How We Used To List: 16th – 22nd NOVEMBER, 2002
What we were watching this week 20 years ago, as recorded in the back-issues of TV Cream’s weekly ‘e-mag’, Creamguide…
(We still send out Creamguides every week via email. If you’d like to receive it – it’s free, there are no ads, we don’t sell on your address, you can unsubscribe whenever; we’re basically soppy like that – then fill in your details below.)
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TV CREAM TIMES
16th – 22nd November 2002
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With – Phil Norman, Chris Diamond
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Saturday 16th November
BBC1
08.05 Looney Tunes
Well, they’re certainly churning these out, so much so they’re reduced to screening rubbishy old Claude Cat. More throughout the week, including on Sunday morning’s Smile, which we noticed last week is so cheap and half-arsed, it doesn’t even have a title sequence.
18.45 Only Fools and Horses
At some point somebody’ll work out how many times each episode from the 1989 series has been repeated – more or less everyone in the country must have seen them all by now.
23.20 The Best of British
Despite the fact the title sequence to this series included about a thousand people, they don’t appear to be making any more episodes of it. In the first of several hundred Bond tie-ins this week, here’s the profile of Roger Moore again, which has ludicrously flung Match of the Day to 12.05am!
01.05 Damnation Alley
Sort of Threads with popcorn with Jan Michael Vincent and George Peppard.
BBC2
14.35 Ironside
And *this* is why there’s sport on most channels on Saturday afternoon.
15.25 The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
Ingrid Bergman runs a chiropodist’s-cum-pub in China, woos Curt Jurgens and spreads The Good Word in this serene period piece. Don’t be too shocked if Bert Kwouk and Richard ‘Sykes’ Wattis turn up.
21.00 Fame, Set and Match
This is closer to Top Ten than I Love, really, with the sarcastic narration (overly sarcastic, to be honest) and the fast-cut clips, and was good fun last week, if only for Peter Ridsdale-Scott’s anecdotes about producing Cheggers Plays Pop (“The Head of Childrens’ Programmes phoned me up and said ‘Thank you for the series, Peter, but I must say it is the most *vulgar* programme I have ever seen – I’m recommissioning it!’”). This week it’s the 1982 England World Cup squad, including Keggy, Hoddle, Shilton, Robson and, er, Kenny Samson, and if they don’t play the BBC theme tune for the tournament we’ll be incredibly pissed off, cos it’s brilliant.
22.00 The Entertainers
Best bit of this series so far has been Frank Carson arriving at Bernard Manning’s house and delivering five minutes of stand-up to nobody in particular, ending with ‘Frank Carson, News at Ten, sober’, and then two minutes later saying ‘Frank Carson, News at Ten, sober’ again. Here’s this week’s two shows again.
22.55 Dog Day Afternoon
Tremendous Pacino doin’s in which he plays a desperate man pushed to robbing a bank to pay for his lover’s sex change. Pacino’s good but plays second fiddle to one of the true greats of the cinema, the man who brought class to Rollerboys, for heaven’s sake – Charles Durning.
00.55 Repulsion
The ever-brilliant Catherine Deneuve undergoes a rabbit-related crack up in her sister’s dingy flat in Roman “I play the spoons” Polanski’s slightly dated sensationalist Freudathon. With Ian ‘Don Quick’ Hendry, Patrick ‘Plane Makers’ Wymark, Renee ‘Cabby’ Houston and Mike ‘Randall’ Pratt.
ITV
02.00 Forever
‘Blur, Oasis, Echobelly, Pulp… they’re the four main indie bands, aren’t they?’ Yeah, Britpop’s the theme, and Heavy Stereo will be camped at the postbox waiting for the royalty cheques.
CHANNEL 4
21.00 The Ultimate Chart – The UK’s Official 100 Bestselling Singles
Rumours of the death of nostalgia shows have been greatly exaggerated, it seems, as we’re back to the golden days of two at the same time. The concept’s explained in the title, and it should be a bit of fun because it’s produced by the people behind Top Ten. Do you want the Radio Creamguide sub to talk about why Mull of Kintyre is really great again?
02.00 Top Ten Guitar Heroes
And then, apropos of nothing, here’s an old episode of the show itself, which as we’ve said before is great because it doesn’t just include the obvious, but people like Johnny Marr as well. Course, if there’s ever a Top Ten Air Guitar Heroes, Creamguide’ll expect to be pushing for the top spot. We can do air drumming and air keyboards too.
CHANNEL 5
01.45 The Miracle
Carroll Baker (Baby Doll off of, er, Baby Doll of course, though we saw some meathead Total Film-esque magazine refer to her as “best known for Kindergarten Cop” recently, the cretins) goes way against type as a Spanish nun hanging out with dashing captain Roger Moore during the Peninsular War in this hammy stage adaptation.
05.10 Sons and Daughters
On Friday too. There should be more TV shows with sepia title sequences, shouldn’t there?
Sunday 17th November
BBC1
17.05 Points of View
A viewer complains about the no doubt endless complaints about canned laughter. Which it isn’t, and they’ve always used audience laughter, and it’s not supposed to be realistic, for God’s sake, he’s a comedy character and he’s in a sitcom. You weren’t supposed to think Basil Fawlty was real, were you? So shut up. Sorry, went off on one there, didn’t we?
ITV
17.35 Grease
Little known vehicle for Jeff ‘Babylon 5’ Conaway.
23.15 The South Bank Show
…on Andrew Davies, writer of virtually every drama on television, but also, of course, Alfonso Bonzo and Game On! Bet they won’t be included, alas.
Monday 18th November
BBC1
14.35 Quincy
Every day this week, unless there’s a fire strike special, which reminds us of the time during the fuel crisis when ITV did two-hour news specials every afternoon for a week, basically consisting of Nicholas Owen standing in a BP garage in Watford, waiting for a tanker to come. For five days.
17.00 Blue Peter
Despite what we said David Attenborough’s on today, honest.
BBC2
22.00 I’m Alan Partridge
‘The previous series did not have a laughter track and was much darker in tone – more like The Office’. Are you doing this to deliberately piss us off, Media Guardian? This seemed more of a sketch show than a sitcom last week, kinda, with some scenes that just didn’t seem to go anywhere. But we don’t care as long as we get more stuff like the end credits of Crash Bang Wallop What A Video, which was the funniest thing in the world.
CHANNEL 4
13.40 The Silver Fleet
Dutch shipyard owner Sir Rich Ralphardson is inspired by wife Googie Withers teaching some schoolkids the titular Music Time-y folk song to sabotage the U-Boats he’s been building for Herr H and co. Fair, not brilliant, wartime propaganda from The Archers.
23.05 The Services
Woo-hoo! This is probably the best thing on telly tonight, just edging out Partridge, and it may possibly be the best thing Peter Kay has done on telly – it’s more or less the same as That Peter Kay Thing, but as it’s much cheaper and filmed on grotty tape, it seems a bit more realistic. And there’s loads of Paul LeRoy who is a fantastic character. Amazing to think it’s four years old, really, and, fact fans, it’s the earliest it’s ever been screened, the previous two showings both being after 11.30pm.
CHANNEL 5
11.00 Magnum PI
The neverending run continues every day at this time.
21.00 Groundhog Day
This joke isn’t funny anymore.
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“JOIN US NEXT WEEK AT THE SLIGHTLY LATER TIME OF…”
Ah, the Great British Public. There are few things more satisfying than a much-hyped TV programme completely dying on it’s arse and having to be shifted from it’s peak-time location into a new off-peak timeslot where it can “better fulfil it’s potential”. This week ITV1’s abysmal Ulrika Jonsson vehicle Mr Right is being broadcast at 11pm – two hours later than the slot it occupied when it began. In honour of one of the last bastions of “people power” – as well as giving us another opportunity to slag off Hale and Pace – let’s take this opportunity to recall the Top Ten Panicked Reschedulings.
10) ONLY JOKING (1992)
Here’s your textbook reschedule – this Bradley Walsh Saturday teatime vehicle was comfortably the worst thing LWT have ever made, consisting of members of the public, er, telling jokes. That would have been weak even if the BBC weren’t showing Marti Caine’s Joker In The Pack – a series with an identical format – at exactly the same time. After about three weeks, the show was moved into the wasteland that is ITV regional variations, with most showing it on Sunday afternoons, but Granada, for one, screened the remaining episodes at 11.30am. Other examples of this art are the last few episodes of The Roxy, which went out in London at 12.35am, and series two of John Leslie’s Scavengers, which many regions showed in that hallowed Monday 9.25am slot.
9) ITV DAYTIME (2000)
In the mid-90s, the BBC having the upper hand in the daytime schedules seemed ridiculous, as while This Morning was thrashing everything in it’s path, all Wood Lane could come up with in retaliation was rubbish like People Today, Good Morning with Anne and Nick and, of course, The Ross King Show. However by the start of this decade, the Beeb were miles ahead, with all of ITV’s shows in terminal decline. So, to freshen up the schedule, ITV decided on a bit of a spring-clean – Trisha was moved from 9.25am to 2pm, Jerry Springer went in the opposite direction, and Loose Women shifted to the mornings. So revolutionary was this revamp, four weeks later everything was moved back to where it had been before. Well done everyone.
8) A PERFECT STATE (1997)
Bizarrely thanks to My Family, the BBC have finally got a mainstream sitcom success for the first time in many years. But let’s not forget the torturous process that the Beeb took to get there, reaching its peak in 1997 when BBC1 launched ten new sitcoms – and it comes to something when the most popular one of the lot was Dad (with fantastic catchphrase “Hullo, Alan!”). Most didn’t progress to a second series, but one didn’t even make it to the end of the first in the same slot. Michael Aitkens’ hopelessly whimsical Passport to Pimlico knock-off (“The EU’ll be making us sell straight bananas!”) started off at 8.30pm on Thursday nights and ended up at 2.30pm on Sunday afternoons. Nobody noticed.
7) DAYS LIKE THESE (1999)
One thing the Magazine Of The Year jury didn’t take into consideration was that the first issue of Heat, back in February 1999, included a glowing review for this old toss. We all know the story here – ITV’s next big sitcom hope, based on a hit US show. At the start, there were umpteen newspaper articles about how this was going to be different from rubbish like Married For Life – the original US series would never be screened in the UK so nobody could make unfavourable comparisons. Starting on Fridays at 8.30pm, it lasted about four weeks before being hauled off, then brought back three months later at 10.30pm. Then it was hauled off again, with the final shows finally getting an airing at 1am two years later. And they’ve shown the original US series as well.
6) MR & MRS (1999)
Another disaster from ITV’s 1999 post-News at Ten revamp, Julian Clary’s pointless revival was scheduled at 10pm on Friday nights for a fortnight before being taken off, apparently because they were “experimenting with the schedule” and trying to find a better slot for it. It returned three months later in… exactly the same timeslot.
5) NIGHT AND DAY (2001)
So, was it called Night and Day because it was originally on both in the night and the day? Of course it’s official on-screen name is ‘Night Anday’, which makes no sense whatsoever. Funny how nobody expected this programme to be a hit at all – even the stuff about it being unique in drama thanks to flashbacks and fantasy sequences was balls, cos As If had done it before – and hence nobody was surprised when the thrice-weekly 5pm showings were swiftly dropped and it was only shown as an omnibus on Thursday nights. The omnibus began at 10.30pm, then moved to 11pm, then 11.30pm, then 12am, and now sits at 12.30am. Most of the cast were probably playing to bigger audiences in the provincial theatres they were working in beforehand.
4) LUCY SULLIVAN IS GETTING MARRIED (1999)
The moral of this one is never to commission an eighteen-part drama series unless you’re completely certain it’s going to be a hit. This “frothy drama” (ie, hopeless Cold Feet knock-off) began on ITV in November 1999 and was originally screened every weeknight at 10.30pm as part of a double header with that Corrie spin-off with Bet Lynch in it. Then it moved to a weekly schedule every Friday night, but about eight episodes in the viewing figures had reached rock bottom. It was taken off at Christmas with half the series still to be shown, awaiting a new timeslot. And it waited and waited until January 2001 when it was shown again from the start in a rather different timeslot – weeknights at 5pm. However, by the time they reached the moment they stopped it the first time, viewing figures were piss-poor again and there were various complaints about them being too ‘adult’ for teatime. So off it went again. We’re pretty sure Lucy Sullivan is still waiting to get married to this day.
3) HEAR’SAY IT’S SATURDAY (2001)
Ah, how fickle fame can be. ITV are currently making sure they wring every last ounce out of Popstars: The Rivals, because they were a bit slow in spotting the popularity of the first run. They tried to make up for this by umpteen spin-off shows after it had finished, of which this diabolical Saturday teatime business was the worst. Screened at the height of Hear’Say’s shameless promotional push (around the same time as the arena tour when they’d only had two hits), it was a useless variety show with the band singing with people like David Cassidy and a “joke wall”. It started at 5.30pm, but the last episode went out about four months later at 2pm. Nowadays, of course, they’d dream of exposure like that.
2) THE PREMIERSHIP (2001)
Everyone could see this one coming, couldn’t they? Exactly how nobody at Network Centre realised that the nation’s families would not necessarily be screaming “Come quick, mum! It’s Aston Villa 0 Charlton 0!” is something we’ll never figure out. And when people said they wanted Match of the Day on earlier, they meant they wanted it on about half an hour earlier, not three and half hours. Of course, the 7pm slot pleased nobody – football fans hated it because they were so desperate to grab the family audience and filled it full of gimmicks, and non-football fans hated it because it had football in it. Nobody was surprised when it was shunted to 10.30pm, where it stays to this day. And it’s still pretty rubbish as well. And still genuinely believes in Andy Townsend.
1) h&p @ bbc (1999)
Well, where to start? This toss had already been on the shelf for ages before the BBC finally got round to screening it, and the curious 40-minute length, coupled with the fact Gareth and Norman didn’t say ‘hello’ at the start or ‘goodbye’ at the end, made it fairly obvious that they’d had a job finding anything vaguely transmittable in it. Despite the fact they announced it as “family fun”, it was eventually shown at 9.30pm – well, for the first two weeks anyway, before moving to 10pm, then 10.30pm, then 11pm, until the final show was screened at 11.50pm. Perhaps the worst thing the BBC have ever shown, Hale and Pace haven’t worked for the corporation since.
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Tuesday 19th November
BBC1
14.05 Doctors
We’re still not sure what the cast list in the Radio Times today refers to – the whole week’s programmes, or just today’s. What we do know is that at one point this week, former Crackerjack star and half of Bardo Sally Ann Triplett’s going to be in it.
22.35 Jasper Carrott: Back To The Front
Of course, given the rest of Jasp’s material, topical jokes from 1999 are virtually finger-on-the-pulse stuff.
23.35 Jaws 3-D (call it by the name you gave it, Hollywood!)
Unlikely son of Roy Scheider Dennis ‘Enemy Mine’ Quaid teams up with Sea Life Centre owner Louis ‘Enemy Mine’ Gosset Jr to blow up some more sharks, ably assisted by Neil off of Family Ties and Manimal. Legend has it that this started life as a laboured pisstake of the two previous films, but somewhere along the line the actual gags were cut out, leaving just a very bad straight shark film. Still, sweet wrappers at the ready! Oh, they’re not showing that print, are they?
BBC2
18.20 TOTP2
Booooring, it’s a Shania Twain special.
21.00 Great Britons
Alan Davies talks about John Lennon, which is fair enough, but did Lennon ever remix one of his own singles, make a video based on Rupert annuals, or include slap bass on any of his records? Did he balls. And Noel Gallagher doesn’t shut up about him either. And neither does Andy Peebles.
22.00 The Entertainers
Janette Krankie gets her legs waxed in what could be the most terrifying TV moment of the year, frankly. Second will be Christopher Biggins buying pants.
23.20 Great Britons Collection
And he never made anything like Give My Regards For Broad Street, either. Still, this should be interesting, as it’s a 24 Hours report from 1969 following the newlywed John and Yoko around for a week.
ITV
21.00 Grease: After They Were Famous
Contains John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, too, although they’re only likely to appear for a matter of seconds. It’s basically Jeff Conaway, Barry Pearl and Stockard Channing all the way, really.
CHANNEL 4
06.00 The Magic Roundabout
13.15 The Way to the Stars
It’s this week’s British War Film but with a top flight cast at least: Michael ‘Wallis’ Redgrave, Bill Owen, Felix ‘as to his character God alone knows’ Aylmer, Stanley ‘little bit of luck’ Holloway, Trevor ‘Guilty’ Howard and John ‘continuity error’ Mills.
Wednesday 20th November
BBC1
17.00 Blue Peter
They always do the specials on Wednesday, don’t they? And of course they’re the only ones signed the following morning. Rather predictably, it’s a Bond special.
BBC2
18.20 TOTP2
This is a bit more exciting, with Run DMC, Matchbox, Robert Palmer and Pulp. And you note Wright has now clarified further where they do the programme from – he’s Steve Wright In West London now. Yet in the past he’s referred to being in ‘the office’, ‘the studio’ and ‘the gallery’, so we’d like him to be much more specific please.
21.00 Thomas Cook… and Me
Should be some ace period adverts in this week’s instalment, at least.
23.30 Great Britons Collection
Looking ahead to Friday’s edition on Churchill, this programme from 1965 examines the scene in London before his funeral. Not sure where it’s from, mind – something like Tonight, maybe?
ITV
00.30 The Final Conflict: Omen III
Postponed from a few weeks ago comes the film we all hoped would be the last instalment of the Omen series. How wrong we were! Omen IV came some years later with Damien as a girl! Didn’t see that coming, did ya! Diabolical! Anyway, back at the listings, Damien now looks like Sam Neill – part of the evil one’s power seemingly being the ability to change hair colour at will – in charge of the family business, Thorn Inc. or summit, raping and pillaging the world in the name of progress. Having already dispensed with Gregory Peck, William Holden, Leo McKern, David Warner, Patrick Troughton and others too numerous to mention, there were hardly any decent character actors left to make up the numbers for this one (something the producers obviously didn’t factor into their long term plans) but there is some fun to be had trying to catch the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance of Ruby Wax as the secretary to the American Ambassador who blows his head off. This particular slice of hokum isn’t quite as good as the original but it’s a country mile better than the crow-toting bobbins of the second instalment. One thing though, at the end when vanquished Sam Neill looks up and says, “Nazarene, you have won… nothing!” then dies. Actually Damien, I think you’ll find it’s game set and match to the good guys. We suppose sour grapes are part of the overall character of the anti-christ.
CHANNEL 4
06.00 The Magic Roundabout
00.20 Pioneers: Motorhead
This 4 Music strand has been running for ages now, but we’ve never been interested enough to mention it – until now! Mind you, it is a repeat.
CHANNEL 5
14.30 Open House with Gloria Hunniford
We once saw Phil Cool live, y’know, about a decade ago as part of a ‘dream ticket’ with Jasper Carrott, who recycled all the material from the episode of Carrott Confidential that had been shown on television a week before. You forget how big Cool was in his day, but now he seems to have been touring the nation’s provinical theatres for an eternity, and a TV appearance like today’s is a bit odd. Also guesting today is Jimmy Perry, and presumably Cool will be impersonating all the Dad’s Army characters during the anecdotes.
21.00 Magnum Force
Part II of the Dirty Harry saga sees him weeding out some vigilante policemen who have been out taking the law into their own hands. Who says Americans have no concept of irony? Also involved are David ‘Salem’ Soul, Tim ‘Animal House’ Matheson and Robert ‘…for hire’ Urich.
Thursday 21st November
BBC2
21.50 Look Around You
‘The apparatus is then dismantled… and destroyed.’ Back after a week’s break, and there’s still two more after this one. Which is great news.
22.00 The Entertainers
Nicholas Parsons, of course, was on Buzzcocks last week and must be the oldest person ever to appear on that programme, being 73 years old. Tonight he’s on stage at the Edinburgh Festival, hopefully reminding us to ‘patronise your theatre!’
ITV
22.30 Harry Hill’s TV Burp
‘Beds! Beds! Beds beds beds! Beds beds beds beds beds beds beds!’ No, we haven’t see it yet, can you tell?
Friday 22nd November
BBC1
17.00 Blue Peter
Best bit in last week’s Quest was the subliminal appearance of Simon Groom – one for the fans, there, we feel. Though we’ve not really enjoyed this Quest as much as the last one, cos Matt’s nowhere near to dressing up as a woman!
00.55 Vampire Circus
We’ve always liked the late-period Hammers more than the acknowledged “classic” ’50s films, so thank heavens for the tide of popular opinion turning of late, and another showing of this prime example of their post-Carry On Screaming oeuvre. Camper, more self-mocking than the old ones, yes, but in a desperate attempt to wring something new out of the extremely limited Gothic horror sub-genre that was their stock in trade, the Hammerites came up with the truly bizarre and massively over the top likes of this gem from Robert ‘Keep it up Downstairs’ Young. What’s it got? It’s got the lot! Burnings, decapitations, pillagings, castillian conflagrations, child/animal/dwarf abuse, and probably the best pre-credits sequence of any film ever. Creepy, irrepressible vampire count Robert Tayman (Joan’s chauffeur in The Stud, natch) terrorises a small unpronounceable Serbian town, before being killed with the obligatory “I will return” speech. Years later, the plague-stricken town plays host to a dodgy travelling circus helmed by Tayman’s cousin Anthony ‘Draughtsman’s Contract’ Higgins and led by Adrienne ‘viddy well’ Corri, featuring regulation dozy animals, Dave Prowse lifting weights, and a bloodthirsty Lalla ‘Romana II’ Ward, who set about killing and shafting their way through the townspeople in between holding their rather suspect performances, before everyone rallies round Burgermeister Thorley ‘Bulman’ Walters for the inevitable final confrontation with the massed forces of darkness. All this and Lynne ‘Mrs Peter Sellers IV’ Frederick, Mary ‘Aunt Lavinia off of K9 and Company’ Wimbush and a young Jenny ‘Zammo’s mum’ Twigge too… look, isn’t that a blank VHS on top of the bookshelf?
BBC2
22.00 Porridge
Presumably like The Good Life, these are on a continuous loop now for all eternity. Of course, this was the most popular programme during Christmas week 1984, picking up around 20 million viewers on BBC1 on December 27th – and we have no idea why that would have been the case. Raiders of the Lost Ark was on that week, for Christ’s sake!
01.20 The Thing from Another World
Snow, ice, wind, white coats, professors (who all get eaten), pipes, a (part of a) spaceship and absolutely no special effects or gore whatsoever all add up to…not a bad film at all.
ITV
21.00 Best Ever Bond
You’d have thought ITV would have dragged out Dr No again in ‘celebration’, wouldn’t you? Instead they’ve hired Roger Moore to count down the Top Ten 007 moments of all-time, as chosen by viewers – not sure how, though. What chance the theme to The Living Daylights by a-Ha, then?
CHANNEL 4
06.00 The Magic Roundabout
13.00 Jumbo
Doris Day and Jimmy Durante’s circus is strapped for cash in this odd, jerrybuilt musical spectacular with Martha ‘Bugaloos’ Raye and Stephen ‘Fantastic Voyage’ Boyd.
CHANNEL 5
00.50 Thunder Run
Following recent discussion on ATF of the casting of pre-Murray ’70s slapstick gorillathon The Ghost Busters, here’s – er, Forrest ‘Jake Kong’ Tucker in a forgotten Arizona-set trucking actioner. Close but no cigar, “five”.
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DIGI-CREAMGUIDE
* It’s a BBC4 bonanza, of which the highpoint is, of course, “vintage sketches from two dead funny men”. Not Only… But Also… is screened on Saturday at 20.30 and Wednesday at 00.30, although we can’t figure out exactly why they’re showing them again. Hopefully because they’re just great. There’s also a lot of Attenborough on the channel this week, most notably The Controller Years on Saturday at 19.00 and Wednesday at 23.00, telling the story of when he ran BBC2 in the 1960s, and the Palin-fronted Life On Air on Wednesday at 22.00. The Marcopolo House documentary we’ve never seen is shown yet again on Wednesday at 19.30 and yet again we won’t watch it, while on Saturday at 00.00 and Sunday at 22.20, Herbie Hancock’s appearance on Rock Goes To College gets another airing.
* The New Statesman continues it’s repeat run on Paramount (Monday-Thursday, 23.00), Sky One’s Football Years repeats 1994/95 (Monday, 22.00) and then brings us 1998/99 (Wednesday, 22.00), Stuaret Hall guests on Shooting Stars (Sunday, 22.00, Monday, 22.30) on BBC Choice, and on the otherwise hopless Closure (Monday, 21.00, 02.30), Fish apologies to the subject of Kayleigh – hopefully by holding up a big sign saying ‘sorry’.
* Chris Diamond: “In case you missed it – ahem – the first episode of the Wheeltappers was indeed everything it ought to have been. The Ukranian Cossack Brotherhood were as good as they sound, Las Vivas were flinging their knives straight and true, Barbara Law sang in a shade of yellow seen only usually in solar flares – helped on to the stage by our Bernard and watched closely by the most pissed man ever to appear on national television – Lambert and Ross were… well, bloody awful and that took us up to Tessie O’Shea at the top of the bill. Wearing what really did look like curtains she thundered on and performed some schtick with a paper bag – ‘Bagtime Ragtime’ – only eventually helped by one of Derek Hilton’s lads in the band who missed his cue. However, there’s not many shows on a Saturday night where you get to sing along to I’m Looking Over A Four Leafed Clover or Nice One Cyril. Mixed in with a bit of business from Colin (to Tessie and Bernard at the end; “May I just say you make a lovely foursome”) and it proved why it’s still the best show on telly. This week it’ll be Stephan Grapelli, the only briefly departed but already missed Lonnie Donegan and, if I’m not mistaken, The Krankies! Miss it to the detriment of your cultural awareness.”
(Saturday, 22.30, Granada Plus)
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THIS IS WHERE LEW GRADE’S BEEN GOING WRONG!
Honest, the next TV Cream Update is definitely coming out very shortly – should be by the begining of next week, really. And it’s going to brilliant, so subscribe to it by going to http://tv.cream.org. It’ll keep our so-called ‘crack legal team’ in work, anyway. Plus you can leave your comments on Ask The Family, the TV Cream message board, if you’re annoyed that this week’s TV Cream Times had too much about telly in it, which isn’t right.
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Chris Hughes, Ian Jones, Simon Tyers, Creamguide, Sober
