779 The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald

First  viewed : 22  November  1986

Channel  Four  broadcast  this  legal  marathon   on  the  23rd  anniversary  of  the  Kennedy  assassination. It  was  as  realistic  as  it  could  be  given  that  the  defendant  had  been  dead  for  over  20  years. It  was  conducted  by  a  genuine  judge  and  the  cases  were  argued  by  two  high-powered  lawyers, Manson-prosecutor  Vincent  Bugliosi  for  the  prosecution  and  Gerry  Spence, who  won  compensation  for  the  family  of  nuclear  whistle-blower  Karen  Silkwood, for  the  defence. The  jury was  selected  according  to  normal  Texan  procedure. The  witnesses  were  all  genuine  but  it  didn't  tell  you  how  many  had  declined  to  participate.

In  the  end  Bugliosi  was  triumphant  against  the  over-emotional  Spence  and  got  a  guilty  verdict.

778 Strike It Lucky

First  viewed : Uncertain

This  started  at  the  end  of  October  1986  but  I've  absolutely  no idea  of  when  I  first  caught  an  episode. Based  on  a  US  game  show  Strike  It  Rich ,it  was  re-named  here  to  avoid  confusion  with  a  recent  BBC1  drama  with  that  title. Strike  It  Lucky  was  a  game  show  which  tested  general  knowledge  but  also  had  elements  of  gambling  and  snakes  and  ladders    as  contestants  risked  landing  on  Hot  Spots .

It  was  hosted  by  comedian  Michael  Barrymore   who'd  won  New  Faces  in  1979  and  been  a  regular  on  Royal  Variety  Performances  but  hadn't  yet  found  the  right  TV  vehicle. Strike  It  Lucky  made  him  a  household  name  and  deservedly  so  for  his  manic  energy  and  genuine  interest  in  the  contestants, the  pre-game  chat  often  lasting  for  well  over  5  minutes.

The  show  ran  for  thirteen  years  before  Barrymore  wanted  to  pursue  other  projects. Alas  for  him  that  only  lasted  for  a  couple  of  years  before  the  death  of  a  young  man  in  his  swimming  pool  in  2001   and  the  prolonged  uncertainty  over  what  charges  he  would  face  in relation  to  it  utterly  destroyed  his  TV  career. His  sporadic  appearances  as  a  clearly  reluctant  participant  in  reality  shows  only  underline  his  fall  from  grace.

777 Lost Empires

First  viewed : 24  October  1986

This  was  another  golden  Granada  adaptation , this  time  of  JB  Priestley's  novel  of  music  hall  life  just  before  the  cataclysm  of  the  First  World  War. David  Plowright  again  called  in  family  favours  to  get  his  brother-in-law  Sir  Laurence   Olivier  to  appear  in  the  series. I  watched  this  one  on  my  own   ; I  never  understood  why  my  mum, usually  a  sucker  for  period  drama,   wasn't  interested.

The  seven  part  serial  is  often  remembered  as  providing  the  first  leading  role  on  TV  for   the  26-year  old  Colin  Firth  as  the  orphaned  young  man  Richard  Herncastle  who  goes  to  work  for  his  uncle  Nick  ( John  Castle ) , an  icy, cynical,  illusionist  in  a  travelling  music  hall  company. It's  through  Richard's  eyes  that  we  see  a  colourful  world  teetering  on  the  brink  of  catastrophe. As  well  as  learning  stage  craft,  Richard  also  works  his  way  through  the  female  cast  from  true  love,  naive  Nancy  ( Beatie  Edney  )  to  a  dangerous  liaison  with  older  woman  Julie  ( Carmen  du  Sautoy )  plus  casual  encounters  with  Nonie ( Francesca  McGregor ) , a  saucy  French  acrobat  and  Lily  ( Pamela  Stephenson ) a  sweet  English  rose  on  stage  but  a  debauched  voyeur  in  private.

Olivier  played  Harry  Burrard  in  the  first  episode , a  hopelessly out  of  date  comedian  with  nowhere  to  go  who  interprets  the  merciless  heckling  as  a   political  plot  against  him.  Brian  Glover  played  Julie's  partner,  Tommy  Beamish  a  bullying  boorish  comedian. The  notorious  Christopher  Rozycki  popped  in  for  one  scene  as  a  drunken  Russian  and  chewed  the  scenery  in  fine  style; he  had  a  glass  of  whiskey  in  one  hand  and  there  wasn't  much  left  by  the  end  of  the  scene  even  though  he  hadn't  drunk  any  of  it.

Though  somewhat  bleak  in  tone,  I  really  enjoyed  it  and  am  disappointed  it's  not  more  celebrated.            

776 General Studies Art And Upheaval Songs of Protest

First  viewed : October  1986

This  was  broadcast  a  few  times  so  I  can't  be  certain  of  the  date. I  am  pretty  certain  it's  the   very  last  schools  programme  to  feature  here. It  just  caught  my  eye  during  a  flick  through  the Radio  Times. It  was  narrated  by  Mel  Smith  but  also  had  an  on-screen  presenter  Edward  Hayward  who  produced  many  of  the  BBC's  schools  programming  in  the  seventies  and  eighties.  As  the  title  suggests,  it  provided  a  brief  look  at  the  history  of  the  protest  song,  zeroing  in  on  Billie  Holliday's  anti-lynching  protest  Strange  Fruit   and  finishing  with  Billy  Bragg  championing  Jerusalem  ( which  I'd  say  was  anticipatory  rather  than  a  protest  but  whatever ).

I  note  that  the  programme  that  preceded  one  of  its  broadcasts  was  "Media  Studies - Inside  Television  Making  News"   which  surprises  me. I  hadn't  realised  that  the "subject"  had  become  embedded  that  early.

775 The Late Late Show

First  viewed  :  Autumn  1986

This  show  is  of  course  an  institution  in  Ireland  and  the  second  longest-running  talk  show  in  the  world  after  The  Tonight  Show  in  the  US.  For  37  years  it  was  presented  by  Gay  Byrne , in  latter  years  also  the  show's  producer, who  retired  just  before  the  millennium  and  was  responsible  for  breaking  the  taboo  on  public  discussion  of  a  number  of  controversial  subjects  in  Catholic  Ireland.

Channel  Four  used  it  to  fill  up  their  afternoon  schedules  in  the   second  half  of  the  eighties  which  was  when  I  caught  the  odd  episode  but  other  than  that . I  don't  think  it's   been  regularly  broadcast  here. Byrne  was  perhaps  a  little  too  unctuous  for  Anglo-Saxon  tastes.

One  or  two  of   its  incidents  have  crossed  over  into  the  UK  consciousness  though.  In  1992,  it  ended  the  ministerial  career  of  Northern  Ireland  Secretary  Peter  Brooke  who  was  prodded  into  giving  a  rendition  of  Oh  My  Darling  Clementine   on  the  same  day  as  an  IRA atrocity  in  Ulster. Not  long  after  that, the  nascent  Boyzone  appeared  on  the  show  and  a  nakedly  hostile  Byrne  persuaded them  to  do  their  dance  routine  without  the  benefit  of  a  backing  track, a  clip  that's  been  much  repeated  since. Sadly,  it  did  not  kill  their  career  off  as  he  intended  but  full  marks  for  trying  Gay !

774 The Life and Loves of a She-Devil

First  viewed :  8  October  1986

This  is  one  of   those  where  I  can't  quite  put  my  finger  on  why  I  stuck  with  it  -  apart  from  the  boredom  of  being  on  the  dole  of  course - despite  finding  much  of  it  unpleasant  and  distasteful. It  was  a  four  part  adaptation  of  a  Fay  Weldon  novel  about  a  large,  unattractive  woman  who  executes  a  long  and  elaborate  revenge  plan  against  her  husband  and  the  woman  for  whom  he  abandoned  her . I  haven't  read  the  novel  so  I don't  know  if  its  clearer  there  whether  she  actually  makes  a  Satanic  pact  to  achieve  her  ends  as  suggested  by  the  series  or  merely  takes  on  a  new  personality.

Newcomer  Julie  T  Wallace  played  Ruth  with  Patricia  Hodge  as  the  scarlet  woman, romantic  novelist  Mary  Fisher. The  husband  Bobo  was  played  by  Dennis  Waterman  with  such  a  lack  of  charm  or  personality  that  you  couldn't  understand  why  either  of  them  wanted  him . It  was  hard  to  know  where  your  sympathies  were  supposed  to  lie  in  the  series. Ruth's  revenge  plan  involved  such  cruelty  to  innocents.  including  abandoning  her  own  children  and  making  Mary's  mother ( Liz  Smith )  appear  incontinent  in  order  to  ruin  Mary's  idyll,  that  the  latter  seemed  sympathetic  by  comparison. The  plan  also  involved  extreme  personal  degradation   including  a  naked  beating  from  a  kinky  judge  ( Bernard  Hepton )  in  order  to  get  Bobo  a  lengthy  sentence  after  she  frames  him  and  then  bonking  with  a  priest  ( Tom  Baker, someone  I  never  wanted  to see  naked )  before  sending  him  on  to  Mary. In  the  final  act  she  has  extensive  plastic  surgery  to  look  exactly  like  the  now  deceased  Mary  and  moves  back  in  with  Bobo  prompting  the  obvious  question, what  was  it  all  for  ?  The  series  was  also  entirely  filmed  on  VT  giving  it  a  suitably  harsh  look.

I  did  like  the  theme  song,  Warm  Love  Gone  Cold  by  Christine  Collister and  took  an  interest  in  her  career  for  some  time  afterwards. The  series  went  down  well  both  here  and  in   America  and  there  was  a  considerably  bowdlerised  film  version  starring  Roseanne  Barr  and  Meryl  Streep  in  1989.

773 The Theban Plays

First  viewed  :  16  September  1986

Having  completed  the  Shakespeare  plays  the  year  before, the  BBC  Two  drama  department turned  their  attention  to  the  Greek  playwrights  with   the  three   tragic  plays  by  Sophocles  broadcast  on  consecutive  nights. I  was  interested  because  I'd  studied  the  first  one  Oedipus Rex   for  A  Levels  three  years  earlier  and  I'd  read  the  following  two  because  they'd  also  been  in  the  textbook  we  were  given.

I  think  the  story  in  the  first  one  is  pretty  well  known. Oedipus  the  king  of  Thebes  is  visited  by  a  prophet  bearing  the  exceedingly  unwelcome  news  that  the  man  he  slew  to  get  the  throne  and  his  bride  was  actually  his  father  and  his  wife  and  mother  to  his  four  kids  is  actually  his  own  mother. She  tops  herself  and  he  is banished  from  the city  by  his  brother-in-law  Creon  who  then  takes  the  throne  himself. The  second  one  Oedipus  at  Colonus  isn't  a  barrel  of  laughs  either  with  the  blind  Oedipus  wandering  the  wastes  as  a  beggar  accompanied  by  loyal  daughter  Antigone  and  then  plagued  by  unwelcome  visitors  including  estranged  son  Polynices  who  receives  only  a  curse  for  his trouble. The  last  one  Antigone  is  more  political  in  tone  with  a  battle  of  wills  between  the  titular  heroine  and  the  now  tyrannical  Creon  over  the  burial  of   Polynices's  body.

The  plays  were  presented  on   a  stark  minimalist  set  with  mix  and  match  anachronistic  clothing, Creon's  final  costume  looking  like  it  was  on  loan  from  General  Pinochet.  Anthony  Quayle  played  Oedipus, something  of  a  departure  from  his  usual  bluff  and  genial  screen  persona . John  Shrapnel  played  the  bullheaded  Creon  and  Juliet  Stevenson  was  the  predictable  choice  for  Antigone. The  Chorus  included  such  familiar  faces  as  Ian Hogg, Peter  Jeffrey  and  Bernard  Hill.

It  hasn't  been  repeated  to  date.