697 Screen Two / Screen One

First  viewed  : 3  February  1985

Screen  Two  and  Screen  One   were  actually  a  continuation  of  Play  for  Today  under  another  name  as  the   original  brand  was  controversially  laid  to  rest  in  1984. The  ones  I  recall  are

Knockback  ( Screen  Two  27.1.85  & 3.2.85 )

I  only  saw   some  of  the  second  instalment  of  this  two-parter  about  the  relationship  between  Sylvia ,a   lonely  middle-aged  woman  ( Pauline  Collins )  and  the  murderer  Alan  ( Derrick  O' Connor )  she  corresponds  with  while  he  serves  a  life  sentence. O' Connor  had  previously  been  very  good  but  very  typecast  in  thuggish  roles  ( eg. Out  ) and  this  role  allowed  him  to  break  out  and  show  his   versatility. Leslie  Grantham, not  yet  a  household  name, was   a  fellow  lag.   I  recall  the  very  last scene  when  Alan  gets  out  on  licence  and  takes  Sylvia  to  a  holiday  cottage. In  the  most  predictable  plot  development  ever, the  moment  they  cross  the  threshold they  frantically  shed  their  clothes  and  get  down  to  it.

Coast   To  Coast  ( Screen  Two  4.1.87 )

This  was  a  musical  comedy  thriller-cum-road  movie,  set  in  Northern  England  and  starring  Lenny  Henry  as  a  Scouse  DJ  and  John  Shea  ( best  known  for  playing  Robert  Kennedy  in  Kennedy )  as  an  AWOL  US  pilot  and  soul  fan. The  pair  set  up  in  business  as  a  mobile  soul  disco  but  get  drawn  into  a  counterfeiting  operation  by  small  time  villain  Pete  Postlethwaite  and  end  up  on  the  run  both  from  the  military  police  and  a  couple  of  gangsters  played  with  relish  by  Peter  Vaughan  and  George  Baker. Rising  star  Paul  Bown   was  also  in  it  as  a  comic  police  constable  and  Cherie  Lunghi  played  Shea's  love  interest.

Not  being  a  huge  fan  of  sixties  soul  music  myself, I  found  the  Shea  character's  obsession  with  it  a  bit  tiresome  but  there  was  a  lot  else  to  enjoy  particularly  their  trek  through  the  Lakes  and Yorkshire  Dales  where  I  could   pick  out  familiar  scenery  in  its  grey, wintry  finery.  There  was  also  a  lot  of  black  humour  particularly in  Bown's  scenes  when  dismembered  bodies  start  cropping  up.

The  licensing  headache  created  by  using  all  the  old  Motown  tracks  on  the  soundtrack  has  stopped  it  being  released  on  DVD  but  it  is  on  YouTube  at  the  time  of  writing.

Will  You  Love  Me  Tomorrow  ( Screen  Two  18.1.87 )

This  was  a  rather  affecting  story  despite  some  cavernous  plot  holes. Joanne  Whalley  played  Jackie  Rivers,  a  former  child-murderess  clearly  based  on  Mary  Bell, who  absconds  from  an  open  prison  ( plot  hole  number  one - she'd  never  have  been  placed  there )  with  short  termer  friend  Linda  ( Tilly  Vorsburgh ) . With  no  real  plan  in  mind, the  pair  fall  in  with  a  couple  of  young  blokes,  Sprint  (Phil  Daniels ) and  Sailor  ( Iain  Glen )  looking  for  ( unspecified ) work  in  gaudy  North  Wales  resort, Rhyl. Jackie  finds  some  brief  romance  with  Sailor  before  her  inevitable  apprehension. The   sub-plot  about  a   tabloid  hack  ( Peter  Wight)   on  her  trail  is  a  superfluous  waste  of  time . It  worked  because  of  a  tremendous  central  performance  from  Whalley  as  the  confused  innocent-of-sorts,  trying  to  make  sense  of  an  outside  world  which  isn't  what  she  imagined  it  to  be.

After  Pilkington  ( Screen  Two  25.1.87 )

This  was  a  black  campus  comedy  starring  Bob  Peck   as   James  Westgate, a  mild-mannered  Oxford  don  whose  obsession  with  childhood  sweetheart  Penny ( Miranda  Richardson )  lands  him  in  deep  trouble  when  she  asks  him  an  unusual  favour. Another  don, Pilkington,  has  gone  missing, and  she  knows  what  happened  to  him.  Her  husband , the  exceedingly  obnoxious   Derek ( Barry  Foster )  doesn't  and  that's  the  way  she  wants  to  keep  it. Great  performances  all  round  keep  it  convincing  as  the  plot  veers  towards  melodrama.

The  Impossible  Spy  ( Screen  Two  11.2.90 )

This  historical  drama  was  made  (  and  broadcast  in  America ) in  1987  but  for  some, presumably  political, reason,  it  wasn't  broadcast  in  the  UK  until  1990.  It  told  the  story  of  Eli  Cohen , an  Israeli  spy  in  Syria  who  was  so  successful  he  became  a  top  official  in  Syria's  Ministry  of  Defence  and  facilitated  Israel's  trouncing  of  Syria  in  the  Six  Day  War  0f  1967. By  that  time, Cohen  was  dead  having  been  publicly  executed  in  Damascus  for  his  trouble in  1965. Israel  has  been  trying  to  repatriate  his  remains  for  over  50  years.

John  Shea  played  Cohen  with  Eli  Wallach  featuring  as  his  boss.

Alive  and  Kicking  ( Screen  One  13.10.91 )

I  only  caught  a  small  part  of  this  one  with  Lenny  Henry  as  a  drug  dealer and  addict  faced  with  a  hard  choice  between   his  habit  and  family  life  and  Robbie  Coltrane  as  the  unconventional  social  worker  trying  to  get  him  straight  with  involvement  in  a  football  team.

Truly  Madly  Deeply  ( Screen  Two  1.3.92 )

This  was  made  in  1990  but  pulled  from  the  schedule  to  screen  it  in  arthouse  cinemas  instead  where  it  won  numerous  critics' awards. I  remember  some  guy  on  Radio  Four  devoting  his  whole  "Thought  for  the  Day"  piece  to  it. Directed  by  Anthony  Minghella it  starred  Alan  Rickman  as  a  dead  cellist  who  comes  back  to be  with  his  wife  ( Juliet  Stevenson ) because  she's  missing  him  so  much. I  watched  a small  part  of  this  orgy  of  metrosexual  tastefulness  when  it  came  to  the  screen  but  I'm  in  agreement  with  Ian  Hislop  and  Nick  Hancock  who  savaged  it  on  Room  101, the  latter  saying "I've  actually  seen  episodes  of  Star  Trek  where  I've  had  more  in  common  with  the  characters". The  play  was  broadcast  four  times  during  the  nineties  but  thankfully  seems  to  have  been  put  to  rest  now.

The  Law Lord ( Screen  Two  22.3.92 )

I  didn't  see  this  political  drama  when  it  was  broadcast  but  my  mum  taped  it  and  then  waxed  lyrical  over  it  so  I  felt  obliged  to  view it. From  what  I  recall, it  seemed  loosely  based  on  the  Thomas  Becket  saga. Bernard  Hill  played  a  corrupt  Home  Secretary  who  seeks  to  get  compliant  judges  by  manipulating  the  appointments  system. To  this  end  he  secures  the  elevation  of  his  friend  ( Anthony  Andrews )  as  a  young-ish  Lord  Chancellor  but  Andrews  goes  native  and  starts  throwing  spanners  in  the  works. Tom  Baker  was  also  in  it  as  Hill's  grinning  hatchet  man. I  thought  it  was  mildly  diverting but  Andrews'  eventual  assassination   was  taking  things  a  bit  too  far.

696 Odd One Out

First  viewed :  Uncertain

I  wasn't  sure  I'd  seen  this  at  all  but  the  fourth  and  final  season  in  1985  preceded  Top  of  the  Pops  on  a  Thursday  so  it  was  inconceivable  I  wouldn't   have  caught  some  of  it. Watching  an  episode  now,  it  is  vaguely  familiar.

Odd   One  Out  was  a  BBC  games  show  with  the  usual  crap  prizes   and  an  early  vehicle  for  magician  Paul  Daniels  as  host. It  wasn't  easy  either,  requiring  a  considerable  amount  of  general  knowledge  to  do  well. The  contestants  were  shown  four  words  one  by  one  and  could  buzz  in  at  any  point  to  say  the odd  one  out ;if  they  knew  or  guessed  it  right  they  had  a choice  of  challenging  the  other  two  to  explain  why  or giving  the explanation  themselves  so  there was  an  element  of  gambling  as  well.

695 The House of Lords

First  viewed :  23  January  1985

A  little  bit  of  forgotten  constitutional  history  here, that  the  House  of  Lords  admitted  the  TV cameras  five  years  before  the  Commons.  The  BBC  therefore  gave  most  of  the  afternoon  over  to  live  coverage  of   a   debate  on  the  government's  economic  policy, not  something  I  imagine  they're  ever  likely  to  do  again.

I  recall  watching  it  in  the  TV  room  at  my  hall  of  residence, with  quite  an  impressive  number  of  my  house  mates, that  second  year's  cohort  being  a  quieter  more  thoughtful  bunch  than  their  hedonistic  predecessors. I  remember  Lord  Gowrie  , the  government's  bow-tied  arts  minister,  leading  their  defence  though  he  seemed  to  be  often  sidetracked  into  talking  about  the  National  Theatre  and  Sir  Peter  Hall.

Later  on,  Lord  Stockton  ( the  former  Harold  McMillan )  made  a  telling  speech  rubbishing  his  successor's  economic record  but  I'd  gone  by  that  time.  

694 By The Sword Divided

First  viewed : January  1985

I  only  saw  snatches  of  the  second  season  of  this  English  Civil  War  drama  because  my  mum  liked  it  and  it  would  be  on  on  a  Sunday  evening  before  I  made  my  way  back  to  Leeds. It  was  good-looking  but  seemed  a  bit  slow  and  the  archaic  dialogue  weighed  it  down  further.

693 Wogan's Women

First  viewed : 22  December  1984

We're  into  the  Christmas  Holidays  now  and  this  one  was  marked  by  a  not  entirely  agreeable  surprise. My  sister  was  home  after  her  first  term  at  Oxford  and  I  know  this  sounds  bad  but  I'd  kind  of  assumed  she'd  be  out  of  her  depth  there,  particularly  with  her  ultra-conservatism  around  food  and  drink . That  had  now  been  completely  banished , she  was  having  a  whale  of  a  time  and  she  wasn't  entirely  disguising  a  frustration  at  being  landed  back  in  Littleborough  for  a  fortnight  or  so.

This  in  turn  prompted  the  first  evaluation  that  perhaps  I  wasn't  making  the  most  of  my  opportunities  and  the  most  immediate  result  was  using  a  little  diary  to  make  a  note  of  a daily  "achievement" such  as  finishing  a  book  or  trying  something  new  at  a  pub. I  kept  this  up  for  a  while  but  unfortunately  events  were  already  conspiring  against  me  elsewhere..

On  the  evening  that  I returned  from  Leeds, the  members  of  the  Civic  Trust  Footpath  Group  had  their  Christmas  meal  at  some  place  near  Heywood. Earlier  in  the  week  I  had  missed  the main  Civic  Trust  committee  meeting   and  I  innocently  asked  some  of  the  other  guys  how  it  had  been. They  were  pretty  forthright  in  telling  me  how  dreadful  it  was, comprising  a  self-indulgent  monologue  from  the  chairman  Keith  Parry (  who  wasn't  at  the  meal  as  he  didn't  come  on  the  walks )   about  all  the  people  he'd  met  at  the  Coach  House  over  the  past  month  and  little  real  business  being  discussed. I  recall  my  friend  Lincoln  prophesying " If  it  carries  on  like  this  he'll  kill  those  meetings, well , kill  the  Civic  Trust !".

The  nub  of  the  problem  was  that  Parry  had  accepted  the  chairmanship  of  the  Trust  when  his  predecessor  and  her  vice-chair  had  stepped  down  three  years  earlier  in  order  to  become  directors  of  the  Littleborough  Coach  House  Project. It's  my  feeling  that  it  wasn't  long  before  he  started  thinking  he'd  got  the  bronze  medal  and  his  energies  became  diverted  towards  undermining  and  then  replacing  them. The Civic  Trust  could  help  his  cause  by  raising  more  money  for  the  Project  than  the  other  participating  organisations  but  apart  from  that,  he  didn't  seem  very  interested  in  the  society's  activities  and  it  started  to  wither. That  wasn't  all  down  to  him  but  it  was  happening  on  his  watch.

One  of  the  other  members  present  at  the  meal  was  a  man  named  Roy  Prince, my  predecessor  as  newsletter  editor,  who  concurred  with  all  that  had  been  said. After  a  bout  of  ill  health,  he  had  recently  retired  as  a  secondary  school  headmaster  and  had  some  time  on  his  hands. Roy  obviously  went  home  and  pondered  on  what  had  been  said. A  week  or  two  later,  he  called  me  and  revolution  was  in  the  air. He  had  spoken  to  the  vice-chair  Betty  Pickis  ( no  friend  of  Parry's )  and  she'd  agreed to  take  over  with  Roy  becoming  her  deputy. The  unsatisfactory  Treasurer, a  nice  bloke  but  he  was  under  too  much  pressure  at  work  to  do  the  job, was  also  going  to  be  replaced. They  were  going  to  put  the  idea  to  Parry  at  the  next  committee  meeting, did  I  approve ?  I  don't  think  my  vote  was  essential  but  I  said  yes , effectively  committing  myself  to  the  reconstruction  job  in  the  Trust  for  the  rest  of  my  time  at  university  and  beyond.

Ho  hum,  back  to  the  TV.   Terry  Wogan's  career  was  going  into  orbit  and  Wogan's  Women  was  a  compilation   and  review  of  memorable  moments  involving  female  guests  on  his  Saturday  night  chat  show.  Felicity  Kendal  was  on  hand  to  help  boost  his  ego. The  only  bit  I  remember  was  a  re-visit  to  a  notorious  interview  with  Dallas  star  Victoria  Principal  who  had  rightly taken  him  to  task  for  harping  on  about  how  ugly a  baby  her  screen  son  Christopher  was.  Kendal  cooed "I  don't  think  she  understood  your  sense  of  humour  Terry" . No  Felicity,  she  understood  he  was  being  an  arsehole  and  gave  him  the  kicking  he  deserved.

692 The Do They Know It's Christmas Video

First  viewed  :  29  November  1984

This  had  been  well  trailed  on  the  news  programmes  but  the  official  unveiling  of  the  Band  Aid  video  was  just  before  Top  of  the  Pops  on  a  Thursday  evening. It's  still  a  remarkable  story, how  a  washed-up  rock  star  saw  a  harrowing  news  report  about  Ethiopian  famine  and  used  the  only  asset  he  had  left, the  names  in  his  address  book, to  create  the  most  famous  charity  single  of  all  time.

The  video  is  nothing  more  than  footage  from  the  hastily-convened  recording  session  that  produced  the  single  with  the  insertion  of  Boy  George  who  had  to  fly  over  from  the States  to  do  his  bit. It's  now  a  time  capsule  of  who  was  big  at  the  time  with  one  or  two  exceptions  ; if  there's  someone  you  don't  recognise  it'll  be  one  of  the  Boomtown  Rats. You  also  have  to  put  up  with  the  annoying  mugging  of  Culture  Club  drummer  Jon  Moss who  seemed  to  think  his  vicarious  fame  gave  him  the  right  to  hog  the  camera.

For  all  its  significance  the  song  is  a  bit  of  a  dog, little  better than  an  Ultravox  B-side, but  you  can't  knock  the  intention.

691 28 Up, 42 Up , 49 Up and 56 Up

First  viewed : 20  November  1984

I  first  caught  this  monumental  series  in  its  fourth  incarnation  on  a  Tuesday  night. The  Littleborough  Civic  Trust  Footpaths  Group  had  held  its  quarterly  meeting  to  decide  the  forthcoming  walks  programme  that  evening  and  I  had  informally  chaired  it. I  never  had  the  title  of  Footpaths  Secretary,  because  my  colleagues  wanted  to  make  sure  the  last  person  to  hold  the  post  never  had  a  job  to  come  back  to  after  his  sudden  resignation  in  the  summer  of  1982,  but  effectively  I  did  the  job  for  the  next  fifteen  years. And  it  had  one great  benefit, it  meant  the  idea  of  trying  to  revive  the  Littleborough  Rambling  Club  in  its  public  form   never  crossed  my  mind.

Anyway  by  the  time  the  meeting  finished  it  was  too  late  to  go  back  to  Leeds. There  was  still  a  train  but  my  hall  of  residence  was  four  miles  out  of  the  city  centre  and  the  last  bus   left  long  before  the  train  would  have  got  into  Leeds. So  I   stayed  over  and  came  home  to  find  my  mum  watching  this.

The  series  is  another  great  legacy  from  the  golden  days  of  Granada  TV. The   first  programme  Seven  Up  was  the  brainchild  of  a  Canadian  ex-pat  director  Paul Almond   who  had the idea  of  taking  a  disparate group  of  children  of  the  same  age , interviewing  them  and  seeing  how  their  social  background  shaped  their  expectations  for  the  future   at  the  age  of  seven. A  young  researcher  on  the  programme, Michael  Apted  helped  select  them. From  a  pool  of  20, 14  were  selected.  It  was  not  originally  intended  to  catch  up  with  them  at  seven  year  intervals  and Almond  had  no  involvement  in  the  subsequent  series. From  7  Plus  Seven  onwards, the  series  has  been  Apted's  baby  and  has  remained  so  despite  his  success  as  a  Hollywood  film  director and  advancing  years. I  had  absolutely  no  knowledge  of  the  project  until  my  mother  filled  me  in  that  night.

I  was  only  half-interested  at  the  time  not  quite  buying  into  the  concept  of   lengthy  interviews  with  "ordinary"  people. Except  that  one  of  them  wasn't  the  least  bit  ordinary  and  his  segment  was  really  the  only  part  that  stuck  with  me. Neil  Hughes  is  the  undoubted  star  of  the  series  and  his  sections  are  always  the  most  compelling, a  study  in lost  opportunity  , mental  disintegration and  restored  equilibrium. Neil  was  the  star  of  the  original  Seven  Up , a  bright-eyed, confident   boy  with  a  winning  smile  who  wanted  to  be  an  astronaut. Even  at  fourteen  though, you  can  see  the shadows  approaching  in  his  rather  sombre  demeanour. At  21  he's  an  angry  young  man  living  in  a  squat  having  dropped  out  of   Aberdeen  University  after  less  than  a  term, still  bitter  at  his  rejection  by  Oxford   and  verbally  lacerating  his  parents  for  not  properly  preparing  him  for  the  world.  When  28  Up  came  round , it  took  Apted's  team  months  to  even  find  him  as  he  was  hitch-hiking  across  the  UK  moving  between casual  jobs  and  they  eventually  found  him  in  a  caravan  in  the  Scottish  Highlands.The  anger  had  subsided but  he  was  clearly  suffering  from  mental  health  problems. The  series  has  never  delved  too  deeply  into  his  medical  issues - some  things  should  be  kept  private  after  all - but  Neil  did  let  slip  that  he'd  suffered  from  a  nervous  complaint  since  he  was  16  and  that  was  the  primary  reason  he'd  dropped  out  of  university.  That  may  well  be  so  but  you  also  get  the  impression  that  Neil  is  just  too  sensitive  a  soul  to  survive  out   there, his  obvious  intelligence  more  of  a  handicap  than  a  help.  

Neil  mentioned  his  own  castles  in  the  air ,  a  university  lecturer  on  subjects  of  his  own  choosing  or  a theatre  director  during  that  interview  and  in  a  small  way  he'd  achieved  the  latter  ambition  by  35  Up , a  small  crumb  of  comfort  in  a  segment  that  is  Gothic  in  its  bleakness. That  series  passed  me  by  at  the  time  but  even  watching  it  with  the  benefit  of  hindsight,  it's  still  devastating. Neil  is  now  on  the edge  of  the  UK, living  on  social  security  in  the  Shetland  Islands, physically  decaying  and  seemingly at  the  end  of   his  mental  tether  having  been  ditched  as  director  of  the  local  pantomime  after  one  year. The  scene  of  Neil  hammering  away  at  his  typewriter  because, as  he  says , having  put  so  much  effort  in  he  can't  believe  the  results  can  be  useless. is  personally  unbearable. I  think  you  can  probably  work  out  why.

But - there  are  good  people  and   happy  endings  in  life  as  42  Up  showed  - on  the  BBC  for  the  first  and  only  time  to  date . This  time  ( 1998 )  I  was  fully  interested  partly  because  I  was  short  of  disposable  income  and  more  reliant  on  the  TV  for  entertainment. At  33  I was  also  becoming  a  bit  more  interested  in  the  concept  of  the  passage  of  time. This  revealed  that  following  35  Up, another  participant  chubby  teacher  Bruce  Balden  had  invited  Neil  to   stay  with  him  in  London  while  he  got  his  life  back  on  track. This  seemed  like  a  formidable  gamble but  Neil  repaid  his  faith , did  an  Open  University  degree  and  found  solace  in  becoming  a  lay  preacher  and  Liberal  Democrat  councillor,  first  in  Hackney  then  in  the  Lake  District.  He  also  looks  much  healthier .That  doesn't  stop  the  tears  welling  up  whenever  they  re-run  the  footage  of  the  7-year  old  version.

That's  not  to  say  the  rest  of  the  participants  are  uninteresting. I  particularly  like  Nick, the  farmer's  son  from  the  Yorkshire  Dales  whose  good  humour  and  well-rounded  personality  are  the  greatest  testament  to  the  benefits  of  a  rural  education  in  a  tiny  village  school. He  too  has  had  disappointments, a  divorce  and  the  abandonment  of  a  research  project  in  which   he invested  much  of  his  early  working  life,  but  has  managed  to  shrug  them  off  and  remain  optimistic. I  also  have  a  sneaking  affection  for  Andrew,  one  of  three  well-off  boys  featured. His  life  has  been  the  best  illustration  of  the  series' original  point, panning  out  exactly  as  expected. He is  now  a  solicitor  leading  a  normal  middle  class  family  life , a  thoroughly  decent  guy  with   nothing  remotely  interesting  to  say. You   can  almost  hear  Apted  and  the  crew  seething  with  frustration  at  having  picked  such  a  boring  subject  but  them's  the  breaks. Villain  of  the  piece  is  his  mate  Charles  Furneaux, now  a  TV  producer  himself  and  so  embarrassed  by  his  participation  ( which  ended  after  21 Up )   that  he's  gone  to  court  to  try  and  stop  them  re-running  any  old  footage  of  him.

The  last  one  to  date  was  56  Up  in  2012.  Sadly  the  inevitable  has  now  happened  and  one  of  the  participants , Lynn  Johnson  a  working  class  school  librarian,  died  the  following  year. Apted  has  said  in  the  past  that  he  would  want  a  last  chat  before  any  of  them  passed  away  so  we'll  see  in  63  Up  if  he  got  that  opportunity  with  Lynn.

It's  a  series  that  has  greater  resonance  the  older  you  get. The  further  away  you  get  from  your  own  childhood, the  more  emotional  punch  the  black  and  white  footage  of  those  kids   ( including  the  ghostly  six  who  never  made  the  cut )  in  the  playground  carries. Long  may  it  continue .