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On the Waterfront

“LARD! LOTS of lovely lard!” Above average summer Saturday morning pantheon hailing from the short-lived Beeb studio at Brunswick Dock, Liverpool, herded into existence by its script editor, one RUSSELL T DAVIES. Offered up a Fab Four for the filofax generation: “small but perfectly formed” BERNIE NOLAN, leggy woman in mad glasses KATE COPSTICK, large-foreheaded ANDREW O’CONNOR and TERRY “the other one” RANDALL. Pitched itself way above the heads of your average Cheerio-munching primary schooler, courtesy of sketches such as purposefully-craply-drawn still-frame-animation Lantern Jaw (“Lan-tern-Jawwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!”), the Lardy Brothers, THE FLASHING BLADE overdubbed with FERDINAND DE BARGOS-style “new” “comedy” dialogue, and celebrities interviewed about roof hatches in their cars. Theme tune optimistically stated “the party starts right here, yeah!”

4 Comments

4 Comments

  1. Palitoy

    June 23, 2011 at 2:47 pm

    I wonder if anyone has any information on what ecame of the excellent Terry Randall? Andrew O’Connor became the producer of ‘Peep Show’ and ‘derren Brown’ specials, Copstick is the toothlessly acerbic TV critic for the Edinburgh based ‘the Scotsman’ newspaper while Bernie Nolan was in ‘The Bill’ and could probably get a stint in Blackpool Winter Gardens of down on her uppers. Randall was excellent – kind of like a younger missing link twixt Alan Rickman and Frankie Howerd.
    Oh and ‘Network’? stick an ‘On the waterfront’ DVD out for us, there’s some good boys and girls!

  2. Stephen Wrigley

    April 6, 2014 at 12:47 am

    Would love to find those Flashing Blade episodes again, absolute comedy genius.

    • Joanne Gray

      February 21, 2017 at 5:59 pm

      I agree. Me and my siblings only watched for the Flashing Blade eps, then later the piss-take of the Secret of Steel City (“I keep telling you, I’m NOT Santa Claus!”)

  3. Richard16378

    February 21, 2017 at 6:08 pm

    I remember it was good enough to get a “best of” compilation series in the afternoons, mostly the sketches.

    The Flashing Blade redub was hilarious as was Lantern Jaw poking fun at various sci-fi / superhero cliches.

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