WHEN I WAS in television a few years back, a favourite pastime of executives was trying to dream up backgrounds upon which a new series could be pinned.

The difficulty was that almost everything had been exhausted. Lawyers, hospitals, schools, factories, board-rooms, airports, civil service, luxury flats, working-class streets, hotels, shops and, needless to say, spies.

Since then clear evidence of desperation can be detected nightly with activities swirling around football clubs, motels, new towns, blackmailers, police spies and country cousins.

The trouble with most of these subjects is that they are basically undramatic. In truth little ever happens to these people and their days are usually as uneventful as that of real estate agents in the Sahara.

Thus the producer of Intrigue, Robert Banks Stewart, is evidently having a trying time finding plots that bear some relevance to his brief.

The inspiration for this series is obvious enough. If the public enjoys the boardroom intrigue of The Power Game and the mystery of a spy series like Danger Man, why not something that marries business and espionage?

I can just imagine the congratulatory back-slapping that went on at ABC’s weekly Creative Meeting when some bright spark put this one on the agenda.

There has been a good deal of industrial espionage, but what shennanigans really go on by which the secret of a raised hem-line or a new coloured toothpaste is stolen from a business rival?

Inevitably a private eye figure, burly Edward Judd, is the central character, equipped with sofa-strewn office and a hot-and-cold running secretary in the shape of the delectable Caroline Mortimer.

The episode, That’s What’s Pushing the Price Up, by Paul Finney, seen a fortnight ago, was about the efforts of some unscrupulous car manufacturers to buy a photograph of a new car model being secretly tested by a rival firm.

Their aim was to publicise the fact that a radical new model was about to be put on the market by their competitor and this news would mean that no one would buy their present model because it would soon be out of date.

Unable to market their current crop of cars, the firm, already financially shaky, would be an easy victim for a take-over bid.

All this seems to me to be a reasonable enough Machiavellian situation and plausibility was never too seriously outraged.

Even the price offered for the photograph had a nice austerity ring in these days when car manufacturers are unlikely to have two share bonuses to rub together and when taking over another car manufacturer may not be as digestible a process as it used to be.

There were some clever character vignettes – Michael Harrington as a rapacious tycoon was particularly good – and the denouement in which the photographs were seen to contain no information at all had a genuine ring of truth.

The merit of this episode was that the plot had some relevance to credibility. Although some of the characters were over-drawn and some of the plotting was superficial, it was basically a likely situation that kept you watching because of its authenticity.

But last week’s episode, Cut Price, Cut Throat, by Paul Lee, was inglorious gibberish that shows up this type of series at its worst.

The contest this time was over the sale of a clothing contract to some European customer who was inevitably fat, bald and slightly sinister because he liked good music.

To gain their ends the villainous clothing manufacturers would stop at nothing-seduction of beautiful Latin women, hiring of sinister Italian thugs, bribery of police, kidnapping, beatings, blackmail, threatened murder.

Russian agents trying to wrest anti-anti-missile blueprints from Cape Kennedy would not have been more violently sinister than these rag-trade gentlemen eager to make a wholesale deal on the Continent.

While commending their zeal to break into the export market, I hardly think the Board of Trade is yet ready to condone guerilla warfare to establish our right to sell mini-skirts in Milan.

Mr. Robert Banks Stewart, the producer, should now take a look at the rest of the scripts he has lined up for this series.

Before deciding to put them into production he should ask himself if the plots are really concerned with industrial espionage or if industrial espionage is merely being used as an excuse for some trite thuggery to fill up a mindless Friday evening.

Glossy sets. heavy breathing villains, aimless violence, lavish spending, svelte females have little to do with the routine business in this country which tends to be involved with timid executives, dreary offices. dowdy wives and every penny watched by eagle-eyed accountants.

But a series like Intrigue would be far more effective if it concentrated on authenticity at the expense of glamour.

The post Clear evidence of desperation among the boys who write those crime series appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

THE RESTAURANT we had arranged to eat in was closed.

I was waiting for her outside. She came swinging along the cluttered street as if she’d just foiled another botanist ready to take over the West with a blood-sucking vegetable or another dentist poised to mesmerise mankind with a high-speed dental drill.

She shrugged at the food news. “What about a Wimpy Bar” she said, trying to be helpfuL

I had a better suggestion in Greek Street where interview facilities are cosier.

In the taxi she said that she’d been whistled at as she walked through Covent Garden. Since it was taking my own lips some effort to remain unpuckered, I was not unduly surprised.

With her tight, black velvet dress provocatively arrested at mini length, her long auburn hair shimmering on her shoulders, her high cheek-boned face with its swamp-like eyes and teasing freckles, she was eminently whistleable at.

Memories

“They didn’t know who I was. And it’s only five months since the last Avenger was on the box. That shows you how long the public remembers you these days.”

She seemed genuinely pleased at this prospect of instant anonymity.

“Being a telly star hasn’t made all that difference, you know.” Disarming candour it one of Diana Rigg’s most pleasing virtues. “Men used to look at me before because I’m attractive. When the Avengers is actually on the screen, women clutch each other and whisper when they see me in a supermarket But in less than six months the image fades. Now the face is only vaguely familiar.”

I hadn’t intended to start the interview in the taxi but it seemed to be fining nicely.

One word

“If you could think of one word to describe yourself, what would it be? ”

You could hear the meter ticking in the long pause.

“Tall.”

I paid off the taxi.

Over the meal we discussed the life and times of Emma Peel and what it felt like to be a television star in a popular aeries. She starts shooting another Avenger series this week. Twenty-four of them with American distribution.

“While Emma Peel as a character is emancipated in most areas, she’s not emancipated sexually. No man reacts to me as if I was a woman. They all call me Mrs. Peel.

Pats

“Patrick MacNee, as Steed, pats me like a shire horse from time to time. My relations with Steed are, to put it mildly, ambiguous. Let’s say they’re not active whenever we’re on the screen. They may have been in the past. Or might be in the future.”

She indicated annoyance with this script insistence on passion Anglaise.

“It may have begun with the original idea for my widowhood. My husband was a test pilot killed in an accident. Inevitably that made me very sympathetic, clean and orthodox. I’d have been much happier if they had told me I’d eaten my husband or something else outrageous.”

She hasn’t taken lessons in judo or jiu-jitsu.

“I know how to do the necessary gestures and movements. I can now fight with a man.” She paused. “But not in earnest.”

Had she thought about the appeal of a fighting woman?

Uneasy

“At first men sat back and roared with laughter. Then they became slightly uneasy about it. It could be true! And they began to like that insecurity. Men like to be threatened. And a predatory woman? I think most of them adore the prospect of being seduced.”

What about money?

What about money?

“I now have more money than I’ve ever had in my life and through money I’ve discovered more freedom in my life. That’s all.

“I have the freedom to stop work next year. Or do Shakespeare. And I have the pleasure of being able to buy things for myself and other people. The only thing that worries me is the tax I have to pay on it.” She gave me the impression that taxes were something new in her life.

Since the natural corollary of money in a woman’s mind is men, we moved on to them.

“I’ve always been chary of marriage. At 17 I dreamt of an early marriage and motherhood. But by the time I was 22 I didn’t identify with it anymore. I play everything by instinct, and I know, even though I’m in my late twenties, that marriage at this moment would be a disaster for me.”

She readily admitted that she was in love.

Marriage

“But I don’t think we’re likely to get married.” She shrugged off any more questions on the point. “Anyway I wouldn’t many now because marriage might make me turn down work. It’s not the disease of ambition. I have only one specific ambition and that’s to work.”

As a girl brought up in the serious theatre, does she think her fame as Emma Peel makes her a success?

“On the basis of TAM ratings and fan letters, I’m probably a success. Incidentally I don’t know what to do with fan letters. I have most of them bundled up — unanswered — in the back of my Mini.

Success

“But if success means doing what I set out to do and doing it properly, then I’m not so sure. That’s why I went back to Stratford-on-Avon to do Viola in Twelfth Night. It’s really a one-dimensional career doing the same role over and over again. I doubt if I’ll do it for much longer.”

Over the coffee, she became more reflective.

“I’ve had no serious offer for work in the cinema. I was always considered a serious actress and not suitable. But Vanessa Redgrave in Morgan has changed all that. But now that I’m a TV actress, the cinema doesn’t like mixing one image with another. Anyway I’d turn down a film part if it was just asking me to do another Emma Peel.

Lessons

“From an acting standpoint, TV’s taught me an economy of style that I didn’t have before. But Emma’s easy for me to do because I’m playing a part that’s 75 pc my own personality. Not the fighting, swinging lady, but the way I come into a room, the way I hitch my trousers, the way I flirt.”

She had to go. She was looking at a new mews house. She was finally giving up the small mews flat she’d lived in for many years.

“I’m much less lonely now, but otherwise things are much the same as they used to be. And when I finish this next series of the Avengers, I’m out of work as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know what I want to do next. And that’s how I like it”

The post Please don’t call me Emma pleads the eminently whistleable at Diana Rigg appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

UNDOUBTEDLY the folk hero of our time is the detective. Whether it is the rumpled Maigret or the suave Bond, there is an inexhaustible audience fascinated by the conflict of a lone figure against the combined forces of crime and evil.

We no longer demand of our private eye or special agent or police inspector that he be a paragon himself. Indeed, corruptibility must now be part of his equipment.

He can be a rake, bribe-able, cowardly, effete, seedy, snobbish, vicious, devious, boastful, dull and ugly, and still retain our sympathy in his struggle against amoral opponents who are sometimes not as amoral as he is.

I suspect it is basically his aloneness that makes him so appealing a figure for contemporary audiences. No matter what help he gets from assistants or scientific paraphernalia, he is always a man pitted physically or mentally against the unknown.

Mass identification with his problems and dilemmas comes naturally to societies like our own where loneliness has become a mass disease.

It follows, then, that in any TV series based upon the activities of a single detective, its success will depend more on the development of the central character rather than on the strength of the plot or the ingenuity of the detection processes.

Wasted

Judging from the work of three detectives seen on TV – Sherlock Holmes, Amos Burke, of Burke’s Law, and Frank Marker, of Public Eye – the Americans are beginning to learn this lesson while out producers are still light years away from it.

Sherlock Holmes on the BBC seems to me to be the saddest example of a wasted opportunity. On a completely undemanding level, the aura of sinister Victoriana is acceptable enough.

Douglas Wilmer has the authentic jaw, the hawk-like nose, the cold, detached stare, the clipped decisiveness that one envisages for Holmes. Nigel Stock, as Watson, is a bumbling appendage that rarely adds much to the action.

But a recent episode “The Beryl Coronet” adapted by Nicholas Palmer, summed up what I feel are all the faults of this series to date.

A valuable piece of a coronet had been stolen from the home of a leading London banker. The banker suspects his son but Holmes, after measuring the imprints of a wooden leg and finding some significant boots, proves that the boy was “inn-oh-cent,” as everybody seemed to pronounce it.

Now trying to stretch this story to an hour has obviously been too much for the imagination of either the writer or the director, Max Varnel.

Lingering on long pans up and down staircases, each clue was stretched out to fill Gargantua and flashbacks were used to repeat events we already knew.

An even worse mistake was not introducing either Holmes or Watson into the story until almost 20 minutes had passed.

With all that padding needed, couldn’t we be told more about Holmes? His cocaine addiction, his Stradivarius, his chemical experiments, his skill at fencing, his university, his brother, Mycroft.

Conan Doyle’s creation, brought up to date with some imaginative scripting and some modern pace to the editing, could still be exciting stuff. But this reverential, orthodox approach merely reduces to the routine a unique treasure of detective fiction material.

Now in Burke’s Law, shown on the Commercial Channel, gimmickery is all. The improbably stories rarely interfere with Burke’s conquest of the sexiest suspects in America. The only clues that really interest him are those found in mattresses.

Who Killed Rosie Sunset? enabled Burke, played with dead-pan aplomb by Gene Barry, to investigate a flamenco dancer, a concertina player, a counterfeiter, and an abstract Russian sculptor. He was mauled by a luscious brunette tax expert, he was cornered by a Slavic beauty whose English vocabulary consisted only of the words “hello” and “yes” and he was stroked by a rich blonde wearing tights that were little more than an epidermal disguise.

Racy

In his Rolls, equipped with telephones and cocktails and driven by an Oriental chauffeur, he raced from bedroom to nightclub to artist’s studio. I cannot tell you who did it or why, but while it lasted it was racy, pacy and alive. With a much better story the Holmes episode was slow, bumbling and dead.

But, by comparison with ABC’s new series, Public Eye, both Holmes and Burke are masterpieces of TV technique. Its private eye, Frank Marker, is supposed to typify the new anti-hero figure.

He has sleazy offices, shady clients, an old sports jacket, stains on his tie, is plagued by income tax demands and when he gets into a fight, he loses.

All of this information came out of the TV Times. None of it was visible in Saturday’s first episode, “The Morning Wasn’t So Hot.”

In technique and subject matter, it brought back memories of “No orchids for Miss Blandish,” which I have always considered on the most tasteless British films ever made.

It concerned the activities of a pimp who picks up unsuspecting girls newly arrived in London and turns them into call-girls and prostitutes.

A little brunette, Jenny, is desired for their brothels by a crime syndicate and the pimp is forced to sell Jenny to them.

When Marker, who through no detection device that was visible to the naked eye, finally finds Jenny – her mother has been worried about her – Jenny decides she wants to stay a prostitute.

“Mr. Marker, last week I earned £300 [£6,500 today, allowing for inflation – Ed]. Did you?” is her decisive answer to his revelation that she has been sold to other brothel keepers. There’s a moral to keep our girls pure and unsullied.

Roger Marshall’s dialogue would best appeal to the paperback literati of Shaftesbury Avenue with sentences like “The nearest he gets to power is in your bed” and “He’s in town getting the lay of the land.”

Alfred Burke, as Marker, had little to do except look hang-dog and disgruntled while this flow of “ugh” poured over the screen.

During the advertisements I switched over to BBC and listened to Quintin Hogg and Malcolm Muggeridge in Not So Much engaging in a fascinating and adult discussion about sexual morality.

It is perhaps typical of our sense of values that Not So Much should be condemned as offensive while puerility like Public Eye will probably survive.

Which, in the end, is more corrupting?

The post Some of the things Burke (of Burke’s Law) can teach Sherlock Holmes appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

POP records are not only big business but a social phenomenon. There is little doubt that they are making a discernible impact in the shaping of the new Britain.

From being the squarest nation in Europe we are fast becoming the coolest. Foreigners familiar with the Britain of Victor Silvester and hunt balls are staggered by the transformation they find in the dancing seen in jazz clubs and discotheques.

The grace, the rhythm, the abandon – not to mention the improvement in the looks of the girls – have that sophisticated natural quality that one used to associate only with the more exclusive haunts in Paris, Manhattan and St. Tropez.

Barriers

More important, that ease and lack of restraint has begun to manifest itself in certain social side-effects among the young.

Class and racial barriers erode much more quicker when peers’ daughters swing unselfconsciously with lorry drivers and Negro musicians.

The innate rivalry of the dance floor has created a heightened awareness of such status ornaments as hair styles, smart clothes and make-up.

The time-consuming demands of the pop craze has so canalised their energies that relatively few of them display much interest in politics, social problems or even hobbies.

The intimacy of their surroundings and the encouragement of physical abandon has also inevitably resulted in a freeing and liberalising of sexual inhibitions.

But is all this any different from the twenties, when teenagers were swaying to the Charleston and the Black Bottom? It is all a question of degree and I think that at the moment we are going through a particular virulent phase of the rhythm epidemic.

And chief among the influences to be credited or blamed for this phenomenon is undoubtedly television.

There are at present no fewer than five weekly peak hour shows devoted exclusively to the playing and plugging of pop music. This compares with two programmes about politics, three about current affairs and two off-peak shows fortnightly devoted to all the arts.

Perhaps the strangest aspect of these pop programmes – presumably devoted to the ever-changing tastes and fads of their fans – is how quickly they congeal into frozen formulas and into mindless repetitiveness of the same technical gimmicks.

Oldest

The three oldest in the business – Ready, Steady, Go!, Thank Your Lucky Stars, and Juke Box Jury – have remained practically unchanged, down to the compere’s cement smiles, for almost three years.

Now with stentorian fanfares two of them ushered in what they shouted was to be a fresh era in pop presentation.

“We’re all terribly excited,” said Cathy McGowan, introducing Ready, Steady Goes Live. “It’s the very first show of its kind where everybody sings live.” If memory serves me right I thought that was what TV used to do before most of Miss McGowan’s audience were actually born.

There was no doubt that something fresh had to be done to Ready, Steady, Go! which had deteriorated disastrously from its early days, when its free-and-easy mingling of artists and audiences had given the show a spontaneity and bounce that appealed triumphantly to the very young.

But of late is anarchic shooting had become an excuse for sloppy directing, its natural studio environment had become a refuge for lazy set designers and cheap budgets, and its gay, lively enthusiasts had diminished into a jumble of spotty faced, frozen gawkers.

Harried into going live by a growing suspicion among audiences that mime merely disguised the incompetence of its performers, Ready, Steady, Go! moved into a larger studio and recruited some prettier girls into the audience.

But apart from discovering two girls who could sing remarkably like Dionne Warwick, it cannot be said that a new millennium in pop programmes was opened up by the renovation.

The problem of singing live proved that only Tom Jones and Miss Warwick could perform as effectively without the help of recording engineers. The actual sound balance of the programme was atrocious, with rhythm beats blotting out melodies and the background noises blurring the singing.

There was chaos in the cueing, with performers caught with their instruments down and egg all over their guitars. “You’ve done it again,” cried Manfred Mann at a bad cue. “Ready, Steady Goes Live. Aspirin sales have doubled!”

A.B.C.’s Thank Your Lucky Stars did much better with its revised show. Getting rid of all the nonsense stunts – audience markings “O’ll give it foive,” extraneous disc jockeys – the acts took place in a well-marked off arena, divorced form the audiences, allowing the lighting effects to play their full part.

Screams

By cutting to the fist-chewing, hysterical screamers in the audience only when it was needed to match the effect of the performers, the viewers at home could get an uncluttered, clean-cut picture of groups like the Beatles, the Animals and the Drifters without interruptions from the stamping fett and waggling behinds of the studio fodder.

I am at a loss, however, to explain the continued tolerance of the B.B.C. for Juke Box Jury. The juxtaposition of close-ups of astigmatic children and square-faced Moms with the sound of the latest records has long since ceased to be of any conceivable visual interest.

The sight of middle-aged people like David Tomlinson, Joan Turner and Catherine Boyle trying to communicate their with-it-ness to a glum-faced, mummified audience is one of the continuing embarrassments on TV.

What conceivable use their judgments are escapes me when last week no fewer than seven out of nine records were solemnly nominated as hits. David Tomlinson, indeed, voted for nine out of nine as hits which, as a standard, would make the turnover in the Top Ten as active as an explosion of jumping beans.

Smashing

This programme, like Ready Steady Go! also tends to correlate pop music with inarticulateness. The vocabulary of Sue Lloyd on Juke Box Jury seemed to be confined chiefly to the words “I love it, I think it’s great.” Cathy McGowan, doing most of the talking in Ready, Steady, Go! announced a “smashing” competition, thanked Manfred Mann for a “smashing” arrangement, said a harmonica player was “smashing” and told us that the four dancing couples we were going to see were – guess what? “smashing.”

And, in addition to doing something about this potential deleterious effect on teenager speech, could the producers of these programmes not be so shamelessly ready to plug any new American star that happens to float into town?

Dionne Warwick, in spite of her undoubted talent, does not deserve a spot on the Eamonn Andrews Show, Ready, Steady, Go!, Thank Your Lucky Stars and Juke Box Judy [sic] in just under ten days.

It would, indeed, be healthier all round if the entire pop world were farm more independent of the public relations men in the record business.

The post Five pop shows on television to every two where they talk about politics appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

IF ANY FURTHER sign were needed of the fatigue and inertia now paralysing television it is the sudden proliferation of talk programmes.

While the eye is being increasingly neglected, the ear is assaulted and pummelled hour after hour by what one might call cauliflower TV. It leaves the ear battered, bruised and sorry for itself.

Some talk programmes like Not So [Much A Programme, More A Way Of Life] and On the Braden Beat divide equally between the eye and the ear. But The Eamonn Andrews Show, Three After Six, The Explorers, Division, Take It Or Leave It, Dateline, and, naturally, The Epilogue, are basically radio shows that make only peripheral use of the visual medium.

Dinosaurs

These dinosaurs of TV could have made their appearance on radio in the mid-thirties with hardly a change of format or script. In the pioneer days of TV they would have been dismissed by any progressive producer as a retrogressive admission of defeat.

But their appeal to TV board rooms and planning executives is obvious. Cauliflower TV often gets a favourable critical reception because it usually has about it an intellectual or cultural aura. And, above all, it is cheap.

For these programmes there are no heavy costs for the sets, scripts, travel, filming, editing, or performers. University dons, journalists, writers, and politicians – the backbone of these programmes – can be paid a fraction of the cost of actors, well-known comperes, and other professional entertainers in other shows.

I would guess that Rediffusion by putting on Three After Six (three people talking to each other) instead of Here and Now (a film and taped actuality show) the company is saving money at the rate of £30,000 to £40,000 [£650,000 to £900,000 now allowing for inflation -Ed] a year. Since they get as much official acclaim for one as the other, who can blame them?

It would be foolish, of course, to contend that there was no place for some talk programmes on TV. What concerns me, as much as the misuse of the medium, is the general deterioration and lowering of intellectual standards of the conversation we hear on TV as compared with what we used to hear on radio.

Exempted from this stricture is Rediffusion’s The Explorers, in which Jack Hargreaves makes a serious attempt to probe the minds of serious men to give us some insight about their thoughts about the future.

Monday’s discussion with Professor Denis Gabor about the impact of automation on our society and the problem of leisure left me tingling with intellectual excitement and curiosity.

Boring

But what ABC’s The Eamonn Andrews Show is supposed to be doing I have not yet discovered. Entertaining people, I will no doubt be told, proving once more that the word “entertaining” is often synonymous with boring, vulgarising and embarrassing.

When it first began its guests included a sprinkling of relatively serious people like Randolph Churchill, Wolf Mankowitz and Ogden Nash. But the inability of Mr. Andrews, as compere, to sustain any serious talk and the impossibility of mixing slapstick and profundity soon led to the elimination of almost everybody but entertainers and clowns.

On Sunday the show reach its nadir to date. Representing the entertainers were Michael Mac Llammoir and Jeanette Scott, and the clowns were Michael Frayn and the Earl of Arran.

If the conversation has kept its centre of gravity concentrated on such topics as whether or not all blondes were dumb or whether humour is male of female (these subjects were touched upon), one could have dismissed the subsequent inanity as TV fodder on the same level as the ill-fated Celebrity Game.

But Mr. Andrews steered the talk into deeper channels, and this ill-assorted group found themselves talking about automation, computers, racial prejudice, patriotism and conformity.

Foreigners

From the Earl of Arran we heard that “the Irish have never produced anybody worthwhile,” that the Swiss are “mean, snobbish and smelly,” and that “wogs begin at Calais and that all foreigners are “bloody.” [sic on quote marks]

Now there will be protests from viewers about the use of the word “bloody.” I doubt if many will object to the far more xenophobic sentiments of the earl’s mind.

No one on the programme, I should add, intelligently contradicted the noble earl. To their credit, they were probably too startled to do anything but gasp.

If Lord Hill and the ITA is really concerned about television corrupting the public mind, let them stop worrying about the number of times people are kicked in the groin in thrillers and think a bit about the number of times they are concussed on the brain by programmes like the Eamonn Andrews Show.

One rule Lord Hill might seriously think about is preventing so-called funny programmes from tackling subjects too important and too delicate for their capabilities.

The ITA does not list the Eamonn Andrews Show among its “serious” programmes but it does list On the Braden Beat. The distinction is valid and proper. It is, therefore, up to the ITA to make sure that we are protected from stupidity and ignorance about significant matters merely because it is masquerading in the jester’s garb of “light entertainment.”

I had intended this week to discuss, too, the quality and standard of other examples of cauliflower TV but, because of space, it will have to wait for another time.

The post All these talk programmes – they’re getting worse appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

I extended this time travel trip to one week and one day so I could arrive early to catch an edition of my regional news.

18th May
ATV Today
ATV Midlands

Today the Midlands’ local news programme is taking us around Birmingham’s Wholesale Markets. It’s an early start for the reporter who begins in a local caff. It’s all toast, tea and fags. We see one old fellow taking a couple of jugs out and back across to the impressive Smithfield Market building. Inside, you can see the names of all the traders over their pitches. Interviewees play over footage of the going-ons of the markets. They really make Birmingham sound fantastic. Fish caught in Torquay the day before can be in Birmingham before the shops have opened in Torquay. In fact, fish come to Birmingham from various countries and the punters rate the quality. In a time before motorways became so widespread, this seems quite an impressive feat for the Midlands.

There’s also affection for the jovial atmosphere of the place, with one young man commenting, “I love working down here – it’s fantastic. I wouldn’t work anywhere else now.” The interviewees are a mixed bunch as some have local accents while others are much more RP. It’s great to hear them as though regional accents are becoming more common, the Midlands still feels underrepresented. It would have been nice to see what they all looked like but there isn’t the time on this short seven minute feature.

19th May
The Avengers ‘Room Without a View’
Rediffusion

The first half of series 5 has recently finished so Rediffusion has decided to repeat random episodes from series 4, although next week they will take a break for the Ice Skating World Professional Championships. While I had seen the odd episode, the True Entertainment channel’s decision to show ABC’s The Avengers from the beginning last year gave me the chance to become properly acquainted with the show. I grew fond of the charming, beautifully dressed Steed and the arse-kicking Cathy Gale. I’ve only seen as far as series 3 though, making this a step forward for me.

I hope 1960s’ audiences were able to appreciate the switch from videotape to film because for me it’s a huge difference compared to the earlier series. Not only is the picture better but the sound is clearer – I had had to strain, often struggling to hear some of the speech before.

The plot has people being kidnapped and brainwashed, believing they are somewhere in Manchuria. In fact, it’s a tape player and a couple of oriental guards through the back of a wardrobe in a London hotel. Steed plays the part of a food critic wonderfully, mentioning that a meal was ruined by the use of salted instead of unsalted butter. Mrs Peel is far too efficient a receptionist though and draws suspicion, resulting in her being gassed and waking up in ‘Manchuria’. When Steed discovers the false back to the wardrobe, he soon finds her cell but first must wrestle the two guards.

I described both the guards as ‘oriental’ because who knows what the one is supposed to be. 1960s’ television has shown me some dodgy make-up and blacked-up characters but this is the absolute champion. With a name like Romo Gorrara, the actor may not be of British heritage but he is definitely a white man and whatever they have done to his eyes does nothing to convince me otherwise. The production team were clearly struggling to find enough stuntmen because putting Gorrara next to Anthony Chinn, who is actually half-Chinese, makes it look all the more terrible.

20th May
George and the Dragon
ABC

I’ve seen ATV’s George before during my first visit to 1968. In this episode George and Dragon argue over the evening’s entertainment with George dismissing Dragon’s old fashioned records. Dragon protectively says they were her mother’s and she loves them. In a tussle, George tries to wrench them from her and they smash on the floor. There’s an audible intake of breath from the audience who were clearly as pained as this viewer. Dragon announces she’s leaving and we next see her at a bus station cafe.

A truck driver attempts to chat her up, only for each male member of the household to appear – George, Ralph the gardener, and their employer, John le Mesurier. The truck driver is astonished that she isn’t married to any of them and is increasingly impressed. As they convince Dragon to come home, he realises he doesn’t stand a chance so steps away and wishes her well.

21st May
I Spy ‘Bridge of Spies’
ABC

Unlike The Saint and other shows, I Spy doesn’t need to put a caption up at the beginning of the episode to tell us we’re in Venice because they’ve actually gone and filmed there it seems. The locations in this episode look fantastic. We are actually proper abroad! It’s so nice to spend some time out of a studio set for a change and they are such beautiful locations. The show really makes the most of them.

Kelly and Scott are a couple of agents playing at being tourists. Kelly is a tennis player, giving the pair reason to travel to various place but in this episode all their spy contacts keep dropping dead before they can speak to them. They struggle to figure out how the enemy is staying one step ahead. Well, maybe Kelly should have spent less time shagging tour guides who make deception plans with lines like, “I will combine high-level socialism with a low cut dress.”

I won’t skip mentioning the one thing that I Spy does, which is that Scott is black, played by Bill Cosby. It’s wonderful that it does go unremarked with no bearing on anything in the episode because the 1960s is not a great time to be black in the US. Only next month will the US Supreme Court will decide that state laws forbidding interracial marriage are invalid. Yet here he is in a starring role! Scott is very much Kelly’s equal and they’re genuine partners. They get on well and I enjoyed watching them together onscreen.

22nd May
Trumpton
BBC One

A lot of things about Trumpton seem familiar; the theme, the animation-style, Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew, Cuthbert, Dibble, Grub. Yet I have no memories of watching Trumpton as a child and a crawl through BBC Genome says it was last repeated several years before my birth. In fact, the only source I can pinpoint for a definite contribution to my familiarity with any of Trumptonshire is Life on Mars. The BBC drama about a police officer trapped in the early 1970s promoted its second series with its lead characters of Sam Tyler and Gene Hunt in Trumptonshire form.

I thought Trumpton was terrific, something I hadn’t expected to find myself writing about a fairly simple young children’s programme. But it’s just so lovely. It reminds me of other children’s shows like Noddy, Postman Pat and Thomas the Tank Engine, which also exist in their own pleasant little towns. I want to get to know the townsfolk. I love that the carpenter is called Chippy. I love that the town has its own rag and bone man. This episode revolved around an old rocking horse that was going to be burned but the carpenter’s son rushed around to save it as he had hidden his savings inside. What a wonderful small drama for the day.

The Invaders ‘Moonshot’
ATV Midlands

Granada are also screening this show tonight, though they are a few episodes behind ATV Midlands. I’d been looking forward to The Invaders for some time as the TVTimes’ synopses always make it sound fantastic and several people had recommended the show to me. Aliens have invaded Earth but as they can shape shift to look like humans, hardly anyone knows about them. David Vincent saw them arrive though and attempts to thwart the threat, struggling to get people to believe him. In this episode, the invaders have infiltrated the space programme, replacing an astronaut with a copy. This was so tense, so exciting – it was just so brilliant. I will definitely be watching more.

24th May
The Baron ‘Countdown’
Granada

While I try to avoid repeating myself across the years, I’d been impressed enough with 1966’s episode of The Baron to want to come back for more, crossing the border into Granadaland after finding it in their schedule for this week. Both ATV London and ATV Midlands have finished their runs of The Baron, broadcasting the episodes in different orders after the first episode. For ATV London, this was the final episode, while ATV Midlands put it as the penultimate one. Granada have placed it as episode 22 out of 30. None of this actually matters as most episodes of ITC programmes stand completely independently and it’s rare to find any continuity woven in.

It was a strong start for me as the guest stars caption appeared with Edward Woodward and Philip Locke. Over the last couple of years I’ve become a big fan of Callan, the spy drama starring Woodward, and haven’t seen him in much else so I was looking forward to his appearance. This episode of The Baron was filmed shortly after he had finished an episode of Armchair Theatre, ‘A Magnum for Schneider’, that was also the pilot for Callan. Philip Locke’s name was also familiar to me, as he appears in the James Bond film Thunderball as a henchman who ‘got the point’ of a spear gun.

The Baron is on his way to meet a man called White who has some information for him. After he falls for the classic fake diversion trick, he’s trapped in a tunnel and gets kidnapped. In a marvellous twist on convention, it’s his female companion, Cordelia, who has to come to his rescue. Philip Locke as Compton poses as the Baron to go meet White but our hero turns up and smacks Compton, giving White the chance to make a run for it. Unfortunately White cops it anyway and the police tell the Baron that he had recently been working for Arkin Morley. The Baron knows Morley, who is a filmmaker as well as a fellow antique dealer. “Morley’s about the largest antique dealer in Europe, isn’t he?” says Codelia. “Yes and about the crookedest.” replies the Baron, which turns out to be a somewhat slanderous statement as the policeman says Morley has never been convicted of anything.

The Baron heads off to see Morley and I find it incredibly strange to hear Woodward (who’s taken 27 minutes to turn up) being so well-spoken. Throughout the episode, when he’s spouting particular venom, the refinement slips for a moment to reveal a much dirtier character beneath. Morley and Mannering exchange some banter and Morley gives away that this is all about a valuable sword, which previously fetched a quarter of a million dollars.

Everything starts to move a lot faster as the Baron and Cordelia head off to a house in search of the sword, but Morley and Compton have followed them. It feels like they have cheated a little by turning up with guns. They lock the Baron and Cordelia up for a bit. Yet it all goes terribly wrong for Morley after he asks Compton to shoot Mannering. Despite having a perfectly clean line of sight with his victim cornered, for reasons we will never know Compton decides to walk within a foot of the Baron, who takes the opportunity to knock the gun away. Morley legs it.

Steve Forrest has several inches on Edward Woodward and once the latter’s poorly-aimed bullets run out, it isn’t looking good. “I’m taking you in,” Mannering tells Morley, though I’m not entirely sure what for. Morley has committed unlawful imprisonment and attempted murder, but the Baron has no evidence of any of this. Also, the Baron knocked Compton about a fair bit before leaving his body on the floor underneath a large stone coffin lid so he could easily be up for manslaughter himself. I’d started to quite like Morley, who has far more witty lines than Mannering and had been a rather cool, cold villain. This last section of the episode has flown by and while I’m enjoying The Baron, I don’t find John Mannering a particularly compelling character – there just isn’t much to him. So far, it’s the plots and the guest cast that are bringing the quality to this show.

25th May
Danger Man ‘The Outcast’
ATV Midlands

I last saw Danger Man back in 1962 and like then this is a repeat from two years earlier. Though I have seen a number of the 25 minute episodes, this was my first of the later 50 minute ones. I’ve enjoyed the half-hour episodes because the action moves so quickly, yet there are some episodes where I’ve felt the plot would benefit from being drawn out. There is a new title sequence too but I really don’t like the music. The other change is that someone has stolen John Drake’s American accent. Maybe he had just spent too long away.

Drake heads off to Spain to befriend a sailor who has gone AWOL from Gibraltar. He is suspected of murdering a WREN who gave away signals intelligence. The sailor, Leo, is played by Bernard Bresslaw and oh gosh he’s just so lovely that I can’t believe he’s done it. Drake pretends to be a slightly dodgy character who is planning to leave for South America, that favourite lawless land so beloved by Nazis and criminals the world over at this time. To show just how awful he is, Drake stages a shooting so that Leo believes he’s murdered a guard. Leo is absolutely horrified but it works as Drake uses it as leverage to get Leo to confess. When Leo finds out who Drake really is, he confronts him with a gun. It soon becomes clear he won’t use it though and it’s rather a sad, pitiful ending.

What you could have won – missing and unavailable

Here are some of the listings that intrigued me but I was unable to watch this week.

MISSING Those Two Fellers – After several years of writing for other people, Dick Hills and Sid Green have their own series with different guest stars each week. Two comedians they have written plenty for over the last few years are Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, who are among the guests this week. Only one series was made and no complete episodes exist.

UNKNOWN Wheelbase – The world of motoring. This episode explores how to manage abroad with the limits of taking currency out of the country, which at the time was capped at £50. While not an insignificant sum, after travel and hotel costs, it probably didn’t leave holidaymakers with a great deal of spending money.

MISSING The Likely Lads ‘Friends and Neighbour’ – Although several episodes of The Likely Lads do exist, this repeat isn’t one of them, making it your last ever chance to see it. I first met Terry and Bob through the radio adaptations of the sequel series, Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?, before moving on to the same TV series. I’d love to get to know the earlier incarnations of the lads.

MISSING Armchair Thriller ‘The Snares of Death’ – The details given in TVTimes about this episode, starring Alfred Burke, are tantalising. An undertaker’s business is struggling and he ponders what can be done about it. He ‘thinks he has solved his troubles but the plan takes a macabre twist’. There are some colour promo photos with Burke posing over a coffin. His slightly offbeat expressions intrigue me even more.

The post Back in time for TV: 18-25 May 1967 appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

He didn’t quite, because The Beatles’ ’65 tour of America just about saved them from that, nevertheless on a points system awarded for each week’s position in the American charts, Herman did in fact come top of the poll.

In spite of his tremendous success Stateside, Herman hasn’t really made much impact in England since his first hit-record. Most of his records make the charts somewhere around the lower end but you can’t say the English really love him.

If the English fans don’t buy Herman’s records in the quantities the Americans do, they do have at least one favourite occupation as far as Herman is concerned, and that is to marry him off.

So far, I think Herman has been rumoured to be engaged to almost every girl on the British pop scene, from Twinkle to Jackie Trent, the latter being hardly likely since she is already happily married.

I asked Herman about this one day when I met him at the Alpha Studios in Birmingham where he was appearing on a “Lucky Stars” programme.

“Girls”, said Herman, “when do you get time for girls in this racket?” echoing the heartfelt complaint of practically every pop star one puts this question to. “Romance? No time.”

“As for marrying me off, the fans are nuts. I believe the rumour regarding Twinkle began because we were on the same bill a couple of times and I was spotted taking her out to dinner after the show. Then I was on ‘Juke Box Jury’ once, and I happened to be criticizing a record by Lulu and I happened to say ‘I love Lulu, of course, but…’ and next morning the papers had me practically buying Lulu an engagement ring.”

“Mind you, I do love Lulu, everybody does, she is a wonderful and sweet person, but that doesn’t mean wedding bells are ringing for me or for anyone else. In fact I’m much too young to get married, I’m having a wonderful time and I don’t think a man should get married much before he is twenty-five anyway.”

Actually Herman never had any intention of becoming a singer. It all started when he was given the part of a young boy who had to sing, so he started singing lessons. Peter liked going to a youth club and listening to an amateur group which played under the name of The Heartbeats. One day they were short of a lead singer and Herman, or Peter Noone as he was then was, asked to fill in. Later he joined The Heartbeats on a permanent basis and they billed themselves as Herman and The Heartbeats. Of that original group actually only Karl Green remains with The Hermits.

Their big-time careers started when they were heard by Mickie Most, the man responsible for the hits of The Animals and The Nashville Teens, who travelled up to Bolton to hear them, liked what he heard and put them under contract. The result was “I’m Into Something Good” which was a tremendous smash hit.

Following their enormous success in the American charts, it was inevitable that Hollywood would beckon, and beckon with an offer that even the “not wanting to be an actor any more” Herman would find hard to resist. The Hermits have made several small features but their first big-budget picture was made towards the end of 1965 and is due for release in Britain about the time this Annual is published. At the time of writing, very little has been released about the film and even the title seems to be not yet finally decided.

Anything can happen in a picture, of course, but there is little doubt that with Herman in it, the fans will flock to see it.

Reading through this article, one can hardly help noticing that throughout I have referred to Herman in the singular and have made very little mention of The Hermits. This is not so strange really, for I don’t think there is any other group walking the scene in which the other members have attracted less attention. Right from the start of “I’m Into Something Good” the spotlight has been turned entirely on Herman and I think it will always remain there.

The post ‘Enerey The Eighth: Herman and his Hermits appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

Though not planned, I found myself watching a number of 1960s’ shows and there are some I have come to really love. Inspired by the now-defunct TV Minus 50 blog, I spent a month in 1968 and, having thoroughly enjoyed it, decided to spend a lot more time in the decade.

I’m spending a week with each year’s telly – this week, that year. As I don’t possess an actual time machine, there are a few limits on what is available for me to watch – I may not always get to see the exact episode from that day – but, hopefully, there should be something watchable every day.

1960

A lot of the programmes I’m familiar with are from the latter half of the decade. After putting a schedule together from this week’s listings, I realise just how much of a step into the dark this is as I have never seen any of the shows before. How exciting!

This week all of my ITV programmes are coming from Granada and ABC.

18th February
Ivanhoe
Granada

Roger Moore plays a medieval knight doing all the good things knights do. For instance, in this episode, he is escorting a stroppy Irish princess. Having seen a few episodes of The Adventures of Robin Hood, it felt like similar territory watching Sir Ivanhoe gallivanting on horseback in between sword showmanship with bad guys. There seems to be a bit more location work seen in Ivanhoe, whilst the episodes of Robin Hood I have seen are very studio-bound. This occupies a similar teatime slot and I can see the appeal because I find them both great fun. The villains are wonderfully pantomime-style and you are guaranteed action every episode.

19th February
The Four Just Men ‘The Battle of the Bridge’
Granada

It works out nicely that Granada has given me the very first episode this week. Four men who first met during World War Two are brought back together when their former commanding officer dies and leaves them some money, which is to be used to fight injustice. This episode is a flashback to their wartime mission together. Nazis, resistance, fire fights and a bridge being blown up – this was quite something and it is an awful lot to put into the first episode of a series. This is filmic yet they pull it off in a half hour television programme.

The Lone Ranger ‘Bad Medicine’
BBC Television

There are loads of Westerns on this week – at least one most days. The Lone Ranger was action-packed from the start as it opens with two brothers robbing a bank. Our eponymous hero soon sets out after them. Shoot-outs, horse pursuits and a bit of climatic tension all helped to make this gripping. 1960 must have been fantastic if you loved Westerns and clearly quite tiresome if not. I haven’t seen many Westerns and though I enjoyed this, I have the feeling it could all get a bit samey by the end of the week.

20th February
77 Sunset Strip ‘Vicious Circle’
ABC

I would class this as a detective drama, I suppose. A young man is kidnapped and, after the ransom is paid, his father isn’t interested in going to the police, believing it will cause more trouble for him. The son ends up engaging our leads, two private detectives. They are partly assisted by a young lad, who at one point begins combing his hair in the middle of a gun fight. He is clearly meant to be a cool, modern guy but considering a wounded man lay bleeding nearby, I thought this one action made him look a prick. The show is certainly slightly more glamorous than everything else I am watching this week.

21st February
Maverick ‘The Cats of Paradise’
ABC

It’s another Western, although this one was not what I expected. This episode involved a cat lady, theft, murders, and several people who all wanted the Sheriff dead. I quickly warmed to our lead, Brett Maverick (James Garner), who after being fleeced by the cat lady, finds the Sheriff gunning for him. There was not a great deal of fighting and the episode had a fairly light-hearted tone, with Brett providing most of the quips. Maybe I can get on with these Westerns after all.

Face to Face
BBC Television

This week, John Freeman interviews Henry Moore. The name seemed familiar and the description told me Moore was a sculptor but otherwise I knew nothing about him. I have little interest in art yet decided to give this show a go, in part because I’m watching a fair bit of ITV this week. This was actually an interesting look at an interview from that time. After some establishing shots of the room, the camera never left Moore. It was odd to never cut away to the interviewer. I was left wondering if production teams assumed the audience had no interest in the journalist so it would be best to keep the focus on the interviewee. Modern interview programmes tend to be ‘chat shows’ and it is much more of a two-way conversation. The interviewer can make a lot of difference to what we get out of someone. I think I would like to see something in between the two. This was intense, detailed and definitely highbrow.

22nd February
Wagon Train ‘The Tracey Sadler Story’
Granada

It’s a day ending in Y so there is another Western on. After enjoying Maverick so much I had high hopes but Wagon Train left me a little flat. A woman is seeking to get her son back, who was taken from her when she was wrongfully sent to prison for 12 years. It was heavy and emotional and soppy. The one thing I can say is that these Westerns do all seem to vary more than I expected.

23rd February
William Tell
Granada

I knew little about William Tell before watching this. Basically just that he was Swiss and I thought he was sort of like Robin Hood. In the titles, he shoots an apple off a lad’s head with a bow and arrow. He’s in some sort of resistance and sends his mate to get a letter containing a list of names that must not get into the wrong hands. This does not prove easy. It gets hidden in a shoe that turns out to belong to the Lamberger, the big baddie – literally, the fellow is huge. One of the soldiers was played by Derren Nesbitt, whose voice I recognised under his mountains of armour.

24th February
Highway Patrol ‘Detour to Death’
Granada

I felt the title adequately described this programme as in it contains police officers patrolling the highways. The ‘highway’ bit tells us we are in the US so I expected high-speed pursuits with the baddies shooting back at the cops. No such luck. This episode saw the bad guys setting up road blocks with detour signs, then robbing the drivers at knife point. Yet it has to be one of the dullest cop shows I have ever watched. The action just seemed to be so slow, which is never ideal but especially not when it’s only a half hour show. Aside from one fight – and I use the word loosely because it was more of a struggle – there was very little action. The cops must clearly be the regular characters in this but any distinctive character was lacking. I just couldn’t find anything decent to cling to and the programme dragged.

What you could have won – missing and unavailable

Here are some of the listings that intrigued me but I was unable to watch this week.

UNAVAILABLE Spy-Catcher – ‘A series of true stories of the search for spies in wartime based on the experiences of Lt.-Col. Oreste Pinto.’ There were four series of this and, oddly, a couple of radio series were also made and its broadcast overlapped with that of the third series.

UNAVAILABLE Glencannon – I’ve been able to find out little about this sitcom following merchant sailors, which makes me ponder whether it has ever had a repeat. Every episode exists but has never had a release.

MISSING Studio Two – ‘An ABC Advertising Magazine’ this programme invites you to join them for ‘lively shopping information’. I have heard about these advertising shows and would be keen to see one as they were banned within a few years.

UNKNOWN No Passport – ‘Richard Dimbleby suggests a holiday that needs No Passport. A journey to The English Lakes with David Dimbleby and Jonathan Dimbleby. The second of four films to help you choose your holiday.’ Who would pass up the opportunity to see the Dimbleby clan on holiday?

The post Back in time for TV: 18-24 February 1960 appeared first on THIS IS MY 1960s from Transdiffusion.

I’ve been doing this for a couple of years now. Although I was already interested in a few programmes, an enormous influence on me delving into more was the blog TV Minus 50, run by @hellothisisivan. For over two years, TV Minus 50 followed this week’s TV, 50 years ago. It gave me a look at some shows I knew and piqued my interest in several others. I also always enjoyed Ivan’s commentary and since the blog has finished, I have often continued looking back at this week’s TV 50 years ago.

However, I’ve rarely actually watched it that very week. But now. Have spreadsheet. Will watch. For a month at least. I have kept track of my first week in 1968 here so let’s crank up the time machine…

Conveniently, 15 January is a Monday in 2018 and in 1968. We will keep the same days of the week until the end of February when it all falls apart because 1968 was a leap year and 2018 is not.

Monday 15 January

Lunchtime viewing on BBC One brings us Watch with Mother and today is Monday so it’s Andy Pandy. Filmed in the 1950s, Andy Pandy was repeated for years in the Watch with Mother strand. Like several other children’s programmes, by the time all the episodes had been shown the kids watching them had grown up and a new generation had appeared in front of the screen so they could be shown all over again.

These repeats had long since ceased by the time I first peered into the box in our living room. However, I am actually familiar with Andy Pandy because we were lent a Watch with Mother compilation video. Just how this managed to tear us away from Spider-Man or X-Men cartoons, I cannot say, but that video was watched repeatedly.

Unlike several other young children’s programmes from that era, Andy Pandy is lacking a DVD release. If they can manage it for Muffin the bleedin’ Mule and Torchy the Terrifying Battery Boy, dear old Andy certainly deserves one.

It means I am confined to what YouTube offers so today I found Andy Pandy in the garden, playing on his swing. ‘Do you have a swing in your garden?’ I do not but I do occasionally like to go on the one at the park. Teddy arrived and pushed Andy on the swing. Then the narrator didn’t know what Teddy was doing BUT I DID. He was marching because he wanted to do his marching song. Looby Lou appeared in her pram and though Andy and Teddy pushed her, she refused to move or do anything until they had both gone. She clearly wanted all our attention for herself. Soon it was time to go home. Looby Lou disappeared and Andy and Teddy climbed inside the picnic basket.

My revisit to Andy, Teddy and Looby Lou was wonderfully relaxing. There is something about the slow pace of children’s programming that I rather enjoy. The narrator is Maria Bird and I found her voice familiar and comforting. I don’t want to say it looked cheap but my god they got their money’s worth out of this with the years of repeats.

Early evening now and it’s a Hardy Boys’ serial, The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure. I had heard of The Hardy Boys’ books and was aware they were two young American detectives. This serial is from 1956 so it is safe to assume it’s another repeat. Today is part two of nine.

A young girl claims to have had a blanket thrown over her head and her purse stolen, though it is soon recovered after one of the lads finds it. Suspicion soon falls on a young boy, Perry, employed by Mr Applegate. We (but not the Hardys) find out the lad is on probation from reform school, which I’m guessing is a type of young offenders’ institution. With help from another of Mr Applegate’s employees, the Hardys search Perry’s room. They find some stolen items, including the Hardys’ wire cutters, and a hunt is mounted for Perry. Yet when one of the Hardys finds him hiding in a bush, Perry insists he has been set up. We will have to wait until next week to find out more.

I liked this and the child actors are not bad, though nine episodes seems a long time to drag the plot out. Hopefully, it will develop fast soon. The sets are clearly limited. We have had a garden and a lawnmower all inside a studio, which seems a lot more hassle than just filming in a garden. Maybe US series were as studio-bound as some British series.

Tuesday 16 January

In 1968, The Magic Roundabout is on BBC One most days at the moment. Both Andy Pandy and The Magic Roundabout have had modern CGI remakes and these seem to have won the draw for DVD releases over the originals. As with yesterday, this means picking out what YouTube has. Today, Dougal is a film director. I have vague memories of watching The Magic Roundabout as a young child but can clearly see why adults also enjoyed it. The narration from Eric Thompson is wonderful and I’m looking forward to more.

Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons immediately creeped me out due to how realistic the puppets are compared to other Gerry Anderson series. Add in the fact they didn’t blink and I was unsettled from the off. I have the feeling Captain Scarlet is not his real name as he dresses in red and there is also a Captain Blue who wears blue. It feels an impersonal organisation.

I’m not all too sure how I feel about this show yet but I did like the new tank that had been developed. I was impressed with the realistic movement they had managed as the tank moved across a desert landscape, though this was interrupted when this tank managed to soar over an enormous drop without so much as a run-up.

Wednesday 17 January

As much as I enjoy children’s programming, I had been looking forward to my first prime-time programme of 1968: Man in a Suitcase. My time machine went a little awry and threw me a completely different episode. Never mind. Apart from it being an ITC show, I had no idea what I was going into. The first few minutes went well when esteemed actor Peter Vaughan showed up as a baddie. I knew he was a baddie because he was played by Peter Vaughan. He was also covertly transporting a World War II sea mine and this seemed a tad suspect.

Peter Vaughan’s character, Peters, teams up with another couple of blokes to kill a fellow called Masters, who has been blackmailing them. Masters’ wife, Lucinda, is helping them because she wants to leave Masters and go off with Peter Vaughan. Our man of the title, McGill has been employed by Masters as a private eye to try to spot any dodgy people hanging around. Masters tries to blackmail McGill too, refusing to pay him and commenting that he is an ex-CIA agent, which was a nice little bit of series explanation considering this show has been on for several months already. The plotters reckon McGill has already found out too much so decide he will have to be bumped off too.

This episode has a lot going for it. McGill has a fight with Masters’ henchman, Kirk, and manages to keep his cigarette hanging out of his mouth the entire time. That looked cool. Lucinda helps the gang capture McGill who later launches an escape attempt by tripping up and clobbering one of them, then diving out a window. Masters and Kirk turn up and Peters shoots Kirk. It all gets very tense as one of the gang, Harris, is having second thoughts about killing more than just Masters – the only bloke they originally planned on murdering. McGill divides them as he has worked out that Peters has never been blackmailed by Masters. McGill takes his chance to escape by running out the room and diving into the water. He keeps diving underneath to avoid the bullets being fired after him. Masters takes his boat but heads straight for the mine that has been planted.

This was so much fun. Fights, shoot-outs and tension are exactly what I like from my drama. Excitement and action like this are no less than what I have come to expect from ITC, whose output I have previously got to know well through The Saint, The Persuaders, The Prisoner, and, most recently for me, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). I can’t wait for next week’s episode.

Thursday 18 January

My second visit to Gerry Anderson this week is Four Feather Falls. I’ve watched an episode of this before and, as with Captain Scarlet, was put off by the puppets not blinking. The basis of Four Feather Falls is that there is a bloke called Two Gun Tex. He has two guns and four magic feathers in his hat. These enable him to fire the guns without touching them, and also enable him to understand his horse and dog. Very helpfully, the titles explain all of this each episode, as if it would otherwise be unreasonable for a puppet to be able to converse with his puppet animals.

I say this, yet I found myself questioning the realism of this show when two boys, Jake and Makooya meet up. Jake is wearing trousers and a long shirt. Makooya’s full name is Makooya the Little Indian Boy and Makooya is wearing little more than a loincloth. If it is warm enough for him to wear only that, why is Jake not in shorts and short sleeves?

Tex does not have a great deal of screen time in this episode. Instead, we follow Jake and Makooya who go into some caves and are trapped by a baddie when they find some treasure. The episode is only 15 minutes long and the plot fills its slot adequately. Kenneth Connor and Nicholas Parsons are both in the cast list but I clearly wasn’t paying enough attention to pick them up so will have to listen better next time.

Friday 19 January

I feel I know The Man from U.N.C.L.E. well but have actually only seen a few episodes, all from the first couple of series. As a result, finding Ilya Kuryakin with noticeably longer locks in this fourth series was a surprise. Napoleon Solo has not moved with fashion though so remains reassuringly familiar.

Tonight’s episode is a traditional race against time as Ilya is kidnapped, then locked in a gas chamber and Napoleon tries to reach him before the cyanide will. Mr Solo finds a random young lady on the way and together they duck and dive through buildings, rubble and passageways while being shot at by a man with a sniper and a big cat.

The sets in this are huge and we get to see the scale of it thanks to some high angle shots from the top of buildings. These tall blocks also mean the sniper has a perfect view for shooting Napoleon and the tension mounts as the minutes tick by.

Late on Friday night was The Untouchables, a US gangster series set in the 1920s. This sounded so exciting but it never quite grabbed me and I found it rather dull. Too much talking and too many characters – I could barely keep track of what was happening in the opening fifteen minutes.

Saturday 20 January

Teatime on Saturday evening could only mean Doctor Who, so I joined episode 5 of ‘The Enemy of the World’. This is one of the stories that were mostly missing until the rest of them were found a few years ago. I watched it when it was originally released but didn’t actually remember all that much about the plot. From what I gathered from this episode, a chunk of the population have been living underground after a nuclear explosion. Their leader, Salamander, tells them it is not safe to go on the surface so they live a miserable existence on meagre rations below ground. He is lying. The twist of this story is that the Doctor (Patrick Troughton) is the exact double of Salamander. Patrick Troughton is my favourite Doctor and he does a fantastic performance as Salamander, switching marvellously between the two roles.

Next up is George and the Dragon, starring Sid James, Peggy Mount and John Le Mesurier. I had previously come across an interview with Sid James in TV Times to coincide with a new series of George and the Dragon so was interested to see the sitcom. Sid plays George and Peggy Mount is Gabrielle Dragon, both in the employ of John Le Mesurier. I gathered that the Dragon was a housekeeper but I never quite figured out what George was meant to be doing. At the start of the episode, he is attempting to construct a DIY television set but the only channels he manages to pick up are the local taxi and air traffic control. There is an offer on new televisions though so the two of them spend a night trying to ensure they beat the other to the front of the queue for the next morning.

I was a little disappointed in The Monkees as I found it rather low on laughs. In tonight’s episode, the band are visiting the relative of one of them, who, as they arrive, is being fired on by local cowboys. The gang spend the episode defending the home and, er… I’m not entirely sure what else. The programme is clearly intended to be surreal. A couple of them visit a saloon and manage to fool the locals into thinking they are big bad fellas, despite the fact that most of their dialogue is complete nonsense. Maybe that was half the point. It certainly felt like a children’s show, perhaps reminding me slightly of The Goodies. However, I just didn’t ‘get’ this. I’m intrigued enough to give it another go though.

“I hear you have some men with prices on their heads?”

Sunday 21 January

It’s Sunday so there is bugger all decent on the box. Go to church, do your homework, it’s bath night.

Missing and unavailable

What I would like to have been watching if it wasn’t missing or lacking a release.

MISSING: All Our Yesterdays – This programme looks back at what was happening 25 years ago this week. For 1968, this makes it 1943 and the Second World War is reaching a turning point in favour of the Allies. This show always grabs my attention in the listings.

MISSING: Z Cars – Two episodes – parts 1 and 2 – were broadcast each week and I’ve often seen the cop drama praised.

UNAVAILABLE: A Man of Our Times – this stars George Cole, who would achieve success much later with Minder. His character in this seems to be expecting promotion but instead faces redundancy. I know little about this series and am intrigued.

MISSING: Softly, Softly – I got to see an episode of this Z Cars spin-off last year.

MISSING: Public Eye – I love Alfred Burke as private eye Frank Marker and this is the start of the programme’s third series. The first three series have a different tone to those that follow, which makes it all the more a crying shame that out of 41 episodes, only five survive.

In 1968 neither BBC One nor ITV had begun colour broadcasting but as the screenshots above show, some programmes were already being made in colour. It would never have occurred to me if someone else hadn’t suggested it but, strictly, to be watching 1968 telly properly, I should be watching everything in black and white. So, for the first week at least, I did. Due to switching from Granada to Anglia after a couple of weeks, I got to rewatch the episode of Man in a Suitcase and I appreciated the colour immensely. It had felt like dedication. It had also felt a tad obsessive. I enjoyed it.

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SHANE FENTON has made half-a-dozen appearances on “T.Y.L.S.” since that first date in October, 1961, when he appeared with his great group THE FENTONES.

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THE SPOTNIKS [sic] again reflect the space age, and in their strange Space-men costumes they stand in one of “T.Y.L.S.” ‘Out-of-this-world’ sets and play their big hit ‘Rocket Man’.

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THE TORNADOS hit the charts with ‘Telstar’, and not content to go to the top of British charts, rocketed straight across the Atlantic to the apex of the American lists. Here they are pictured during their first appearance on “T.Y.L.S.” in the Birmingham Studio in September, 1962.

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LITTLE RICHARD is another of the American stars who has come in front of ABC cameras, and was a new LITTLE RICHARD quite different from the tremendous boisterous artist of a few years ago. As always, his performance was of the highest standard.

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HELEN SHAPIRO made her very first television appearance on “T.Y.L.S.” shortly after the release of her first big record ‘Don’t Treat Me Like A Child’. Since then, viewers have watched this great girl star introduce hit after hit on the show.

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LONNIE DONEGAN’s cheerful disposition always makes for a happy day in the Studio for the camera crews and technicians, and his individual sound has made him a great favourite of the ‘at-home’ viewers.

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MATT MONRO has already established himself on both sides of the Atlantic as a great singing star. His appearances on “T.Y.L.S.” have served to confirm this stardom.

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JET HARRIS and TONY MEEHAN left the famous Shadows to go their own individual ways. After several months, they teamed up and made their first networked television appearance on “Thank Your Lucky Stars” playing their chart topping ‘Diamonds’.

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CHRIS MONTEZ and his partner, TOMMY ROE, are just two of the many American artists who are introduced to the British public in person by way of “Thank Your Lucky Stars”. CHRIS and TOMMY broke precedence on the show by taking over the entire second half to go through four numbers including TOMMY’s new chart climber ‘The Folk-Singer’. In giant sets facing each other across ABC’s Teddington largest studio, these two happy American stars really made an impression on the Studio and, at-home, audience.

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PETULA CLARK, whose records sell equally well in Britain and on the Continent, frequently flies in from her home in Paris to introduce her latest records on television’s top pop show “Thank Your Lucky Stars”. Her introduction of ‘Ya Ya Twist’ on the programme made it necessary for an English release of this number.

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JOHN LEYTON is one of the new breed of singers who are also actors. In fact, JOHN’s first appearances on television were as ‘Ginger’ in “Biggles” and as a pop singer when he played that type of role in a television play. His latest film, ‘The Great Escape’ with James Garner and Richard Attenborough, will open with a Royal Premier Performance in June. JOHN, however, is better known to “Lucky Stars” viewers as the singer of such top numbers as ‘Cupboard Love’.

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From the time, nearly four years ago, when a young man appeared in the charts singing ‘What Do You Want If You Don’t Want Money’, ABC Television’s programmes have always had a spot for that dapper young man ADAM FAITH. From “Boy Meets Girl” to “Thank Your Lucky Stars”, ADAM has become a great favourist of the Studio crews and his fellow artistes on the programmes. Below, ADAM has a big hug for Janice (‘Oi’ll Give It Foive’) Nicholls.

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FRANK IFIELD (above and left) is the only British singer to top the charts with three successive records – ‘I Remember You’, ‘Lovesick Blues’ and ‘The Wayward Wind’.

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Liverpool born BILLY FURY has become almost a regular star on “Thank Your Lucky Stars”, and has appeared more times than any individual performer. Rocketing to the top two years ago, BILLY is consistently one of the most popular stars of today.

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HI, this is your old mate Brian Matthew inviting you to take a look through the pages of this wonderful book of pictures taken from ABC’s “Thank Your Lucky Stars”, television’s top pop show.

In nearly 100 editions already shown, there must have been almost 1,000 personalities, including nearly every British star and quite a few American top recording artistes.

This book can’t attempt to show off all of these stars to you, but I think that the selection pictured really represents what “Thank Your Lucky Stars” means to me and, I hope, to you.

Happy viewing, and may all your stars be lucky ones.

Published for the proprietors by TV Publications Ltd, Bishop’s House, High Holborn, W.C.1. Printed in England by Berrow’s of Worcester Limited. © TV Publications 1963

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