“Changing their lives for ever” In 2018, Christmas telly is in something of a state of flux. With the streaming services continuing...
“We shouldn’t actually be talking to each other…” We’ve all got some people we only ever see at Christmas – so it’s...
“Age rubs one out day after day, like an Indian rubber on a faded pencil sketch” Christmas Day telly has always had...
“It can be hard after losing a loved one” After last year’s Covid-curbed Christmas, and despite the pandemic being nowhere near over,...
“All hell breaks loose in the Vic” Nobody knew it at the time, but Christmas Day 2021 saw the end of the...
“Ruby Sunday’s world is about to be turned upside down” Christmas Day 2023 was a time for farewells – and returns. This...
Well-meaning, but utter shite nonetheless.
HAND JIVER extraordinaire TED ROGERS flipped his wrists throughout this hour-long Spanish-derived mystery quiz
US SEMI-ED kid's show.
AGAIN WITH THE home computers.
VINTAGE WORTHINESS from Four's fledgling days
NOOOO! YOU don't want to give something that's supposed to be a far more sleek and with-it rival to Ceefax a name...
ROY HUDD was your ringleader for this half-remembered Sunday matins showcase for old folk, featuring tea-dances and darning.
By Hugh Whitemore and Helene Hanff. Frank Finlay owns the titular bookshop in this famous tale of a real bookshop proprietor’s long-term...
September 1969 – June 1970 COMING UP A startled, lonely-looking Michael Barratt Esq. single-handedly “co-ordinates” rickety volleys betwixt fledgling Beeb regional outposts...
EPONYMOUS FEMO-BOT spawned by malevolent machine made of giant spinning tape loops and teleprinters proceeds to run (slowly) amok in a Top...
Our history of Saturday morning television in the UK, from Zokko to Dick 'n' Dom...
A REDUNDANT entry, really. What's to say?
Get ready to miss the point, Mr Lawson!
DOLEFUL LOOK-AT-THIS "local people with a story to tell" effort showcasing regionalia in as lumpen a manner possible
"DON'T, DON'T, DON'T give up the day job," sang Rich. Why not, asked the viewing several.
SHUFFLING SMALL SCREEN version of ALAN AYCKBOURN's salty ensemble drama following a mithering middle class quartet through three Christmases...
Joss Ackland plays a reluctant divorcee, pondering chances of reuniting with his wife while taking his kids on a day trip to...
Woah, woah, steady on there, TVC! Bit outside the usual remit, this, isn't it?
JIM-MORRISON-ALIKE BOY magician Tarot (MICHAEL MACKENZIE) has adventures through history, for which read cheap studio set representing pyramid, cheap studio set representing...
'Meh' of a salesman.
DREADFUL HALF-ARSED cheapo kids' drama-workshop-on-screen string of semi-improvised (hence title) sketches and bollocks, the most notable thing being when cast regular DUNCAN...
DISABLED WOMAN falls victim to a new automated, computer-controlled house, which seems strangely sinister, and...yeah, you guessed it.
TURN-OF-THE-CENTURY GENTLEMAN charmer in preposterous cape and cane combo (GERALD HARPER) gets frozen in a block of ice and thawed out in...
CREEPY. KOOKY. And altogether, er, ooky.
DECADE-ENHANCING COFFEE table staple by SUE TOWNSEND adapted reasonably, if rather needlessly, for the screen
WHAT NOW GET OUT OF THAT was to BBC1 evenings, THE ADVENTURE GAME was to BBC2 teatime.
DIMLY-RECALLED KIDS series from the arse-end of the 60s about a group of kids in an English town who decided to write...
SCI-FI COMEDY outing, little remembered now, with IAN HENDRY as the quixotic space traveller, and RONALD LACEY as Sam Chopanza.
Highly experimental two-parter from The Cheviot… writer-director and head of the 7:84 theatre company John McGrath, partially adapted from his stage play...
MORE OLD black and white stuff which strayed far into the colour era.
DEFINITIVE SMALL-SCREEN sleuthathon saddling JEREMY BRETT, for good or ill (the latter, as it turned out) with the role of a lifetime.
AUSSIE KIDS Molly (AMEILA FRID - the original Cody Willis in NEIGHBOURS) and Spike (GARY PERAZZO) holiday on a Greek island, where...
25-MINUTE GUNG-HO adventures of Ernest Laverdure and Michel Tanguy, young strapping pilots in the French air force.
Social and sexual intrigue from Malcolm Bradbury/Christopher Bigsby set at a dinner party for the manipulative vice-chancellor of a cash-strapped new university...
SYBIL FAWLTY lives one floor below the snooty one off PLEASE, SIR! and one floor above someone who looks and sounds like...
By John Challen. Bleak tale of an awkward young boy whose brief success as a chorister is scuppered by puberty. Leonard Rossiter...
Caryl Churchill’s study of the complexities of charity work and the contradictions in charitable acts, performed in a style more like late...
LEVIATHAN OF post-lunch shoestring scheduling and sanctuary for many a sneaky school skive.
AMIABLE ENOUGH cartoon serial about a bowler-hatted, moustachioed detective (and some sort of police constable sidekick).
ANNA RAEBURN-INSPIRED sitcommery starring MAUREEN LIPMAN as usual playing herself, i.e. externally strong, confident woman but internally a babbling mess.
LATE-PERIOD COLD War production-line thriller set in a US air force base in the UK.
SHORT-LIVED SUNDAY night God slot support feature.
NIFTY BLACK futurocopter saga with none-more-eighties JAN MICHAEL-VINCENT as cello-playing loner maverick Stringfellow Hawke,
ROY KINNEAR was your jovial accident-prone street sweeper in one of those 1970s silents in the PLANK/RHUBARB mould.
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