Spoiler: They weren’t. Bonkers plot wouldn’t have looked out of place on MICHAEL WINNER’S TRUE CRIMES. Cross-section of every race, creed and colour lives on a street in Greenwich. They all have humdrum lives, except they don’t, because they all have Hidden Secrets, and when a girl who looks like Sandra Dickinson goes missing, all the Hidden Secrets begin to spew out. One side of the road is occupied, a la STELLA STREET, by a battery of fading faces: Angie off of THREE UP, TWO DOWN, Dorien from BIRDS OF A FEATHER, Sergeant Harriet Makepeace, Dr Who Paul McGann’s brother, one of the prossies on BAND OF GOLD, one half of HE'S PASQUALE, I'M WALSH, and Mike Gambit. On t’other side of street live the Beautiful People, including half the future cast of HOLLYOAKS. They meet in the middle. Much sauciness over the sun-dried tomatoes ensues. As does murder, mistaken identity, mystical visions, a visit from a time-stopping stranger like that bloke off HEROES, and SHANE RICHIE. Originally aired three times a week at teatime, with a fussily-titled “adult” omnibus, NIGHT AND DAY: THE REMIX, once a week after the News at Ten. REMIX subtitle was ditched after just one week. Teatime episodes soon went the same way. Weekly omnibus then slid further back in the schedule until that hallowed must-watch hour of 1am. Final episode fast forwarded four years for no good reason other than to reveal that the girl who went missing on day one had now become – well of course! – a ghost!

Read More

Night Train To Murder

Posted in N is for... by TV Cream | No Comments »

Atoll K. Love Happy. Kook’s Tour. The history of comedy acts is littered with sad, misbegotten career sign-offs, and this Morecambe and Wise endpiece is a prime example. Even the staunchest Morecambe-ite has reservations about their three ‘proper’ films, but this comes in way below even The Magnificent Two. After their lacklustre Thames series, Euston Films put together this extended Agatha Christie spoof, with Lysette Anthony as Eric’s neice inheriting a vast fortune, with the resultant attempts on her life taking place on the titular nocturnal locomotive. Like a ‘Play What I Wrote’ extended to near-feature length, this misjudged the atmosphere by making the plot lead the duo’s slapstick like never before, leaving just the odd recycled exchange poking out from a dreary thriller plot. It’s as if Ernie the playwright had finally got the upper hand over Eric, and we get to see the fruits of his artistic labour almost uninterrupted. What humour there is is so tragically muted you could play The Last Post on it. Director Joe McGrath did no further films after this. In a face-saving plea, Eric insisted Thames only ever showed the film in mid-afternoon slots. To be honest, even that’s too good for it.

Read More

Krull

Posted in K is for... by TV Cream | 1 Comment »

“I am Ergo the Magnificent: short in stature, tall in power, narrow of purpose and wide of vision!” So sayeth the great David Battley in this tremendous Cream-ridden Britfest from 1983. Isn’t that Robbie Coltrane? Good lord! There’s Tucker! Liam Neeson? I can’t believe my eyes! Freddie Jones? Why, it’s Alun Armstrong an’ all…and there’s her from Three Up Two Down and The Terror Beneath Loch Ness! But wait…none of them are the star. Stand back and behold the mighty figure of Rell the Cyclops played by Bernard Bresslaw! If you see only one film about mysterious evil demi-gods coming from the stars and conquering a quasi-mediaeval world, make it this one.

Read More

Three Up Two Down

Posted in T is for... by TV Cream | 1 Comment »

MIDDLING MID-EVENING middlebrow stalwart, featuring opposing grandparents MICHAEL “BOON” ELPHICK and ANGELA “MANOR BORN” THORNE as rough and ready cockernee and refined Cheltenham snob thrown together for incompatible flatshare baby-sitting sitcom high-jinks and “will they, won’t they – who cares?” sexual non-tension. Any watchability was mainly due to presence of proto-Hurley LYSETTE ANTHONY as Thorne’s daughter.

You might also want to see... Night and Day.

Read More

Foundation, The

Posted in F is for... by TV Cream | 1 Comment »

FRIDAY EVENING serial soaper set in the high-ranking executive world – a sort of BROTHERS shifted up half a class. Heads of eponymous cartel were LYSETTE ANTHONY as Davinia Prince, and her down-to-earth sister, teacher Katherine. Romantic intrigues, determined dialogue and bared lower teeth a speciality.

Read More