TV Cream

How We Used To List

How We Used To List: 2nd – 8th MARCH 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
2nd – 8th March 2002
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Are you ready to play? – Phil Norman
Introducing Our Grandfather To… – Graham Kibble-White
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Saturday 2nd March

BBC2

17.35 633 Squadron
“You can’t kill a squadron!” Hurrah! That staple of wet weekend afternoons on ITV since 1975 is back! Don’t forget to look out for Edward ‘Master Meaker’ Brayshaw flying one of the planes.

19.00 BBC4 Launch Night
It’s the brand new channel that everyone’s talking about – well, Jeremy Isaacs has been slagging it off. It all gets underway tonight and the first five hours of programmes get simulcast here on BBC2 as well. Unfortunately it’s all dead dull, but we will watch the BBC4 News at 20.00, which is the new ‘global’ bulletin with George Alagiah, who we quite like. There are also previews of the forthcoming attractions at 20.30 and 21.50. And most importantly, of course, we want to see what the logo’s going to look like.

CHANNEL 4

13.20 Little House On The Prarie
Apparently the BBC are wondering now whether they actually needed to ask for permission to launch BBC3 and BBC4, which we were sort of wondering about anyway. Especially given that BBC4 is so similar to Knowledge, the Radio Times are still calling it that.

21.00 Heroes Of Comedy
A profile of Spike Milligan, which is being re-edited as we speak to include the fairly significant moment that happened this week. We hope that we’re going to see some repeats of The Ratties now, because we really used to love it.

22.00 Kings Of Black Comedy
Not sure how they’re going to fit the whole life story of Richard Pryor into an hour, but C4 are going to try and do it. Should be some cracking clips here, and again Whoopi Goldberg’s punditeering.

02.00 Spring and Port Wine
Northern comedy drama seemingly resident in this C4 graveyard slot, with “I” James Mason, Susan ‘Swallows and Amazons’ George, Diana ‘Bless This’ Coupland, Hannah ‘My Wife Next Door’ Gordon, Rodney ‘Resurrection of the Daleks’ Bewes, Frank ‘Middlemen’ Windsor, Adrienne ‘Percy’ Posta, Christopher ‘UFO’ Timothy, Arthur ‘Potter’ Lowe, Bernard ‘Giddy Game Show’ Bresslaw, Bryan ‘Alf Roberts’ Mosley and Bryan ‘Rosie’ Pringle.

CHANNEL 5

17.05 Kidnapped
Honorary Scotsmen Peter “mad as hell” Finch and James ‘Danno’ MacArthur are on the run from the English in this blacker-than-usual Disney adaptation of RL Stevenson, with Peter “can you feel my hot breath” O’Toole, John “doooooomed!” Laurie, and Bernard ‘M’ Lee as, winningly, Captain Hoseason.

00.30 Any Wednesday
You’ll no doubt have been glued to the feast of high-grade comedy films being shown this evening. Bean, The Pope Must Die, Made in America – Creamguide’s feeling like a kid in some kind of comedy candystore! Why not round the hilarity off with this ’60s farce in which Jason ‘Behind Closed Doors’ Robards whisks Jane ‘Favourite Fat Burners’ Fonda from under Dean ‘The Love Bug’ Jones’ nose?

02.30 Alexander: The Other Side of Dawn
Run of the mill “life on the streets” TV movie, of note here merely for the incongruous presence of Juliet ‘Carry On Jack’ Mills.

04.15 Sons and Daughters
At last, culture returns to Channel Five.

Sunday 3rd March

BBC1

16.35 A Song For Europe
The worst thing about this programme last year was that it started with Katy Hill going ‘Welcome to A Song For Europe where we’re going to choose our entry for the Eurovision Song Contest which hopefully won’t be like these’ and then it was immediately into the comedy clip collection. Yeah, we know all the bloody jokes, and as we always say, we’re pretty sure they’ve never actually said ‘Nil points’ on Eurovision. Anyway, they seem to have sorted one aspect of the show out this year, as Christopher Price, who we like and should be on terrestrial telly more, is presenting, though unfortunately with Claire Sweeney. And a fairly rum selection of acts to choose from – her off Heartbeat, Jessica off Pop Idol and, of course, Jonathan Maitland.

BBC2

11.15 Stingray
As we said last time Super League’s back this week, so those living further north than Stoke will get to see this at 12.00. Convenient for Northerners, less convenient for people compiling TV guides. At least they don’t get the repeat of the repeat of the repeat of Robot Wars Extreme.

CHANNEL 4

06.05 The Clangers
Well, at least it isn’t The Magic Roundabout.

22.00 Monty Python’s Life of Brian
We were going to use this billing to witter on about how Graham Chapman’s A Liar’s Autobiography seems to have snuck back into print without us noticing, and that everyone should buy it because it’s hilarious, bizarre and very moving, but now Spike Milligan’s “ignored prophet” cameo has sadly taken on a greater significance, so perhaps we should mention that, as well as some decent, unbowlderised repeats of Q somewhere along the line, we’d love to see the ace film of Spike’s The Bed-Sitting Room get another airing. Or we could just do both.

Monday 4th March

BBC1

17.00 Blue Peter
A great bit of internal BBC fun last Monday when Konnie went off to learn how to do the weather with Isobel Lang, then actually did the weather at 5.35, complete with ‘WEATHER – KONNIE HUQ’ slide. Although it would have been even better if Konnie had done it on the Six O’Clock News, we think.

00.40 The Greek Tycoon
Unwelcome swift return for this bland slice of ’70s Transatlantic trash-glam. Jacqueline Bisset and Anthony Quinn play a former first lady and a Mediterranean shipping magnate in the throes of romance. Any relationship to real persons living or dead is pathetically obvious.

BBC2

08.35 Postman Pat
Never mind this, though, you should really watch this channel at 09.00, as that’s when Chris Jarvis sings the Birthday Song, with dancing and everything. Honestly, it’s brilliant.

14.55 The Phil Silvers Show
An increasingly rare pre-midnight appearance for Bilko.

18.20 Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
At least this’ll never do a storyline about VD.

21.00 Never Mind The Buzzcocks
One of those great combinations this show throws up tonight – Coleen Nolan and Bruce Dickinson. But also Ian Stone, who’s perhaps most famous for appearing as Alan Davies’ support act in that dreary documentary series following him around on tour, and dying on his arse over and over again. Oh, and seemingly there’s an American version of this starting around about now, which perhaps foolishly keeps the original name. How many Americans are going to get that?

21.30 Shooting Stars
Turns out show two was much better than the first, if only for the question ‘True or false, Bill Cosby was the world’s first black man’. Only Paul Daniels to take the piss out of tonight, though.

22.00 Room 101
So how come it takes four people to write Paul Merton’s material, and he’s credited as ‘Programme Associate’, while last week Johnny Vegas was a hundred times funnier improvising? Because Paul Merton can’t deliver a script for toffee, that’s why. Still, John Peel’s the guest tonight, so the big question is – will he do the Bay City Rollers Mallory Park Anecdote or the New Radio One Controller Who Thought He’d Rub Heroin Into The Roots Of His Hair Anecdote?

ITV

16.30 How 2
HOW much better is it when we condense this into just one billing a week, with the proviso that it’s on every weekday at this time?

CHANNEL 4

09.00 Bewitched
Like it’s never been away.

13.25 Little House On The Prairie
We don’t understand the scheduling of this programme at all.

01.10 The Rebel
Shunted out of its usual early afternoon slot to make way for vital Little House repeats, Hancock’s tale of art, bohemia, cows, shapism and the mysterious Harry Trubshaw is fine entertainment indeed, but still doesn’t quite escape the suspicion that, shorn of 70% of its length and the foreign locations, it would make a better Half Hour. Plus Creamguide can’t help but compare it to Alec Guinness’ earlier, similarly art-themed and foot-obsessed comedy The Horse’s Mouth, which we prefer. Still, for your insomnia you also get Irene Handl, John Le Mesurier, Liz Fraser, Peter Bull, Nanette Newman and Oliver Reed.

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm
Make sure you don’t tune in early and catch Sunrise before it, as we’ve heard that Gareth McLean sometimes reviews the papers on it. Not what you really want to see over the Corn Flakes, we’re sure you’ll agree.

11.00 TJ Hooker
It’s Channel Five’s fifth birthday this month, and if you told us when it began that it’d be showing this every day, we’d have laughed out loud.

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SEE, HERE: TV CREAM HEROES WEEKLY
And it’s all been thanks to you

#6 Stephen Fry, as seen in SURREALISSIMO, Saturday, 22.00, BBC2 & BBC4

The phrase “Stephen and Hugh” probably brings to mind – quite rightly – thoughts of Punt and Dennis. However Steve Punt’s already been done in Radio Cream Times’ own TVCHW section (soon to be “TVCHW Junior” if that re-badging does go ahead) so this week we’re going to be tipping the hat to one half of the other “Stephen and Hugh” – Stephen Fry. But don’t worry – Creamguide is not going to adopt a school masterly tone-of phrase and rely on the word “moist” for easy laughs here.

Born in London in 1957 and brought up in Norwich, the first thing Stephen Fry did that we can be bothered mentioning was ALFRESCO in 1983. Appearing throughout rather shiny-faced the series itself was pretty much toss. We liked him a bit better in HAPPY FAMILIES in 1985, but really rather took to him when he and Hugh Laurie appeared as the “funny Moray Hunter and Jack Docherty” in SATURDAY LIVE. Here he began to create his familiar routine of being tall with a crooked nose. At the same time the duo started up the “Photocopying My Genitals With…” interview strand. We liked that bit. In 1986 he and Hugh started A BIT OF FRY AND LAURIE. The first two series of this are – it has been claimed – the best thing that anyone’s ever done ever. Certainly, if you find yourself chuckling at anything in Radio Cream Times (assuming you read it – cf. Steve Berry, or Steve *Beer*-y as we often/sometimes/well, never until just now like to call him*) you can bet on it being a straight lift from ABOFAL. Someone in the Creamguide office has a father who lives in Norfolk and can confirm that many of the place names quoted in the series hale from the Little Island In The Bog. For instance, Garboldisham is close to Diss in Norfolk. We only regret that we weren’t able to bring you this level of factertainment in last week’s Barbara Knox entry. THIS IS DAVID LANDER on Channel 4 was memorable chiefly for a great joke about other people’s farts, but then suffered a TRIPPER’S DAY/SLINGER’S DAY catastrophe with the programme becoming THIS IS DAVID HARPER and Stephen Fry becoming Tony Slattery.

The final series of ABOFAL was unfortunately dire – with the inclusion of Imedla Staunton indicative of everything that was wrong with it. Robert Daws too. Happily, in 1995 Stephen famously fled from Simon Gray’s play CELLMATES and that sort of cheers us up cos we’ve read Gray’s book about the whole thing (“Fat Chance”) and in it Gray drinks loads of champagne and goes on about how directing and acting is more important than brain surgery. So he’s on our “No Thanks” list, the ponce. Beyond this, Stephen’s done little to interest us other than almost meet the mother of another of our colleagues in the office. As well as appearing in that thing about surrealists this week (which we won’t watch) he’s also currently in that Dr Who audio you can download from bbc.co.uk (which we won’t be downloading, either. In fact, we’re probably just going to re-read “Fat Chance” this weekend). Stephen Fry, take your place alongside Roger Walker and Jesse Birdstall[!] in our TV Cream Heroes Weekly Promenade Of Prominence!

Champers & Hampers: http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/grays/fchance.htm

The Stephen Fry Appreciation Society: http://any-app.tripod.com/sf/

*(Wipes tear of mirth away from eye and then sighs happily. Then wonders why writing in stage-direction style.)
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Tuesday 5th March

BBC1

17.00 Grange Hill
Of course a current plotline in this series sees the setting up of http://www.grangehill.com – and only the most egotistical of creators would go to the trouble of actually setting up a site with that URL in case people wonder if it actually exists. Wouldn’t they?

BBC2

08.35 Postman Pat
Actually, Chris Jarvis’ Birthday Song actually works for kids up to the age of seven, when surely if they were that old they’d be in school.

19.05 TOTP2
So it turns out we don’t actually get an omnibus of this, which strikes us as most odd because we’re sure half of the four million viewers used to watch the Saturday showing, so the ratings will surely slide quite a bit. Still, at least you miss Wright referring to the new time every five seconds, Richard Whiteley-style, when we’re already well aware of that because we’re bloody watching it. Grr. Anyway, Squeeze, Roxette and ABC, which is fine by us.

21.00 When Louis Met… Ann Widdecombe
Start of a four-part series of celebrity encounters, of which this one apparently isn’t that great, but we include it here because a) we normally do, and b) Keith Harris and Orville are coming soon. We’re not sure you can get fifty seconds out of them, though, let alone fifty minutes.

ITV

03.05 ITV Sport Classics
Watching the League Cup Final this weekend reminded us of the time back in 1991 when Sheffield Wednesday beat Manchester United in the final, and ITV decided to extend the coverage by twenty minutes to get all the celebrations in. All the regions therefore rearranged their schedules except for, er, Yorkshire Television, who instead showed War Of The Monster Trucks. And that’s why Wednesday have a fanzine entitled War Of The Monster Trucks, fact fans.

CHANNEL 4

06.00 The Magic Roundabout
Tch, spoke too soon.

09.00 Bewitched

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm

11.00 TJ Hooker

14.20 Open House with Gloria Hunniford
‘And now for something really big in Greece – BBC potatoes!’ Alright, it doesn’t really work written down, but how else were we supposed to bill the appearance of Demis Roussos?

Wednesday 6th March

BBC1

17.00 Blue Peter
Gift ideas for Mothering Sunday, it says here, although we were reading the Manchester Evening News the other day (what a jetset lifestyle we lead) and someone had written in pointing out that next Sunday isn’t Mothering Sunday, it’s Mothers’ Day, whereas the ‘official’ Mothering Sunday is the third Sunday after Easter. When was that observed, then? Not in our lifetime, that’s for sure. Oh, and there are three FA Cup Quarter Finals on Mothers’ Day, just to fill up the Radio Times letters page.

22.45 When Disco Ruled The World
Start of a new series which is, basically, I Love on BBC1. Coming up we’ve got shows on snooker, which we really want to see, Rock and Shoulder Pads – whatever the hell that’s going to be. First up, though, this may be an obvious subject for a documentary, but we’re sure there’s going to be some fine clips included. The Goodies, if nothing else.

00.30 Lady in Cement
Sinatra-Welch detective noir. Creamguide, perhaps predictably, rather liked the original Ocean’s Eleven, especially the bit at the funeral with the badly-executed “shocked glances exchanged down the line” routine. Give us shoddy self-indulgence over slick action any day.

BBC2

08.35 Postman Pat

16.00 Yes Minister
At the same time two weeks running? That will never do.

19.05 TOTP2
Opus 3 (not the ones who did Live Is Life, the ones who did It’s A Fine Day) and The Lambrettas tonight, and of course coming soon it’s the 250th show where we’re invited to choose our favourite clips. So go to http://www.bbc.co.uk/totp2 and make sure they’re all from 1983 – specifically, the show which last week’s U2 clip was taken from, when there was a full-size fairground roundabout in the middle of the studio. For no reason at all.

22.00 Attachments
Hooray! These episodes have been gathering dust on the shelves for months, but now they’ve finally got an airing. Even though a million dot com companies have gone bust since the last episode.

CHANNEL 4

06.00 The Magic Roundabout

09.00 Bewitched

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm

11.00 TJ Hooker

20.00 Ice Station Zebra
We refer the right honorable reader to our billing for 9pm, May 8th, 2001 – “Nuclear sub scheduling chestnut with Hudson, Borgnine and McGoohan in tow.”

Thursday 7th March

BBC1

20.30 This Is Your Life
We don’t understand why this show now has a ‘Coming Up’ bit at the start which gives away what’s going to happen – you might as well put the victim in the Radio Times if you’re going to do that. It’d help us out, in any
case.

23.35 Blow Out
Sense-swapping transposition of Blow Up via The Conversation from cinema’s premier screen-splitter. John ‘Kotter’ Travolta’s minor league sound man records a Teddy Kennedy-style senatorial car accident and, inevitably, gets drawn into a murder conspiracy. Nancy ‘Robocop’ Allen and John ‘Footloose’ Lithgow, for better or worse, also feature.

BBC2

08.35 Postman Pat

19.30 Crufts
Hooray! Another weekend of the superb filling skills of Peter Purves on the lip mike. We’d like him to commentate on some other BBC Sport events, actually – he can’t be any worse than Tony Gubba, surely.

23.20 Rugby Special
For completeness’ sakes, we’re going to mention that this programme returns after six years, but we don’t know whether they’re still going to use Holy Mackerel as the theme tune. And it’s presented by Jonathan Davies, who’s right bloody miserable.

CHANNEL 4

06.00 The Magic Roundabout

09.00 Bewitched

22.30 Banzai
In no way is this suffering from Difficult Second Series Syndrome – last week’s game where you had to guess which rubbish Freddie Mercury lookalike could hang from a goalpost the longest was the funniest thing on telly all week. And it was backed by ‘Sylvia’ by Focus, which we don’t hear on telly often enough.

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm

11.00 TJ Hooker

21.00 BAT-21
Very good Vietnam actioner with Danny Glover in the chopper rescuing Gene Hachman in the bushes via golf course-themed navigation techniques.

Friday 8th March

BBC1

17.00 Blue Peter
It’s the result of the Sport Relief competition today, which allows us to mention again the Sport Relief website at http://www.sportrelief.com which, last time we looked, said that last year’s Red Nose Day raised “a staggering �61”. It’s probably still there in the FAQs as well.

21.30 They Think It’s All Over
This isn’t quite the show it once was, as you may be able to tell from the fact that Gary Lineker couldn’t even be bothered turning up until episode five. But it’s included here tonight as Barry Davies is scheduled to make his first in-vision appearance for ages, and we really like him. So there.

22.35 Friday Night With Jonathan Ross
Since this show was last on, we’ve had Johnny Vaughan Tonight, which had a similar shaky start but then went on to become a watchable show with interesting guests and a decent script, plus a house band that actually provided the music rather than just stood there as a cheap joke. Meanwhile Ross went on to… well, actually we can’t remember anything about the last run, because it was so bloody boring. Hopefully it’ll be a bit better over the next twelve weeks, but don’t count on it.

01.00 The Horror of Frankenstein
Ralph ‘Dear John’ Bates deflects buxom wench Kate ‘Triangle’ O’Mara’s affections in order to bring Dave ‘Green Cross’ Prowse to clumsy life in this hopeless fag-end Hammer rehash, which will entertain no-one except fans of Creamguide running gags, as James “Mr. Tebbs, you know, the short-lived, toupeed Mr Grainger replacement off of Are You Being Served?” Hayter’s also present.

BBC2

08.15 Bill and Ben
Aren’t there a lot of episodes of this? And the 13.00 repeat doesn’t help.

08.35 Postman Pat

13.10 Stalag 17
We’re not sure why this was postponed from the exact same slot on Friday February 15th (Princess Madge tribute? Bowls overrunning again?) but either way we get to re-use yet another billing – “In a drastic change of pace after those Wisdoms (er, ignore that bit), the vintage concentration camp fag exchange tale with William Holden, Peter ‘Airplane’ Graves and, briefly, Ross ‘Alvin and the Chipmunks’ Bagdasarian.” – and take the rest of the afternoon off. Over on BBC1, Congo seems to’ve been similarly relocated.

ITV

00.30 Throw Momma From the Train
Decent DeVito murder comedy that never quite provoked the hysterics from this reviewer that it seemed to in others back in 1987, unlike Andy Jones in technical drawing class that year when he idly posited the existence of a rapper named “Arse T”, causing Creamguide to severely damage their left nostril on a 4H pencil and bleed all over a finely-wrought isometric view of a Dinky Toys Thunderbird 2 model. It was all in the delivery, honest.

CHANNEL 4

06.00 The Magic Roundabout

09.00 Bewitched

CHANNEL 5

06.30 Dappledown Farm

11.00 TJ Hooker

00.50 Missing Pieces
Elizabeth ‘Bewitched’ Montgomery and Julius ‘Hollywood Wives’ Harris – together at last! Sorry, wrong sarcastically impenetrable weekly newsletter. Well, it is Friday. Heh heh – “Arse!”

02.35 So Fine
Ryan O’Neal invents those transparent arsepanel jeans that used to feature on the Nationwide opening titles in this clothes industry alleged comedy. Jack ‘Crazy Like a Fox’ Warden, Richard ‘Jaws’ Kiel and Fred ‘Hermann Munster’ Gwynne debate which version of the “risque” trousers came first.

04.00 Sons and Daughters
These billings always seem to peter out, don’t they?

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DIGI-CREAMGUIDE
A place to think, apparently – mostly ‘what are they showing this for?’

BBC CHOICE
Sunday, 21.00, 23.45, Tuesday, 22.30, Friday, 23.15
Shooting Stars – Unfortunately on a train yesterday Creamguide was spotted laughing at Heat magazine, but it was because we were reading their preview of this programme, and the line where Bob says to Geoff Capes “Tell me, Geoff, how come Mr Universe always comes from Earth?”. Honest.

BBC KNOWL… ER, FOUR
Don’t expect to see this new channel in Creamguide much, because looking at the listings there’s virtually nothing on it we want to watch. However we will highlight Un Chein Andalou (Tuesday, 23.45) because it reminds us of the “foreign film” sketch on Trevor and Simon’s Stupid Video, which translates that title as “A Dog And A Toilet”. Also on Tuesday at 23.00 is another outing for Jonathan Meades’ Surreal Film, and, of course, on Friday at 23.35 is The DVD Collection, a new review show hosted by – yes! – Stuart Maconie. You can’t have a channel without him.

E4
Friday, 22.00, 01.35
Top Ten Guitar Heroes – Status Quo charmlessly present this episode, but thankfully it ins’t all cliched axe wielders that make the cut – Johnny Marr’s in here as well. And that pissed off Garry Bushell so obviously it’s brilliant.

GRANADA PLUS
Saturday, 18.30
The Les Dawson Show – Bloody hell, we appoint a Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club correspondent for Creamguide, and G+ then go and bloody drop it, as they do with Bullseye. Good job nobody sent us any letters about it this week, then. We don’t even know what episodes these are, either. Tch.

Sunday, 23.30
The Comedians – However, for those of you taking notes, here’s Chris Diamond with news of last week’s ‘tappers; “Top of the bill was Roger Whittaker with his group Saffron. Now this provided quite a surprise as I fully expected another whimsical rendition of Durham Town. Not so. What we got was a cracking rendition of an East African (from whence Rog originally came) song that was storming stuff with the audience shouting in reponse and clapping furiously.Honestly, if I had known he did this sort of stuff I might have paid more attention to him. No, honestly. Once again though the set of the top of the bill was cut short to allow for the whole of the speciality act, the extraordinary Rondart and Jeannie. Bernard told us that this was “one of the top speciality acts in the world…a lot of work has gone into this act, believe you me.” No argument there, Bernard, as Rondart started his display of throwing darts with his mouth. He threw them at a dartboard (natch) and then at playing cards, balloons and fags;even, in one presumably unscripted moment, at the audience as one of his darts went skiting into the front row. Jeannie handed them to him (and for this she got billed! She must have owned the darts).”

ITV SPORT
Wednesday, 20.00, Thursday, 22.30
The World Cup Years – The series returns with the highlights of 1986. Of course, we already mentioned our favourite bit of this tournament’s ITV coverage last week – to wit, Martin Tyler’s premature “Goa… no!” during England vs Argentina. But we’re also hoping for the opening game, which ITV had without commentary as Mexican telly had cocked up and sent Peter Brackley’s voice to Asia, so Brian Moore had to commentate from the studio.

PARAMOUNT
Monday-Thursday, 23.00
The Frank Skinner Show – We’re pretty sure we’re back on series three now, and thus our all-time favourite interview is on Tuesday; no, not Tara, Alan Hansen on Ribena.
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All times correct at time of writing and refer to England except where stated. All programmes subject to cancellation, and ITV’s piss-poor timekeeping. What’s wrong with this channel, for Christ’s sake?
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CREAMGUIDE LETTERLINE
Matt Ackerman quips –
“Can’t believe you didn’t point out the major problem faced by all Spurs fans this Sunday by the unfeeling and inconsiderate scheduling of the Leslie Phillips doc on BBC1 at 16.20. As any ful know, good old Les is a life-long Spurs fan having been born a couple of streets away from the ground in God’s Own Land of N17. So, apart from the fact that he won’t be watching himself when it goes out because he’ll be far too busy watching his team in the League Cup Final, it means that all Spurs fans will have a major VCR dilemma – tape the match or tape Sir Les??!! What to do?” Well, Matt, we hope you decided to tape Les, ho ho. A Creamguide tea-towel is on it’s way to Matt via e-mail to make up for his disappointment. If you have any letters, please do write in, unless you’re from the Shanghai Hotel in Hong Kong, in which case please don’t write in. And subscribe to The TV Cream Update too, at http://tv.cream.org
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Still stuck at the bottom – Chris Diamond, Chris Hughes, Ian Jones, Simon Tyers

6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. THX 1139

    March 2, 2022 at 10:33 am

    I think The DVD Collection is the only thing I watched on BBC Four when it began. Their movie and TV review shows never really stick around, do they? You’d think a Film 22 would be ideal cheapo programming for them.

    John Peel on Room 101 was a million miles away from Alan Davies choosing “jacket and jeans”, he was very morose thinking about the stuff he hated and ended the show by mournfully picking “death”, which was notably zinger-free.

    Coincidence: Horror of Frankenstein billing for the week one of its stars Veronica Carlson passed away last weekend.

  2. Applemask

    March 8, 2022 at 4:06 pm

    Christopher Price would have been on telly more, they were definitely grooming him to take over from Wogan on Eurovision, but then God or whoever thought it would be funny for him to die of a sodding ear infection. He never seems to consider how much funnier it would be if it happened to someone who deserved it.

    • Sidney Balmoral James

      March 10, 2022 at 1:57 pm

      I think the poor man died from the same thing that killed Oscar Wilde – an ear infection leading to meningoencephalitis. And God does not work like that, unfortunately for the people of Ukraine, Aleppo, etc.

  3. Richardpd

    March 8, 2022 at 10:40 pm

    I can’t remember Christopher Price much but it certainly sounds like he was destined for higher profile work when he tragically died.

    • THX 1139

      March 10, 2022 at 12:35 pm

      Christopher Price was so good at his job, a true natural in front of the camera, witty, knowledgeable and really enjoying his work. If he’d lived a few more years, he would be so much better remembered, he was robbed of such a bright future.

  4. Mart S

    March 9, 2022 at 3:05 pm

    The best bit of opening night was ‘The Jist’ John Morton’s beat perfect parody of exactly the sort of pretentious art and culture review shows that BBC Four ended up showing.

    It was supposed to be a series, yet that was the only one, and I guess, as a rather drying well of ideas and gags couldn’t be mined too deeply…

    But then along came Twenty Twelve, and W1A – so, that’s all well, then. Good.

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