Episode 33 now available!

Episode 33 now available!

Episode 33 (RTA033) sees us take a trip to Chigley, where Tim Worthington joins us to discuss how Mister Antonio got involved with arranging 'A Present For Lord Belborough'.

Martin Holmes takes a look at a 1977 publication about  'Doctor Who' Companions, then Bob Fischer and Andrew T Smith conclude their chat about 'Last Of The Summer Wine'.

Nick Goodman considers the forthcoming Dalek books by Eric Saward along with the animation of 'The Macra Terror' then Simon Exton & Ken Moss of 'The ExtonMoss Experiment' podcast review the pilot episode of 'MacGyver'.

Episode 33 of 'Round The Archives' can be heard here.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)

(Episode 33 cover by Martin Holmes)

It Pays To Advertise your Duel

It Pays To Advertise your Duel

Blake might be a dedicated freedom fighting, striving to overthrow a corrupt system, but he still can't draw for toffee.

His attempt in 'Duel' (also known as 'Oval' if you read the 'DWB' guide to 'Blakes 7' viewing figures) to draw a tactical diagram of the relative positions of the Liberator and Travis' 'pershoot' (sic) ships actually ends up looking like the winking face of a clown.

But this is the only one done by Douglas Camfield, and we must applaud his attempts to make the whole thing visually interesting, even if the circular multi-coloured thing used when Blake's chopper appears does seem to later turn up in 'Chockablock'.

As usual, we had great fun with our weekly dose of 'Blake' and our YouTube video has a couple of quotes that we feel are worth preserving, if only for their slight air of oddness.

Meanwhile, at Grace Brothers, we were so concerned with where Miss Brahms got her Bugs Bunny-style carrot from in the end credits that we totally failed to mention the director credit for Bob Spiers.

How much Mister Humphries based his director persona on Bob is debatable, but he seems to work quite well with his cameraman, even if the whole thing is a bit of a shambles with Mister Grainger having difficulties in his trouser region.

The Spike Milligan advert that Young Mister Grace talks about where he (Spike, that is, not Young Mister Grace!) jumps through the bottom of a boat is a commercial for Benson & Hedges and also features Peter Sellers. You'll find it in the YouTube place, as we did.

So farewell then, Mister Grainger, you will very much be missed. We will raise a cocktail shaker in your honour!

Now, who's this Mister Tebbs we've heard about, then? We wonder what sort of cakes he likes?

Our video about 'Duel' can be seen here.

Our video about 'It Pays To Advertise' can be seen here.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)

The Enemy Of The World Episode 3

The Enemy Of The World Episode 3

A flurry of activity in Norway yesteday saw the stats for the 'Round The Archives' podcast beat its previous monthly record, with over 400 listens registering.

It's always good to see the y-axis of the graph having to rescale itself, but I'm almost having to stop mysef from going mad and releasing Episode 33 before the end of February. Though it would be nice to get through the magic 500 barrier, which is our next big milestone.

I'm not sure whether Griffin the chef would be impressed by this news, however. But then my inability to peel spuds would at least give him something to complain about.

Even to this day, I can't help thinking about Episode 3 of 'The Enemy Of The World' as being The One That Exists, as that's effectively been its status for about 90% of my life. Even though, of course, the mssing episodes were never really missing, just misplaced.

But Reg Lye's turn in the kitchen is one of those that sticks in the mind and Lisa much prefers him to Gordon Gostelow in 'The Space Pirates'.

So, we've decided that his apperance as Old Gory in 'The Ghosts Of Motley Hall' will be the subject of our non-'Doctor Who' chat for this story. And as a bonus, there's a 'Sapphire & Steel' link there, too...

So we'd better break out the Kaiser pudding in celebration!

Our video about 'The Enemy Of The World' Episode 3 can be seen here.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)

Goodbye Mr Grainger

Goodbye Mr Grainger

All we can think is that there's been a directive from (raises eyes heavenwards) Head Of Comedy level.

It's April Fools Day 1977 and someone must have had a word with the 'Are You Being Served?' production team, telling them to get more colours onto the screen at once.

Suddenly, the logo is rendered in a garish blue and Mr Humphries is flogging a red thing to a bloke  whilst shamelessly displaying his orange and green pants for all to see.

'Goodbye Mr Grainger' also sees Mr Harman showing off his ability to do atmospheric lighting when he turns them all off except a carefully-positioned spotlight that just happens to be in the right place when Mr Grainger wants to sit down on a chair and write his resignation letter.

Arthur Brough will be back for his final appearance next week, but he gets to oscillate between crabby and friendly here and we'll miss him when he's gone.

On the 'Round The Archives' front, we've now recorded all the main material needed for Episode 33, but the way we've done one item means that there's more editing needed thsn usual.

Hopefully it'll all come together and in the meantime we must thank Tim Worthington for helping us do some good work on Thursday night. We've been meaning to do something with him for ages and we hope to repeat the experience at some time in the future.

But you'll have to wait until March before you get to hear the full details of our concerns about what yellow ice lollies are actually made of...

Our video on 'Goodbye Mr Grainger' can be seen here.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)

Mission To Destiny (and more)

Mission To Destiny (and more)

Honestly, we're rubbish at talking about scientifiction things sometimes.

Early on in our chat about 'Blakes 7 : Mission To Destiny', I correctly note that viewers of 'Grange Hill' might recognise Mister Hopwood sitting at the flight deck of the good ship Ortega.

Except that the best I can come up with to describe his location is the vague term 'driving room'.

Which, in our house, is currently the living room, as I'm getting to grips with the Xbox game 'Forza Horizon 4' in which I can safely drive like a maniac whilst listening to classical music. And I may have got myself a special number plate that I'd never dare use in real life...

In other news, we've continued our look at 'The Enemy Of The World' during which I calmly turn to Lisa and invite her to talk about food tasters and poisoning in general, knowing that she's been reading a book about this very subject. We like to cover a wide range of subjects as we go along, if only to justify buying more volumes to add to our unfeasibly large Book Tower.

And Episode 32 of 'Round The Archives' has been doing very good business since its release, with another new country under our belts as it registered our first listen in the Bahamas.

We might sit on a sofa to do all this, but it's an increasingly well-travelled sofa!

Our video about 'Mission To Destiny' can be seen here.

Our video about 'The Enemy Of The World' Episode 2 can be seen here.

And Episode 32 of 'Round The Archives' can still be heard here.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)

Episode 32 now available!

Episode 32 now available!

Episode 32 sees Martin take a look at the first episode of 'Poirot' starring David Suchet. We welcome on board Bob Fischer and Andrew T Smith to talk about their love for 'Last Of The Summer Wine'.

Paul and Nick examine the series 'Maggie And Her', then Warren joins us to review the last two episodes of 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum'.

And after over 30 episodes, we finally admit the debt we owe to 'Round The Horne'...

Episode 32 of 'Round The Archives' can be heard here.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)

Take-over

Take-over

Mr Harman really is invaluable, but he never seems to get the thanks or recognition that he deserves. When Grace Brothers gets an approach from the Bristol area, he's the only one who comes up with a sensible plan, and his impassionsed speech to the assembled shareholders is ultimately what saves everyone's bacon.

The boardroom has regenerated again, so we can only assume that Young Mr Grace has a hidden control panel that changes the desktop theme, providing yet more circumstantial evidence that he's far more than just another store owner. We will return to this when we get to the tricky area of Old Mr Grace, but we have a workable theory in that department.

And speaking of departments, it's increasingly obvious that the Ladies & Gents are the only area that matters, as we never see anyone else called upon in these dire circumstances. Mr Rumbold is rightly involved, but where are the other executives? Are they not concerned about their future?

Mr Humphries shows off more hidden talents as he comes up with some culinary marvels that tax John Horton's effects expertise. The souffle and Yorkshire puddings are frightening monstrosities that would be more at home on Wendy Craig's table in 'Butterflies'.

We always like it when the cast are having so much fun that they cannot help laughing and Mr Grainger's appearance with his Trump-like wig pushes Trevor Bannister well over the edge. Miss Brahms has got her new teeth from the Joke Department and Captain Peacock's trousers are far too short.

'Take-over' is a very entertaining episode and the show definitely seems to be on a roll at the moment. Changes are looming on the horizon, so we'll be sure to treasure Mr Grainger whilst we've still got him.

Our video about 'Are You Being Served? : Take-over' can be seen here.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)

Seek - Locate - Destroy

Seek - Locate - Destroy

Our viewing of 'Blake's 7' continues and Supreme Commander Servalan & and Travis are here at last! That's fabulous, of course, but it's the Liberator crew's shiny new Space Anoraks that have got us thinking this time.

Now, the actual origin of their magical craft is still a mystery, but the implication is that the wardrobe room is massive, with racks of these coats in all different colours and every possible size.

So our most pressing question is a very simple one : how much bickering was there about who got to wear which colour?

And this leads us on to the inevitable supplementary question :  who actually made them in the first place?

Do they have labels inside saying that they are another quality product from the galaxy-famous Space Brothers Department Store?

We assume that Space Brothers is currently being run by Young Mister Space, as Old Mister Space doesn't get out much these days. Maybe he's just a head in a tank with a little weedy body like in 'The Web'?

This is what you get when you do a complete watch-through of 'Blake's 7' and 'Are You Being Served?' at the same time...

But I like to think that we're taking a unique approach to this material, which will hopefully ride up with wear...

Our video about 'Seek - Locate - Destroy' can be seen here.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)

The Enemy Of The World Episode 1

The Enemy Of The World Episode 1

We've already featured the Special Edition DVD release of 'The Enemy Of The World' on this blog (see the link here), and it's one of our more popular articles, but we still have to pinch ourselves that the whole story is now as easily available as something like 'Revenge Of The Cybermen'.

But our choice of 'Doctor Who' viewing for 2019 is more driven by the guest actors that appear in the stories and this one offered us lots of possible options in this department.

Ironically, it's the more familiar Episode 3 that will link to our related video - which may give you a mjor clue as to who we'll be talking about - but even this episode works so much better when viewed in context, rather than as an orphaned episode on the 'Lost In Time' set.

Episode 1 sees Barry Letts blowing the budget with some exotic vehicles on location in a way suspiciously similar to that chase in 'Planet Of The Spiders' Part Two. And we can imagine Innes Lloyd and Peter Bryant reacting to this in the same way as Barry himself would do a few years later when Michael Ferguson splurges on the hi-jack sequences on 'The Ambassadors Of Death' Episode 2.

Which also has David Whitaker's name on the opening credits, funnily enough...

Our video on 'The Enemy Of The World' Episode 1 can be seen here.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)

"I've got a gaping hole..."

"I've got a gaping hole..."

Lisa has to work every other Saturday, which means that every fortnight, I find myself having to make my own amusement.

So this morning, I found myself mooching around, feeling as though I really ought to do something creative, but not sure exactly what to do.

As a possible antidode to this feeling,  I adopted a character I sometimes experiment with, recorded a couple of short answerphone messages and sent them off to Paul Chandler in the hope that they might tickle his fancy and possibly get included in a future edition of 'The Shy Life Podcast'.

Although we obviously enjoy doing 'Round The Archives', it doesn't really give us too many opportunities to do much in the way of sustained acting and certainly not in the more surreal area that the fondly-remembered  'Sutton Park' covered.

But the beauty of 'The Shy Life Podcast' is that its unusually flexible format allows contributors to be as daft as they like, so long as it can be fitted into the strange fictional universe it occupies.

I won't give too much away here, but I emailed the couple of test pieces I'd recorded to Paul and was very pleased with his enthusiastic reply. So this afternoon, we spent some useful time ad-libbing like mad whilst trying our damnest to make each other laugh in the process.

We're still working out the exact details of how this nonsense is all going to pan out, but I think we've managed to come up with something amusing and push the innuendo-meter well into the red zone.

And, frankly, it's utterly filthy in places, which always goes down well.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)