"Anyway, Bernard, reproduction 'orse brasses was used by 19th century shire ponies and 'ave no relevance whatsoever to medieval courtly life!"

"Anyway, Bernard, reproduction 'orse brasses was used by 19th century shire ponies and 'ave no relevance whatsoever to medieval courtly life!"

The National Theatre Of Brent is one of those well-kept secrets that definitely deserves a wider audience. It consists of a small band of performers but they aim high. And it's the range of their spectacular failures that demonstrate their genius.

The NTOB was founded by its Artistic Director Desmond Olivier Dingle (as portrayed by Patrick Barlow) and his entire acting company - one middle-aged bloke. Over time, this latter role has consisted of various rather confused assistants including Bernard (Robert Austin), Wallace (Jim Broadbent) and Raymond (John Ramm).

We've been lucky enough to see them in the flesh twice (three times if you count the day Desmond was at Bath doin' some readin's from his book 'All The World's A Globe'). The first time was specially memorable, when Lisa actually got involved in the production of 'The Messiah' and had to look after an imaginary donkey. Like you do. And yes, I was very jealous of her good fortune!

Sadly, little of their TV material is readily available, unless you do the online searchin'. We'd snap up a DVD release of 'Mighty Moments From World History' or 'Massive Landmarks Of The 20th Century'. Their radio extravaganzas sometimes turn up on the BBC iPlayer and are well worth lendin' a ear to.

For our feature on them , we chose their examination of King Arthur, which is fairly typical of their style. They done a bit of filmin' outside, much to the bewilderment of passers-by. They done some audience participation stuff and they done a bit where Bernard had to do some divin' but was worried about gettin' the bends.

Some of it is a mad as a brush, and some of it is sheer folly in the scale of its ambition. And now and then it'll surprise you by havin' a scene that is both tender and touchin'...

In short, hurrah for The National Theatre Of Brent and how it is done!

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

"Is alright!"

"Is alright!"

You won't be surprised to learn that I bought 'Mind Your Language' on an impulse. I do that a lot, as you may have gathered.

And I can't stay that I expected much of it, thinking it would be a typically rubbish seventies sitcom.
Instead what I saw was a joyous show that fully embraced the different cultures involved.

Of course there are stereotypes portrayed; the sexy Frenchwoman, the stern German frau, the randy Italian and equally randy Greek.  Along with someone from China who constantly quotes Chairman Mao and the Japanase gentleman with his camera round his neck who bows before he speaks and says "Ah so!".

Then you get Ali and Ranjeet (from Pakistan and India), who do not get on at first but become if not friends, then at least allies by the end of the series.

My absolute favourite character though, is Juan, whose approach to life is laid back in the extreme and whose catchphrase is the title of this blog.

My favourite scene involving Juan shows him telling a joke in Spanish after the class has accidentally become locked into the classroom. The reason the scene works so well, is that even though you cannnot understand the joke (unless you speak Spanish) Juan is so obviously enjoying himself and finding the joke so hilarious, that you do too.

The lead character in the series is Jeremy Brown, the hapless teacher played by Barry Evans, who also starred in the first few 'Doctor...' series. Also featured is Zara Nutley as Miss Courtney, the headmistress who is a bit of a dragon.

Other supporting characters are Gladys, the canteen manager and Sid, the caretaker. Both are interesting people who are played as less racist than they may have been in real life.
One thing that really stands out about the series is the theme tune (which was composed by Max Harris), another really happy element.

Go and look it up I guarantee you'll be humming it for the rest of the day.

In fact, do yourself a favour and watch some 'Mind Your Language'. Hopefully, you'll find it a happy and indeed a funny experience.

(By Lisa Parker)

"If you think a Googol is large, consider a Googolplex..."

"If you think a Googol is large, consider a Googolplex..."

Every now and then we'll cover a series or a person who means a great deal to us, and I was determined to do justice to Carl Sagan and his stunning series 'Cosmos'.

Growing up in rural Dorset, I was blessed with amazingly clear skies in the winter and it was almost inevitable that I would develop an interest in astronomy and an appreciation of the vastness of the universe. But it takes people such as Carl Sagan to communicate the wonders of cosmology to a general audience and 'Cosmos' is one of the definitive documentary series, ranking alongside David Attenborough's 'Life On Earth' and Jacob Bronowski's 'The Ascent Of Man'.

I first came across Carl's genius for holding the attention of an audience with his six Christmas Lectures in 1977, which were themed around the planets. Thankfully, these are available from the Royal Institution website and it was a pleasure to see these again after some 40 years. Blimey, I'm starting to feel old!

The DVD release of 'Cosmos' did not disappoint. Over 13 episodes, Sagan takes us on a journey through the history of astronomy and cosmology. We encounter black holes, two-dimensional universes and chart the lives and deaths of stars. We meet important historical figures such as Tycho Brahe, Hypatia and Aristarchus of Samos. The harsh conditions on Venus and Mars are considered and used to illustrate just how precious life on Earth is.

Carl is passionate about his subject matter and he has an enviable ability to pass on his enthusiasm in an inclusive way. He's fabulous at teaching science with a dash of poetry.  As he says, we are all made of star-stuff and are deeply connected to the cosmos.

As a bonus, he's also rather talented at making whale noises ("Whoop! Uhng! Uhng! Unhg!" - that's part of a whale song in March, apparently!)...

Our article on 'Cosmos' can be heard on Episode Six.

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

"Two pies? How d'ya get two pies...?"

"Two pies? How d'ya get two pies...?"

For Episode Six, we elected to cover the 'Z Cars' episode 'Friday Night' as the producer David E Rose (who was born in Swanage, not a million miles away from us) had recently passed away.
This story is from the first series and features at one point all of the four regulars (Brian Blessed, Jimmy Ellis, Jeremy Kemp and Joseph Brady). But the story mainly focuses on PCs Lynch and Steele and traffic WPC Jenny Stacey. 

'Friday Night' was written by Troy Kennedy Martin and balances both tragic and funny scenes, making it an interesting episode to watch.

There's the death of a young couple in a motorcycle crash, caused by a drunken driver played by Garfield Morgan who will go on to play Regan and Carter's boss in 'The Sweeney'.

This leads to a devastating scene when Lynch and Steele go to inform the young man's mother only to realise that the girl killed was her daughter and that she has lost both of her children.
They also pick up a drunken man and his friend in the car as the drunk (who had retired from his job that day) had smashed a window with his clock.

This leads to some of the comedy as he sits in the back of Z Victor 2, and you can clearly see Jimmy Ellis trying hard not to laugh at his singing and having to cover his mouth at one point. Bear in mind that the series was transmitted live and there was no room for the actors to start corpsing.

Another source of comedy is Grandpa Maddigan played by J.G. Devlin who interacts mostly with Sergeant Twentyman, the station sergeant. We love Twentyman, who is your typical down-to-earth Liverpudlian copper. 

Sadly, Leonard Williams who plays Twentyman died in November 1962, a few days after his 45th birthday. He was later replaced by the equally down to earth Sergeant Blackett, as played by Robert Keegan.

'Friday Night' also features a young William Gaunt as DC Maycock, who might possibly be the great-grandson of Bob Marriott from 'Sergeant Cork', or so we theorized.

If you've never seen 'Z Cars', there are a number of colour episodes currently out on DVD and you can find some of the black-and-white ones without too much searching... Ahem...

And if you'd like to read all about the series you can do no better than reading the excellent books by David Brunt, which are available from Lulu.

(By Lisa Parker)

"A hansom cab... a gas-lit street... and Sergeant Cork!!"

"A hansom cab... a gas-lit street... and Sergeant Cork!!"

Sometimes in our journey through the television archives, we trip over a show that seems have have been utterly forgotten, but we cannot work out why. 'Sergeant Cork' was a long-running series that consistently achieved high standards, yet draws blanks looks from people if you happen to mention it in casual conversation.

We dipped into it with almost no knowledge about what to expect, but within a couple of episodes, we knew we'd hit upon a winner.

First airing in 1963 and starring John Barrie (later to appear in 'Z Cars') as Cork and a terribly young William Gaunt as Bob Marriott, its setting in Victorian London allows for all manner of grimy stories to be told.

These are the early days of detective work and Cork is keen on new-fangled techniques such as fingerprints and photography. He's also very fond of 'stickjaw' toffee.

Created by 'Dixon Of Dock Green' mastermind Ted Willis, it criticizes the upper echelons of society and the class divide. A champion of the downtrodden, Cork doesn't mind who he upsets in his pursuit of justice. The liberal and progessive values of the writers shine through when watching the stories today, and the series definitely deserves a repeat of some sort.

'Sergeant Cork' is very atmospheric; its use of shadows and fog push it towards the gothic on occasion. Episodes such as 'The Case Of The Pious Patriarch' or 'The Case Of Albert Watson, VC' are not afraid to dabble in some very murky waters. The show consistently features excellent guest stars (though Peter Sallis in full Chinese make-up raises a few eyebrows today!) and proved to be a very welcome and worthwhile addition to our DVD collection.

And we should note that 'Sergeant Cork' is the reason why Harry H Corbett's character in 'Carry On Screaming' rejoices in the name of Sergeant Bung...

For our article in Episode Five, we were greatly helped by Warren, who has essentially become our Special Advisor for whenever we cover a police series. His knowledge of the history of the constabulary would prove to be invaluable in later issues...

All six series of 'Sergeant Cork' are available from Network.

You may watch them while eating toffee, if you like!

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

"And now... here's The Gallery..."

"And now... here's The Gallery..."

It's hard to describe how much 'Vision On' meant to children of the 1960s and 70s, but I'll have a go...
Running from 1964 to 1976, and designed to appeal to deaf children, its constant stream of highly inventive visual material fired the imagination of young viewers and is long overdue for a DVD release.

If you were lucky enough to be there at the time, listing a few of its regular elements should provoke all manner of memories. Things that have stuck with me over the years include the flat-capped Digger, who worked underground and dug up all manner of strange objects. The Cuckoo Clock, the Dinosaur and the Tortoise would always be welcome, though there was always something odd about The Burbles, two unseen entities that lived in a grandfather clock (shades of The Master from 'The Deadly Assassin').

Ironically for a series designed for the deaf, stock music and sound effects would also play an important part. Hearing many of the tracks again for the first time in many years, it's amazing how many of them were instantly recognisable.

All sorts of talented people were involved with making ' Vision On'. We have already mentioned vision-mixer turned director Clive Doig, but Patrick Dowling, Tony Hart, Pat Keysell and Sylveste(r) McCoy all make invaluable contributions. And it would be no exaggeration to say that mad inventor supreme Wilfred Makepeace Lunn is one of the reasons I became a scientist.

It's a glorious series that rejoices in the opportunities that televison offers and we cannot recommend it highly enough.

On buying the DVD of 'The Adventure Game' we grinned like idiots when the fast-moving furry snake/worm thing from 'Vision On' made a guest appearance in one episode, but that's the genius of Patrick Dowling for you!

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

“Regenerations remembrances...”

“Regenerations remembrances...”

Episode Five of ‘Round The Archives’ was centred around our trip to the ‘Regenerations’ Convention that took place in Swansea in September 2016.

We had already used Terry Molloy’s interview on the previous episode, so we decided to focus on series that featured people we had seen at the convention.

We were also provided with a brilliant interview by the lovely Jenny Shirt, one of the nicest people we have ever had the pleasure to meet.

Sadly, just as we were preparing the issue Philip Bond (who appeared in the first Dalek story) passed away.  We had asked him about his role in an episode of ‘Sergeant Cork’ that predates his ‘Doctor Who’ appearance.  And we were thrilled when, after a few seconds thought, he asked if that was in the story that featured incest.  Which indeed it was and to learn more you’ll have to listen to the article.  Or possibly read a forthcoming blog entry!

We also covered ‘Space: 1999’ for the wonderful Catherine Schell, who we had the pleasure of meeting and had asked a question about her cats. Sadly, we weren’t able to bring our own cats, Rose and Martha, along to Swansea with us. They spent the weekend at a cat hotel, rather than one for humans.

One of the highlights of the weekend was having our photo taken with Clive Doig and the equally lovely Roger Bunce. 

Clive Doig is one of Andrew’s heroes, having been involved with inventive series such as ‘Vision On’ and is a truly remarkable man. It’s fair to say that he also deserves a blog entry of his own.

Andrew asked if could buy him a drink later, to which Clive Doig looked delighted, claiming that working on ‘Vision On’ had often involved a decent amount of drink! Sadly, the weekend was so packed, we ran out of time to actually follow up on this. But the offer still stands, sir!

We’ve always enjoyed our visits to the various ‘Regenerations’ events. They are friendly and relaxed and also have a wide range of interesting guests.

We were sad to leave on the Monday, but at least when we got home, we think the cats were mildly pleased to see us.

(By Lisa Parker)

“It’s the house, Sir George. It… it heard you... It’s the house that’s gone back…”

“It’s the house, Sir George. It… it heard you... It’s the house that’s gone back…”

When you’re doing a Christmas Special about Christmas Specials, the hardest thing is deciding which ones you should cover. For Episode Four any of the festive editions of ‘The Goodies’ were strong contenders, along with such fare as ‘Yes, Minister: Party Games’.

But a ghost story at Christmas is always a good idea, so ‘The Ghosts Of Motley Hall: The Christmas Spirit’ it was.

It’s possibly my favourite episode of the whole series, and considering the high standards it regularly achieves, that’s high praise indeed.

Oddly, I have almost no memories of watching the show on its original transmission (1976-1978), but the DVD release has merely demonstrated what I missed the first time around.

Motley Hall is a place I’d love to spend a weekend, as all of its ghosts (with the odd exception such as Reg’s Lye’s memorable Old Gory) are really rather friendly. But Christmas sees them feeling rather down, until Motley Hall itself transports them back in time to 1848, in a very subtle and effective transition.

But all is not well in the Hall, as an elemental (the vengeful spirit of a boy trapped in the Yule Log chopped down from the so-called Blasted Beech) has invaded the house, causing anger and resentment amongst the Uproar family. Frankly, the series veers more towards ‘Sapphire & Steel’ rather then ‘Rentaghost’ with plotlines such as this one.

Richard Carpenter’s script provides the talented cast with some excellent material. Freddie Jones (here playing both Sir George and his father Sir Henry) has a touching scene where he meets himself aged 10 and sets in motion his own ambition to become a General.

Also, Arthur English effortlessly shows how talented an actor he was, with a gentle and heartfelt speech to the elemental, where he succeeds in appealing to its better nature.

Watching ‘The Ghosts Of Motley Hall: The Christmas Spirit’ has become a tradition in our house, and I’m not afraid to admit it gets me a bit teary every time. Sheer magic!

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

“That interfering boy!”

“That interfering boy!”

Episode Four of ‘Round The Archives’ was our first and, to date, only Christmas Special.

Amongst the numerous festive trailers and adverts (sorry if you’re still humming the Woolworths one, by the way!) we covered ‘The Box of Delights’.

Now let me be honest, as a child I didn’t much care for the series.

To be fair, I mostly seemed to see it at my nan’s house on a black-and-white television. And always around halfway through, so that there was no sign of the wonderful Patrick Troughton as Cole Hawlings.

But finally seeing it from the start gave me a new appreciation of the story.

It does suffer from the lack of Pat in the middle episodes, rather like when Gandalf disappears halfway through ‘The Hobbit’.

But the glorious Robert Stephens makes up somewhat for the no show of Cole Hawlings. He is wonderful as Abner Brown, the silky villain of the piece.

Robert Stephens is also superb in ‘The Missing Witness’ episode of ‘The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes’ where he plays Max Carrados, the blind detective and titular missing witness.

‘The Box Of Delights’ also features the absolutely wonderful Patricia Quinn as Sylvia Daisy Pouncer. Oddly, when she is introduced, Kay Harker states that she is “a witch” as though this should be something the audience know. The answer to that being that ‘The Box Of Delights’ is a sequel and she first appears in ‘The Midnight Folk’. We did have the pleasure of meeting Patricia Quinn once, and she kissed our ‘I, Claudius’ DVD as it featured a picture of “grandmama” Siân Phillips.

Another great guest star is James Grout as the local Police Inspector who Kay speaks to several times about the devious plans of Abner Brown, but is never believed. He does deliver a great speech about the preparation of a Posset and being a “Bloodhoooooooooooound of The Law”.

And of course, I must mention Quentin and Queenie the wolves, plus the rather surprised looking dog who is thrown into shot at one point..

Although we find the ending a little disappointing, we highly recommend ‘The Box of Delights’.

So pencil in the first episode for the end of November; you won’t regret it.

(By Lisa Parker)

“Acquaintances to the stars…”

“Acquaintances to the stars…”

We’ve never been at the centre of ‘Doctor Who’ fandom, more sort of hanging around on the sidelines. As such, our encounters with those in front of and behind the cameras have been the exception rather than the rule. But occasionally, we’ve been lucky enough to spend some time with some very lovely people.

Fans tend to project their obsessions onto the actors of their favourite shows and can be surprised when the objects of their attentions do not necessarily share their detailed knowledge of individual stories.

Social media has allowed us all to connect with more famous folk and if we’ve enjoyed someone’s performance, we think it’s only polite to say so on occasion. What’s interesting is when you send someone a screenshot of something recorded 40 years ago and they reply: “Oh, is that out on DVD?”. The late Sam Kelly recalled being directed by Voytek in ‘Crown Court’, Lord (Michael) Cashman recognised his very young self in ‘Gideon’s Way’ and Colin Baker still hasn’t added ‘The Mind Of Mr J G Reeder’ to collection, as far as we know… Seriously, buy it, Colin, it’s a wonderful series!

Once or twice, though, we have plucked up our courage and asked whether someone would mind being interviewed. We’ve chosen people who we know have a sense of humour, and will therefore be tolerant of our noticeable lack of professionalism.

So, a big thank-you to Terry Molloy and John Challis. Two fabulous blokes who provided us with some excellent material.

Terry was our first victim at the ‘Regenerations’ convention in Swansea, 2016 and the interview was conducted after we’d all arrived knackered following an exhausting slog to get there. And we were driven there by Warren, so we had no excuse, really!

As an incentive, we’d cobbled together a Goody Bag of tea and biscuits, Terry being a tea connoisseur. We have a cupboard devoted to tea, so we already had some common ground.

We try not to go down the obvious line of questioning, so were very pleased when we ended up talking about Terry’s appearance in Jacob Bronowski’s definite documentary series ‘The Ascent Of Man’.

Subsequent events have revealed Mr Molloy’s memories of watching the overlooked and seriously strange series ‘The Corridor People’. If we ever cover that show, we’d like you to do the article, Terry!

Similarly, when we tracked down John Challis at the Food Festival in Poundbury, near Dorchester, his work on ‘Z Cars’ was our first port of call, rather than ‘Only Fools And Horses’. We seem to have evolved a tradition of bribing John with something made of chocolate whenever we’re in his company. So far, the list consists of a Chocolate Gnome and a Chocolate Penguin, neither of which lasted more than 24 hours in his company…

We really appreciate the help Terry and John have given us with making ‘Round The Archives’ that bit more interesting. Fine fellows both!

(Terry can be heard on Episode Four and John is on Episode Thirteen)

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

“Yes, Mr Callan…”

(Psst, someone tell William Squire he's done his cardy up wrong...)

“Yes, Mr Callan…”

We like to try to vary the series we talk about for ‘Round The Archives'.

Episode Three is a good example of this as I don’t think a government approved killer and a camp hare have anything much in common. Unless Hartley has a secret life he hides very well?

It took us a while to get around to watching ‘Callan’; Warren had kindly bought us the colour episodes one Christmas and they had sat on the pile for a considerable time.  So when I decided we should start watching I immediately bought the black and white episodes, the documentary and the sequel from 1981 (‘Wet Job’). Well, I am a 'Doctor Who' fan and must watch things in the correct order.

The only thing I really knew about Callan was that Russell Hunter was in it as ‘Lonely’ or as my mum referred to him ‘Smelly’.

And indeed the relationship between him and Callan is one of the highlights of the series

For our article we chose ‘The Worst Soldier I Ever Saw’, partially because it was a reconstructed episode.

Network had remade it from the studio tapes, hence the sound effect when a safe is blown up is not there and all you get is the muffled bang on set.  You can also see Edward Woodward is sweating like crazy as he puts his all into the part.  It also features a lovely scene when after he has blown the safe, Lonely says goodbye to the householder and then leaves in a hurry.

I only wish we’d know more about ‘Callan’ when we saw Russell Hunter at a ‘Doctor Who’ Convention in the 90’s, as I would have loved to ask him a question about it.

But if you like gritty spy stories or indeed Edward Woodward or Russell Hunter then I’d recommend ‘Callan’, and of course it’s available from Network…

(By Lisa Parker)

“We’ll be going ‘Out Of Town’ with Jack Hargreaves at 11.30 …”

“We’ll be going ‘Out Of Town’ with Jack Hargreaves at 11.30 …”

Episode Three saw Warren rightly blowing our own local trumpet when we chatted about the output of Southern TV.

Growing up in Dorset in the 1970s, this was our station and many of their shows stick in our memories. They produced a wide range of enjoyable programmes for children, including ‘How’, ‘Freewheelers’, ‘Runaround’, ‘The Famous Five’, ‘The Saturday Banana’ and the sheer brilliance of ‘Worzel Gummidge’.

Although we have covered ‘Worzel’ in Episode Ten, we could do pieces on any or all of the above. At least one of them is on the shortlist for the future…

Southern had all manner of talented people working for them – the above shows feature such names as Jack Hargreaves, Fred Dinenage, Wendy Padbury, Mike Reid, Bill Oddie, Jon Pertwee… And let us not forget Gary Russell memorably giving us his Dick.

But even on the presenting front, there were legends such as Cliff Michelmore, Trevor ‘The Weather’ Baker and Cyberleader par excellence Christopher Robbie.

Jack Hargreaves, for example, is a fascinating figure. Best known to viewers as a broadcaster well-versed in country matters (and arguably the inspiration for ‘The Fast Show’s Bob Fleming) there’s much more to his story than just doing a ship in a bottle every week.

…

Southern started broadcasting on 30^th August 1958 with its fantastic theme music ‘Southern Rhapsody’ by Richard Addinsell, a piece later appropriated by Nick Goodman for his tapezine ‘Rayphase Shift’. The station finally shut down in the early hours of the 1^st January 1982, to be replaced by TVS (who were initially based in some Portakabins in Southern’s car park).

We don’t tend to stay up very late for New Year’s Eve any more, but for the final evening of 2017, we did watch part of Southern’s final show ‘And It’s Goodbye From Us’. As the star logo faded into the night sky and flew off into the universe with a poignant echo, I did feel more than a twinge of nostalgia…

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

“And Hartley Hare…”

“And Hartley Hare…”

I had never seen an episode of ‘Pipkins’ until we watched a few for our article on Episode Three.

At least I don’t think I have… I remember watching ‘Rainbow’ and ‘Jamie And The Magic Torch’, but not ‘Pipkins’

Perhaps it wasn’t shown in my region when I was small or perhaps there was something on the other side that was more enjoyable. I was only five months old when it started, mind you!

I had resisted watching as I had seen the title sequence and the rather ratty looking puppets and thought it looked a bit rubbish, but Andrew had been humming the theme tune a lot and in the end, I decided to take the plunge and buy all of the DVDs.

In the first series George Woodbridge plays Inigo Pipkin, a puppet maker and he makes the puppet characters as the series goes on.

There’s Topov the Monkey, who is so called as he sits on top of things. Pictured above is the first incarnation of Topov (dressed as a banana in the screenshot!) who looks evil and has cold dead eyes. The second version of Topov is much cuter and has Danish pastry ears.  And then you have Pig, who is always hungry. The Pig puppet goes through various forms, but is usually falling apart and at one point has to sport a scarf to cover a huge hole in his neck. In all honesty, it looks more like a zombie pig, out to eat your braiiiiiiins.

Then there is Tortoise, Octavia the Ostrich, Mrs P the Penguin, Uncle Hare and, of course, the wonder that is Hartley Hare.

Hartley is a slightly camp hare and a complete diva. He isn’t happy unless everything is all about him. 

Each puppet has a different accent and a character of their own. Hartley has a received pronunciation accent, Topov is a cockney, Pig is from Birmingham and Octavia is French. Tortoise has no accent as such, but talks very slowly. And the voice Nigel Plaskitt uses for Uncle Hare is the same one he will later use as the country bumpkin version of Unstoffe in the ‘Doctor Who’ story ‘The Ribos Operation’.

The title sequences are very funny; the first one features George Woodbridge beckoning you into his shop, setting up his puppet booth and then lots of scared looking children. For a later version the 'Pipkins' van drives about to the utter bewilderment of the child onlookers.

‘Pipkins’ is a fun show and deals with subjects that are not normally talked about on children’s television, including the death of Mr Pipkins. Though Pig’s major concern is who will feed them.

It’s a fun series that doesn’t talk down to its audience. And I think small (well, smaller) me would have liked it.

All the DVDs are available from Network.

(By Lisa Parker)

“Missing presumed wiped. Unless they find it in some old bloke’s shed…”

“Missing presumed wiped. Unless they find it in some old bloke’s shed…”

We can’t claim to have planned it that way, but it’s interesting how Episode Three of ‘Round The Archives’ mostly talks about series that have more than a few missing episodes. Maybe we should have just called it Episode Four and claimed that Three was itself missing?

Our article on ‘Pipkins’ was greatly helped by consulting Uncle’s Programme Guide and Tortoise’s Tape List on pipkins.net which provided the sort of detail we always love. Hurrah for the Philips N1500 format and no mistake!

We also covered ‘Callan’, which admittedly has a better survival rate than some shows, but still has a number of gaps from its early years. Our chosen episode was ‘The Worst Soldier I Ever Saw’, an episode which was reconstructed from the existing studio recording.

In the interview bits (and again, it was nothing more simple coincidence) Nick talked about what ‘Doctor Who’ and ‘Doomwatch’ he would like to see returned and Warren, enthusing about the output of Southern TV, touched upon ‘Freewheelers’.

Happily, Episode Three was recorded at the time of the Kaleidoscope announcements of all sorts of things coming back, including ‘The Avengers: Tunnel Of Fear’ and the two ‘Z Cars’ stories ‘Family Feud’ and ‘Affray’. These recoveries were most exciting and we would be very interested if someone could release Season One of ‘Z Cars’ on DVD.

Here’s hoping that 2018 will see some more material being returned to the archives. Fingers crossed! Though it does make typing on this keyboard a little difficult…

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

"Please look after this bear…"

"Please look after this bear…"

As you may have heard if you have listened to the ‘Paddington’ article on Episode Two of ‘Round The Archives’, I am very fond of Paddington Bear

This is partially because it is the first book that my parents gave me after I learned to read and partially because I identify with Paddington.

Obviously, I am not a bear nor do I come from Darkest Peru, but like Paddington I try to be helpful and believe the best in people. Also like Paddington I am a bit accident prone.

For instance, whilst turning over Andrew’s tea last week I managed to drop it all on the floor, leading to him not be able to eat it and to have to get something else. I should say that mine was fine.

I have numerous copies of the Paddington books and numerous Paddington Bear toys, the most recent one being a giant one that scared my cat Martha when I bought it home. It still occasionally startles her when she bumps into it or turns to find it behind her unexpectedly (in her mind at least).

And my other cat Rose can give an excellent Paddington hard stare. I’ve really enjoyed the two film adaptations and came out of the most recent one feeling that if everyone was like Paddington then the world would be a nicer kinder place.

So, thank you Michael Bond for all of your lovely books and for creating a character that I have taken to my heart and will always love.

(By Lisa Parker)

“You want seconds?!”

“You want seconds?!”

We were surprised and delighted (as the old saying goes) to hear that people had actually enjoyed listening to Episode One. To get positive feedback from people whose work we respect was simply wonderful. It seemed that there was an audience for our nonsense, so we soon turned our attention to our difficult second album.

Thankfully, for Episode Two we already had more of Nick’s interview available and our dear friend Warren Cummings was more than happy to have a chat with us as well. So the ball was already rolling.

Lisa was keen to talk about ‘Paddington’ and we’d been watching far too much ‘3-2-1’ recently, so that was an easy choice for our final article. In fact, the first episode of ‘3-2-1’ is hypnotic viewing, especially when they unveil the St Bernard dog (“£150 he’s worth. If you wouldn’t have wanted him, we could have sold him back to the kennels, of course. You’d have got £150…”) and year’s supply of brandy we that Janice Long might have won!

Also, we’d discovered the wonder that is BBC Genome, which has proved itself to be an essential research tool. So we set the coordinates for the first week of 1976 and took a wander through the schedules, not quite knowing what we might stumble across.

Slowly we seemed to be evolving an identity and something approaching a format. Which was nice.

And, more ominously, the list of series we wanted to cover seemed to be getting longer and longer…

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

“I salute thee…”

“I salute thee…”

As part of ‘Round the Archives’, we quite often cover a programme in tribute to someone involved who may have recently passed away. Or in the case of Dudley Simpson, the legendary composer for ‘Doctor Who’, ‘Blake’s 7’ and ‘The Tomorrow People’, we talked about his music and how it made us feel.

This means we get to watch many things that we cherished as children.

In the case of Brian Cant we re-watched some episodes of ‘Trumpton’, ‘Camberwick Green’ and ‘Chigley’ to listen to his wonderful narration. We also watched some bits and pieces of ‘Play School’ and ‘Playaway’ and it bought back many lovely memories and made us all feel happy.

We also tried to watch things in tribute to people that our listeners wouldn’t necessarily expect, so for John Hurt we watched him in an episode of ‘Gideon’s Way’.

Sometimes we just do a tribute to people without watching anything in particular, as in the case of Deborah Watling, where we talked about her role as Victoria Waterfield in general and memories of meeting and seeing her at conventions.

One of our more interesting choices was to cover the ‘Raffles’ episode ‘To Catch a Thief’ to celebrate Robert Hardy which features on Episode 14. It’s a great story with a superb performance by Robert Hardy and I urge you to seek it out and watch it.

Although we might be watching these episodes in sad circumstances we always enjoy them, and it usually makes us remember why we like the actor and series.

Andrew says that I always say at the end of these articles that I salute the person we are talking about and he’s right, I do probably over use it.  But in most cases I do mean it. I do salute them for all the lovely performances they’ve left for us to watch or listen to.

For the ‘Doctor Who’ people who passed away in 2017, Toby Hadoke has produced this lovely video.

(By Lisa Parker)

“Silence in court!”

“Silence in court!”

Although we freely admit that we were pretty much making up the running order of Episode One as we went along, we had always planned to feature ‘Crown Court’. It’s one of those series that we’d dipped into out of curiosity which soon proved itself to be full of surprises.

Lisa was born in 1972 and was interested in seeing some material from then for her 40^th birthday. So we took the plunge and ordered the first DVD set from Network. Frankly, we didn’t have high expectations, regarding it as early afternoon filler material, but the series soon proved itself to be much more ambitious and entertaining that one might think.

‘How To Rob A Memory Bank’ was our chosen example story for Episode One, though there were many other ones we could have highlighted. We were able to find the ‘TV Times’ listings online quite easily, which encouraged us to do this sort of research in the future.

It features a remarkable guest performance from Jack Shepherd, and even has its own special computer font for the some of the captions.

The sheer range of stories that ‘Crown Court’ attempts is very impressive. There’s even a surrealist one in the form of ‘An Upward Fall’ which has to be seen to be believed…

With 879 episodes to enjoy, we look forward to discovering new cases for many years to come!

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

Episode 18 of 'Round The Archives' is now available.

Episode 18 of 'Round The Archives' is now available.

Episode 18  sees us examine our favourite stories from 'Doctor Who' Seasons 1-6 and 22-26 with help from Warren. We chat to Russell Pengelly about comedy and being a Fraggle. We pay tribute to director Paddy Russell and composer Dudley Simpson and Warren unexpectedly faces 'The Thargon Menace'.

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

“I wanna tell you a story…”

“I wanna tell you a story…”

One of the first things I talked about on ‘Round the Archives’ was ‘Tell Me Another’, which was then being shown on Talking Pictures TV.

It’s basically a half hour show produced by Southern, in which different celebrities talk to writer Dick Hills about various subjects.

Warren kindly gave me the DVD of Series One and Two of ‘Tell Me Another’ for Christmas and I watched the whole of the first series over the course of one weekend.

It features a wide range of guests including Arthur Askey, Jimmy Jewell, Ted Ray, Michael Bentine and a certain Jon Pertwee.

He tells all of his usual stories, which you will have heard if you ever had the pleasure of hearing his one man show or seen him at a ‘Doctor Who’ convention.

Many of these stories feature the mispronunciation of his surname.  One featuring a stage door keeper in New York, who referred to him as Jan Putrid. Thinking that the man was talking to someone else Jon carried on walking, only to be called again: “Hey, you! Jan Putrid! Letter for you!”. It sounds better from the original source, of course.

There is also a complicated story from Michael Bentine about his early war service as an ARP volunteer, which included a stint manning an ambulance that went terribly wrong… Again, it must be heard from the original source for the full effect.

So, if you are interested in the stars of light entertainment and variety from the mid-20^th century then I’d advise you to give it a go.

(By Lisa Parker)

"With a little help from our friends..."

"With a little help from our friends..."

In planning Episode One we were very keen to involve our old chum Nick Goodman as he's a sterling chap with a wide knowledge of classic television. Not only that though, as he's highly experienced in audio and video productions. His 'Doctor Who' tapezine 'Rayphase Shift' ran from 1989 to 1996 and was always a pleasure to work on and listen to. Also he's written and produced all manner of amateur films (well, videos if we're being pedantic!) and has been releasing them on DVD in recent years.

These days, we don't get to meet up as often as we'd like, but we had been invited to record a DVD commentary for his 'Tide Of Freedom' and Nick was able to come round to our place with his impressive equipment. Ooer!

Now a confession. The above picture (which may be familiar to regular listeners) is a bit of a fake. It's not us recording 'Round The Archives', but a slightly staged picture of us after we'd done the 'Tide Of Freedom' commentary. But it is us and it is our sofa, before anyone asks!

We'd jotted down a few subject headings and questions for Nick's interview and just nattered away. As always, Nick provided some highly interesting and entertaining material which meant we were off to a flying start. So all praise to the Goodman!

Bonus material:

We have recently found a piece of paper with the unused draft introduction to Episode One which goes something like this...

"Hello and welcome to what is a bit of an experiment. I'm Andrew Trowbridge. And I'm Lisa Parker. And we must confess that we've bought far too many DVDs over the years...

This podcast is going to about some of the many and varied TV shows in the BBC and ITV archives that we've been watching. It will mainly feature 60s, 70s and 80s shows, some of which are quite famous, but others that have been totally forgotten. Hopefully, we'll be able to entertain you along the way...

So this week, we have been mostly watching... 'Zodiac'!"

Which, considering that we finally did 'Zodiac' in Episode Eight, proves how long-term this project is turning out to be!

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

“Do I really sound like that?”

“Do I really sound like that?”

I’ve always thought it would be nice to sound like Gladys Pugh from ‘Hi-De-Hi’ -  that musical Welsh lilt that sounds so soothing.

But I don’t, and it was quite a shock the first time I heard myself back. I have a Essex accent, I suppose, as that’s where I was born.

I’ve been told that I sound posh and speak quite nicely. I’m not sure that I’d describe myself as posh, but I think years of watching the BBC have taught me to speak vaguely clearly.

And having heard myself on ‘Round The Archives’, if I have to do an announcement at work it’s not quite so much of a shock. Perhaps I should give ‘RTA’ a plug whilst I’m on there.

So I may not be Gladys Pugh, but I’m quite happy with the way I sound. Cor blimey, guv’nor!

(By Lisa Parker)

(Note: Maplins bags available from @claytonhickman)