IMPORTANT NOTE: SCHEDULE CHANGE! No more films for the time being, instead I shall be showing Alan Plater’s Beiderbecke Quartet, adding in Shadows near the start of the schedule to make up the time.
Why? Simply that (a) I’ve run out of ~90m films I have easily to hand, and there’s no room in the schedule at the moment for all the ~2hr ones I have, (b) they’ve not been gathering much interest, the superb Moon (2009) aside, (c) the latter’s a hard act to follow; I certainly haven’t got anything to hand of that quality at the right length.
At some point in the future, when the schedule allows, I plan to resume the film strand with a bunch of longer movies.
17:58 – Sheepy’s opening music.
18:01 – Thames TV morning start-up music.
18:06 – The Tomorrow People S01E09 – The Medusa Strain (Part 4/4) – The classic 1970s ITV children’s series about a group of teens with paranormal abilities, who use their special gifts to battle evil. This week, TIM jaunts John and Stephen back to the lab where Kenny attempts to revive them. Meanwhile, Jedikiah forces Peter to take them back to the 20th century one last time. First broadcast on Mon 2nd July 1973 by ITV.
18:30 – Shadows S01E01 – The Future Ghost – a British supernatural television anthology series produced by Thames Television for ITV between 1975 and 1978. Extending over three series, it featured ghost and horror dramas for children. Notable writers for the series included J. B. Priestley, Fay Weldon, PJ Hammond, Joan Aiken, Jacquetta Hawkes and Penelope Lively. Guest actors included John Nettleton, Gareth Thomas, Jenny Agutter, Pauline Quirke, Brian Glover, June Brown, Rachel Herbert, Jacqueline Pearce and Gwyneth Strong. The series was also notable for reviving the character of Mr. Stabs (Russell Hunter) from the TV series Ace of Wands.
The first series was script-edited by, and the second series produced by, legendary 70s children’s TV writer Ruth Boswell (Timeslip, Escape Into Night, The Tomorrow People, The Feathered Serpent, and many more). You can tell, especially once the title sequence for S2 rolls along…
This week, a young Victorian woman travels to London to pursue a career in nursing. While staying at a guest house, she hears her name called from a room that doesn’t exist. First broadcast on Wed 3rd Sept 1975 by ITV.
18:55 – Star Trek (The Original Series) – S01E10 – The Corbomite Maneuver – This week, after the Enterprise is forced to destroy a dangerous marker buoy, it encounters a massive and powerful alien starship and its unusual commander. The episode has been well-received and frequently appears on lists of the best episodes in the series. First broadcast in the USA on Thu 10th Nov 1966 by NBC.
This episode was the first of the regular series to be produced, after the two pilots, “The Cage” and “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, which had been made in 1964 and 1965. It was the first filmed in which DeForest Kelley played Dr. Leonard McCoy, Nichelle Nichols played Lt. Uhura (in a yellow uniform rather than red) and Grace Lee Whitney played Yeoman Rand. It was shot at a different stage, in Hollywood. Sets were transferred from Desilu’s Culver City location, where later in the series a new engine room set would be constructed for a following episode (“The Enemy Within”). Shooting started on May 24, 1966. The episode was held back until November due to the amount of special effects scenes that were not completed, becoming the 10th episode to be broadcast.
This episode also features Ted “Lurch” Cassidy as the voice of Balok, and Ron Howard’s seven-year-old little brother, Clint, in a special appearance at the end of the episode.
19:46 – …And Mother Makes Three – S02E04 – But How Can I Tell Them? – More gentle middle-class Thames sitcom, starring Wendy Craig as the newly-widowed Sally Harrison, doing her best to bring up her two boisterous sons, Simon and Peter. This week, the family accept an invitation to stay at Mr. Campbell’s sister’s cottage, Sally has problems when she tries to find what she needs to iron a skirt, and her attempts to put everything right only make the situation worse. First broadcast on Thu 23rd Dec 1971 by ITV. Unusually, this episode has no on-screen title.
20:10 – Brass – S01E08 – More Granada-made northern-drama-satirising comedy, starring Timothy West. This week, as Austin celebrates Bradley’s death, Bradley buys himself out of the hospital only to find that George hasn’t caused the hospital to blow up by putting the SBD in his tea. Not only Charlotte, but also Morris discovers Matt with Lady P, whilst Bradley and Austin try to wangle or mangle the truth from George as to what happened to the SBD and discover that George is a walking bomb. First broadcast on Mon 11th Apr 1983 by ITV.
20:35 – Van der Valk – S02E05 – Season for Love – More Thames-made Amsterdam-based crime drama, starring Barry Foster. This week, a rich, middle-aged American flies into Amsterdam to meet her young lover, only to learn that he has disappeared. While she worries about the safety of the missing man, Van der Valk fears that she is in danger herself. First broadcast on Wed 26th Sep 1973 by ITV.
21:27 – When Delia Met Hitchhiker’s – A tiny sliver of original programming, following on from Phil broadcasting the “Sculptress of Sound” documentary last night, showing how a tune Delia Derbyshire did for a programme about Egypt ended up in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. As far as I can tell from a quick internet search, nobody else has spotted this before, much to my surprise.
21:30 – Get Lost! E01/04 – Worried About Jim – A four-part drama by Alan Plater, starring Alun Armstrong as Neville Keaton and Bridget Turner as Judy Threadgold. This week, Judy and Neville want a quiet half-term break from teaching, not missing persons, crocodiles and sinister yellow Beetles. First broadcast on Fri 12th June 1981 by ITV.
Tonight we start Alan Plater’s The Beiderbecke Quartet, as we might call it. Before his celebrated Beiderbecke Trilogy (starting here in four weeks’ time), he did this 1981 four-part mini-series. The Beiderbecke Affair (1985) started out as a sequel to this, but was rewritten with new characters when Alun Armstrong proved unavailable to reprise the role of Neville.
22:22 – Snub TV S02E03 – This week featuring:
• The KLF “Kylie Said to Jason” (video)
• Big Audio Dynamite “James Brown” (Live)
• MC Buzz B “How Sleep the Brave” (Live) & interview
• Kid Congo “La Historia De Un Amour” (video)
• Renegade Soundwave “Probably a Robbery” (video)
• Galaxie 500 interview, “Snowstorm” (Live)
• The Times “Manchester” (video)
Or as the Radio Times put it: “On Snub tonight, filmed live, Big Audio Dynamite show off their funk crossover mix. And left-field experimentalism from Biting Tongues and Renegade Soundwave, new psychedelia from Boston’s Galaxie 500, rising Manchester rapper MC Buzz B and the Euro-American fusions of Kid Congo.”
From 1st generation off-air VHS > Panasonic HD recorder > DVD-R > MPEG Streamclip > MPEG4
Video compression: H.264, 352 x 288, deinterlaced
Audio compression: AAC, Stereo (L R), 48.000 kHz, 192 kbps
First broadcast on Mon 22nd Jan 1990 at 6.40pm by BBC2.
22:50 – BONUS ITEM: Galaxie 500 – Ceremony – A demonstration of how they butchered the bassline of Joy Division’s classic while covering it.
22:56 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Original Radio Series) – Fit the Eleventh – The fourth episode of the then-five-episode second series that went out stripped across a single week in Jan 1980. Original Radio Times listing: “Fit the fourth: In which our heroes do a lot of running and digging.
ARTHUR: Don’t ask me how it works, or I’ll start to whimper.“
First broadcast on Thu 24th Jan 1980 at 10.30pm by BBC Radio 4.
23:26 – COMMENTARY TRACK VERSION of The Tomorrow People S01E05 – The Slaves of Jedekiah (Part 5/5) – More interesting, amusing and sometimes scandalous DVD commentary featuring Nicholas Young (John), Peter Vaughan-Clarke (Stephen) and Philip Gilbert (TIM), moderated by Nicholas Briggs. To recap: this is the classic 1970s ITV children’s series about a group of teens with paranormal abilities, who use their special gifts to battle evil. This week, John and Stephen jaunt up to Cyclops’ spaceship in an attempt to rescue Kenny, Ginge and Lefty. There they finally meet the cyclops and discover the real reason why he wants telepaths.. Original programme first broadcast on Mon 4th June 1973 by ITV. DVD Commentary recorded c. 2002.
23:50 – Closedown music.
23:55 – Closedown.