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PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
Tales of Television Centre
21.00, BBC4
We have no hesitation in suggesting that this will be the best programme about old telly for absolutely ages, maybe since TV Hell. For a start, it’s produced by former Blue Peter editor and all round top Creamer Richard Marson who absolutely loves old telly and has come up with hundreds of obscure and amazing clips. It’s a luxurious ninety minutes full of anecdotes and stories about the greatest building in Britain, and never mind the papers just picking out the rude bits, it’s going to be fantastically evocative and entertaining viewing. We can’t wait. It also makes up part of The Best Night Of Old Telly Ever with a double bill of Pops 77 at half seven and half eight (and back to back in extended form at 11.20), and at eight it’s a complete episode of Blue Peter from November 1974 marking Petra’s birthday and touring TV Centre. Brilliant!
20 small tales of Television Centre
Posted in: Cream over Britain
On Thursday, May 17, BBC4 brings us a superb, 90-minute documentary, Tales of Television Centre. Here are 20 brilliant things about it.
1) Joan Bakewell calls Television Centre a “jewel box of activity”
2) There’s a people-being-stopped-by-the-Television-Centre-commissioner montage
3) Esther Rantzen confiding “walking into Television Centre meant sparkle time!”
4) Philip Glenister recalling visiting the Dr Who studios when he was nine years old. “My abiding memory was, ‘My God, that’s cheap!’”
5) A clip of Sarah Greene’s mum in Z Cars
6) Judith Hann recalling the time she had to share her dressing room with an otter that was scheduled to appear on Blue Peter
7) Sarah Greene (again) revealing what she and Smitty did in Dressing Room 2.
8) John Craven: “I was told Television Centre was built in a circle so the buck couldn’t stop.”
9) Clive Dunn on It’s A Square World dressed up as Dr Who William Hartnell.
Click for our guide to TVC
10) The on-screen caption font is the old slopey BBC-tv typeface.
11) The brandishing of an ornate ‘TS’ card for recalcitrant production staff – the letters standing for ‘Tough Shit’.
12) Maggie Philbin’s revelation about what a BBC make-up girl did to her.
13) Behind the scenes footage from Eureka.
14) Katy Manning: “People were bonking all over the BBC!”
15) Eric ‘n’ Ern teasing Graeme Harper in a BBC lift and branding him ‘Choochie Face’.
16) Robert Powell inviting all of Pan’s People out for dinner – because he didn’t have the nerve to ask Babs alone.
17) “Merry Christmas VT!”
18) Johnny Ball’s revelation about Rick James and co.
19) How it was arranged for the BBC fountain to be switched on during the tap-dancing routine to raise money for Action Research For The Crippled Child.
20) A perfect choice of closing music.
PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
The Unforgettable Noele Gordon
19.30, ITV1
It wasn’t all Meg for Nolly, as her TV career actually started before the war, and she even appeared in the early colour telly experiments mounted by John Logie Baird himself. Later she became “women’s programme adviser” at ATV which wasn’t the desk job it sounds but more or less a golden handcuffs contract that saw her present myriad chat shows and ad-mags in the early days of ITV, before 1964 saw her appear in some soap or other where we hear her schoolboy son wasn’t much use and she was expecting a Spanish cook. Here’s all of that, but mostly Crossroads, in 22 minutes.
PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
Family Fortunes
18.00, Challenge
Now, we’ve had trouble with this channel in the past not showing what’s been promised, but we can confirm that thee are indeed Lord Bob episodes, because they’ve just bought them again along with, of all things, Max episodes as well. They’ve shown the Monkhouse masterclass before on this channel, but that was ages ago, long before it was on Freeview, so here’s a rare chance to enjoy those wild violins, the pocket watch, the colour photo for the winner and the monochrome one for the losers, the questions on the screen “for the benefit of those who cannot hear my voice” and “Name It!” again. In fact this channel is really perking up at the moment with the new Blockbusters at eight and those rather strange early Bullseyes at half eight.
PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
56 Up
21.00, ITV1
One of the low points of the recent history of ITV was when they decided they didn’t want 42 Up and let the Beeb show it, but happily the series is now back safe and sound on the light channel and that’s great to know because it’s such a telly landmark. There are three parts this time, and we hear that Michael Apted and the team have brought together more of the original fourteen than ever before.
PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
The Lost World of the Seventies
22.00, BBC2
We heard about Sir Walter Walker on Dominic Sandbrook’s seventies series the other week, the paranoid right-winger who set up his own private army to take over the running of Britain if the balloon went up, and here he is again as Mike Cockerell takes a look at Walker and some other larger than life – ie, demented – people like Lord Longford and James Goldsmith who could be trusted to liven up an otherwise mundane episode of Nationwide with their barking mad opinions.
PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
Top of the Pops
22.00, BBC2
In lieu of any better ideas, BBC2 have gone off to BBC4 and asked to borrow one of their Pops 77 repeats, which is all very well but it seems BBC4 have just grabbed whichever one was nearest to hand as this is the Noel-fronted episode from mid-January with Slade doing a flop, Jesse Green dancing like Brucie, Noel staring intently at a video of 10cc and, yes, Gary Glitter. Great fun if you haven’t seen it but for those of us who have stuck with this repeat run week in week out, it’s not one of the best. Not just in terms of music, either, in terms of it being plain bonkers.
PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
Mastermind
19.30, BBC2
We’ve spent so long banging on about the scheduling of this show we’ve barely mentioned the fact there’s actually been a competition going on, and at last we’re at the final, where we think they bring back the chat so that’s all to the good. Tom Lehrer is the pop culture subject and the History of Azerbaijan is the comically obscure one.
PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
2Day
07.00, BBC Radio 2
For the second year running, it’s time for Radio 2 to shuffle the schedules and put different presenters in different combinations to illustrate the breadth of their output for a daytime audience. We’ve always been a sucker for this kind of thing, especially as it reminds us of how in the late eighties on Christmas Eve every single presenter on the network used to get half an hour to play their own choice of records. There’s some great pairings promised, starting in fine style at seven with Graham Norton and Nigel Ogden, followed by Zoe Ball with Dave Pearce and Dangerous David Jacobs. Later we’ve got Tony Blackburn and Mark Radcliffe, Trevor Nelson and Brian Matthew and the amazing combination of Vanessa Feltz and David Rodigan, and while some of it will doubtless sound a bit ropey, it’s a brilliant idea and should be good fun.
PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
Watching Ourselves
20.00, BBC1 Scotland
Last week we neglected to bill this in Creamguide for a second time, which just sums up the England-centric bollocks this proud nation has to put up with. It was a good one, too, well worth checking out on iPlayer, as it was about sport with some amusingly crap title sequences, a hilarious clip of Jock Wallace swearing and the utterly brilliant clip of Jim McLean punching a reporter in the face which you can’t see often enough. This one’s about Scotland out of doors.
PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
How Sweet The Sound – The Amazing Grace Story
22.00, BBC Radio 2
We mentioned the other week that the version of this by The Pipes and Drums of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards which inexplicably reached the top spot in 1972 must be the dullest number one in the history of the charts, and we’re sure it must be the oldest piece of music ever to get there, having been written more than two hundred years old. It’s clearly something of a phenomenon, mind, with Judy Collins’ cover we recall being a fixture in those lists of biggest selling and longest running records in the Guinness Book of British Hit Singles, and here’s Candi Staton, of all people, telling us why it’s so big.
PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
Britain Beware
22.15, ITV1
The Central Office of Information closed down the other month so here’s a suitable tribute with this compilation of that ultimate Creamy medium, the Public Information Film. Of course the Charley Says video, and later the DVD, have been fixtures in the Creamer’s collection for many years – in fact a tracklisting for it was one of the first things ever on this website – so no doubt these’ll be fairly familiar, but always nice to see them again. Although to be honest this is a bit too close to bedtime, so let’s hope host Ade Edmondson reminds us not to have nightmares at the end.
PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
The Many Faces of Alison Steadman
21.30, BBC4
There’s a new drama on BBC4 tonight starring Alison Steadman, so that’s reason enough to devote a mini-theme night to her honour. You’ll have seen thisjust last Christmas but at half past ten it’s Nuts in May, which is always a treat to see, and we recall the first time we saw it was as part of At Home With Vic and Bob at Christmas 1993. Less over-exposed than Abigail’s Party, and just as ace.
PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
Pick of the Pops
13.00, BBC Radio 2
An extended three hour show this week, seemingly because there’s a live broadcast from Cheltenham Jazz Festival later but also just sold as some bumper Bank Holiday fun. Something for everyone, then, with three charts for the price of two, to wit 1965, 1974 and 1984.
PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
QI
22.00, BBC2
And inevitably just as we get to the final of Mastermind, they take it off for the snooker. Brilliant. Anyway, we’d stopped billing QI as a rule but we’ll draw your attention to this because you may recall that at the end of the last series an episode featuring with Clarkson was dropped at the last minute, though the Beeb said it had nothing to do with what he said on The One Show and they were simply changing the order – except there weren’t any other episodes to show so they ended up bunging on a repeat from about six weeks earlier. In any case, now the dust has settled, here it is, quietly flung out with no publicity as part of a repeat run. In addition, if you’re reading this on the day it comes out, the episode on Friday 27th, although it was always supposed to be cast adrift from the rest of the run as it’s a Shakespeare Special. Although they put clips from it on the best of they showed at Christmas. This isn’t even quite interesting, is it?
Index, linked
Posted in: A bit of business
We’re going to be updating the whole of TV Cream very soon. However, in the tidying-up that’s been going on around that, we’ve done a long overdue spot of filing and finally indexed our ever-popular Films and Bric-a-Brac sections.
So, for some Film Fun, from 10 Rillington Place to Zulu Dawn click here.
And for some Bric-a-Brac-based badinage, encompassing Active Learning all the way to Zigger Zagger, click here.
PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
Top of the Pops
19.30, 23.30, BBC4
We’ve had a run of half hour shows in recent weeks but now it’s time to start recording the late showing again – which the Beeb have thoughtfully moved a bit earlier – because we’re back to forty minutes or so. Don’t forget too that Yes It’s Number One is your first port of call for everything devoted to these repeats, especially as the comments box for the show before last where Brendon’s bassist turned up and even provided some original camera scripts.
PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
The Unforgettable Hughie Green
19.30, ITV1
You can’t really go wrong with a profile of Hughie Green, such was his larger-than-life personality, and any opportunity for another airing for Stand Up And Be Counted. There’s loads of other fascinating stuff about Hughie, such as how he applied for an ITV franchise for London during one of the franchise rounds which would be on seven days a week, even though that wasn’t on offer, because five days wouldn’t be long enough to spread his message. Also his role as “Consultant” on Bob Knocks appears to have been simply paying him as much money as he wanted not to turn up or get involved in anything to do with it. Among those passing comment are Michael Grade and Bobby Eighteen Year Old Office Boy Crush.
PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
Ray Charles – Man and Music
22.00, BBC Radio 2
If Radio 2 have to broadcast more repeats than before, we suppose it makes sense to broadcast programmes from ages ago, hence this two-part profile, the second of which is tomorrow, from 2000. Although presumably they’ll have to update the end given he’s died since then.
PICK OF THE DAY
Posted in: From Creamguide
The Seventies
21.00, BBC2
Last week we enjoyed seeing clips from Anne and Mark’s wedding because that Royal union doesn’t seem to be quite as well remembered as some of the others, although we were disappointed they cut off Cliff Michelmore just before “You’re goan doublet? I doan believe ya!”, as mentioned in Clive James’ book. We know this programme isn’t really about that, mind. Tonight we’ve got another of our favourite seventies moments, the drought. Like now, of course, except there weren’t a million people doing sub-Clarkson routines about how it’s raining now. After that it’s a dull Sounds of the Seventies on folk rock.