Harry Worth

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XaTxTPAMduM

(unfortuntely the embedding has been switched off for this video)

Another fine find from Youtube.

Harry Worth was very popular in the 1960s but seems forgotten amongst the gems of Steptoe and Till Death. A great deal of his stuff is missing from the archives, but this is quite a funny example of his work. He wasn't there to change the world ala Speight and Garnett, just to entertain.

Bye bye Richard and Judy

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8040368.stm

I don't think the case is that the viewers could find them, it's more the case that they are bloody well confused with the way that the channels have been rebranded and moved around on the platforms.

UK Gold became UKTV Gold, became Watch? But Gold is available now as G.O.L.D (Go On Laugh Daily) but on a different channel?

Queenie's Castle

What a find! Diana Dors was incredible playing these sort of sexy strong, near despotic women and was always quite an under-rated talent in the 1960s and 1970s.

The council housing seen in this series was the Quarry Hill estate in Leeds, famed for it's Art Deco 1930s appearance, which is sadly no more, pulled down probably a few years later on.

This site, funnily enough, now houses the West Yorkshire Playhouse, the Kremlin style offices of the Child Support Agency, and the BBC Yorkshire Headquarters.

Finally Seen Reggie Perrin

Well finally seen episode one at last. Unfortunately my fears in an earlier blog entry were well grounded. There is a rather cynical feel to the whole production, Martin Clunes plays Reggie with no sympathy whatsoever; with Rossiters character you felt sympathy with the way his character began the decline due to the endless mononity of his life and his workplace - it was the point of the programme and hence the need to prefix the title with "The Fall and Rise...". The Rossiter Reggie daydreams would help get him out of this to seek humour within a boring situation, hence fantasizing over Joan his Secretary would allow him to get over his sheer boredom of dictating a letter, or thinking his mother in law was a hippo. There are fantasies in the new series, but there are ones that make Reggie look to be prudish, impatient and very negative.

Even Reggies wife, now called Nicola, is an independent woman who doesn’t really seem to back Reggie – with the Rossiter creation his wife (called Elizabeth) was there, at first as that constant area in his life, always with dinner that he didn’t want or a drink of something when he came through the door, but later on more of a partner, friend and confidant.

Neil Stuke is a good actor, but he is so trying to be John Barron’s CJ with none of the quirkiness or stupidity and vulnerability that he had; instead we get a kind of ‘forced eccentricity’ that doesn’t sit very well. Indeed CJ over the episodes of the original series becomes a cherished character, one that kept the mannerisms and character despite the many changes to his life which become entangled with Reggies. Somehow I can’t see this series lasting three.

What we have presented as Reggie Perrin is so incredibly soulless, cynical and modern, it’s lost the very elements that made the original different yet very very funny. Its like Star Trek without Spock or Eastenders without the dreariness.

‘Reggie Perrin’ 2009 style is just British Television being lazy again, exploiting old glories and not risking schedules with anything new.

BAFTA for Who?

I see Doctor Who is up for a BAFTA for the best drama in the 2009 awards (pity Graham Norton's jokes aren't going down well though with the audience!)

10, 20, 30 years ago, no one would have dared predict it. As Michael Grade put it in the Mail on Sunday, it was all about an eccentric bloke with a dumb assistant and polystyrene sets.

Wallander won it. A 'proper' drama. With a luvvie in it. Darling.

I must be one of the very few people who loves television with a passion but who doesn't actually watch much anymore.

Reggie Perrin, but I haven't seen the new one yet

Perrin without Sunshine Desserts?

Perrin without the Hippo and the other video inserts?

Perrin without the nervous yet subtle energy?

Perrin without not knowing where he got where he is today when CJ is now called Chris?

Perrin without the farting chairs?

Um, why oh why is this show still called Perrin?

Jill Dando

Just been on BBC London News that it is ten years to the day since the murder of Jill Dando, the BBC Newsreader. Where has all that time gone? What would she have been doing now?