745 The Beginner's Guide To Absolute Beginners

First  viewed  : 29  March  1986

Oh  yes,  you  couldn't  get  away  from  the  desperate  hype  surrounding  the  release  of  this  film. Its  makers,  Goldcrest  Films,  had  been  hit  for  six  by  the  box  office  disaster  that  was  Revolution  and  the  whole  future  of  the  British  film  industry  was  seen  to  rest  on  the  success  of  Julian  Temple's  musical  version  of  the  Colin  McInnes  novel  of  teenage  London  in  the  late  fifties  much  loved  by  the  mods  ( hence  The  Jam's  1981 hit  of  the  same  name ). The  media  obligingly  gave  it  saturation  coverage  including  this  short  documentary  on  ITV.

Unsurprisingly, the  film  failed  to  live  up  to  expectations. Much  of  the  music  was  anachronistic, an  eighties  version  of  what  fifties  jazz  was  like  from  Sade  and  The  Style  Council, in  other  words  the  film  was  promoting  the  new  jazz / anti-rock   movement  which  had  already  passed  its  peak  by  1986. It  was  also  too  London-centric , finding  parts  for  the  likes  of  Ray  Davies  and  Mandy  Rice-Davies  and  giving  the  main  female  role  to  a  far  too  young  Patsy  Kensit. The  male  lead  was  unknown  Eddie  O  Connell  who  couldn't  carry  the  film.

Temple  fled  to  America  and  Goldcrest  went  belly  up  but  then   the  little-hyped  Mona  Lisa  came  along  and  the  industry  wasn't  so  dead  after  all.

744 The Holy City

First  viewed : 28  March  1986

This  was  a  one-off  drama  for  Good  Friday  which set  the  story  of  Christ's  Passion  in  contemporary  Glasgow. David  Hayman  played  the  Christ  figure  as  some kind of  left  wing  street  preacher. I  remember  my  sister  seeing  a  trailer  and  saying  "That  looks  awful".  I   caught  a  small  part  of  it  showing  Hayman  stopping  a  man  beating  up  his  girlfriend  by  saying  "Gae  on  if  ye've  never  done  it  yourself".

The  play  is  also  notable  for  one  of  the  last  screen  appearances  of  Fulton  McKay who  died  the  following  year.

It  has  never  been  repeated  and  has  a  very  meagre  entry  on  imdb.

743 British Cinema : A Personal View

First  viewed :  19  March  1986

As  part  of  British  Film  Year  ( which  was  actually  1985 ) ITV  commissioned  three  notable  British  directors  to  make  an  hour's  documentary  film  giving  their  thoughts  on  the  industry.
I  only  saw  the  middle  one. Sandwiched  between  Alan  Parker  and  Richard  Attenborough  was   Lindsay  Anderson  , director  of  This  Sporting  Life  and  If. 

Anderson  was  incensed  by  a  comment  from  David  Puttnam  that  the  British  film  industry  was  now  essentially  an  adjunct  to  Hollywood  and  judged  that  the  best  counter-argument  would  be  an  account  of  his  own  career  as  a  pioneer  of  the  Free  Cinema  movement in  the  fifties  and  beyond. As  an  example  of  making  yourself  the  hero  of  your story  it  would  be  hard  to  beat . Nevertheless  it  was  an  interesting  tale  and  Anderson  was  a good  raconteur. He  concluded  by   offering  his  1982  political  satire  Britannia Hospital  as  the  apogee  of  his  art, not  an  assessment  many  would  agree  with.

742 Halley's Comet : The Encounter

First  viewed : 13  March  1986

One  afternoon,  in  the  academic  year  1973-74,  several  of  my  class  mates  claimed  to  have  seen  a  comet  flying  past  the  school  window. By  the  time  I  got  there,  it  had  gone. I  know  now  that  whatever  they  saw , it  certainly  wasn't  a  comet  and,  as  it  was  still  daylight,  it  was  unlikely  to  have  been  a  meteorite  either. Back  then,  I  was  gutted  to  have  missed  it  and  the sense  of  disappointment  and  determination  to  catch  the  next  one  lingered.

Therefore,  I  got  very  excited  when  the  most  famous  comet  of  all , the  one  identified,  by  the  astronomer  whose  name  it  bears,  as  a  regular  visitor to  Earth  every  74-79  years, came by  once  again  in  the  autumn  of  1985. After  reading  in  the  paper  where  to  find  it  I  went  out  on  several  nights , at  least  once  accompanied  by  the  infamous  Pete, but  we  could  see  nothing.  Of  course, the  light  pollution  from  a  city  like  Leeds  is  considerable but  in  fact,  on  this  occasion,  the  comet  was  not  visible  to  the  naked  eye  from  anywhere  in  the  northern  hemisphere  so  I  missed  out  on  my  comet  sighting  again. I  vowed  to  live  until  96  in  order  to  see  it  on  its  next  visit. As  both  my  parents  died  of  strokes  at  the  age  of  71, that  seems  rather  optimistic  now.

However  I  did  watch  BBC  One's  live  coverage  of  the  comet's  encounter  with  the  Giotto  space  probe  that  was  sent  up  to  view  it  at  close  quarters  a  few  months  later. The  pictures  were  computer-enhanced  to  make  them  a  bit  more  comprehensible  to  the  lay  viewer. Frankly,  it  looked  like  an  abstract  school  painting  but   Patrick  Moore  got  very  excited  about  it  and  that  was  good  enough  for  me.

The  happy  ending  here  was  provided  by  Comet  Hale-Bop  which  I  saw  on  a  number  of  occasions  in  1997  and  happened  to  be  in  the  sky  when  a  certain  event  of  personal  significance  took  place. We'll  leave  it  there  I  think.

741 No Place Like Home

First  viewed : March  1986

Like,  I  suspect,  many  people, my  only  exposure  to  this  domestic  sitcom  was  the  12  unendurable  minutes  between  the  end  of  Coronation  Street   on  ITV and  the  start  of  Dallas  on  BBC  1  in  the  spring  of  1986  when  this  was  in  its  third  series . That  however  was  more  than  enough  to  earn  my  nomination  as  worst-ever  sitcom.

The  series  was  written  by  a  Jon  Watkins  and  concerned  a  middle  aged  couple,  the  Crabtrees  ( William  Gaunt  from  The  Champions  and  Patricia  Garwood )  whose  four  children  decline  to  leave  home. The  eldest  girl  moves  back  in  with  aggravatingly  gormless  husband  Raymond  ( Daniel  Hill )  in  tow.  To  make  matters  infinitely  worse   they  lived  next  door  to  the  Bottings. Trevor  ( Michael  Sharvell-Martin )  was  something  of  a  soul-mate  for  Pa  Crabtree  but wife  Vera  was  something  else.

There  was  nothing  wrong  with  Marcia  Warren  as  the  mother   in  Now  and  Then   a  few  years  earlier  but,  faced  with  a  fairly  unbelievable  character  in  the childless  animal  lover  Vera,  she  resorted  to  the  most  grotesque  over-acting  I've  ever  seen  on  British  TV,  beating even  Christopher  Rozycki  in  Casualty.  Playing  Vera   as  a  demented  perpetual  student,  she  was  absolutely  unwatchable  and  her  cast  mates  ( including  a  young  Martin  Clunes )  looked  a  bit  embarrassed  when  she  got  going.

Clunes  actually  got  out  at  the  end  of  the  third  season  and  I  suspect  the  producers  realised they  had  to  do  something  about  Warren. Vera  did  not  appear  in  the  fourth  season  and  when  she  re-surfaced  in  the  fifth   and  final  season  in  1987  she  was  played  by  Anne  Penfold.

740 Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense

First  viewed  :  Winter  1986

This  one  brings  back  a  few  memories. Living  back  at  home  that  term  threw  up  some  challenges. Towards  the  end  of  the  previous  year,  I  had  been  elected, at  the  third  attempt ,  to  serve  on  the  Student  Union  Council  which  met  fortnightly  on  a  Monday. To  ensure  Councillors  took  their  responsibilities  seriously,  there  was  a  three  strikes  you're  off   attendance  policy  unless  the  Council  accepted  your  request / explanation  for  absence. I  was  already  a  strike  down  for  missing  a  meeting  to  attend  an  FA  Cup  replay  where  Dale  beat  Scunthorpe  to  earn  a  Third  Round  meeting  with  Manchester  United. Apparently  the  vote  was  close  and  divided  roughly  on  gender  lines.

With  something  like  30  people  at the  meetings,  they  tended  to  drag  on  for  hours   and  it  was  always  a  bit  hairy  whether  they'd  finish  in  time  for  me  to  catch  the  last  train  to  Littleborough  at  10.30 pm. With  some  avowed  political  foes  in  the  room,  I  didn't  like  asking  to  leave  early  too  often. By  means  of  some  desperate  sprinting  on  occasion ,  I  did  manage  to  retain  my  place  on  the  Council  without  being  stranded .

I  began  to  notice   a  young  man  who  also  got  off   that  train  at  Littleborough  although  I'm  not  sure  where  he  got  on. He  looked  like  one  of  the  Farreys  a  family  I  knew  from  school  although  he  wasn't  the  one  I  knew  best. On  one  occasion  he  was  clearly  drunk  and  involved  in  a  physical  altercation  with  a  guard. I  mention  it  because  a  few months later,  I  caught an  item  on  local  news  where  police  were  appealing  for  information  about  the  death  of  a Carl  Farrey  who  had  fallen  from  a  Leeds -Manchester  train. Putting  two  and  two  together,  I   went into  the  police  station  and  told  them  about the  incident  I'd  seen  but  it  didn't  seem  to  be   relevant. I  can't  give  any  closure  to  the  story; it's  just  one  of  those  strange,  sad  coincidences.

Anyhow,  after  he'd  melted  into  the  night,  I'd  usually  have  time  to  pop  into  Lords'  chip  shop  just  before  they  closed  and  get  a  late  supper. When  I  got  in,  this  would  usually  be  on.

The  series  was  a  follow-up  to  1980's  Hammer  House  of  Horror  with  a  similar  number  of  spooky  one-off  dramas  filmed  in  1984.  This  time  round,  it was  partly  funded  by  20th  Century  Fox  which  meant  that  nearly  all  of  them  had  an  American  lead  ( e.g. Dirk  Benedict, Mary  Crosby, Christina  Raines ). Unlike  the  earlier  series  it  was  not  nationally  networked  by  ITV  with  different  regions  showing  it  at  different times. I'm  guessing  this  might  have  been  because  the  films  were  70  minutes  long, an  inconvenient  length  for  British  television. I  don't  know  whether  Granada  had  broadcast  it  before  this  appropriately graveyard  slot  on  a  Monday  night.

  I  remember  three  of  them  reasonably  clearly, none  of  them  having  a  happy ending. In  Last  Video   and  Testament  ,  David  Langton  from  Upstairs  Downstairs   fakes  his  own  death  then  leads  his  wife  and  her  lover  into  a death  trap  before  fulfilling  his  pledge  to  dance  on  her  grave. In  Black  Carrion  , an  ageing  rocker  holds  a  village  in  his  thrall  after  they  mistakenly lynch  his  brother . In  Czech  Mate  Susan  George  finds  herself  trapped  behind  the  Iron  Curtain  after  a  defector  steals  her  identity  to  make  her  escape.

739 Every Second Counts

First  viewed :  8  February  1986

Every  Second  Counts  was  the  new  year replacement  for  Bob's  Full  House  on  Saturday  evenings. As  Dale  were  playing  Preston  North  End  away  ( a 1-1  draw  in  PNE's  worst-ever  season ) there's  no  obvious  reason  why  I  wouldn't  have  seen  the  very  first  episode.

Like  The Generation  Game , the  contestants  played  as  couples  ( three  of  them )  and  played  against  each  other   in  a   number  of   general  knowledge  rounds  earning  seconds  rather  than  points  for  a  correct  answer. When  the  rounds  were  completed,  the  couple  with  the  most  seconds  took  them  into  the  second  stage  where, answering  in  turn ,  they  had  to  complete  four  more  rounds  of  escalating  difficulty  matched  by  an  increase  in  the  quality  of  the  prize  on  offer,  within  the  total  number  of  seconds  they  had  earned. The  host  was  diminutive  magician  Paul  Daniels.

I  never  liked  it  as  much  as  Bob's  Full  House   because  Daniels  was  an  irritant, never  as  funny  as  he  thought  he  was  but  the  quizzing  itself  was  OK.

It  ran  until  1993.