Hullo there!
Welcome to another Creamguide, on a pretty quiet week telly-wise but we’ll endeavour to make it worth your while looking in. If you’re off on your holidays then do send us a postcard via creamguide@tvcream.co.uk. And for extra value this week, we start on…
FRIDAY 18th JULY
BBC4
20.30 Top of the Pops
Bad news, Glamourpuss fans, as we regret to announce that seemingly due to fears it would break the internet, we’re not getting the 1976 edition as previously billed. The good news is that instead we’re off to 1982, where we’re always happy to spend some time, what with the light cascades and everything, and this show is a million times better musically. We’ve got crackers from Japan and Visage, as well as one of Macca’s best we think and the whole thing ends with the audience dancing to the majestic Videotheque by Dollar, so as much as a novelty as 1976 would have been, we’re quite happy to set it aside for this. And cutely it begins with the same song that was on the 1998 episode ninety minutes earlier.
SATURDAY 19th JULY
BBC2
19.30 Dad’s Army
Normally Creamguide can drone on for several thousand words before we’ve even finished Saturday, but it’s fairly barren this week with the Open Golf putting paid to the usual musical fare on BBC2 and the Tour de France punting The Big Match out of the schedules. Hence we’re highlighting the old first-thing-in-Creamguide show for the first time in a while, not least as it allows us space to bring this letter from Douglas Hoskins. “Long time listener, first time caller, Creamguide is a Friday morning treat! I enjoyed the biographical deep dive into Ronnie Corbett and I write only to ensure that Matt Berry's funkadelic interpretation of Sorry! hasn't passed you by. From an album of classic themes, including Blankety Blank, Picture Box and Open University! Perhaps Matt might feature on a future Television Companion!”
BBC Radio 4
10.30 Rewinder
Greg James’ rummage through the Beeb archives expands to include a special guest and a live audience this time round, and all the better that said guest is Michael Palin and it was recorded in his home town of Sheffield. Should be great fun, and we’re promised some fascinating clips including his first ever TV appearance alongside Ken Dodd.
BBC Radio 4 Extra
17.00 Remember Live Aid
The Live Aid repeat was enormous fun last week, and we’re thrilled they left in so much of the detritus, albeit we’re not sure we needed to be reminded not to phone 01 811 8055 or go to the Abbey National. It really was interesting to see some of it in context, as we were able to realise that Queen were helped to make even more of an impact by coming on straight after Dire Straits’ four hour version of Sultans of Swing. To round off the celebrations we’ve got the first outing in a long time for this play written to mark the tenth anniversary back in 1995 which recreates the backstage business of the event, with actors playing the likes of Michael Appleton and Harvey Goldsmith, and actual contributions from Macca and Phil Collins, with most of the rest of the line-up seemingly played by Phil Cornwell. And surely any drama with the credit “Simon Bates as himself” is required listening.
SUNDAY 20th JULY
BBC4
21.40 A Voice for the World: Stuart Burrows
22.40 Stuart Burrows Sings
Here’s a tribute to the renowned Welsh tenor who died the other week, and who was a familiar face and voice on telly throughout the seventies and eighties, thanks to his long-running series where he would perform the pick of the popular classics with an array of distinguished guests. We get to see an episode of that from 1986 where among the performers is Burrows’ protégé Aled Jones. His talent spread far beyond the Beeb as well, as we’ll see in the documentary that precedes that from 1977 which features him in rehearsal, in performance and off duty.
BBC Radio 2
17.00 Pick of the Pops
Not the most thrilling line-up of years here, but the dreaded 1992 turned out to be quite good fun last week with The Shamen and the U-U-U-Utah Saints. In recent years we’ve actually decided 1993 was probably a bit worse musically, but you can compare and contrast here, with a couple of dance bangers and the one good Dannii Minogue record (even though it’s a cover) to lighten up an otherwise slightly turgid affair. The same is probably true of 2002 which follows, though some of it might be tough going, including a horrible record by the world’s worst band, before we get to Gareth Gates at number one, trying to detract attention from the fact the song’s a rip-off of Last Christmas by releasing it in July.
MONDAY 21st JULY
BBC2
19.30 Mastermind
The school holidays may be starting, but Only Connect is back to join the quizzing line-up this week to sort out Mondays for most people for the next thirty odd weeks. The Women’s Euros are reaching their absolute PIN-nacle this week, though the fun of Schedule A and B is a bit reduced these days as everything goes on iPlayer and ITVX regardless of when it’s on telly. Topically we’ve got a round on the men’s Euros here, along with grillings on Truman Capote and Gilmore Girls.
Well, after we featured his mate the other week, you can’t have one without the other, so this week we’re paying tribute to the bank manager of mirth, who was never very happy appearing as himself but was one of the most versatile comedy performers in telly history. Direct from the Loyal Society for the Relief of Suffers from Pismronunciation, it’s...
RONNIE BARKER
Born in Bedford, Ronnie grew up in Oxford and while he got a proper job after leaving school and worked as a bank clerk, his great ambition was to be an actor, and after a while he jacked in the day job to take it up full time. Working in rep he performed in hundreds of plays, straight and silly, but realised he always preferred the sound of laughter and increasingly gravitated towards comedy. By the end of the fifties, as he turned thirty, he’d become well-established as a character actor on stage, appearing in numerous West End shows. His first big break came in 1959 when he joined the cast of The Navy Lark. This was a golden age for radio comedy and the big shows would get millions of listeners, and Ronnie appeared in hundreds of episodes – as they would usually run half the year – as Able Seaman Fatso and umpteen other characters.
Ronnie’s first TV appearance had been back in 1956 in the ITV comedy show I’m Not Bothered which starred his mentor Glenn Melvyn, who Ronnie would often cite as his comedic inspiration who taught him everything he knew. Other small parts followed in film and TV, and his first regular telly work came in 1961 when he joined the cast of The Seven Faces of Jim. This was a vehicle for Jimmy Edwards, a big star in his day, in a series of self-contained sitcoms with Jim, June Whitfield and Ronnie taking on a different role every week, already illustrating his versatility. This was a successful show in the early sixties, with Muir and Norden providing the scripts, and ran for three series, and the comedy anthology would be a format that would pay dividends for Ronnie in years to come.
Working with Jimmy Edwards established Ronnie as a reliable and effective comic actor, and he appeared in many of the big comedy shows of the day in supporting roles, but his career really took off in 1966 when he was plucked to join the cast of The Frost Report, alongside another Ronnie. As we mentioned the other week, absolutely everyone involved in the show, in front of and behind the camera, went on to great things, and Ronnie came out of it with an increased profile and a new co-star.
Frost was so pleased with the two Ronnies, plus John Cleese, that when he defected from the Beeb to Rediffusion he took them all with him and got them all their own shows. For Ronnie B, his wonderful performances in all manner of roles meant the obvious vehicle was a series of self-contained sitcoms that could showcase all his talents, under the banner of The Ronnie Barker Playhouse. A few years later in 1971, when they were all ensconced at the new LWT, they did it again as Six Dates With Barker, the concept here being that every episode was set in a different era, from the nineteenth century to, in the final show, the 28th. A few of those shows went on to have a life outside the series, not least Spike Milligan’s contribution, the chilling tale of The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town.
One of the other episodes of the series was written by Gerald Wiley, a writer Ronnie appeared to have discovered when he brought in some scripts he’d received via his agent, leading to much discussion as to who this exciting new comic talent was. Page one of The Boys and Girls’ Bumper Book of Telly Facts does of course say that it was Ronnie himself, but he played along with it for a while, saying some of the scripts he sent were rubbish, before revealing all, though he continued to use the Wiley pseudonym for many years. One of Ronnie’s great loves was silent comedy and one of his first writing credits was the film Futtock’s End, though it wasn’t wildly successful and is perhaps most memorable for being shown when Miss World got yanked off screen in 1979 due to a strike (“It’s a marvellous picture, isn’t it?”). He also wrote two Ronnies specials in similar style, By The Sea and The Picnic, under the guise of Dave Huggett and Larry Keith.
In 1971 came a new series on the Beeb which would last for the next sixteen years, you’ve probably heard of it. As we’ve mentioned, though, the first episodes of The Two Ronnies are a bit weird and part of that is because Ronnie seemed very uneasy at appearing at himself – whereas Ronnie C loved it – and so even in the bits where he appears as Ronnie B he was initially playing the character of a po-faced newsreader. But as the series went on he started to relax a bit and the news headlines became even more enjoyable when Ronnie B joined Ronnie C in regularly laughing at the jokes, which we find tremendously pleasing. Not sure about that Mozart joke, perhaps.
As we know, both Rons cultivated solo careers throughout their time together, and Ronnie B’s was phenomenally successful thanks to his endless versatility and prolific writing. Hugely famous comic characters would follow, though at the start of the seventies Ronnie’s most famous character was probably the decrepit and eccentric peer Lord Rustless. Their first appearance came in an episode of The Ronnie Barker Playhouse written by Alun Owen, although Ronnie had been playing similar roles in other shows and would later say he was inspired by one of his favourite comic actors Fred Emney. In 1968 he span off into the series Hark at Barker for LWT, an interesting show that broke the fourth wall and where the cast all took on several roles in sketches that constantly interrupted the main plot. Four years later, with Ron now firmly within the bosom of the Beeb, he was resurrected by His Lordship Entertains, a more conventional sitcom but with most of the cast, including David Jason, coming with it and Ronnie writing the scripts under the name of Jonathan Cobbold.
In 1973 came another attempt at showcasing Ron’s talents in a series of self-contained sitcoms, and while the previous two included episodes with a lasting legacy, Seven of One managed to discover two of the most popular and acclaimed sitcoms of the seventies. There were five other episodes as well, My Old Man not going any further with Ronnie but spinning off into an ITV sitcom with Clive Dunn, and Another Fine Mess up there not intended to go any further but just an excuse for Ronnie and Roy Castle to pay tribute to Laurel and Hardy.
But of course the first episode of Seven of One was the big one, although Ronnie apparently wasn’t sure about the potential to get any more out of it and didn’t think it should go to a series. Good job he was overruled, as Porridge has been regularly referred to as not just the greatest sitcom of the seventies but the greatest ever, and even ten years later it was pulling in such huge audiences a repeat was the most watched thing on telly at Christmas 1984. Ronnie was absolutely brilliant in it, a world away from some of the more ludicrous characters he played on The Two Ronnies, and would always say it was the best thing he ever did, and it was an absolute smash hit, hence why Blue Peter popped round to have a nose at Slade Prison.
And show two of Seven of One wasn’t too shabby either, as it was the first episode of Open All Hours. Keith Chegwin made a memorable appearance as a teenager popping in to Arkwrights to ask for a frozen Zoom, and Cheggers said that years later he bumped into Ronnie again and he was delighted Ronnie recited his line back at him. Actually despite its later popularity it had a bit of a torturous gestation, the first series not following until three years after the pilot, and the second not until five years after that, but constant repeats kept it in the public eye and at the start of the eighties it was another hugely popular series which by the end of the run in 1985 was topping the ratings. Alright, it wasn’t perhaps as subtle as Porridge, and lots of the jokes seemed to revolve around Arkwright’s stammer, but Roy Clarke, while also penning ten million other sitcoms, turned in some funny scripts and Ronnie was pleased to work again with his friend and protégé David Jason.
After Porridge came to an end, Fletcher’s story continued in Going Straight in 1978, a high profile series which was heralded by a Radio Times cover which someone wrote into point out featured a surprisingly tanned Fletcher given he’d just been in prison for several years (though the RT suggested the photo was taken early in the morning and reflected “the natural glow of the sunrise”). The first episode was absolutely brilliant, though the later episodes weren’t quite as exciting and there seemed to be something missing – clearly Fletcher was never quite the same outside his cell - but it would be wrong to cite it as a misfire as it still won a BAFTA and Ronnie always said they were never going to do more than one series, even if Richard Beckinsale had lived. Despite being available on DVD for ages, this year it got its first repeat on the Beeb since the seventies which perhaps allowed it to be reassessed a bit, and even slightly second-rate Fletcher is more entertaining than pretty much any other sitcom character.
Ronnie was offered a few other sitcom jobs in the seventies, apparently being first choice as Frank Spencer (which would have perhaps made it a very different show indeed) and David Nobbs suggesting him as Reginald Perrin. Another new character followed in 1984 when he teamed up with Roy Clarke again to make The Magnificent Evans. Set in rural Wales, this starred Ronnie as the pompous, philandering Plantagenet Evans, who was convinced he was both the world’s greatest photographer and the world’s greatest catch. This was a lavishly mounted and heavily promoted series, the centrepiece of the Beeb’s autumn season and getting the honour of a Radio Times cover, but it seems that, like the original Blackadder, the production values rather got in the way of the jokes and Evans was perhaps too much of a monster to really root for, and after a single series the Beeb convinced Ronnie and Roy that their time would be better spent making more Open All Hours instead.
One other sitcom followed for Ronnie, another one which had roots in a much older show as a short-sighted shifter in the thirties had been the plot for an episode of Six Dates with Barker back in 1971. In 1987 Ronnie revived the concept for Clarence, which he wrote himself under the guise of Bob Ferris, seemingly as a tribute, conscious or otherwise, to The Likely Lads. Ronnie starred alongside Josephine Tewson, a regular co-star who had also appeared in that original show in 1971, and it was alright, but it seemed that six episodes of jokes about short-sightedness were more than enough. And even if they wanted another series, it seemed unlikely...
...as in 1988 he went on Wogan and shocked everyone by announcing he was jacking it in and retiring. He said that he was struggling to think of new ideas, and didn’t like the idea of going on forever. He also suggested he made the final decision when he realised he was being offered jobs and instead of being excited about the opportunity he was immediately thinking about what a pain the parking was going to be and how late he’d be getting home, and so clearly his heart wasn’t in it anymore. So he gave up the telly and opened an antiques shop in Oxfordshire, and while occasionally people turned up for a nose (including some tabloid journalists digging for dirt, leading to the Viz Top Tip “find out how much your antiques are worth by taking them to Ronnie Barker’s shop and doubling what he offers you”), he enjoyed his retirement. But occasionally he’d return to the spotlight, in 1997 making a memorable appearance at the Royal Variety Performance and taking part in a Beeb tribute about his comedic career.
And while he never came back to telly full-time, he was clearly happy to do the odd job if it was something he really wanted to do. In 1999 he was reunited with Ronnie C for Two Ronnies Night, and a great show in which they swapped stories with Barry Cryer and their comedy mates, which the Beeb were clearly thrilled enough with to repeat several times in different forms, including 2002’s I Love The Two Ronnies with new links by Mark and Lard. There were a few straight roles as well, including the acclaimed wartime drama The Gathering Storm, and a surprising reappearance as Fletcher in the odd 2003 one-off Life Beyond The Box which discussed what the Porridge characters were doing now.
And in 2005 we had The Two Ronnies Sketchbook, which was a great success despite Ronnie being in poor health, and while it’s still regularly repeated to this day we’re not sure we want to remember him looking ill and doing jokes about Tony Blair. But happily there’s still much else of Ronnie’s remarkable legacy to enjoy, and he really did have the most wonderful career, with the wit to go out while still at the top and not have the embarrassment of being forcibly retired when the phone stopped ringing.
TUESDAY 22nd JULY
Sky Documentaries
21.00 Dear Ms: A Revolution in Print
We know the magazine market is shrivelling but we were a bit surprised to go into a newsagent while we were away and discover that despite having “news” in its name, it didn’t actually sell any newspapers or magazines at all. Here’s a tribute to one of the all-time greats in America, Ms magazine, which is still going but obviously sales are a shadow of what they were in its imperial phase in the seventies and eighties when it was the feminist bible – hence the name. At its peak it was a campaigning and provocative magazine that genuinely made a difference when it came to debating domestic violence and abortion rights, as will be discussed here.
WEDNESDAY 23rd JULY
BBC4
22.00 Patrick Marber Remembers… After Miss Julie
22.15 After Miss Julie
It’s the eightieth anniversary of the 1945 election, though sadly there’s no opportunity for BBC Parliament to repeat the coverage given television hadn’t come back yet. Instead there’s an evening of programmes on the subject, including archive docs about Churchill and Attlee and, here, a play first shown as part of BBC2’s strand Performance in 1995, a series that was more or less the end of an era when it came to space for single plays on TV. It relocates the famous 19th century play to the night of the election, and Geraldine Somerville, Kathy Burke and Phil Daniels make up the small but perfectly formed cast, while on writing and directing duties is the Cornish curmudgeon himself, who pops up at the start to reflect on it.
THURSDAY 24th JULY
BBC4
20.00 The Many Faces of Helen Mirren
21.00 Dame Helen Mirren Remembers… Gosford Park
21.15 Gosford Park
The equivalent of the EGOT in Britain would presumably be the BOBB – Brit, Olivier, BAFTA TV and BAFTA Film – which nobody’s ever won, which might have something to do with the higher and richer standard of talent in the UK but is probably more because the Emmys and Grammys have about a million categories, and if the Brits still did the tokenistic non-pop categories then maybe it would have more chance of happening. Quite a few people have won the three acting awards, mind, and Helen Mirren is the only person to do that and the equivalent three in America as well, so it’s well worth marvelling at her work on the occasion of her eightieth birthday. An entertaining doc from 2013 is followed by her new look at one of the many films for which she received almost universal acclaim.
FRIDAY 25th JULY
BBC4
19.00 Top of the Pops
Looks like we’ll be heading into 1998 for most of the summer, despite the Proms, so after a stuttering start we should be racing through them. That said, it might not feel like we’ve got too far into the year yet as a few songs have been hanging around for ages, not least Never Ever which we get for the ninth and final time tonight, its winning of a Brit (surely one of the few songs to do so while still in the top ten) having catapulted it back up the chart for the umpteenth time. Another long-stayer at this time was Ain’t That Just The Way by Lutricia McNeal although its only appearance in its marathon chart run so far was accompanying the Top 20 before Christmas, but in its ninth week in the charts she’s finally be lured into the studio. Some records actually released this year are on the show as well – with one song being very short meaning we get nine rather than the standard eight – including a fair bit of post-Britpop business.
19.30 Top of the Pops
Despite the frantic nature of the charts in this period, the rise of the supermarket as record retailer means there are quite a few records that hang around the charts for ages, so quite a few songs get almost as many airings as Never Ever throughout 1998, and unlike that you don’t even get the variety of more than one performance. Another one of those tonight, along with the vocal stylings of Will Mellor – though fair play to him because he’s done some bloody good work in hugely acclaimed shows in recent years – and another reimagining from the indie disco.
21.40 Top of the Pops
Our regular trips to the Albert Hall do mean the archive shows continue, but safely post-watershed for the next few weeks. Janice and the Reverend Mayo were a fun pairing the other week and here they are again in 1987, though it’s not a classic edition with most of the excitement on video other than a, cough, eye-catching performance by Shaky.
22.10 Top of the Pops
Shaky’s on this one too, about to complete one of the biggest leaps to number one in the eighties in one of the earliest shows heralded by Yellow Pearl from 1981. Richard Skinner proved what a safe pair of hands he was on the Live Aid repeat and he’s his usual solid self here, despite the puns, introducing an episode with probably more songs than any other edition, because it’s got umpteen medleys in it.
And that’s that!
But there’ll be another Creamguide next week, although we’re not sure quite when as we’re nipping off for a bit of a mini-break. But there’ll definitely be one, so watch your inbox.