NOTE: EARLY START TIME DUE TO EXTRA BANK HOLIDAY GOODNESS!

12:45 – Sheepy’s opening caption and music.

12:50 – TRAILER for The Monster (1975) under its alternate title of I Don’t Want to Be Born.

12:53 – FILM: The Appointment (1981) – The Wicker Man star Edward Woodward headlines this story of strange psychic forces from the start of the video nasty era. But since its release, The Appointment has been extremely difficult to see. It’s a slow-build story of malevolent psychic forces and ominous omens, in which a slightly pompous middle-class businessman (perfectly played by Woodward) unwisely decides that a business meeting is more important than his precociously gifted adolescent daughter’s (fiery-eyed Samantha Weysom) violin recital. This, despite recurrent nightmares and the growing unease of his wife (conveyed with piquant sensitivity by Jane Merrow). Nebulous tensions and internalised terrors mount mysteriously over the course of the film to culminate in a truly unusual and overtly cinematic anxiety-horror.

Yet it was never seen at the cinema. Nor was it meant to be. The Appointment was supposed to be the first in a series of prestige British television films, to be sold around the world, under the umbrella title A Step in the Wrong Direction. Finance came from the National Coal Board Pension Fund, making The Appointment the first film ever to be wholly budgeted from a pension fund. And it would be expensively shot on 35mm (predominantly on location) and boast a great script, outstanding pre-digital special effects, fine performances and a lovely, lush score.

American television networks initially expressed keen interest. There was talk of 13 films in the series. The film’s writer-director, Lindsey Vickers – a BFI-trained cineaste, who’d made the spooky 1978 short The Lake – was to pen three and direct five. But it was not to be. After production team relationships disintegrated, the projected series collapsed. Disenchanted, Vickers stepped away from the debut feature on which he’d lavished such love, care and attention. Soon after, he gave up filmmaking altogether.

Thankfully the film was already finished. But, despite delighting festival audiences overseas, The Appointment was never the success it deserved to be. It briefly crept out on home video, and was glimpsed, regionally, on UK television in the early 1990s. Vickers missed his own chance to revisit it though, as – ominously – there was a power cut in his region.

Then, wraithlike, it disappeared. The British transmission tape vanished. One or two 35mm prints had been struck – one of which definitely screened at BAFTA – but they too, like the original negative they’d been made from, seemed, somehow, to have been spirited away.

Much has been written over the decades of the epic and ultimately semi-successful search for the longer, director-approved cut of The Wicker Man. But it might be argued that’s been a walk in the park compared to tracking down The Appointment. Sadly, not a frame of Vickers’ film is currently known to exist on safety stock. Indeed, for years, all that’s been available have been ancient VHS and Betamax copies, flickery veterans of umpteen three-night rentals from long-defunct early-1980s video shops.

Latterly these have been digitised and uploaded to YouTube, with the migraine-inducing addition of rollicking tape roll. Meanwhile, a small army of devotees have been searching for better master material; and after a multitude of disappointments – as I was poring over the director’s old desk diaries for clues – an American one-inch tape master was at last turned up, by my BFI colleague, Douglas Weir.

“After several years of research and hunting through film archives, storage facilities and collections, we found a one-inch broadcast tape, held in the Sony Pictures archive, left over from a long-forgotten television broadcast,” says Weir. “Stories like these highlight the importance of film archives and film preservation.” Now released [in mid-2022 – Sheepy] as the 44th Blu-ray on the BFI’s Flipside imprint, which celebrates unusual British films that may have slipped off the critical radar, The Appointment has been lovingly remastered from this sole-existing source, with the director’s approval, so it can be enjoyed at home once again.

14:22 – TRAILER for Quatermass and the Pit (1967).

14:25 – FILM: The Monster a.k.a. I Don’t Want to Be Born (1975) – a British horror film directed by Peter Sasdy and starring Joan Collins, Ralph Bates, Eileen Atkins, and Donald Pleasence. Its plot follows a woman who gives birth to a child that appears to be demonically possessed. The film was originally marketed as a straight-faced and serious product, and as such was comprehensively mauled by critics of the time. However it later gained a reputation as a cult film favourite due to its perceived shortcomings, absurdities and unintentional camp comedy appeal. It was released in the United States under the alternate title The Devil Within Her, and is also known as Sharon’s Baby.

From the 1980s, the film became a regular feature on late-night TV in the U.K. and U.S., attracting ironic appreciation from connoisseurs of the “so-bad-it’s-good” school of films. The factors which were originally ridiculed now became selling points to this audience, including the incoherent, implausible and ill-explained plot; wild overacting and a general air of absurd hysteria; laughably overwrought, clumsy and stilted dialogue, the bizarre accents adopted by Bates and Atkins; the inclusion of a lengthy, completely gratuitous and archetypally-1970s sex scene between Collins and Bates, and the spectacle of several well-respected actors of the time making fools of themselves. The tongue-in-cheek British Horror Films website sums up the film’s appeal as: “There are some films that just defy description. I Don’t Want to Be Born ranks very highly among them. The film is … an out-and-out classic. And it was apparently made completely straight-faced. Quite how unbelievable that statement is can only be appreciated when the film is watched.”

15:58 – INTERMISSION: Cocteau Twins – Blind Dumb Deaf – a track off of their debut LP, Garlands, accompanied by a fan-made music video that’s always fascinated me. Yes, I’ve shown it before, but not in a while now.

16:02 – FILM: Quatermass and the Pit a.k.a. Five Million Years to Earth (1967) – a British science fiction horror film from Hammer Film Productions, a sequel to the earlier Hammer films The Quatermass Experiment and Quatermass 2. Like its predecessors it is based on a BBC Television serial, in this case Quatermass and the Pit, written by Nigel Kneale. It was directed by Roy Ward Baker and stars Andrew Keir in the title role as Professor Bernard Quatermass, replacing Brian Donlevy, who played the role in the two earlier films. James Donald, Barbara Shelley and Julian Glover appear in co-starring roles. Also features Sheila Steafel. The storyline, which is largely faithful to the original television production, centres on the discovery of a mysterious object buried at the site of an extension to the London Underground. Famous scientist Professor Bernard Quatermass is called in to divine its origins and explain its strange effects on people. This is in my top-ten films of all time. I saw it on New Year’s Eve when I was nine years old (allowed to stay up late as a special treat) and it made a huge impression on me.

17:40 – INTERMISSION: Thames TV morning start-up music.

17:45 – Only When I Laugh – S01E07 – Is There a Doctor in the House? – 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, in the last of the first series, Glover is discharged and Figgis is unhappy as he has nobody with whom to argue so he goes to the local pub pretending to be a doctor and diagnosing people with terrible illnesses. First broadcast on Mon 10th Dec 1979 by ITV. Repeated from Sheepy’s Show #34 – Sat 2023/01/14.

18:09 – Michael Bentine’s Potty Time S03E09 – The Foam Fighters / The Great Transcontinental Railroad – a British children’s TV show, written by and starring Michael Bentine, and directed and produced by Leon Thau for Thames Television. This week, as detergents are so frequently used to promote cleanliness, the Potties find themselves as Foam Fighters. With London almost inundated, a solution presents itself in the nick of time! And there’s more excitement as the Potties lay the tracks of the North American Transcontinental Railway.  First broadcast on Tue 1st Mar 1977 by ITV.

18:32 – Come Back Lucy S01E05 – a six-part children’s drama series made by ATV in 1978, based on a 1973 novel by Pamela Sykes. The story centres on a little girl named Lucy who lived with her Aunt Olive in an old Victorian house. Upon the death of her aunt and the subsequent loss of her home, Lucy is welcomed into her cousins’ house though she does not know them very well and has difficulty feeling at home. As time moves on, Lucy is visited by the ghost of a Victorian little girl who wishes for Lucy to become her friend. This week, with Lucy’s aunt and uncle – plus Alice’s family – holding parties simultaneously, she has to decide where she’d rather be. Will Alice’s pull be stronger, or will Lucy decide that she still belongs in the present day? First broadcast on Mon 21st May 1978 by ITV.

18:57 – Clangers (New CBeebies Version) S01E22 – Holes – the 2010s reboot of the famous early-1970s 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, Tiny Clanger and Small Clanger find two circles of cloth that are actually holes, one leading to the other.  First broadcast on Tue 14th Jul 2015 at 5.30pm by CBeebies.

19:08 – INTERMISSION: courtesy of Monty Python.

19:09 – Star Trek (The Original Series) S03E08 – For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky – This week, the crew of the Enterprise rush to stop an asteroid from colliding with a Federation world, but discover the asteroid is actually an inhabited ship. First broadcast in the USA on Fri 8th Nov 1968 by NBC.

20:00 – Tales of the Unexpected S02E06 – Fat Chance – a British television series that aired between 1979 and 1988. Each episode told a story, often with sinister and wryly comedic undertones, with an unexpected twist ending. Every episode of series one, eight episodes of series two, and one episode of series three were based on short stories by Roald Dahl, who provided introductions for the first two series. This week, legal secretary Frances is having an affair with pharmacist John Burge and is tiring of him not leaving his wife. Can John come up with a professional solution to the problem? First broadcast on Sat 5th April 1980 by ITV. With Geoffrey Bayldon, Sheila Gish and Miriam Margolyes. From a short story by Robert “Psycho” Bloch, the first non-Dahl-written episode.

20:25 – Special Branch S03E12 – Hostage – After a two-and-a-half-year break (Nov 1970 – Apr 1973) on original transmission, this show returned in a completely revamped form, now made by Euston Films in their first-ever production for Thames TV. It now stars George Sewell as DCI Alan Craven, with support from an on-off combination of Roger Rowland as DS Bill North and Patrick Mower as DCI Tom Haggerty. This week, a German diplomat’s daughter is kidnapped by a Middle Eastern terrorist group. Craven and Haggerty must rescue her before she is killed. But time works against the detectives, and events build to an explosive conclusion.  First broadcast on Wed 27th June 1973 by ITV. Featuring Michael Gambon, Brian Wilde, Nadim Sawahla, Nigel Lambert and Elisabeth Sladen!!

21:16 – Eurotrash S07E05 – 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, we have Rose Zone, Romeo Cleaners, Drag Queen Agency, Lolopops, Ivana Trump, Condom of Fear, Italian Female Cartoonists, Nymfos. First broadcast on Fri 11th Oct 1996 by Channel 4.

21:40 – The Persuaders! E09(P07)/24 – The Old, the New, and the Deadly – A British action comedy television series starring Tony Curtis and Roger Moore, produced by ITC Entertainment. It was filmed in Britain, France, and Italy between May 1970 and June 1971. The series’ synth-laden theme music was composed by John Barry. The Persuaders are two equally-matched men from different backgrounds who reluctantly team together to solve cases that the police and the courts cannot. This week: once again, Danny’s life is in grave danger as a newspaper photograph showing him carrying a case with a statuette of a German eagle will attract the attention of an ex-Nazi fanatical Count and his assassins.. First broadcast on Fri 12th Nov 1971 by ITV. Featuring Patrick Troughton, Derren Nesbitt and Frederick Jaeger. The DVDs have the episodes in (P)roduction Order, however after some thought and research I’ve decided to show them in their original LWT broadcast order (which matches IMDb & Wikipedia). Some ITV regions varied the date and order (Granada and Anglia, for example, transmitted a day earlier).

22:30 – Keep It In The Family S01E02 – One Of Those Days – a British sitcom, made by Thames Television for ITV, that aired for five series between 1980 and 1983. It was about a likeable and mischievous cartoonist, Dudley Rush (played by CABTV favourite Robert Gillespie), his wife Muriel (Pauline “Mrs Reggie Perrin” Yates), and their two daughters, Jacqui and Susan. Eccentric and childlike, Dudley insists on wearing his large lion ventriloquist glove-puppet on his hand whenever he draws the “Barney, the Bionic Bulldog” comic strip. Unhappy about having to spend what he considers valuable time working, he always procrastinates, so he’s always late meeting the strip’s deadlines, which frustrates his long-suffering agent, Duncan Thomas. This week, even though he is two weeks behind with his work, Dudley will do anything else rather finish his artwork, cleaning out the loft, trying to mend a tap, until his boss arrives to fire him. First broadcast on Mon 14th Jan 1980 by ITV.

22:55 – Whoops Apocalypse E02/06 – Autumn Cannibalism – a six-part 1982 television sitcom by Andrew Marshall and David Renwick, made by London Weekend Television for ITV. The series features a chaotic and increasingly unstable global political situation in which nuclear alerts are accidentally triggered by malfunctioning Space Invaders machines. The naive and highly unpopular Republican U.S. President Johnny Cyclops (an obvious Ronald Reagan parody, played by Barry “Victor” Morse) is advised by an insane right-wing fundamentalist security advisor, called The Deacon (John “CJ” Barron), who claims to have a direct hotline to God. In the Eastern Hemisphere, things are similarly unstable; Soviet Premier Dubienkin (Richard Griffiths) is in fact a series of clones, which keep dying and being replaced. Meanwhile, the deposed Shah of Iran, Shah Massiq Rassim (Bruce “Leonard from Butterflies” Montague), led by his advisor Abdab (David Kelly) who is always blindfolded to avoid looking upon the Shah’s magnificence, is shunted around the world in search of a refuge. The Soviets have a new ally in British Prime Minister Kevin Pork (Peter Jones), a parody of left-wing Labour politicians Michael Foot and Peter Shore. Pork, who has gone insane and believes himself to be Superman, heads an especially left-wing government (a parody of Foot’s Labour Party). The British Foreign Secretary is blackmailed by the Soviets to join the Warsaw Pact. This situation so unnerves the foreign secretary (Geoffrey Palmer, in a role based on David Owen) and the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Richard Davies) that they also lose their sanity, don Green Lantern and Hawkman costumes, and are locked up in a padded cell at 10 Downing St. This week: In a wild and secret bid to restore US influence in the Middle East, President Cyclops has laid plans to help the late Shah’s brother regain the throne of Iran. In London a new prime minister is about to take power. First broadcast on Sun 21st Mar 1982 by ITV. Also appearing across the series are Ed Bishop, Alexei Sayle, Rik Mayall, Matt “Alan Tracy” Zimmerman, Ed “Skippy” Devereaux (again!), Michael Melia, Stuart Milligan & Carmen Silvera.

23:21 – Annika E02/03 – The Middle – a three-part mini-series from 1984, written and produced by Colin Nutley and Sven-Gösta Holst, made by Central Television for ITV. It tells the story of a romance between Pete, an eighteen year old Isle of Wight deck chair attendant (played by Jesse Birdsall) and a Swedish foreign language student, the titular Annika (played by Christina Rignér). This week: Annika returns home to Stockholm. Pete misses her and decides to follow her to Sweden. He stays with her family but finds some aspects of Swedish culture difficult to adapt to. First broadcast on Fri 17th Aug 1984 by ITV.

00:14 – Closedown music.

00:18 – Closedown.