17:35 – Sheepy’s opening caption and music.
17:40 – Thames TV morning start-up music.
17:45 – Only When I Laugh – S02E04 – The Cosmic Influence – 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, when Figgis becomes obsessed with horoscopes in magazines and believes their predictions the others are sceptical – until Norman continually beats Glover at cards. However, Figgis becomes so preoccupied with astrological predictions he is convinced he is going to die – forcing Dr Thorpe to beat him at his own game to cure him of his obsession. First broadcast on Tue 20th May 1980 by ITV. Repeated from Sheepy’s Show #38 – Sat 2023/02/11 and also Sheepy’s Show #41 Modified Rerun – Mon 2023/03/06. Quite possibly my favourite episode of the whole series.
18:11 – Michael Bentine’s Potty Time S03E13 – Ali Baba / Acacia Avenue Triangle – a British children’s TV show, written by and starring Michael Bentine, directed by Michael Custance, and produced by Leon Thau for Thames Television. This week, Ali Baba, known to the Potties as Ali The Barber, employs methods only a barber would use in the capture of bandit Abul Hassan and his Forty-ish Thieves. Also, can the Potties find three people who have vanished? First broadcast on Tue 5th Apr 1977 by ITV.
18:33 – The Intruder S01E03 – Norma – an eight-part children’s drama series made by Granada in 1972, based on a 1970 children’s book by John Rowe Townsend. It was adapted by Mervyn Haisman and producer/director Alan Plummer. In 1969, Plummer had made another Granada series based on a Carnegie Medal-winning children’s novel, The Owl Service. Both step well outside the realms of what might popularly be regarded as children’s fiction, focusing unapologetically an adult themes such as obsession, mental illness and burgeoning sexuality. The series was shot entirely on location on 16mm film – unusual for television of the time – in Ravenglass, a small village on the Cumbrian coast, and is presented here from the Network Blu-Ray, one of the last they ever released. Arnold Haithwaite is a pilot – a sand pilot. He pursues his strange and solitary profession on the sands of Cumbria, beside the Irish Sea. A sand pilot, like a sea pilot, must know his way about; he must have a strong sense of locality and identity. But now another figure haunts this strange landscape: a sinister intruder who claims to be the real Arnold Haithwaite. This week, Arnold discovers that documents from Ernest’s lock box are missing. Norma is trying to get Arnold to like her but can’t compete with Jane. The Intruder offers Ernest a place to retire, in Manchester, laying out plans for developing the area. First broadcast on Sun 16th Jan 1972 by ITV.
18:58 – Clangers (New CBeebies Version) S01E26 – Find the Eclipse – 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, the Clangers gather to watch a solar eclipse but the Iron Chicken’s nest threatens to block the view. First broadcast on Mon 20th Jul 2015 at 5.30pm by CBeebies.
19:09 – Star Trek (The Original Series) S03E12 – The Empath – This week, trapped in an alien laboratory on a doomed world, Kirk, Spock and McCoy meet an empath and are involved in a series of torturous experiments. First broadcast in the USA on Fri 6th Dec 1968 by NBC. Written by Joyce Muskat, who was one of only four writers with no prior television credits able to sell a script to Star Trek: The Original Series; the other three being David Gerrold, Judy Burns, and Jean Lisette Aroeste. Star Trek co-producer Robert H. Justman read her unsolicited script, “The Answerer”, and recommended it be bought. It was her only sale to television. This is the third of the four episodes that were banned by the BBC until the 1990s, due to its “unpleasant focus on torture and sadism”. And for once, it’s justified, there’s some truly nasty bits in this, as I recall.
20:00 – Tales of the Unexpected S02E10 – Depart In Peace – 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, hearing from his old friend Gladys Ponsonby of the talented – if unconventional – artist John Roydon, art dealer Lionel gets Roydon to visualize Lionel’s fiancee Janet nude and paint her accordingly. Janet, however, does not see the joke… First broadcast on Sat 3rd May 1980 by ITV. With Joseph Cotten, Gloria Grahame, Maureen O’Brien, John Bennett and Peter Cellier.
20:25 – Special Branch S04E03 – Jailbait – For its final series, still made by Euston Films for Thames TV, we still have George Sewell as DCI Alan Craven, with Patrick Mower as DCI Tom Haggerty now full time; DS Bill North (Roger Rowland) having left Special Branch after the events at the end of Series 3. This week, Craven and Haggerty must find out who organised a jailbreak which allowed a dangerous traitor to escape. Was it the criminal underworld? Or the spy’s foreign friends? A man’s life depends on them reaching an answer quickly. First broadcast on Thu 28th Feb 1974 by ITV. With Olaf “Professor Stahlman in DW:Inferno” Pooley and Stephen “not-shit Travis from Blake’s Seven” Greif.
21:15 – Eurotrash S08E03 – The legendary late-night magazine show starring Antoine de Caunes, exploring unusual and bizarre topics from Europe and around the world. This week, we have Animated Kama Sutra, Lolopops, Boy Bands, Sit On Me, Melinda Messenger, Gnome Sanctuary, Valerio Morola, G-Squad. First broadcast on Fri 23rd May 1997 by Channel 4.
21:39 – The Persuaders! E13(P18)/24 – The Long Goodbye – 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: Brett and Danny accidentally come across the crash site of an aircraft, and with it, a low-cost, high-grade synthetic fuel formula, which attracts deadly interest, a parade of oil tycoons and a string of beautiful girls, all claiming to be the late inventor’s heiress. First broadcast on Fri 11th Dec 1971 by ITV. Featuring Peter Sallis, Nicola Pagett, Madeleine Smith, Anouska Hempel and Valerie Leon; written by Michael “older brother of Jon” Pertwee.
22:29 – Keep It In The Family S01E06 – A Friend in Need – 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, in the last of the first series, an old friend of Dudley’s is in town, and on hearing that Muriel should be away does his best to lead Dudley astray. First broadcast on Mon 11th Feb 1980 by ITV.
22:53 – Whoops Apocalypse E06/06 – Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun – 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 the last-ever episode: due to a monstrous mistake by the US, the Quark Bomb has blown up Israel. Unable to admit they had anything to do with it, the Americans must throw suspicion on Russia and issue threats of counter action. First broadcast on Sun 18th Apr 1982 by ITV. Also appearing across the series are Ed Bishop, Alexei Sayle, Rik Mayall, Matt “Alan Tracy” Zimmerman, Ed “Skippy” Devereaux, Michael Melia, Stuart Milligan & Carmen Silvera. Apologies for the unfortunate topicality of this…
23:19 – The Frighteners S01E03 – Old Comrades – A little-known – not even a Wiki page! – British psychological suspense anthology series that ran for one series consisting of 13 self contained episodes, featuring a wealth of writing and acting talent. From the DVD box: “No cops and robbers… no clanking chains… no well-worn horror themes… this powerful thriller anthology features instead a range of stories in which ordinary people are threatened by situations that slide startlingly, menacingly out of control…” This week: a retired army Sergeant receives an unexpected visit from two of his former unit members who seem to have some unfinished business with him. First broadcast on Fri 21st July 1972 by ITV. Featuring Robert Urquhart, John Thaw and George Innes.
23:45 – Closedown music.
23:50 – Closedown.