TV Cream

How We Used To List

How We Used To List: 3rd-9th AUGUST 2002


What we were watching this week 20 years ago, as recorded in the back-issues of TV Cream’s weekly ‘e-mag’, Creamguide…

(We still send out Creamguides every week via email. If you’d like to receive it – it’s free, there are no ads, we don’t sell on your address, you can unsubscribe whenever; we’re basically soppy like that – then fill in your details below.)


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TV CREAM TIMES
3rd – 9th August 2002
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This film has been certified for viewing by –
Phil Norman, Chris Diamond
Back! Back! Back! – Graham Kibble-White
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Saturday 3rd August

BBC1

20.15 The National Lottery Winning Lines
Or specifically, about 20.58 because when this show underruns, which it normally does, Phil Schofield launches into a complete rundown of what’s coming up later on BBC1, and it’s like having the Broom Cupboard back on, sort of. And anyone who can sound *that* excited while voicing over the trailer demands to be watched.

BBC2

22.15 I Love Jamaica
Kicking off a new season on BBC2 is Shaggy running through the history of Jamaican music, sport and, er, other things. Congratulations to The Guardian, by the way, for Jacques Perretti’s terrible piece on theme nights on Monday, which managed to screw up its argument in the first paragraph by getting the name wrong of the programme it was supposed to be championing – the Palin-fronted programme was The A to Z of TV, not TV Heaven, that was the Frank Muir-fronted thirteen-week season of complete shows. And it wasn’t the ‘first TV theme night ever’ anyway. And he then preceded to slag off Top Ten and I Love for not being ‘analytical’ enough, which is a crap argument, and the Beeb and C4 have already said there’s going to be less of them anyway. And Perretti directed Danny Baker’s TV Heroes, which were exactly the same, the hypocrite. Still, he did achieve the impossible and make Mark Lawson’s column only the second-worst thing in the paper.

23.15 The Harder They Come
“With a piece in his hand he takes on the man!” It’s gritty, it’s grainy, it’s good! Jimmy Cliff is the poor boy who justs wants to make a hit record but ends up as Jamaica’s most wanted man. Also appearing are Prince Buster and Bobby ‘no, not that one’ Charlton.

01.00 Where’s Jack?
Tommy Steele, no less, is groomed for swashbuckling stardom as the cockernee Robin Hood-esque highwayman in 18th century London. With Sue ‘Crossroads’ Lloyd, John ‘Mallens’ Hallam, Cardew ‘The Cad’ Robinson, George ‘Inigo’ Woodbridge, Michael Elphick and, as a copper, Michael Douglas.

ITV

15.15 Ring of Bright Water
Bill Travers and Virginia McKenna go from Born Free to this Scottish otter-based romance in this adaptation of mammal befriender Gavin Maxwell’s tale. Will ITV leave in the ‘disturbing’ ending?

CHANNEL 4

06.00 The Clangers
C4 attempt to bump up Creamguide to its old size again.

20.00 Guns of the Magnificent Seven
Kennedy, Whitmore, Casey, Baker, Markham… yeah, this’ll alleviate that ‘post-BB lull’.

05.50 Bagpuss

CHANNEL 5

08.00 James The Cat
Hooray! Apparently one of the last times you’ll see the Grampian logo too, cos they’re supposed to be renaming both that and STV to simply ‘ITV1 Scotland’ later in the year. Remember it this way…

00.40 First Family
Despite not having ever actually seen this Creamguide makes no hesitation in recommending you watch it since it’s got Bob Newhart in it. But, if you need more reasons (and if so, why?), well here’s a few: Rip ‘Artie’ Torn, Gilda ‘Wilder’ Radner, Harvey ‘Nut House’ Korman and Madeline’ Yellowbeard’ Kahn. Satisfied?

02.30 Outlaw Blues
Now, have ‘troubled’ Channel 5 posponed this from April 19th, or are they just making the most of their film purchases before they get flogged off? We’ve no way of knowing, sadly, but here’s an old billing – “Late ’70s much of a muchness wherein ex-con Peter Fonda shacks up with Susan ‘Kate and Allie’ Saint James to rescue his flat renditions of country standards from the hands of copyright thief James Callahan (presumably supplementing those controversial IMF loans).”

05.10 Sons and Daughters
Course, we could use billings from any week for this.

Sunday 4th August

BBC1

20.50 Commonwealth Games Closing Ceremony
The opening ceremony was brilliant, especially when Baz told us all where hip-hop originates from, using the term “b-boy” and then informing us that “the rappers are Bishop and Trigger”. And reading out the whole of S Club’s biography. Expect plenty more from the rennaissance man of the lipmike tonight. “Ladies and gentlemen, Scott Minto!”

01.05 Cinderella Liberty
James Caan turns in an impressive performance as a sailor on shore leave whose papers get lost allowing him plenty of time to become surrogate father to hooker Marsha ‘Drop Dead Fred’ Mason’s troubled son. Not a comedy then. Also featuring Dabney ‘9 to 5’ Coleman and Eli Wallach.

BBC2

17.30 Steptoe and Son
Course you’ll never see this episode repeated on BBC1 because they don’t allow black and white on that channel.

18.30 Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em
You’ll clearly see this episode – “The new labour exchange manager refuses to believe Frank is unemployable” – on BBC1 soon, because the Beeb seem to show it every five minutes.

20.00 Reggae: The Story of Jamaican Music
Continuing BBC2’s season, here’s the first of a three-part series which should actually be damn good. Lee Perry, Jimmy Cliff and Prince Buster all comment, though the chances of hearing Dem Girls Dem Girls by Zig and Zag are, alas, minimal. “Haul and pull! Haul and pull!”

ITV

14.35 The Hot Rock
This week’s ‘rather better than the stuff they’re showing in prime time, actually’ diamond heist caper features Robert Redford, George Segal, Zero Mostel and the briefest of Christopher Guests.

20.00 After Upstairs, Downstairs
We’re a bit disappointed because it was supposed to be The Brothers episode this week and we were really looking forward to it, not least because the researcher wrote to TV Cream and offered to give us a hand with our entry for it. What a gent. Still, this should be fun enough, and it gives us another chance to reminisce about the Russell Harty Goes Upstairs Downstairs programme from 1975 that Creamguide saw at the Kaleidoscope TV convention in Birmingham last year, where Russ interviewed them all in character, then it panned back to find Russ watching himself on TV, to inform us that “London Weekend are to screen 26 weeks of repeats on Saturday nights from January”.
26 weeks of repeats!

22.35 Smash!
As it turned out, last week’s Rams episode was good fun, if only for the brilliant clip of them performing Na Na Hey Hey in front of a dozen frugging kids in the middle of a damp playground on Saturday Superstore. It works better when it loses all pretensions of being a serious documentary and is just a bit of a romp, so this week’s instalment on Madness should pass an idle half-hour now Big Brother has finished.

23.20 The South Bank Show
Hoorah for ITV’s continued commitment to the arts! Even though this is the sort of subject they normally get to go into peaktime with – Bernie Taupin.

00.50 The Dance Years
1992 was the worst year for music ever and that is true. And Dave Pearce won’t convince us otherwise.

CHANNEL 4

06.05 Clangers

CHANNEL 5

14.30 The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case
Depending on the football, we either get this ’70s period babysnatchin drama with Anthony Hopkins, or the TV movie Challenger, which might turn out to be more Cream-relevant, with Karen ‘Raiders’ Allen, Angela ‘F/X’ Bassett and Peter ‘Ritz’ Boyle. At the time of going to press, Creamguide has been unable to ascertain who plays the role of Newsround’s Roger Finn.

Monday 5th August

BBC1

14.35 Cagney and Lacey
Yikes! This was all over the place in 1987, of course, and the Radio Times was always full of letters asking when it was coming back and if they were going to repeat episodes they’d missed. Every chance in the Dick Van Dyke spot we’ll get that sort of fanaticism again, as it’s here every day at this time.

17.00 Blue Peter
Double or Drop!? Not sure about that, especially as Liz seemed to be giving them prizes even when they got questions wrong. The rest of these roadshows have been great, though, especially Matt and Liz becoming Redcoats on Monday and taking part in a wrestling match, which Creamguide found strangely exciting. Ahem. Anyway, Blackpool today.

00.30 Jukebox Heroes
Back after a few weeks off, and in an even worse slot, which is a shame because the story of Badfinger really is fascinating.

01.35 The Big Bus
Oh, now we really are going to have to start fighting! In its infinite wisdom, the new-look RT describes this extremely likeable disaster spoof as “embarrassing”, rating it lower than Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Rambo III and – bloody hell! – Orgazmo. This means the RT film team are, officially, idiots, with the honourable exception of Andrew Collins, who wisely busies himself elsewhere talking about All the President’s Men. Anyway, hopefully everyone will ignore them, as this oft-screened but still top parody (a full four years before Airplane!, remember) makes loosely-plotted fun of the inaugural journey of the world’s first nuclear powered bus (based on one of those ’70s signifier double-decker bendy buses, with cardboard sci-fi trimmings) helmed by ‘troubled’ foot-eating former bus driver Joseph ‘Sins’ Bologna and his narcoleptic, milk carton-wielding deputy ‘Shoulders’, with the great Stockard Channing’s stewardess drowning in Dr Pepper in the back. An on-board cocktail pianist (Murph ‘Murph and the Magictones’ Dunne), bar and swimming pool, automatic wheel changes, crap terrorists, a great plutonium-based visual gag, flags of all nations, a pick-up encounter, and a top cliffhanger climaxall add to the fun. With Rene ‘Father Mulcahy’ Auberjonois as an arrogant, hopeless priest berating Ruth ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ Gordon, Sally ‘the original Hotlips Houlihan’ Kellerman and Richard ‘Soap’ Mulligan as a mutually loathing couple, Ned ‘Otis’ Beatty, Jos� Ferrer in an iron lung, Larry Hagman tending to a St Cristopher’s-impaled Harold Gould (in a car park on a little trolley), a boozy Lynn Redgrave, Vito ‘Master of the World’ Scotti as an on-board barber, and, er, David Essex.

BBC2

09.00 The Scooby Doo Show
For completeness’ sakes only, every day at this time. Reminds us, sort of, of when The Flinstones film came out in 1994, and the Beeb showed the series virtually every day, once at half past six on a Saturday night, which was bonkers. Still, better than The Waiting Game, eh?

12.15 Love Boat – The Next Wave
This isn’t, but it is also on every day at this time. Don’t worry, sport’s back tomorrow.

13.35 Hell Drivers
Two’s annual outing of this long distance HGV intrigue, driven by Stanley ‘How Green Was My’ Baker, Herbert ‘Pink’ Lom, Patrick ‘Six’ McGoohan, William ‘Zarbi’ Hartnell, Sid ‘Bless This’ James, Jill ‘Shane’ Ireland, Alfie ‘Boots’ Bass, Gordon ‘Upstairs’ Jackson, David ‘Invisible’ McCallum, Sean Connery, Robin ‘Potter’ Bailey and, you knew it was coming, Marianne Stone.

22.00 Knowing Me Knowing You… with Alan Partridge
“*That’s* dignity.”

01.30 Off With The Mask: TV in the Sixties
This Open University programme normally appears every few months, and includes the usual suspects clips of TW3 and Till Death. Do they still show the programme about how they invented the Tetley Tea Folk? Creamguide once watched that at 8am on a Sunday, transfixed.

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm
We’ve lost the Sunday slot for religion – yeah, that 6.30am slot’ll appease the ITC – but Brian’s going strong for the rest of the week at this time.

11.00 Magnum PI
And this is back every day at this time, and worse still Gloria’s series has ended. No wonder they want rid of this channel.

15.55 Stop, You’re Killing Me
Unfortunately not a feature length version of the Charlie Farley and Piggy Malone adventure but a remake of screwball comedy “A Slight Case of Murder”. It starred Edward G Robinson, this stars Broderick Crawford. You do the math. On the plus side, it does have Margaret Dumont in it, proving she didn’t just do Marx Brothers films.

19.00 Swapheads
A new quiz presented by Johnny Ball! Alas he appears as a GamesMaster-style disembodied head and thus can’t dress up in silly costumes or dance around or anything. Still, never mind, great to see him back on telly, however contrived the format may be (contestants have a day to learn about the other’s specialist subject). It’s on Wednesday and Friday as well. And TV Fact – Creamguide once informed their mother than Johnny Vaughan was the ne Big Breakfast presenter, and she then informed all her friends that the erstwhile Think Of A Number host was going to be doing it.

22.50 The Organization
The third outing for In the Heat of the Night’s Sidney ‘MISTER’ Poitier.

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RT REVIEW – The Radio Times fanzine

>>”ALL WIND AND WATER”
During a weekend in April this year, the Creamguide staff gathered in a hotel in the Lake District for one of their half-yearly long-term planning sessions. Leading the team the Creamguide Eds (TV and Radio) began to construct what they termed as a battleplan that would see the free email listings guide through 2002 (indeed “THRU’ 2002!!!” was the phrase that appeared on the flipcharts over and over again). The TV Ed in particular knew exactly how it was all going to pan out: The actual listings would remain as per; hove in Chris Diamond on a work placement for two weeks to buck up old man Norman and then attach him to the film reviews for good come the summer; TV Cream Heroes Weekly to run for 15 or so weeks with the proviso that by edition #10 it would lose its sheen, thereby weaning readers off it come its final edition; =WALL of FACT= (complete with fussy logo) to follow on for a four week run, although it would trumpet itself as a five-part service; to be superseded by Cream-cestors for another four; a one-off TVCHW and RT Review to commence week 31.

So here we are, and finally we appreciate the logic behind the Creamguide Ed’s colouring-in on the scheduling board, cos RT Review launches the same week Radio Times goes through yet another overhaul. Seems like our Ed isn’t “all wind and water” after all. So, welcome one and all to your new Radio Times fanzine, wherein we’ll be looking in on the RT every week and – well – making comments. There’s so much more than radio times, you know .

>>THE COVER
Poor effort, a sort of pun on “pin up”, with pins pinning a picture up on a pin board like it’s a pin up. “Why can’t there be some illustrated covers?” asks former RT artist and current RT correspondent, Ben Morris.

>>THE EDITOR’S LETTER
The best thing about the letters page is the Editor’s own letter to us, the readers. The acknowledged leading-light in this field still remains Nicholas “Red Adare” Brett who gets drafted in to edit the Radio Times every seven or eight years. Unfortunately current Ed, Gill Hudson, doesn’t compare – and we reckon she’s boiled the art down to a nasty little formula. To whit: i) A bit about her personal life which turns into ii) A riff based around that issue’s front cover and then iii) A bit about what she’s changed in the magazine that week. Wrong, wrong, wrong! We want to know what they’ve been arguing about in the office, which newspaper the RT is considering taking legal action against and any indiscreet gossip or tittle-tattle about people the Editor’s met in the course of his/her job. “Galling!”

>>LETTER OF THE WEEK
Complains about Would Like To Meet, gets given some comedy videos.

>>OUR LETTER OF THE WEEK
offthetelly.co.uk’s Ben Morris writes in asking about the Basil Brush sitcom, which makes us a bit angry cos up until now we were sure the “You Ask Us” bit was made up of fake queries and we were going to make a big thing of it.

>>WE’LL GIVE IT TWO MONTHS
Celeb Scrabble.

>>THE REDESIGN
Hmmm, there’s a nasty car crash of fonts on page 53 (although that’s the least of that page’s problems – see GOLDEN GRAHAMS below) and we don’t like that yellow and black colour scheme. Maybe they’ve read somewhere that yellow stripes on magazines sell more issues? The good news is that Andrew Collins now has a regular masthead, which sees our second (no, third) favourite Films Editor characteristically louche. The bad news is… so does Alison Graham (as we’ve already said: see GOLDEN GRAHAMS below). More bad news – it looks like John Peel has gone for good, but then again if the dropping of these regular columns denies Tim Dowling a foothold in the RT then it’s a fair trade-off.

>>GOLDEN GRAHAMS
On first glance it looks like the TV page is hosted by Desperate Dan – which would be good. But actually it’s another notch on Alison Graham’s ultimate quest for editorship. But worse than that – she’s flogging Will & Grace again! Trussing her advertisement for this rubbish series to a laboured metaphor about picnics, we feel duty-bound to respond that her TV stylings are (to us anyway) as appetising as a shit sandwich. Oh, and we’re annoyed that she’s also championing Phoenix Nights because we really like that series and we really don’t like her.

>>THIS WEEK WE’RE SPECIFICALLY COMMENTING ABOUT THIS:
We also note the new “Quote of the Week” comes from Holby City, and that the “What We’ll Be Watching This Week” features someone off of Holby City and that Tuesday’s “Choice” is Holby City and that “My Kind of Day” is someone off of Holby City. Nigel Horne was sacked for not championing BBC programmes enough, you know.

NEXT WEEK: We’ll look at the actual listings, probably.
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Tuesday 6th August

BBC2

13.40 Blind Date
More proof, if proof were needed, that Bruce Willis can’t ‘do’ comedy. But Graham Stark’s in it so watch it, damn your eyes!

22.00 Room 101
Well, you all know what we think of this series now Merton’s in charge, but it’s the Johnny Vegas episode tonight, and he’s great in it. We’d like to ask how Paul has four writers and yet still manages to sound as if he has no idea what’s going to happen next, nor seemingly what he’s even doing on this programme.

ITV

13.30 Christopher Columbus
This film dates from 1949, yet ITV are showing it before midnight. Ha! Take that, dumbing down lobby! Not that this dramatisation is that smart itself, as Frederic ‘Iceman Cometh’ March sets off in his ship named after a German singer. Felix ‘Kenneth Williams vocal stylings’ Aylmer and James Robertson ‘Bleeding time’ Justice also star.

23.00 Electra Glide in Blue
Another laugh riot as Robert Blake gets promoted to Homicide and has to investigate the death of a recluse. Investigating the case he starts to take an inward journey to self discovery and awareness and it all gets a bit Vietnam. Also starring Elisha Cook Jr. playing a character called Crazy Willie. Actually, just about all the characters he ever played could have been called Crazy Willie, come to think of it.

03.00 The Big Match Replayed
Normally this’ll be finishing this week and getting replaced by Nationwide League Extra but, at the time of writing, the league appears not to have sorted out a deal, so this could be going on for some time. The last episode came from the first day of the 1978/79 season, and the titles were full of clips of Ardiles and Villa playing in the World Cup and signing for Spurs, so obviously they showed highlights of… Arsenal.

03.40 ITV Sport Classics
This is normally some dull athletics without any fun presentation or anything. Now go to http://www.tv-ark.co.uk and download the clips of Breakfast With Brisbane from 1982, with Des presenting in front of a huge clock.

CHANNEL 4

21.00 Ken Dodd In The Dock
My Worst Week is about Sophie Wessex this week, boringly enough, so it’s a good job this looks set to be exactly the same. It’s the full story of the case that now seems to be the inspiration for 95% of the jokes in his act.

CHANNEL 5

14.30 Red Light
Film noir with George ‘marvellous dancer’ Raft as a businessman (would you go into business with this man?) out to avenge the death of his brother. All good stuff if only for the fact that Raymond ‘Ironside’ Burr and Harry ‘Colonel’ Morgan are baddies! Has the world gone mad?

16.00 Go to Blazes
Any film featuring Norman ‘Simon Simon’ Rossington and a fire engine is, as we know, great value. Here he’s one of a trio of bungling crooks nicking one of Dennis’s finest machines, for the nefarious ends of Robert ‘Worries’ Morley. Maggie Smith, James ‘MT, YK, TSL, TMGROOAYBS?’ Hayter, Derek Nimmo, Dudley ‘CFF’ Sutton, John Le Mesurier, Arthur Lowe and Hugh ‘Hancock’ Lloyd flesh out the Britcast.

Wednesday 7th August

BBC1

17.00 Blue Peter On The Road
Still, Simon’s tattoo, eh? It appears to be on his elbow as well, which isn’t the normal position for these things. Anyway, Rhyl’s the venue, and we’d go if we didn’t have to man the office all day. We don’t trust Old Man Dexter, y’see.

22.35 Blackadder The Third
This series disappeared halfway through a couple of months ago, but the Beeb did notice as here as the last two episodes shown back-to-back. Which provides two chances to hear the fantastic closing music, at the very least.

BBC2

13.15 Sands of the Kalahari
They just don’t write film titles like that anymore. A plane crash in the African bush leaves survivors Stuart Whitmore (he’s called Sands and he’s in the Kalahari – do you see?), Stanley Baker and company struggling to survive. Whitmore goes a bit mental and starts bumping folk off then has a fight with some monkeys at the end. Actually, it’s very good. Also starring Harry ‘Superman’ Andrews and Susannah ‘I was in Superman, too’ York.

19.00 TOTP2
Just the one instalment this week, albeit half an hour long and at seven o’clock – if it was 24 hours later we’d be quids in. Abba, Culture Club, The Jam and the expected tribute to John Entwistle feature, and Jeff Simpson’s new book on the history of the series is out now. Which could be good, but we’re fed up because we were always going to write that.

01.50 What Have The Seventies Ever Done For Us?
How come the scheduling of this programme is so odd? It’s not like OU programmes are constantly interrupted for sport, is it?

ITV

13.30 Sink the Bismarck!
HMP Slade playing fields, Mr Barraclough is waving his flag around giving offside:
Mr Treadaway: What’s he doing?
Fletcher: I think it’s a message coming through in semaphore, sir. There you are look, Sink The Bismarck!
No, but seriously folks, a splendid depiction of the chase to sink the dreaded Bismarck which in it’s time was the world’s largest and most powerful battleship and which, given the opportunity, would have decimated allied shipping (we’ve read a book on this, can you tell?). On it’s first outing it sank the HMS Hood and was making for Brest in France when it was tracked down by the Royal Navy and sunk, all excellently portrayed here. Interestingly, it features Esmond Knight who was himself blinded during the action itself. Also with Kenneth More, Michael Hordern, Maurice Denham, Ed Murrow as himself, Sam ‘Orlando’ Kydd, Ian Hendry and, here he is again, Graham Stark. And did you know, fact fans, that dear old Ludovic Kennedy was on one of the destroyers trying to sink the ship and was denied permission to film its demise? You don’t get all this in the Radio so-called Times and it’s film listings.

20.00 A View to a Kill
Oh dear. We don’t know what’s more distrubing about this film: the mass murder sequence at the end where Christopher Walken and his nutty pal rather too gratuitously machine gun a lot of workers, or Roger Moore and Grace Jones goin’ at it. Even more preposterous than all this is the sight of Patrick Macnee as a spy trying to look inconspicuous heaving his not inconsiderable girth around a stable. We know it’s not supposed to be realistic but I mean, really. Watch if you must. The Duran Duran theme’s quite good, though.

01.15 Forever
1989, which is the only one we’ve seen, and after listening to Andy Darling badly delivering a host of weak metaphors, we didn’t bother searching out the others.

CHANNEL 4

00.40 Shakespeare Wallah
The Kendal family (Geoffrey, Jennifer, and Felicity) star in this Merchant-Ivory adaptaion of their actorly adventures in post-colonial India. Also featuring Madhur Jaffrey.

CHANNEL 5

14.30 Tenafly
Black detective Harry Tenafly, played by James McEachin investigates a murder… or something. Actually, we don’t know. Anyone?

23.55 Tammy Wynette: An American Tragedy
Either this is bought-in or C5’s scheduling has reached even more insane heights.

Thursday 8th August

BBC2

01.20 What Have The Sixties Ever Done For Us?
See? We dunno what’s going on here.

ITV

13.30 The Sandwich Man
Michael Bentine does his advertorial rounds of sixties London as the titular peripatetic in this amiable, near-silent chunk of post-Goon whimsy, with a cast list that just keeps ’em coming – Alfie Bass, Dora Bryan, Harry H. Corbett, Bernard Cribbins, Diana Dors, Fred Emney, Frank Finlay, Ian Hendry, Stanley Holloway, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Peter Jones, John Junkin, Anna Karen, Suzy Kendall, John Le Mesurier, Warren Mitchell, Ron Moody, Anna Quayle, Ronnie Stevens, Terry-Thomas, Norman Wisdom and, naturally, Marianne Stone. RT rating – two stars. Grrrr!

03.30 ITV Sport Classics
Half an hour long, which normally means a 1500m. Or that big long World of Sport montage, but they never seem to show that.

CHANNEL 4

22.00 Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights
Yes! Pick of the week, if not the year, is the new series of this fantastic programme which you’ll have already seen the trailers for and thus don’t need us to tell us how great it’s going to be. Best bit of press for this series is http://www.thisislancashire.co.uk/lancashire/bolton/leisure/WHATCOMEDY3.html – specifically that fantastic final paragraph before the plug, and the worst is the preview in Heat which admittedly does give it five stars, but also contrives to mention The Office in the second sentence. Grrr.

CHANNEL 5

14.30 McMillan and Wife
A “feature-length” edition, hopefully not heralding a complete rerun.

15.55 The Swiss Conspiracy
David ‘Fugitive’ Janssen investigates Genevan financial skullduggery in this run-of-the-mill conspiracy potboiler with Ray ‘X-Ray Eyes’ Milland and Elke ‘Shot in the Dark’ Sommer.

Friday 9th August

ITV

19.00 Soap Star Lives
What’s the point of these hour-long Emmerdales if they drop it the following night? That’s not a bonus, that’s just shifting it about. Anyway, this all leaves time to pay tribute to Bill Roache, who we’re sure has been done by this series before.

CHANNEL 4

00.05 Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights
Ah, what the hell, here’s the repeat. And it’s followed by Noble and Silver, whose series we’ve never seen but know it’s going to be bloody awful, and it’ll thankfully look even worse after this.

CHANNEL 5

14.30 Youngblood Hawke
James ‘Beneath the Planet of the Apes’ Franciscus leaves his old Kentucky home to come to New York and make it as a writer. With Eve Gabor and Mary Astor. Ho hum.

05.10 Sons and Dughters
What a rubbish day for Cream-related telly. We almost put It’s Only TV But I Like It in, but good taste prevailed.

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DIGI-CREAMGUIDE

BBC CHOICE
Monday, 21.00
There’s Only One Kylie – Another outing for this fun profile, perhaps most notable for the brilliant anecdotes from Sir Peter Waterman about how he came up with song titles for her (“I heard she was going out with Michael Hutchence, and Matt said, well, better the devil you know, and I went, aaaah…”). But loads of people in it slag off the fantastic Impossible Princess stuff like Some Kind Of Bliss and Did It Again, which is just not on, because it was a great album, honest.

DISCOVERY
Monday, Tuesday, 20.00, 00.30
One Hit Wonderland – Tony Hawks wrote Stutter Rap, which someone once described as “The equivalent of posting a turd through the letterbox of every black person in Britain”. No, we never worked out why either. Anyway, here he is continuing his challenge to have a hit in Europe, and there’s a spin-off book published at the end of it, you won’t be surprised to hear.

MTV
Saturday, 22.00, Sunday, 00.00
MTV: 15 Years In Europe – Two more outings for the centrepiece of the birthday celebrations. Two hours, it is, and let’s hope it’s mostly clips of the station circa 1996, when the presenter line-up was Davina McCall (around the same time she was doing Dear Davina on Granada, we’re guessing), Lisa I’Anson, Crispin off Sorted! and four Italians who spoke perfect American English. Or indeed circa 1991, when their star presenter was Paul King. They probably won’t mention Blah Blah Blah magazine, though, which was truly awful.

ELSEWHERE
Knew it wouldn’t be long before BBC4 dragged out Face To Face again (Monday, 19.00) which slots around their Jamaica season, of which the highpoint is Bob Marley live in concert in 1977 (Sunday, 21.00, Monday, 22.50). Meanwhile G+ bow to huge public pressure and schedule three episodes of Bullseye on Saturday, the first at 19.30 and the other two at 00.00 – perfect post-pub viewing, we’re saying. Other highlights are Cuddly Ken (Sunday, 22.30), and better still, An Audience with The Spice Girls (Saturday, 18.00). Frank Skinner’s on E4 (Monday-Thursday, 23.00), including, one hopes, James Harries on Thursday, and the results of the Guess What Time Fry And Laurie Are Going To Be On This Week Competition are Sunday, 23.45, Friday, 00.05. Finally Artsworld hasn’t closed down after all, although they’ve surely not come up with schedules for after July 31st, so God alone knows what they’re showing.

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DONNA’S DARLINGS
If you’ve got something of a Creamy nature to say, let us have it at Ask The Family, the TV Cream message board, which can be accessed by clicking ‘Long Shots’ at http://tv.cream.org And, just in case it wasn’t apparent, TVC reserves the right to delete any rubbish or boring threads. OK? The TV Cream Update can also be subscribed to there, and the new issue is coming out soon, honest, but after the Top 100 Singles chart was mentioned both in Wrexham’s own Emma Jones’ column in The Sun today, and some Madness newsletter, the editor’s ego is too big to fit through the door, or something.
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All for one – Chris Hughes, Ian Jones, Simon Tyers

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