'The Man And The Hour'

'The Man And The Hour'

We've covered the second episode of 'Dad's Army' ('Museum Piece') in Episode 21 of 'Round The Archives' and Martin provided a location report when he visited Arthur Lowe's blue plaque in Derbyshire.

We chose this episode as it was shown the day I was born, which may lead some readers to the conclusion that I am rapidly approaching a rather significant birthday...

'The Man And The Hour' was shown a week before, on 31st July 1968, so we thought we'd give it the honour of doing a DVD commentary.

Captain Mainwaring would probably have puffed his cheeks out on hearing this, but it's a series I've always loved. It's perhaps a shame that no other BBC comedies get repeated in the way that 'Dad's Army' does, but that's a subject we can go into another time.

To be frank, I thought I knew this episode inside-out, but what I had never spotted was how it was part of a BBC schedule that has an unlikely number of connections with the moon.

'Bizzy Lizzy' encounters The Man In The Moon (presumably after touching her very special flower) and 'The Adventures Of Tin Tin' concern the events of 'Operation Moon'.

But utterly new to me was the intriguing 'Moon Clue Game', described as A Race Through Space. This edition saw Terry Scott and the Taurans versus Hugh Lloyd and the Capricorns.

With the Apollo Eleven moon landings not far away, there's obviously something in the air. Even 'Dad's Army' has a throwaway line about rockets next week.

If you know the colour episodes, this one feels a little odd, especially with its opening scene of the surviving members of the platoon in (what was then) the present day. Pike has a moustache and Frazer is officially ancient.

It has been pointed out today that if a show had such a set-up today, we would flash back through the years to the far-off year of 1990, which doesn't seem that long ago. But then, I imagine that people born in 1990 would reckon that I'm getting on a bit.

Frazer has a philatelist's shop (he sells stamp collectors?) and Pike is doing some sort of accent that soon makes itself scarce. And John Ringham as Bracewell clearly moves out of the area to take part in some early cloning experiments when he returns as Captain Bailey.

It hasn't quite got everything 100% perfect, but there's a lot they get right here. The disappointing delivery of armbands and pepper in place of the expected uniforms and guns is this first season in a nutshell. But with Captain Mainwaring on hand to provide a stirring speech, everyone feels that they coud tackle a tank with luck on their side.

Anyway, a sincere Happy 50th Anniversary to 'Dad's Army'! You all deserve a rousing cheer!

The BBC Genome page for 31st July 1968 can be found here.

Episode 21 of 'Round The Archives' may be heard here.

And our commentary for 'The Man And The Hour' may be seen here.

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

Sutton Park - Prison In The Sun

Sutton Park - Prison In The Sun

Lisa remembers...

Yesterday (Sunday 29th July 2018) marked 25 years since the start of the filming for 'Sutton Park - Prison In The Sun' written by Nick Goodman and Paul Chandler,

It was on this that I first met Andrew when we acted together.

I had been asked by Nick to take on the part of Bernie Aulde alongside Paul as Bill, my husband.
I read the script with enjoyment, only being a little put off by the description of my character as middle-aged. I was 20 at this point and could never imagine being middle-aged!

But I learnt my script carefully, apart from one scene I that managed to completely miss, somehow. When it came to the recording, I tried unsucessfully to hide my script inside a magazine that was far too small to contain it.

I also remember the invisible lobster in one scene early on in the story, Bill and Bernie are having a picnic and are meant to have a lobster in their picnic box. But we were unable to afford or even locate a lobster so had to pretend it was in there.

We didn't have much time to film. managing to record the whole 90 minute story in around two and a half days. It was a very enjoyable experience and led onto many more fun filming experiences.

Andrew remembers...

I was cast as Denny who was described as a tall, Cockney chauffeur. Tall I can do without too much acting, I suppose, though we have a running joke on 'Round The Archives' that accents are not my strong point.

And this being 1993, I had my old orange Ford Fiesta which allowed me to fulfil the chauffeur part of the plot. Though given that not everyone in the cast were able to drive, we had to fudge some shots involving Bill and Bernie behind the wheel.

I do recall filming in a layby, with lots of traffic zooming along a few feet away and getting slightly itchy when the odd police car came past. Evidently, we didn't look too suspicious, as none of them ever stopped to make enquiries.

I also had to get shot at the end and perform my own slow-motion death. Not exactly HAVOC, but I was prepared to have a go.

Looking back at the pictures, I remember bringing a multi-coloured blanket along for the picnic scenes, and Nick supplied a bottle of whisky that had already had a couple of nips taken out of it, though not by me, I hasten to add!

We'd done a couple of video things up to this point, but this was certainly much more ambitious than previous projects. The fast turnaround was quite fun, and we just got on with it.

Without 'Sutton Park - Prison In The Sun', I might never have met Lisa. So this film will always hold a special place in my heart!

Thanks to Nick and Paul and everyone else who were involved!

(By Lisa Parker and Andrew Trowbridge)

(With thanks to Nick Goodman for the photos)

Destiny Of The Daleks Episode Four

 Destiny Of The Daleks Episode Four

It was piddling down this morning (finally!) and having got slightly ahead of the housework yesterday, we had some free time to do a new 'Doctor Who' commentary. As always, the actual episode to be covered was chosen by an online random number generator, which was somewhat ironic given that it pointed us in the direction of 'Destiny Of The Daleks' Episode Four.

The final scenes of 'The Armageddon Factor' introduce us to the Randomiser, which is supposed to gives us a TARDIS harking back to the Hartnell days, where we cannot predict the time or place where the next story is to be set.

So, the first landing obviously takes us to Skaro, some time after the events of 'Genesis Of The Daleks', which isn't a very random location, if we're being brutally honest.

But the whole Dalek / Movellan conflict is in a state of stalemate, lacking the true random factor demonstrated by the Scissors/ Paper/ Stone game played by  the Doctor and Romana.

It's 1979 and the random nature of life means that I missed Episode Three as I was at a birthday party in Verwood taking part in a Treasure Hunt in the woods, despite rather wishing I could see what Davros was getting up to.

Also, the green glowsticks on the arms of the Movellan uniforms were something I'd encountered in real life, having picked up a glowing ring thing to wear around the neck, in a high-tech solution to the problem of child road safety in those post-Pertwee/SPLINK days.

To bend our own rules slightly, Episode Three sees Tom Baker playing with a Kaled mutant, that is represented by the then current novelty toy Worms. I had Worms (if you'll pardon the expression) and it was a gooey mass of pinky/purple matter with some black rubber worms as a bonus - if you look closely, you'll notice a couple of worms embedded in the lump that Tom waves about.

I had a friend who met Tom Baker during the filming of 'Destiny' and he sent me a signature, that sadly I've managed to lose in the intervening time.

But in recent years, I've still felt a connection with 'Destiny' as I've done a bit of analytical chemistry with sand from the Binnegar Heath sandpit which was one of the Dorset filming locations. Though I've never been able to detect any trace levels of exploded Daleks in the sand...

Odd isn't it? We all have our own unique connections with certain 'Doctor Who' stories, but random factors in my life mean that nobody in the universe has quite the same memories of this tale. The Randomiser clearly works on a wider scale than was intended at the time...

Our commentary for 'Destiny Of The Daleks' Episode Four can be seen here.

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

New Adventures, New Worlds

New Adventures, New Worlds

It's ironic that just as 'Doctor Who' finished I became more of a fan and wanted to know more about the series. The next year or so was a barren time for new 'Doctor Who' as no season 27 appeared and we had only 'Doctor Who Magazine' and the Target novelisations to satisfy our need for the Doctor.
So when in 1991 it was announced that there were to be new Doctor Who books released, I was very excited.

As I was a member of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society (DWAS), I pre-ordered my copies of the New Adventures (as they had been titled) from their book club. So excitedly sending off my cheque and order form, I waited for the books to arrive.

And in due course 'Timewyrm: Genesys' arrived through the door and I loved it. It was new 'Doctor Who' if a little more adult in tone. The characters of the Doctor and Ace were pretty much as I remembered them from season 26, though I recall that the Doctor was a little less dark and a bit more Doctorish.

Having read that one I looked forward to receiving 'Exodus' written by the legend that is Terrance Dicks. But the next book I received was Nigel Robinson's 'Apocalypse' which is a very good book but not the anticipated 'Exodus'.

And then in December came 'Revelation' by Paul Cornell.

Now, I don't know the reason why 'Exodus' was delayed and when I actually received it whether it arrived before 'Revelation' or not, but I remember it being a while and I may have even have had a refund from the DWAS for the book and then had to reorder, I can't really remember as it's 27 years ago.

But I do remember really enjoying the books especially 'Genesys' and 'Exodus' as they seemed to be the 'Doctor Who' that I had been waiting for.

The second set of books was released in 1992 and I had the 'Cat's Cradle' set of three books, but couldn't afford many more after that. I just picked up the odd one or two that I liked the sound of or in the case of 'Legacy' (written by Gary Russell) I borrowed it from my local library.

After a few years, Virgin Books started the Missing Adventures range, stories which featured older Doctors and slotted in between televised adventures.

I remember the cover for 'Goth Opera' by Paul Cornell, which caused a bit of a stir as it featured Nyssa with blood on her top and had to be toned down.

Again I couldn't afford to buy all of them so again had to pick and choose which ones I wanted to read.

For us in the early 90s and (aka the Wilderness Years) the New Adventures were our 'Doctor Who' and still hold fond memories for us. And they gave us writers like Mark Gatiss, Gareth Roberts and Paul Cornell. Even Russell T Davies had a go, with his first professional writing for 'Doctor Who'.
So thank you to all of those involved in the New Adventures, you kept 'Doctor Who' alive when the BBC seemed not to want to.

You can see us nattering about the New Adventures books here.

(By Lisa Parker)

Three for the price of One

Three for the price of One

I know I shouldn't fixate on numbers, but when you don't get much in the way of fan mail, it's the only way you can get an idea of whether something you've done has gone down well.

The Doctor Who On BBC America Twitter account asked yesterday "What Doctor Who podcast is your favourite?" and I was half-hoping someone would mention our name in passing. No joy on that front, of course, as we're technically not a 'Doctor Who' podcast. But I'd like to think we are an honourary one, given that we've covered the show quite a bit and our pool of writers and contributors draws from 'Doctor Who' fandom.

Of course, there is still time to answer their question! Nudge, nudge!

But sometimes I wonder if people simply pass over us because of our wider remit, not guessing that they'd recognise the style of articles if not the actual subject matter. I sometimes wonder how people stumbled across us in the first place - was it a particular show that we covered that excited their interest?

All this pondering is a result at looking at the numbers for Episode 24, which has racked up 75 listens in four days, something it's taken Episode 23 a month to do. Have the magic words 'Juliet Bravo' proven to be more of a draw than 'The Gentle Touch'?

Maybe we should set up a 'Round The Archives' Audience Research Unit? Hmm, given the bonkers things people said in these reports about 'Doctor Who' in the 20th century, maybe that way madness lies?

As an aside, the other day we were waving at Spain for upping our listenership, and now we've had a flurry of interest from Germany, too! Hopefully that's someone new enjoying our back catalogue, but for all I know it might be a regular from the UK on holiday!

Whatever, I've been brave enough to upload Episodes Two and Three to YouTube in the last couple of days, where they can join Episode One and keep it company.

The process is simple as I've already got the files rendered as .mp3 files. Although we've got bog all in the way of video editing software, I've been content to use the Photos app to make a video based on the original soundtrack plus a picture chosen from the variations that Martin has been clever enough to provide in recent months.

All you have to do is work out how many seconds it runs for, which isn't that difficult given that Windows also has a Calculator knocking around, even if I don't use it much.

As always, extra seconds of amusement may be found by activating the YouTube subtitles, which are surreal when they get it wrong. Nigel Plaskitt and Unstoffe provided a real challenge...

But then, given some of the strange stuff we talk about, even when the subtitles are 100% accurate, they still look mildly eccentric. But that's 'Pipkins' for you...

The YouTube version of Episode One is here.

Episode Two is here.

And Episode Three is here.

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

Sykes - Journey

 Sykes - Journey

"Eric and Hattie, after a holiday in Scotland with Mr Brown, speed home on the Glasgow sleeper and end up in Darlington..."

That's the 'Radio Times' write-up for the 'Sykes' episode 'Journey', broadcast on Thursday 14th December 1972. It was shown at 8pm, after 'Top Of The Pops' and before 'Holiday 73', and I'm a little too young to remember watching much of this show, as the only one that ever seemed to get repeated was 'Stranger' from 19th October 1972, which just happened to star a certain Peter Sellers.
And it's this 'Goon Show' connection which gives you the clue that this series is something a little odder than the straightforward description of the plot would have you believe.

Even a relatively sensible one like 'Journey' has some unusual touches that set it apart from more mundane comedy fare, and it's this slight touch of madness that makes the show worth a look all these years later.

'Journey' exists only as a 16mm black-and-white film print of the original 2-inch colour videotape but this doesn't really spoil things as it zips along with Eric. Hattie (Jacques) and Mr Brown (Richard Wattis) battling with the British Rail rulebook.

Hattie and Mr Brown have a ticket for the 10.15 sleeper, but Eric has been booked on the 11.00 on the rather morbid grounds that if something drastic happened to the 10.15, at least ther'd be one survivor to clim the insurance money.

But Eric is having none of this and goes to see one Chick Murray who is operating the booking office from three windows, which leads to an elaborate routine in which Eric is always standing in the wrong place.

The 10.15 train has a familiar face as part of its crew, with Deryck Guyler here not playing Corky Turnbull, but his own twin brother, Wilfred.

His refusal to bend the rules means that he throws Eric out as Darlington, with Mr Brown's wallet and clothes, where Eric encounters Bill Maynard's policeman (assisted by David Batley in BR uniform), who frankly has better things to do than sort out this complicated series of affairs, even if Mr Brown is a personal friend of Ted Heath, as he claims...

Eric and Hattie eventually find themselves speeding along the line again, but Gordon ('The Herbs') Rollings has to deliver the bad news that they are actually headed back to Glasgow. Hattie presses a pound into Gordon's hand, wondering how well he knows the driver, but I don't think that will be much help...

Written down like this, it sounds like nothing more remarkable than a standard episode of 'Terry & June', but there's a dash of strangeness about the whole universe of 'Sykes' that means the more I get round to watching, the more interesting it becomes...

A bit weird, but more than a little bit wonderful!

(By Andrew Trowbridge)

Keeping Up Your Audiences

Keeping Up Yer Audiences

Episode 24 of 'Round The Archives' seems to be doing brisk business, which is nice. There's always a big spike in our figures in the 24 hours following a release, which I suppose might indicate that people are quite keen to listen to the new one.

The league table of nations for the last month looks something like this...

The interesting thing is the sudden appearance of Spain, which has never really featured on our radar before! So hello to whoever it is in Spain - hope you're enjoying the show!

Soundcloud allows you to take a look at your audience figures and see where they are, with YouTube and this blog allowing you to do similar analysis. However, the one thing it's harder to measure is the crossover between these three platforms.

Now, we know that some people take a look at the majority of what we do, but we can probably guess who those kind souls are, and most of them have probably helped out with 'RTA' in some form or other.

But we have had some kind comments on our 'Doctor Who On Twitch' videos from more mysterious people, whose user names give very little away. It's entirely possible that they're not aware of either this blog, or 'Round The Archives', although we do try and plug our other ventures when possible. But you don't want to bang on about it all the time, as it'll probably get on their wick.

With our last video having covered 'Ghost Light', 'The Curse Of Fenric' and 'Survival', we're thinking about how to keen this segment of our chums interested, so we put up a couple of bonus bits this morning, as an experiment.

Out-takes always seem to go down well, so it was an obvious choice to put up the (almost) full recording of the 'Juliet Bravo' sketch from Episode 24. I say 'full', but there are a couple of swearwords that had to be removed, so as not to give the impression that 'RTA' is the work of complete potty-mouths. No comments, please!

But it's coming up to two years now since we started planning Episode One, so I threw caution to the wind and bunged the audio of that onto YouTube as well, augmented by Martin's lovely 'Now on the small screen - IN COLOUR!!!' logo.

Although Episode Twelve is still our most listened-to edition, Episode One sits happily in second place, just ahead of Episode 14. I'm not goting to attempt to sort through the possible interpretations of the data, but for a first episode, I don't think it's too bad and is definitely helped by having Nick on board as our first guest.

I'll keep an eye on the reception Episode One gets and might follow this up in future, especially if we suddenly seem to gain a whole new audience.

How terribly multi-media! But we're still not professionals...

'Doctor Who On Twitch' - Part 43 can be seen here.

The YouTube link for the 'Juliet Bravo' outtakes may be found here.

And the YouTube link for 'Round The Archives' Episode One is here.

(By Andrew Trowbridge)