18:00 – Sheepy’s opening music.
18:04 – Thames TV morning start-up music.
18:08 – Michael Bentine’s Potty Time S01E14 – Sports Roundup – a British children’s TV show, written by and starring Michael Bentine, and directed and produced by Leon Thau for Thames Television. This week, Mr. Bentine and the Potties investigate Worm Football, Snail Fighting, Yeti Ski Jumping and the olde English game of Drats [sic]. First broadcast on Mon 11th Feb 1974 by ITV. This is a top episode!
18:20 – Shadows S03E06 – The Silver Apple – a British supernatural television anthology series produced by Thames Television for ITV between 1975 and 1978. This week, a prince fights an evil wizard for the hand of his daughter, while competing with his twin brother for their country’s throne. First broadcast on Wed 25th Oct 1978 by ITV. Starring Peter Duncan, with Olaf “Professor Stahlman from Inferno” Pooley.
18:45 – Clangers S02E01 – The Tablecloth – the famous Oliver Postgate / Peter Firmin stop-motion children’s television series about a family of mouse-like creatures who live on, and inside, a small moon-like planet. This week, the Froglets are cold. The Clangers try to warm them up with various clothes. A visitor unwittingly provides a replacement tablecloth for Mrs Clanger. First broadcast on Sun 18th Apr 1971 at 4.50pm by BBC1.
18:55 – Star Trek (The Original Series) – S01E28 – The City on the Edge of Forever – This week, when a temporarily insane Dr. McCoy accidentally changes history and destroys the Federation’s timeline, Kirk and Spock follow him to prevent the disaster, but the price to do so is high. First broadcast in the USA on Thu 6th Apr 1967 by NBC. Written by Harlan Ellison (and rewritten – much to Ellison’s legendary disgust – by Steven W. Carabatsos, D. C. Fontana and Gene L. Coon, with Gene Roddenberry doing a final re-write), this is frequently cited as being the best Star Trek episode ever made. Guest-starring Joan Collins.
19:45 – Only When I Laugh – S01E03 – The Rumour – A sitcom made by Yorkshire Television for ITV, written by Eric Chappell (Rising Damp, Home to Roost). It stars Christopher Strauli as Norman, a rather naive middle-class man who is admitted to a hospital ward and finds that he is sharing it with a working-class layabout called Figgis (James Bolam) and an upper-class hypochondriac called Archie (Peter Bowles). All three of them cause headaches for the hospital staff, led by Richard Wilson with Derrick Branche. This week, Figgis overhears Doctor Thorpe telling Gupte that his dog may not live much longer. Unfortunately, Figgis didn’t hear the ‘dog’ bit and thinks it’s about him. First broadcast on 12th Nov 1979 by ITV. I think I remember this one, good fun!
20:10 – Special Branch – S02E02 – Dinner Date – Groundbreaking British police drama series following the exploits of the Special Branch of the Metropolitan Police: an elite group of officers tasked with protecting London from spies, terrorists, and subversives. This week, Jordan flies to Frankfurt to escort a British subject, Selby, back to England. Selby had disappeared three years earlier in East Germany and the British Government are anxious to learn what he’s been up to – but the Russian KGB hide in the shadows. First broadcast on Tue 18th Aug 1970 by ITV.
21:00 – Eurotrash S02E01 – The legendary late-night magazine show starring Antoine de Caunes and Jean-Paul Gaultier, exploring unusual and bizarre topics from Europe and around the world. This week, in the first of the second series, we have Hermes Phettberg, Helena Christensen, Marcel.Li, Bulgarian Magnetic Palm Convention, Stakka Bo, Moose Poo and Porn Holidays. First broadcast on Fri 8th Apr 1994 by Channel 4 – the day that Kurt Cobain was found dead.
21:24 – A Bouquet of Barbed Wire E01/07 – Home-coming – a drama series based on the novel by Andrea Newman published in 1969. Starring Frank Finlay, Susan Penhaligon and Sheila Allen, it was produced by London Weekend Television for ITV and first broadcast in 1976. The series is known for its treatment of family and sexual dynamics, focused on the relationship between father and daughter. This week, fresh from their honeymoon, Gavin and Prue are invited for a weekend at Prue’s parents’ home, but Prue’s father, Peter, despises Gavin and the weekend quickly becomes tense. First broadcast on Fri 9th Jan 1976 by ITV. Never seen this, but it’s apparently pretty legendary.
22:16 – The Norman Conquests E03/03 – Round and Round the Garden – A trilogy of plays written in 1973 by Alan Ayckbourn. Each of the plays depicts the same six characters over the same weekend in a different part of a house. Table Manners is set in the dining room, Living Together in the living room, and Round and Round the Garden in, well, the garden.
The plays were first performed in Scarborough, before runs in London and on Broadway. This television version was first broadcast in the UK during October 1977 and was directed by Herbert Wise and produced by Verity Lambert & David Susskind.
The trilogy presents a comically fraught weekend from three different perspectives, as family and in-laws gather at the decaying country house of their bedridden mother; the drink flows, and hidden enmities, intimate secrets, and uncomfortable truths emerge through the veneer of jollity and civility.
There are only six characters, namely Norman (Tom Conti), his wife Ruth (Fiona Walker), her brother Reg (Richard Briers) and his wife Sarah (Penelope Keith), Ruth’s sister Annie (Penelope Wilton), and Tom (David Troughton), Annie’s next-door-neighbour. A seventh unseen and unheard character is in the house, upstairs: the bedridden mother of Reg, Ruth and Annie.
The plays are at times wildly comic, and at times poignant, in their portrayals of the relationships among the six characters.
Each play is self-contained, and they may be watched in any order. Some of the scenes overlap, and on several occasions a character’s exit from one play corresponds with an entrance in another. Similarly, noise and commotion in one room can sometimes be heard by characters in another.
The plays were not written to be performed simultaneously, although Ayckbourn did achieve that some twenty-five years later in House & Garden.
The premise is that Annie lives in a countryside house taking care of her demanding mother, and has decided that she needs a weekend off. Reg and Sarah have agreed to come and take care of Annie’s & Reg’s mother while Annie goes on a short trip. However, Annie is secretly planning to meet up with her sister Ruth’s charming, rakish husband Norman for an illicit weekend together (something Annie has never done before, and is unsure about). However, things go wrong when Norman shows up at the house early to pick up Annie contrary to plan, everybody ends up at the house for the entire weekend, and various arguments ensue while the characters have differing degrees of understanding about what’s actually happening.
Penelope Keith won the BAFTA Television Award for Best Actress for her performance.
This week, “The first indication that the weekend will misfire is Norman’s furtive appearance in the garden when he is supposed to rendezvous with Annie in the village. Tom, looking for the cat, bumps into Norman, then Reg appears, and the cycle of events swings into motion…” First broadcast on Wed 19th Oct 1977 by ITV.
On a personal note, I watched some of this with my parents on first transmission. They absolutely loved it. My Mum in particular had the hots for Tom Conti, the only time I ever remember her expressing such feelings about an actor. As I was only 12 (and a very naïve 12 at that), although I found bits of it amusing, a lot of it went over my head, and as an adult I’ve wanted to see it again ever since.
00:02 – Closedown music.
00:07 – Closedown.