And welcome to another Creamguide, and with a Bank Holiday for most of us it means the autumn season’s on the horizon, but we’ll eke out the last few drops of summer in the company of your lively letters to creamguide@tvcream.co.uk.
SATURDAY
28th AUGUST
BBC1
20.30 Parkinson at 50
Listen out at 8.31 for the nationwide cry of “ooh, he’s aged”, but despite now looking all of his 86 years, Parky’s back in the spotlight with a book and a tour and this special to mark half a century since his legendary talk-in began. As regular readers will know, Parky tends to rub us up the wrong way about (though he gets a grudging thumbs up for still being very proud of Ghostwatch), but even we have to admit it’s probably the most famous talk show British TV has ever seen. He admits this was partly due to luck, as he was extremely fortunate to be operating in the seventies when most of the big Hollywood stars were still alive, and were of an age when they were more willing to open up, but it still relied on him actually attracting them - only Sinatra kept saying no - and so his show is a priceless record of pretty much everyone operating in the seventies. Some of the clips here will probably be quite familiar, but that’s because they’re so bloody famous.
BBC2
20.00 Dad’s Army
And just as we were saying how rarely this has been in this slot this year, here it is again. Sad news this week with the death of Charlie Watts, always the best Stone we think, mostly because he always gave across the impression, which seems to be at least partly true, that he didn’t really much care for this rock business and would rather be playing jazz, but he’d better stick around to make sure Mick and Keith didn’t get in to too much trouble. There’s a new compilation of Charlie at the Beeb on BBC2 on Friday 27th at ten and there’s iPlayer if you’ve already missed it.
21.30 Parkinson
22.20 Parkinson
23.05 Parkinson
To accompany the special we’ve got this triple bill of talk No original seventies episodes, unfortunately, though the first one is a complete edition from 1998, the first series of the hugely successful comeback, which inevitably includes Billy Connolly. Then there are two compilations first made back in 1999, the first based around Hollywood women with the likes of Bette Midler, Lauren Bacall and, of course, Miss Piggy, and the second comprising his four very different encounters with Muhammad Ali.
ITV4
10.30 The Big Match Revisited
After one episode of 1980/81 we missed a week, but here we are again, and as Michael Sykes says, “For all the shiny new opening titles and theme tune, plus added Jim Rosenthal, the biggest shock to the system was Brian leading into the first ad break with ‘A lot more still to come on The Big Match tonight’, as opposed to the familiar ‘this afternoon’. That may take some getting used to after so long.” True enough, and fascinating it all was with Jim’s round-up, though no pools news alas. As with previous seasons we aren’t getting every episode and we’re already skipping a few weeks to mid-September. We often think of The Big Match as the glamour football show, taking its pick from dozens of fixtures, but for the second season running there are only three London sides in the top flight, so it’s no wonder they’re co-opting Southern’s teams so much, with Southampton on again this week, though David Bobin gets to commentate on them this time with Brian at Spurs.
BBC Radio 2
13.00 Pick of the Pops
A second week in the hot seat for Gary Davies, although it’s a bit of a shame none of the charts he’s playing are those he revealed at the time on Tuesday lunchtime Radio 1. But never mind that because the first hour is 1979 which, as regular readers will recall, is always a highlight on this show because the charts were so brilliant, and we include BA Robertson in that, as long as Gaz skips over punk’s worst band, Sham 69. Then it’s 2000, rather oddly a week after the great Posh vs Sophie Ellis-Bextor number one battle, but probably quite likeable as noughties charts go, and even if they don’t play Daphne and Celeste there’ll be our favourite Britney song.
20.00 The Summer of Bryan Adams
Well, bad luck to Omar as despite Simon Mayo’s suggestion, that wasn’t quite the most famous record of the summer of 1991. Of course it’s just started its reign of terror on BBC4, and halfway through this programme you can switch on BBC1 and hear it on Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves as well. Nobody seems to know quite why this record was quite so unstoppable, although as Pops is rather illustrating, there was a distinct lack of teen idols around, with New Kids, Chesney and Bros all sliding down the dumper, and seemingly ever other major artist on holiday. Bryan himself is presenting this programme, and let’s hope he plays the aptly-named Can’t Stop This Thing We Started, which was released, charted, peaked and fell out of the charts again while he was still at number one. One thing he definitely is going to do is look at previously record-breaking number ones, and perform one of them.
SUNDAY
29th AUGUST
BBC2
21.00 When Ruby Wax Met
More archive chat here, with female performers the theme. This includes the memorable Liza Minelli encounter where, as we mentioned last week, she divorced David Gest pretty much the day after it was broadcast. There are some more successful interviews, though seemingly that doesn’t include Madonna, Ruby not being the only chat show host of the nineties to try and fail to get something interesting out of her, while as with everyone operating at that time she also spent time with the Spice Girls.
BBC Radio 4
11.00 The Reunion
The new season of the Women’s Super League kicks off next weekend with its profile higher than ever with regular live games on BBC1 and Sky. It may not have the exposure of men’s football, but it’s getting there, and we must bear in mind its development was rather stunted by being banned for fifty years. Well, more or less, because women’s football was pretty successful in the early part of the 21st century, especially during World War I, but then in 1921 the FA made up some cock and bull excuse about it being “unsuitable” for ladies and prohibited them playing at venues used for men’s football which basically meant they couldn’t play anywhere. In this programme Kirsty Wark meets some of the women who in the seventies finally got that overturned and started its journey to the success we’re seeing now.
MONDAY
30th AUGUST
BBC2
19.30 Mastermind
Well, it must be a measure of Clive Myrie’s success as host that halfway through we were already getting wrapped up in the game and forgot we were supposed to be judging his performance. We’ll put the rather odd-sounding “yeeees” in the first few rounds to first night nerves and assume he’ll notice, but he was pleasant, affable and coherent and that’s all you want from a host. Still the same great mix of specialist subjects as well, tonight mixing Beyonce with the Blandings stories.
BBC4
19.30 Miss Marple: The Moving Finger
21.00 Agatha Christie: Unfinished Portrait
22.00 The Great Detectives: Hercule Poirot and the Disappearing Novelist
It’s Agatha Christie weekend on BBC4, with Saturday and Sunday devoted to repeats of some of the more recent adaptations of her work, and then some rarer items tonight. First it’s the definitive Marple in Joan Hickson with one of the first occasions she donned the cardigan in 1985, followed by an Arena made to mark her centenary in 1990 which we don’t think has ever been repeated so it should be worth a look. Then it’s a curio from 1999, part of a series introduced by Nigel Williams examining the truth behind fictional crime fighters and in this episode joined by David Suchet to ponder the famous story of Christie’s own mysterious disappearance.
BBC Radio 2
14.00 Happy Birthday Neighbours with Scott Mills
There are some things that the majority of the nation did a few decades ago that now hardly anyone does, a list that famously includes smoking, going to church and doing the pools. You could also add to that list watching Neighbours, as while it’s still going, it pulls in around 200,000 viewers a day on Channel Five, which is quite some contrast to its imperial phase in the late eighties when up to twenty million people were watching every teatime on BBC1. That was also the period where pretty much the entire cast were making records as well - as the famous joke at the time went, it was pretty much only Bouncer who hadn’t - and so they could pretty much fill up the entire three hours of this show quite easily with all the spin-offs. In addition Scott will be introducing clips, quizzes and input from many of its alumni, not just Kylie and Jason plus also Anne Charleston, Ian Smith and, of course, Barry Crocker.
In a couple of weeks it’ll be fifty years since the launch of one of the most influential, mostly fondly remembered, most parodied and often most boring music shows of all time. Before everyone else piles in, let’s very quietly celebrate...
THE OLD GREY WHISTLE TEST (1971-87)
David Hepworth, a future Whistle Test presenter himself, has often cited 1971 as the most important year in the history of rock, as a number of seminal albums were released from the likes of Led Zeppelin, Marvin Gaye, Carole King and many others that were so literate, intricate and intelligent people started considering it as an art form worthy of serious study. Late Night Line-Up had spearheaded intelligent coverage of “grown-up” rock music, as had its spin-offs Colour Me Pop (with this wonderfully of-its-time performance by The Moody Blues wigging out as politely as possible) and Disco 2. The latter apparently came to an abrupt end after the producer was found to have received some, cough, favours to feature certain artists, so Mike Appleton was charged with creating a new programme covering progressive pop, and someone on the production team remembered an old music biz saying about whether a grey-haired doorman could whistle your song after hearing it the first time, which made for a good title.
Mike Appleton remained in charge for the show’s entire run, an obsessive of both music and cricket who always contrived to arrange filming trips based on where a test match happened to be going on. The idea of the new show was to stop treating pop music as disposable, filling gaps on variety, and instead treat the subject as seriously as the musicians themselves did. That said, the lack of showbiz glamour was not entirely contrived as the show came from the tiny Pres B, meaning getting the bare studio walls in shot was almost guaranteed. But it also helped make the setting resemble a rehearsal room and, with no room for an audience, nothing got in the way of the artist. It also aimed to be the NME on TV, supplementing the live acts with interviews and debate, and hence a journalist was installed as host, Melody Maker’s Richard Williams, seen here conducting a terribly earnest interview with the folk rock guitarist of the year.
You could certainly argue that Whistle Test’s absolute determination to avoid anything showbiz was just as contrived as anything Top of the Pops did, but viewers and artists alike bought into the concept. This was a show that took music seriously, and was totally unique in being devoted to the craft of the album rather than the cheap thrill of the single, and this credibility helped attract the top acts of the day, even though the programme was inevitably broadcast somewhere around midnight. For the viewers at home, especially those who lived outside the big cities, it also offered a fascinating chance to see and hear acts you’d read about in the music press and often just had to imagine what they might sound like.
Richard Williams presented Whistle Test for the first year, before deciding telly wasn’t for him and handing over to Bob Harris. Then on Radio 1, Bob also had journalistic credentials, having been one of the founders of Time Out, and with his long hair and beard, looked like most of the audience as well. And if Williams’ presentation was low-key, Bob’s was even further removed from the cliché of the gurning pop DJ, so laid-back and softly spoken as to be virtually inaudible. Indeed, the classic Whistle Test link would involve some band making an enormous racket and, as the feedback finally died out, a slow pan back to Bob in his swivel chair who would pause for ages before remarking “great”.
Although far removed from Top of the Pops, one problem that was shared by Whistle Test was how to feature music that had no suitable visual accompaniment. Actually such was the programme’s lack of frills you’d think they could have just pointed the camera at the wall for five minutes, but they did at least remember they were a television programme and engaged Philip Jenkinson to create a series of montages using stock footage via his Filmfinders operation. Some of these primitive pop videos added greatly to the avant garde nature of the music and were as memorable as the tracks themselves, while others were wholly inappropriate, but as an idiosyncratic item they certainly helped Whistle Test stand out from the crowd.
And indeed they all helped Whistle Test contrive a reputation as something of a forbidding show for any casual viewer, especially unsuspecting pop kids, who happened to stumble across it. Often the last show on air, people would regularly stumble back from the pub and switch on to see Bob read out long lists of increasingly ridiculous band names in between nightmarish montages of black and white cartoons and ugly musicians performing horrible dirges. Of course, for rock fans this was all grist to the mill, making it feel like a proper exclusive club, although one thing everyone could agree on was how ace its theme tune was, Stone Fox Chase by the most boringly named band in the world, Area Code 615. This episode of TV Heroes includes a host of brilliant clips, including Bob suggesting Blood Sweat & Tears should be on next week but one’s just died, so maybe not.
Whistle Test remained telly’s most important rock show until the mid-seventies, but unfortunately its self-consciously serious approach left it looking a bit out of date. The programme had always considered the LP as the absolute purest form of music, and as such only considered artists who had an album to appear. Along came punk which, unfortunately for Whistle Test, was released almost entirely via singles, and their determination to stick to their guns meant they completely missed the boat. This meant that while shows like Revolver and So It Goes on ITV featured punk acts by the truckload, Whistle Test was still droning on about the latest ELP triple album and they started looking as fashionable as flared trousers. Sadly Bob himself, who had already attracted the ire of some viewers by referring to punk pioneers The New York Dolls as “mock rock”, never really embraced the new wave and decided in 1978 to call it a day. In his place came Annie Nightingale who was much more in touch, and eventually the main punk players made an appearance.
And while the ITV shows had made the early running, none of them managed to last very long or indeed were nationally networked, so Whistle Test, perhaps more by luck than judgement, remained the main showcase for alternative and non-chart sounds as it entered the eighties. David Hepworth joined Annie in 1981, and then the following year was joined by his Smash Hits colleague Mark Ellen, who told the Radio Times when he joined that he was hoping the show would be less in thrall to musicianship and heritage acts and embrace the new and the disposable, to some sniffing from its loyal viewers. But both Hepworth and Ellen were smart enough to offer suitably intelligent presentation, and here they are on the latter’s first programme, with a somewhat self-conscious interview with Kate Bush.
And as the show celebrated a decade on air, it had started to freshen things up a bit, given in previous years its earnest and serious presentation had threatened to cross the line to simply plain boring. Though still very much marooned in the witching hour, things were a bit more accessible - the weird films were replaced by, gasp, pop videos, and the show was also prepared to accept the single after a decade of considering only albums worth bothering with, while a studio audience offered a bit of excitement (although they were always safely seated and suitably restrained). And the music policy broadened a bit to include bands who’d actually been in the top ten, like Spandau Ballet.
Slowly but surely, Whistle Test was changing and aiming to appeal to a wider audience than obsessives, and in 1983 came something of a landmark in the first Rock Around The Clock, where the team annexed BBC2 for fifteen hours non-stop, from mid-afternoon on Saturday to breakfast time on Sunday for films, videos and live concerts. This was hugely exciting at the time, and they did it again in 1984 - with the regular presenters joined by the unlikely figure of Pebble Mill’s Josephine Buchan - for what seems very much the musical equivalent of a Saturday morning show crossed with Children in Need, with a bank of celebrity telephonists and phone-in quizzes, though it’s probably best remembered for an abortive session by New Order. They did it again in 1986, but were a bit busy in 1985 with some concert or other.
By now, Whistle Test had its most fearsome competition yet, in the shape of The Tube. Nationally networked, this had all the musical credibility of Whistle Test but with the energy and excitement of Top of the Pops, and was a big hit, and was live at teatime rather than stuck around midnight. This led to the most radical revamp yet, as it lost the Old Grey from its title, and it too went live much earlier in the evening, around seven o’clock - albeit on Tuesday nights. It wasn’t Top of the Pops just yet, mind, but there was at least some attempt to be a bit less forbidding with pop videos, a phone vote, competitions and a much broader music policy, while Richard Skinner ran down the new charts, the show now happily discussing the likes of Duran Duran. Andy Kershaw also arrived, bringing a dose of irreverence and - gasp! - a regional accent, and it seemed a pretty successful revamp, managing to placate existing fans while bringing in a newer audience. Indeed, the major criticism seemed to be that it had gone from being earnest and boring to almost being too eager to please.
The new teatime Whistle Test may have stopped turning its nose up at the Top 40 - with even the likes of Mike Read and Simon Bates standing in for Skinner on chart duty - but it was still on the hunt for interesting new bands, and managed to reflect the indie and alternative scene of the mid-eighties with many acts who would go on to become big names making their debut appearances, and memorable performances from the likes of The Smiths. But unfortunately the show started to fall foul of the vagaries of the schedules, not helped by EastEnders turning up opposite it on Tuesday nights. This led to it being booted around a bit, some episodes in 1986 going out as early as 6pm - alright for The Tube on Fridays, but pretty hopeless on a Tuesday when its audience were still on their way home from work, while its stablemates included No Limits which couldn't be further away from the Whistle Test tradition if it tried.
In 1987 it moved back to a more suitable hour, perhaps its most appropriate yet, of 8pm - but unfortunately that coincided to a truncation to thirty minutes. Mark Ellen and Andy Kershaw were still in charge, but by the time we’d had a live band, a few videos and a film report the show was pretty much over, and increasingly it felt a bit unloved on BBC2. It wasn’t mentioned at the time, but March 1987 saw its final regular episode, broadcast from Glasgow and with Wet Wet Wet as the last act.
And with the likes of Network 7 now on the horizon, Whistle Test was starting to seem as outdated among pop kids as it had a decade earlier. And so, on New Year’s Eve, with Janet Street-Porter now at TV Centre and responsible for the Beeb’s output for young people, Whistle Test ended for good. At least it had outlasted The Tube, mind, which had imploded earlier in the year, and Bob Harris came back to Pres B to see it off, though they lose points for ending with the far less interesting Dave Stewart-penned theme. Other shows like Snub TV and Behind The Beat filled the gap, though it wasn’t until 1992 that there was a proper replacement for a suitably grown-up music show in Later.
It’s easy to laugh at how earnest Whistle Test was at times, but although it missed the boat with punk it did manage to innovate in the eighties, always pulled in top class live acts and was literate, thoughtful, intelligent and likeable right to the end. Though, of course, it lives on nearly 35 years after the last show thanks to its priceless archive.
TUESDAY
31st AUGUST
CHANNEL 5
21.00 Sex and Power: Celebrity Wars
Hard to tell how long the tabloid culture can continue given an entire generation has no particular attachment to the idea of buying a paper or the idea that written-down news is any more noble and special a concept than any other type of news, although if they did all collapse over the next decade or so, the sad news is that they’ll probably be replaced by something even worse. But over the next three nights this series will examine the recent history and influence of the press, the later episodes examining the members of the public who find themselves under the spotlight and the celebs whose careers have taken a knock, but first of all it’s a presumably pretty unedifying discussion over the treatment of famous women, and specifically the quartet of tabloid staples Ulrika, Daniella Westbrook, Kerry Katona and Princess Diana.
WEDNESDAY
1st SEPTEMBER
BBC Scotland
20.30 Rewind 1988
Well, here we are again, as this channel picking up various last minute football rights over the past few weeks means that this series has been interrupted quite frequently, and so that means we’re billing this episode for the third week running. So, all together now... once more we’re expecting a snazzy soundtrack to this episode with top Scottish bands like Aztec Camera nestling near the top of the charts. It’s a particularly sombre episode otherwise, mind, with two terrible tragedies in Lockerbie and Piper Alpha.
Sky Showcase
10.00 Sky Showcase Launch
New channel launches these days are ten a penny, but this is quite big news as this is the replacement for Sky One, which is going off air after over thirty years. During those three decades, Sky has gone from an expensive novelty that looked doomed to failure to a hugely profitable and established broadcaster, so it’s a very different era. For all that, you would have to say that Sky One’s legacy is pretty pathetic, really, for all the prominence (on the first page of the Sky EPG) and promotion and money it gets, the number of homegrown hits it’s had probably wouldn’t fill up a whole day’s schedule, and most of its hit shows have been imports, many prised from other channels, and the fact the biggest question when its closure was announced was what happens to The Simpsons rather says it all. But still, the end of an era all the same, with the entertainment shows now going off to they new Sky Max and this new channel bringing together programmes from all its various brands, including, yes, The Simpsons. And you’ll be pleased to know it also remains the home of Hour of Power.
THURSDAY
2nd SEPTEMBER
BBC4
21.00 Great Moments in Aviation
22.30 Face to Face: Jeanette Winterson
Here’s a bit of a novelty getting a very rare outing. Back in the early nineties, Jeanette Winterson was a hot property after Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, and teaming up with director Beeban Kidron again was given pretty much carte blanche to do what she wanted, as was the way with BBC drama at the time. Unfortunately, that ended up being this ropey romantic mystery, which despite a heavyweight cast including John Hurt and Vanessa Redgrave, was a self-indulgent and incoherent mess and so, despite being made in 1992, the Beeb promptly sat on it for three years before finally flinging it out with absolutely no promotion in 1995. We think this is its first showing since, so it’ll be interesting to see again, followed by her encounter with Jeremy Isaacs from around the same time.
CBBC
17.00 Blue Peter
We’d say this would be the time the gang used to be back from the expedition, but actually they wouldn’t return until around mid-September and this would be around the time you’d get Flies The World compilations of the previous year’s expedition. But after a summer of pre-records, it’s the new term on Blue Peter with everyone back live in the studio, with no doubt lots of exciting things to tell us about.
Sky Arts
21.00 Comedy Legends
We saw Goldie Hawn’s encounter with Ruby Wax the other day, and now here’s Barry and the gang to pay tribute to one of the giants of movie comedy in the seventies and eighties, though for many she’ll still be best remembered for her big break, as a frequently show-stealing regular on Laugh-In.
Sky Documentaries
21.00 The Story of Late Night
We were talking about Sky One up there, which is one of a number of channels that has tried to make a success of running David Letterman’s shows over the years. It never managed to last very long in the UK no matter what channel it appeared on, probably because Dave’s bits of business have been ripped off so many times over the years, by people like Jonathan Ross, Danny Baker, Chris Evans and many more, that it seems like we’ve seen it before, despite Dave inventing pretty much all of it, and indeed the whole concept of the anarchic, irreverent chat show. As we’ll see.
FRIDAY
3rd SEPTEMBER
BBC4
22.00 Top of the Pops
Well, we all thought that at least by showing two episodes a week we’d be able to get through Bryan Adams’ reign of terror a bit quicker, only for the Proms and the great summer of sport to see the flood of episodes turn into a trickle, with just one tonight - and in one of the latest slots we’ve ever had - and then none next week. Unfortunately too Bryan only bothered to come into the studio once, and even when he was there he did a performance so boring they had to intersperse it with extracts from the video where he was doing exactly the same thing. Actually it’s a bit of a problematic episode all round, to be honest, certainly from today’s perspective, what with Morrissey and the first of multiple appearances by Right Said Fred, though at least we’ve also got the ace Voice of the Beehive.
