Neil Miles is a man who, much like myself, enjoys delving through piles of old videotapes in search of long forgotten footage. And his excellent YouTube channel recently delivered an intriguing slice of late night television in the form of a BBC engineering test from 1987.
One of my favourite television programmes as a pre-schooler was ITV's lunchtime children's programme Let's Pretend. With a firm footing in the world of imagination, Let's Pretend demonstrated how the mind could be unshackled to create anything. And in the 1980s, with no YouTube to rot the brain in a smorgasbord of toddler-based memes and toy promotions reviews, children had to rely on making their own entertainment. The show was a big hit with myself, but despite running for seven years between 1982 - 89, few people reference it in the wider discussion on children's television.
Naturally, I jumped at the chance to write about it for one of my books - that specific section is reproduced here - and covered the outline of the series fairly comprehensively. So, there's not really any need for me to regurgitate that information again. However, when I wrote my book, footage of the series was curiously hard to source, despite just over 200 episodes being produced. I managed to track down a few at some television archives, but that was it. Thankfully, since then, a few have made their way on to YouTube. And this has provided me with an ideal opportunity to not only write a few, short articles reviewing them, but to also carve my Let's Pretend outpost of fandom a little more indelibly into the information superhighway's surface. So, on with the first one...
Post-apocalyptic narratives have a tendency to be indebted to a catastrophic event. Popular choices range from deadly pandemics through to nuclear attacks and the emergence of zombie killers. These flashpoints need to be dramatic to leave humanity hanging on by a thread and create the drama required to hook in the viewers. It’s not a dynamic which immediately lends itself to comedy, but this doesn’t mean it should be off-limits. Comedy is capable of taking on each and every genre of storytelling and that’s why it’s such a versatile form. And maybe it can be achieved Not With a Bang but with a very British take on the genre.
We all know who the big hitters of British TV comedy were in the 1980s. Shows such as Only Fools and Horses, Minder and Spitting Image still elicit mass devotion all these years on. But there was so much more going on in the British TV schedules in terms of comedy. The majority of these have slipped our minds, but this isn't (well, not always) an indicator of their quality. Some simply didn't engage large audiences as well as others did. It's as simple as that. But I can assure you that all these other shows (well, most of them) deserve to be remembered. And that's why I've put together this look at 50 British TV comedies from the 1980s you forgot about.
G Neil Martin celebrates one of TV comedy’s finest double albums
It ended, in a way that didn’t really befit it at all, in a dusky power station, full of sinuous pipes, and shadows and angry gas and steam. As if HR Giger had been brought in to design satire. Four people - three men, one woman - and one monumental double entendre.
Series four of Not The Nine O’Clock News is the apogee of the series’ run. Broadcast in 1982, it led to the final of the NOT albums - this time, a double album (“Not The Double Album”, proper gatefold and all) which included a compilation of the best sketches and songs from series four on one disc and the group’s live Drury Lane show on the other. The CDs, which came later, were designed as two little 33 1/3 LPs. It is probably the greatest comedy double LP based on a sketch show ever produced.
Infidelity is a dangerous art to practice and one that comes pre-loaded with a weapons-grade risk. Nonetheless, it’s a perennial indulgence that mankind has been keen to nourish. A common joke, in the British Isles, is for an individual to jest that they will never stray from their partner within their post code. The rather feeble humour of this remark is that there’s less chance of being caught. Admittedly, there’s a logic what with the increase in distance reducing any visibility to the unknowing partner. Extend this to several postcodes and a national border and it should be ridiculously easy. But even with this on their side it’s far from easy for Dogfood Dan and the Carmarthen Cowboy.
Anyone who grew up in the 1970s and 80s should instantly recognise Look-in. Marketed as the 'Junior TV Times' it provided a wealth of features on everything that a youngster should be interested in. Comic strips infested its pages alongside interviews with pop stars and, of course, television featured heavily. Looking back at these magazines grants us a wonderful peek into the culture which was bubbling up at the time. It's almost as if they were custom made for the world of Curious British Telly. And, rather magnificently, around a year ago, I was sent a pile of mid- 1980s issues by a kind fan of Curious British Telly.
Aside from the nostalgic blast offered up by the gleaming smiles of Wham! and Paul Young's knitwear, the issues also brought a number of intriguing and enigmatic shows to my attention. Naturally, I'll be investigating them in more detail in the future. But what also caught my eye was the What's Your View? section. This allowed readers to write in and give their views on television. These opinions are decades old now, but I feel they represent an interesting glance at how children viewed television in the mid 1980s. And that's why I've decided to stick several of these features up here.
The vast majority of television programmes are, unfortunately, out of reach for many of us. Collecting dust in the archives, these slices of cultural interest remain shrouded in mystery. All that remains in the public consciousness is a motley assortment of vague and conflicting memories. That's part of the reason why I put Curious British Telly together. If these programmes are to remain out of reach then perhaps I can put up some solid facts about them.
Anyway, a show that I covered in my most recent book - More Curiosities of Children's Television - was Ragtime, and this fell squarely into the "out of reach" bracket for most people. The only way I'd managed to watch copies was by booking in at the BFI. But it turns out that several episodes sneaked online in late 2019.