Christmas Specials

Christmas Specials

The actual contents of Episode 30 are pretty much all worked out, although there's still some recording to do. We started with a list of possible subjects, and these were whittled down to a shortlist. One of the things that fell by the wayside this year was 'Bless Me, Father : The Season Of Goodwill' from 23rd December 1979, but we didn't want to ignore it completely, so have made it the subject (mostly) of today's video.

Well, I say today's video, but we've binged a bit today and uploaded a grand total of three, although that is a bit of a cheat, if we're being honest...

We'd recorded our piece on 'Dark Shadows' in black-and-white, and as we mention in our look at 'Doctor Who : It Takes You Away', we next briefly considered getting our Ruddy Huge Mirror out from behind the sofa in an attempt to reverse the image when filming. With our video editing facilities being conspicious by their absence, this was the only even vaguely practical way to achieve this, but then I remember how heavy it was. There was the distinct possibility of doing my back in lifting it up, and even if we did manage to get it into position I could well imagine it falling over the just the wrong moment, frightening the cats and flattening toes.

Although we might have earned a tidy 250 quid on 'You've Been Framed', I didn't it think it worth the risk...

But thanks to the lovely Dominator Rago, after we'd uploaded it, we were supplied with a flipped version of the file with a mirror imaged portrait of Arthur Lowe in the background looking even more confused than normal at our activities on the sofa...

But dear old Arthur is on fine form in 'Bless Me, Father' and it was a pleasure to pop back to the parish of St Jude's in 1950, having not paid a visit there for quite some time. Plotwise, it's nothing special, but these are characters we enjoy spending time with, even if not much happens. Rose Cat even enjoyed watching the LWT logo wend its way across the screen!

Although we've got the complete 'Bless Me, Father' release, we did this one from the Network set 'Classic ITV Christmas Comedy', of which at least 50% of those words are probably correct on most of the featured episodes.

We'll cover a few more Christmas Specials in our videos (we've had a request to do 'That's My Boy : Cold Turkey' and 'Only When I Laugh' is possibly not a bad idea either), so expect us to get the tinsel out again soon...

Our video about  'It Takes You Away' can be seen here.

Our Mirror Universe video on 'It Takes You Away' can be ereh nees.

Our video about  'Bless Me, Father' can be seen here.

And Tim Worthington looks at the 'Classic ITV Christmas Comedy' DVD set here.

(Written by Andrew Trowbridge)