TV Cream

TV: J is for...

Junior Showtime

CREAKY FLEAPIT of a show utilising old-time Music Hall format to showcase middle-class brats who’d been sent to piano lessons or owned their own top hats. Produced by religious broadcasting uberlord JESS “THE BISHOP” YATES, the presenter was the pitifully enthusiastic BOBBY BENNETT, all smiles and high kicks. Regulars included the Poole family (mainstays of STARS ON SUNDAY, presented by one Jess Yates) and shrieking BONNIE LANGFORD, plus teenage rock bands mincing about sucking in their cheeks who would always win out over the fat accordionist with the fringe and broad grin. Room was also found, naturally, for your regular old-time minstrel show nonsenry wherein white stage school twats in burnt cork and golliwog outfits tried to guess the answers to riddles posed by a similarly-attired and made-up Bobby Bennett as ‘Mr. Interlocutor’.

4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. ansonort

    September 25, 2009 at 3:51 pm

    Not sure why but at the time I thought this was the scariest show on telly.

  2. Arthur Nibble

    September 25, 2009 at 4:05 pm

    Wasn’t this performed at the City Varieties in Leeds, the same venue as “The Good Old Days”?

  3. Phil Jones

    February 25, 2015 at 7:55 pm

    I am sure I recall one episode where Ginger Baker appeared and momentarily lifted this rather amateurish show from the depths to the heights. I was young but was into the blues, Cream and the like.

  4. CMarsh

    February 12, 2020 at 2:21 pm

    Not everyone was a ‘middle-class brat! I was on Junior Showtime along with my (very working class) village tap dancing school friends. They couldn’t fit our large dance troupe and routine into the YTV studio, so we became that weeks background performing Tiddlywinks (A bit like Ken Dodd’s Diddymen) Mark Curry and Kathryn Apanowicz were also on that episode and they came from nearby working class backgrounds too. Not the best talent show, but vile remarks regarding presumed class and race of children enjoying the opportunity to perform are totally unnecessary!

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