Look! Hear!

Ah, the regional oddity of British television! Is there a more obscure area of programming to delve into and feast upon its barely remembered content? I doubt it, and Curious British Telly has always delighted in sniffing out such peculiarities. These programmes are often so obscure, in fact, that even finding a title for the show and a brief description is a miracle in itself. Fortunately, I recently stumbled across a gleaming treasure chest packed full of Look! Hear!, a BBC Midlands arts programme.

I first crossed paths with Look! Hear! at an event staged by Kaleidoscope, a Birmingham-based television archive which trawls through obsolete formats for missing television with a zeal which renders my own efforts positively amateurish. Anyway, Look! Hear! revealed itself as an intriguing time capsule of British culture, specifically in the Midlands (yes, they do indeed have culture outside London). It came from the not-so-distant past and I was keen to see more.

The problem with regional programming, and the reason most viewers have never seen shows like Look! Hear!, is availability. The limited audiences lessen the odds of it surviving on domestic recordings, and broadcasters rarely make them available. Nonetheless, patience is a virtue and, on a shady, members-only website which involves an excruciating initiation ceremony, I found countless episodes. They had clearly slipped out of the BBC's digital archive at some point, and this is often the only way such curiosities are rediscovered.

Produced at the iconic and long since demolished Pebble Mill studios, Look! Hear! aired over the course of four series, debuting before Midlands viewers in 1977 and taking its final bow in 1981. Billed as an arts and music programme for the youth, Look! Hear! maintained a fairly stable presenting team over its tenure, with Toyah Willcox, Vera Gilbert, John Holmes, Chris Phipps, Tonia Nelson and Mike Wood all making regular appearances.

For a regional obscurity, Look! Hear! isn't quite as shoestring budget as you'd imagine, although the relatively dark sets and frenetic flourishes of New Wave music and daring fashion do a sterling job of papering over the cracks. In fact, Look! Hear! has a surprising density to its content, allowing episodes to lurch from Duran Duran performing, to a brisk fashion show from the students of Trent Polytechnic, before landing in the Air Time slot where viewers opine on racism and discuss youth drama groups for unemployed Midlands youngsters.

Aside from the contemporary music and era-standard youth unemployment features, Look! Hear! offers plenty more to nail its period to the wall. The final series, for example, treats viewers to a warmly nostalgic glimpse at the fierce competition to become Space Invaders Champion of the Midlands, the completely bonkers concept of the Disco Dancing Hairdressers - exactly as advertised - and a sober examination of the do's and don'ts of hitchhiking.

The first series feels oddly sedate and prematurely middle-aged for a programme aimed at teenagers and young adults, with the studio audience resembling a convention of heavily sideburned professors and musical performances playing solely to cameras and boom mics. Also, I'm absolutely bewildered at what the rowdy, riotous youth of 1977 would have made of The Coventry Mummers, but this was clearly a different age. Thankfully, from the second series onwards, the pace quickens with electrifying performances from The Specials and The Selecter underlining the Ska youthquake of the late 1970s.

And it feels very Midlands, with Chris Phipps' Brummie accent forming the backbone of this regional identity. Almost all of the bands featured hail from the Midlands, with genres such as new wave rubbing shoulders alongside post-punk, reggae and heavy metal. The gig guide, a compelling snapshot of the local scene, also provides an important service in the pre-internet era detailing, as it does, gigs such as Lester and the Festers at the Star Club, Birmingham and The Clash at the Top Rank Suite.

There are lots of clips of Look! Hear! on YouTube and full episodes will gradually make their way on there, so fill your boots and take a look. Plus, if anyone has one of those amazing Look! Hear! badges, please get in touch.