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THE LITTLE WORLD OF DON CAMILLO to LYNN'S LOOK-IN
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THE LITTLE WORLD OF DON CAMILLO
(1980)
BBC
COMICAL ITALIANO whimsy with red faces and ladles of pasta much in evidence. Dramatisation of GIOVANNI GUARESCHI's story of a rural Italian priest MARIO ADORF outwitting local left-wing mayor BRIAN BLESSED through combination of lethal sousing five-course meals and a side order of ideology.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."OOH, I WON'T STAND FOR THIS, BY JOVE I WON'T"
SIMPERING EXISTENTIAL meadering mutt with sideline in crimestopping can't be arsed staying in one place and hence "just keeps moving on", prompting endless farewell scenes as the hapless mongrel pissed off somewhere else just in time for next week's episode. Title song plays on a loop in hell.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...WASN'T THAT FUCKING LITTLE, EITHER
THIS HAS a lot to answer for, chiefly bequeathing Carla Lane upon the nation and her "daffy" "sassy" "Scouse" "wit". In truth a rip-off of THE LIKELY LADS, but whisper it quietly in case Carla throws another strop and refuses to talk to anyone for the next 50 years. PAULINE COLLINS and POLLY JAMES were the first titular twosome, the former pissing off after five episodes to be replaced by NERYS HUGHES. Then Polly quit and ELIZABETH ESTENSEN took over, as someone called Carol Boswell (ach, the omens were there). Indeed, Carol had other Boswells lurking all too near the screen, including familiar sounding domineering Irish mother, wastrel bus driving father, and dopey brother Lucien who loved rabbits. Why couldn't we see what was coming? 87 episodes in all, some of which were script edited by, of all people, ERIC IDLE. Revival in 1996 was, as with everyone else dredged up around that time (AGONY, ...PERRIN, GRACE AND FAVOUR), rotten.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...LOSES MORE POINTS FOR UBIQUITOUS MOLLIE SUGDEN
LIVING AND GROWING
(1966-84)
REDIFFUSION/GRAMPIAN/THAMES
PENNY WHITTHAM was your first guide, mentor and studiously-unflappable narrator of this long-running, unchanging schools' biology work-out, which by '69 had moved to the unlikely source of Grampian Television, and began tackling the ever-thorny subject of sex education. Friday 11th April was the momentous date when, at the safe-enough time of half-past midnight, Alec Taylor summarised the main points of the programme with Dr KJ Dennis. "This preview gives parents a chance to prepare themselves for what their children will see on Sunday and looks at the questions the children may ask about sex." Then, on Sunday 13th, at 10.40am, the taboo was finally broached. "The outstanding characteristics of the series are its clarity, simplicity and complete lack of embarrassment giving a useful starting point to families who want to discuss sex frankly." Each fifteen-minute programme was preceeded by a similar late-night preview - no risks taken here. By May we were "Setting sex in a total context". Then in 1977 Thames took over, and it was STANLEY MITCHELL's turn to take over from the good doctor in the unembarrassed stakes. The final version in 1984 had SARAH "GAME FOR A LAUGH" KENNEDY demonstrating birth by pushing a doll down a piece of drainpipe.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."STOP THAT GIGGLING. OH, YOU'RE SO IMMATURE"
EEKING OUT the GOOD LIFE formula to its ultimate conclusion, Auntie decides to pluck a handful of ever so middle class families from their comfortable suburban existence and plonk them in a field, telling them to get on with a bearded Iron Age way of life. Narrative tension dwells on whether they could build the waterproof huts in time, reap the harvest, learn how to make bread, make sandals and have a bath in a horrible leaky tub. Uncomfortable viewing, not least for the bizarre tendency of everyone to take their clothes off. Minor rules-busting controversy ensued when one of the children (yes, the bastards enrolled their kids for this medieval hell as well) cut his face. Do we use a sticking plaster, or just leave it to get infected? Because they didn't have Elastoplast back then, did they, oh no. After much chin-stroking discussion, they used the plaster. Cheats!
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...BEATS CASTAWAY 2007 WITH BEN FOGLE, MIND
A TEENAGE TINA HEATH of Blue Peter pregnancy fame dons a bad blue anorak and converses with one very scary witch that pops up from behind hedges on the way home from school, causing children across the nation to shit themselves. Based on the Helen Cresswell books. Witch turns out not to exist but is merely "an amalgam of Lizzie's ennui" or something, which is always daring her to piss about, like the rabbit in Donnie Darko.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...HANNAH "JOINT ACCOUNT" GORDON SUPPLIES VOICEOVER TO ADD TO THE FRIGHTFUL PACKAGE
NUTS AND BOLS knock-off of the bacofoil and plasterboard big screen classic with MICHAEL YORK and JENNY AGUTTER escaping from a massive shopping centre with infamous age limit to meet PETER USTINOV and his TS Eliot fetish. Here GREGORY HARRISON and HEATHER MENZIES took the lead, teaming up with a Kamelion-esque android (when were they not?) called REM in the shape of DONALD MOFFAT. Together they encountered other societies including one that cuts people in half and another that worships Burgess Meredith.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...TERMINATED
LONDON BRIDGE
(LATE 1970s)
THAMES
STULTIFYING SUMMER holiday morning yawnathon for inner city tykes only, hosted by the posh and incredibly dim MICHAEL WHALE, most notable for commenting of a gold-plated statue, "That must be worth more than money!"
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...IDIOT
THREE PLAYLETS courtesy of ALAN "COALHOUSE DOOR" PLATER wherein LES DAWSON has various brushes with petty bureaucracy and the like as character simply named DAWSON. ROY KINNEAR, BRIAN WILDE, CYRIL LUCKHAM and co on the receiving end of more than one gurning grimace.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...EPISODES PERFUNCTORILY TITLED DAWSON'S COMPLAINT, DAWSON'S CONNECTION AND DAWSON'S ENCOUNTER
SEMINAL KIDS pursuit caper from pen of N.J. "DIXON" CRISP and starring ubiquitous SIMON "IT'S GREEN CROSS CODE MAN!" TURNER and JAN "JUST GOOD" FRANCIS endlessly on the run from a motorbike straddling DUDLEY SUTTON. Eponymous "chase" was a very long one, seemingly stretching across the country and over 13 episodes. Kicked off when Simes (John) got wise to his dad working for Shadowy Organisation. GLYN HOUSTON provided little help as Friendly Bobby On The Beat; BOB PECK piled on the menace. Memorable incidents included: Austin Maxi driving over the side of a cliff in slow motion; black-gloved professional shooting VIP at Edinburgh Castle, only for fake ambulance to whisk stiff away; kids nearly drowning while canoe sank in Lake District; terrifying scramble across Dartmoor pursued by rabies-infested mongrel; and boat chase denouement in North East fishing village of Hopeman.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...WHITHER SIMON TURNER?
NEW ORLEANS criminal insurance investigator gets blinded in the line of duty, but on he bloody well goes. Shared premise with IRONSIDE, but not the gags. JAMES "APES" FRANCISCUS waggled the stick.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...NOT FORGETTING AGILE SIGHTED SIDEKICK, BRUCE "GREEN HORNET" LEE
LOOK AND READ
(1967-NOW)
BBC
WHY DON'T you build yourself a word?
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."WELCOME, WORD-WATCHERS!"
LOOK WHO'S TALKING
(1970s)
ITV
SONOROUSLY DULL chattery with DEREK "MR AND MRS" BATEY jawing with various D listers, including THE KRANKIES and VINCE HILL. The audience was made up totally of pensioners, and exhibited ten times more life than those they were watching on stage.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...AND FIFTY TIMES MORE LIFE THAN THOSE WATCHING FROM HOME
AXED-IN-A-FLASH AFFAIR pitched at you youngsters pissing about instead of doing your homework or helping mum wash the pots. The divine TOYAH WILCOX (in rare pre-DEAR HEART appearance) plus Radio Wolverhampton DJs Ann Butler, Liz Cotton, John Holmes and Chris Phipps sat around on odd-looking chairs talking arts. Typical feature: a look at hairstyles that will set the pace in the '80s, with The Disco Dancing Hairdressers.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...A PEBBLE MILL PRESENTATION, NATURALLY
MUSTY MAN ALIVERY with a doff of a whimsy-sized hat to ABOUT BRITAIN. Regional slant on craft activities, its content forever escalated out of all propotion by a tantalisingly existing computerised map of the country in the opening titles.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...NO, THANKS!
SUB-STANDARD SORTIE from GET IT TOGETHER, were such a thing feasible, and with this being the 1970s it most certainly was. No audience, no canned applause, just ROY NORTH with some puppet bird with a large beak and a Manc accent, and another real life bird (also with a large beak) who, like Roy, would also give us some cover version of one of the hits of the week or a rendition of an old classic.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...EXTRAORDINARY RENDITION, MORE LIKE
LOOKS FAMILIAR
(LATE 1970s)
THAMES
SQUIRE DENIS of NORDEN helmed this assortment of archive clippage, paraded in front of a panel of brilliantly-named "nostalgia experts", who were in reality ageing micro-celebs, for identification, conversation and putrefaction. Excerpt from The Empire Strikes Back in title sequence was cynical ploy to keep schooldodging kids watching, and never turned up in the actual programme.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...IT'LL NEVER CATCH ON
THE LORD MAYOR'S SHOW
(c.1250-NOW)
BBC
ANNUAL INTERRUPTION to your favourite (or Live And Kicking) Saturday morning entertainment. Noel, Mike or Phil would jovially pack up early in order to allow an archaic metropolitan perambulation to take to the airwaves, and you watched because there was nothing else to do. Cue numerous marching bands, indistinct "carnival" "costumes", obscure celebrities waving desperately, ceremonial carriages, and - best of all - dementedly decorated municipal floats from the likes of the local dairies, gas works and electricity board. And the likes of MIKE SMITH and ALAN TITCHMARSH amidst it all, hooting hysterically.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."AND THERE'S THE WATER BOARD FLOAT, DESIGNED IN THE SHAPE OF...A GIANT TAP. AGAIN."
ANOTHER SIGHTING of a tinker on the telly (see KIZZY), this time in the "loveable" shape of HUGH LLOYD, who suddenly finds out he's inherited a billion pounds and becomes the titular aristo. Only he still hankers for his bindle. A kid's sitcom, apparently.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...JOAN SIMS COOKED THE LIVER AND ONIONS
LEONARD ROSSITER and ALAN COREN, apart indefatigable, together...execrable. They were on a hiding to nothing with that programme title for starters. Len was, of all things, a manager of some wrestlers, keen to pick a winner and hitting on a scheme ripped off (like LORD TRAMP above) from The Simpsons, i.e. to make a champ out of a chump.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...KO
A FURTHER HANDFUL of hokum from the great IRWIN ALLEN, here set in the year - ho ho - 1997, where, thanks to a dangerously over-populated planet, the Space Family Robinson (do you see?) trundle off on a five-year gadabout to find more lebensreum. Only the ship was fucked and they became LOST...IN...SPACE... On board: GUY WILLIAMS (Professor John R.), JUNE LOCKHART (his missus Maureen), kids Judy, Will and Penny, a robot called The Robot with vacuum cleaner arms, plus the requisite Irwin pantomime villain, "devious" Dr. Zachary Smith (JONATHAN HARRIS). Escapades became more bonkers as the years went on, with giant frogs, cardboard craters and talking trees contriving to prevent the Robinsons forever from turning the map the right way up and going home.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."I THINK THAT SNEAKY PROFESSOR'S UP TO SOMETHING..."
ANOTHER ENDLESS epic for the summer holidays. Bunch of shouty kids get castaway on the eponymous outcrop, the means to this end being painstakingly laid out in the title theme every week: "There once was a wealthy man who had a wonderful idea/To bring children from all places with all kinds of faces/Together into a sailing ship there were 40 boys and girls/They sailed their ship around the globe and they called it 'The United World'/The ship was just three weeks from shore when the hurricane bore down/The waves were big as mountains, they thought they would surely drown/They jumped into a lifeboat and got blown away from the wreck/They didn't count them they hadn't time - five children were left behind [...] David, Mark & Tony, Anna & Su-Yin/Are left there on the island, who knows what could begin/Adventure lies before them, danger lies behind/But as they go on searching what new troubles will they find?" Inevitably the island was filled with strangers watching other strangers in the undergrowth while being run by a mysterious spiritual quack who was knowingly keeping the (mainly Australian) peasants in an artificially mediaeval world. And there was some glowing seaweed.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...NOBODY WOULD WATCH SUCH A PREPOSTEROUS PREMISE NOWADAYS, SURELY?
HOORAY! ANOTHER BBC thriller uncovering dark secrets in the Cretan underbelly (see THE APHRODITE INHERITANCE, THE DARK SIDE OF THE SUN). This time it's IAN HENDRY and missus WANDA VENTHAM who are blithely running their cosy taverna nestling in balmy Mediterranean slopes until fate intervenes and Godly forces take control, in the form of a bristling MAURICE DENHAM, a shimmering CAROL CLEVELAND and a frumpish SYLVIA COLERIDGE. Titular munching goes on. Community begins to fall apart. Hendry was actually a recovering alcoholic (obvious choice to run a bar), or perhaps not, and had been accused of the murder of a 15-year old schoolgirl, or maybe not; Ventham was, perhaps, a "sleeper" secret agent, briefed to marry and investigate Hendry, only to fall in love with him, or did she, etc. When another girl gets murdered, things drift off into choking fog of complete confusion.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."...IS TO LOSE THE DESIRE TO RETURN HOME." QUITE.
THE LOVE BOAT
(1978-87)
AARON SPELLING
LOVE, EXCITING and new. Come on board. We're expecting you! Good old Aaron, serving up another long-running format purely in order to shoehorn famous faces into the same programme for almost ten years. Staple afternoon ITV filler, with GAVIN MACLEOD, FRED GRANDY and BERNIE KOPELL setting a course for adventure, their mind on a new romance. JACK JONES crooned the, as you can see, unforgettable theme.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...AN OPEN SMILE ON A FRIENDLY SHORE
ROARING TWENTIES flapper and all-round femme fatale Lydia (MEL MARTIN) moves from man to man in this furious adaptation of the H E Bates novella. CHRISTOPHER BLAKE and JEREMY "PLAY AWAY" IRONS were among those passed through.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...AND THEN PASSED OVER
WORTHY DRAMATISATION of the comings and goings of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, with PETER EGAN playing himself and a youthful BEN KINGSLEY as a wild-eyed and wilder-haired Dante Gabriel Rosetti. Usual period palaver involving artists, garrets, consumption, resurrectionism and cholera. Title misled adolescent boys to sneak it on when mum and dad were out of the room, but apart from an amusing spotlight thrown upon John Ruskin's 'marital' problems, they were to be disappointed.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...LOVELY COSTUMES, THOUGH
LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR
(1972-76)
THAMES
NOWADAYS THIS is shorthand for everything that was shit about the 1970s, but in reality there was worse to be had in the likes of IT AIN'T 'ALF HOT MUM and SOME MOTHERS DO 'AVE 'EM; at least this didn't pretend it was anything other than bombastic bar-room bigotry. JACK SMETHURST and KATE WILLIAMS lived next door to RUDOLPH WALKER and NINA BADEN-SEMPER for 56 episodes. Offensive misunderstandings ensued. Biggest crime was that it just wasn't fucking funny.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."NOW LOOK, I'M NOT BEING RACIALIST, BUT..."
AH, THE gentle swish of a watercolour paintbrush, the chiming tinkle of an endlessly hummable signature tune...the smell of an ace, if preposterous, classic. LOVEJOY was the business, despite its titular hero being a blackguard, a cheat, a rogue and a sporter of the Phil Collins Jacket And Jeans. IAN MCSHANE was your avuncular antiques dealer, running juvenile amok in East Anglia with PHYLLIS LOGAN (posh love interest Lady Jane), DUDLEY SUTTON (dandied loon Tinker) and CHRIS JURY (hapless klutz on motorbike Eric). Each week the gang fell foul of ludicrous plot devices, ancient earthenware, foreign crime syndicates, a man from the council, MALCOLM TIERNEY (Charlie Gimbert) and inclement weather. First series ended with our man being sent to prison, only to emerge five years later with a bouffon and a propensity for wearing Motorhead T-shirts, driving a car called Miriam and helping out old ladies in peril from marginally less ethical dealers. Show then gained a huge following and, weirdly, a huge currency amongst the luvvie community, with the likes of JOHN GIELGUD and JOANNA LUMLEY showing up for a bit. Inevitably ran out of steam towards the end, with McShane apparently calling the shots and the likes of Logan and Dury pissing off as a result. Still, at its peak it was nonsensical wonderment, especially the bits where Lovejoy talked straight to camera a la Francis Urquhart and Garry Shandling.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."WELL LOVEJOY, IT SEEMS YOU WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG!"
FORMICA AND flock wallpaper sitcommery by JACK ROSENTHAL with a pre-PORRIDGE RICHARD BECKINSALE and pre-MAN ABOUT THE HOUSE PAULA WILCOX as titular "wooing" couple. Considered, inevitably, "a bit racy" for the time. Your dad disapproved, while your mum secretly thought it was ace. Big screen spin-off notable for sudden appearance of an exclamation mark, to wit: THE LOVERS!
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...DIRECTED BY MICHAEL "SEVEN UP" APTED
DAVID JASON lands his first comedy lead and hams it up enormously as eponymous bloke Shorty fashioning himself as a kind of junior Del Boy in order to impress womankind, despite driving a Messerschmet car. Brother, PETER ARMITAGE, more successful at everything. Both ran a plumbing and oddjob business. Punchlines non-refundable.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...DAVE FINALLY GETS "LUCKY" IN THE LAST EPISODE BY WEDDING CHERYL HALL
OUR FIRST glimpse of "Noely" in primetime, courtesy of bog standard phone-in quizzing with prizes beyond avarice itself, i.e. Lucky Numbers bricks or a year's supply of bubble bath. Show was always shamelessly plugged several hours earlier on SWAP SHOP.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...EMBRYONIC EDMONDS: PRECIOUS LITTLE SHOUTING AND NO RUNNING ABOUT DEMENTEDLY
MASTERFUL FIVE-MINUTER, often trundled out in the hallowed pre-NATIONWIDE slot, featuring an ovoid eggy jewel thing out of which "things" came, like a helicopter rotor, arms, legs, wings, gadgets etc. It lived in the forest, and every episode some upset would occur to the loveable dumb animal occupants which would require Ludwig to come to the rescue by opening up a limb and extending a gadget. Then at the end of every episode, triumphant, it would extend a baton and conduct one of Mozart's Horn Concertos which played for the duration of the credits. Perenially spied on by faceless deerstalker-clad birdwatcher with huge binoculars.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...LIKE THE TITULAR MAESTRO, UTTERLY SUPERB
A ONE-OFF and no mistake: futuristic lunar colony houses various emotionless, artificial humans grown from "prime slime" culture who speak in convoluted, calcified prose. The heroine, one of said creatures, is PATSY KENSIT, and her owner/father is COLIN BENNETT, and calling the shots behind the camera is ex-Monkee MICKEY DOLENZ. Not one, but two series somehow emerged.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."GRATITUDES"
LYNN MARSHALL'S EVERYDAY YOGA
(1982)
BBC
GENTEEL SUNDAY morning stretchathon, with the be-leotarded Lynn in a bare studio thrusting and mulching.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."IF YOU CAN'T MANAGE THIS POSITION YET, DON'T WORRY"
LYNN'S LOOK-IN
(LATE 1970s/EARLY 1980s)
TYNE-TEES
NO RELATION to the above, here was some other Lynn, hailing from the Tyne-Tees weatherbeat, tramping her way through a regional Saturday morning filler before the whole country sucuumbed to TIWWAS. Theme song laid things bare for all to see, and how bare: "It's Saturday morning and it's Lynn's Look-In, Lynn's Look-In" went the words, over three-chord idling. Lynn was sensible host, with "wacky" sidekick MALCOLM GERRIE (future head man on THE TUBE) who dressed in teddy boy gear and played the fool. Usual mix of guests, videos and games ensued. Gerrie was later replaced by yet another Tyne-Tees reporter/producer/buffoon, ALASTAIR PIRRIE, who would go on to take credit not only for RAZZAMATAZZ but THE ROXY.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...SHE HAD NO SURNAME
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