Saturday 30 September 2017

Pushing Up Daisies / Coming Next


Ah, the Great British sketch show, now there's a glorious helping of British comedy if ever there was one. Time was that they pretty much ruled the airwaves along with sitcom and, when I was a lad, you could open up a copy of the Radio Times, randomly stick a pin in and chances were it would stick into a listing for a sketch show - much to the chagrin of my Dad who prized his collection of Radio Times stacked in the garage.

Sunday 24 September 2017

Z for Zachariah


Hands up who loves a bit of alone time! That's right, everyone on this busy, congested celestial body comprised of land, water and incessant "HAVE YOU BEEN IN AN ACCIDENT?!" phone calls has to get away from it all every now and then. However, if humans had always been purely solitary souls then we wouldn't even have the option to now pick up a call from Accidents4UDirect. Our ability to socialise and build bonds with one another has allowed us to pool resources like no other organism on Earth and deliver remarkable achievements.

Saturday 16 September 2017

Doris


Back when I was a much younger man, the first pet I came to know and love was our cat, Tussy - a white Persian with one blue and one green eye. He'd been a family pet since long before I was born and, so my first memories of Tussy stem from when he was about 14. Therefore, he wasn't the most agile cat at this point and it was rare I'd see him do anything more strenuous than jumping on a worktop. However, I like to think that, when he was a much younger cat, he would get up to all sorts of adventures such as going to the moon, skiing and dealing with robots. Much like Doris.

Sunday 10 September 2017

Behind the Bike Sheds


School days, are they really the best days of our lives? All I seem to recall is endless mornings and afternoons spent staring out the window of either freezing cold or swelteringly hot portacabins at nothing in particular.

Okay, I could have paid a bit more attention and actually done some of that there learning, but education can be such a frightful affair at the best of times, particularly when it’s being enforced by a man for whom body odour and dental hygiene are foreign concepts. However, it would probably have taken more than a swift shower and glug of mouthwash to liven things up and get me fully on board. What I wanted was a little bit more entertainment and, if I had known at the time, it could probably have been found Behind the Bike Sheds.

Saturday 9 September 2017

A Frame with Davis


Whilst snooker still holds a dedicated following and racks up viewing figures that just about pot the black for the BBC, it's a far cry from the glory days of the 1980s when 18.5 million viewers tuned in for the 1985 World Snooker Championship. Interest in the sport was at an all time high and these rather unassuming players (Hurricane Higgins aside) were soon edging into the bracket of celebrity. And it was popularity which soon led to other celebrities wanting to play A Frame with Davis.

Friday 8 September 2017

27 Works of Art from Hartbeat’s The Gallery


Every child in Britain wanted to get their picture featured in The Gallery section from Tony Hart's Hartbeat and the BBC's mail room most probably had to hire in additional staff every time a new series commenced. Naturally, the quality and format of the work always varied wildly, but this was what made The Gallery so special as it rewarded inspiration and artistic endeavour. And, to help reward this work once more, I'm going to feature 27 works of art from Hartbeat's The Gallery!

Thursday 7 September 2017

Tony Sarchet on His Comedy Writing Career


What we find funny varies tremendously from person to person, so writing comedy is perhaps one of the hardest jobs in entertainment. I spent around five years writing a seemingly stratospheric pile of sketches and, by the end of that period, five of them ended up being performed in various stage shows in London. So, yes, it's a tough old game, but for every 10,000 failed writers there's one who bubbles up to the surface like a tasty carrot in a particularly indulgent broth.

Tuesday 5 September 2017

Teddy Edward


Technology may advance at a rapid pace and fads may come and go, but teddy bears remain a resolute pillar of childhood; their furry, almost stately charms are hard to deny, so it’s understandable why so many children cling onto their beloved teddies in bed and well into adulthood.

And it’s not only in reality that teddy bears are cherished, fiction is equally as obsessed with these woolly-haired and adjustable limbed caniforms. Children’s fiction, in particular, takes great delight in transporting teddy bears into a narrative and children’s television has followed suit accordingly.

One of the lesser spotted teddy bears stalking through the vast forests of British children’s TV is Teddy Edward, a medal wearing and globetrotting teddy whose adventures are captured in Teddy Edward.

Sunday 3 September 2017

Hugh and I Spy


Everyone's watched James Bond (unless you've somehow managed to permanently avoid the Christmas TV schedules) and everyone has wanted to be James Bond. He's suave, he's sexy and he's got an ingenuity that's second to none. However, is this merely a glamourised take on the realities of espionage? After all, it surely can't all be martinis and kicking back with sultry, seductive femme fatales, can it? Well, providing a sharp contrast to the world of 007 is Hugh and I Spy.