Category: 1980s

My second decade – so a time of secondary school and hormones. A time when JN-T was the only Producer of Doctor Who, and Mrs Thatcher the only Prime Minister of the UK.

Advent #14

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1970s, 1980s, Childhood, Christmas

A month or two back, over tea, I remembered Rotadraw.

The current image has no alternative text. The file name is: xmas25-14.png

That’s not quite true. I half-remembered  “round thing, like a record, you draw through slot one, turn it, draw through slot two…” and eventually we identified it as a children’s toy from the early-70s called (as no doubt you remember (from the opening sentence if not the early-70s)) Rotadraw.

I assumed, rather vainly, that this toy for 7 or 8 year olds had ceased production when I’d ceased being 7 or 8 – but the internet, having already furnished us the name, reveals that the brand carried on at least into the mid-80s, as we found pictures of an A-Team set. (If you want illustrations, if nobody else does art, and if you’ve got the Rotadraw, maybe you can sketch… and so on.)

The current image has no alternative text. The file name is: xmas25-14-2.png

So anyway, and having previously scored a hit with a still mint-in-box Spirograph I bought for her birthday, I thought I’d track down a Rotadraw for my other half for Christmas. I assumed, naively this time, that some fifty year old plastic discs allowing you to render a Bambi or a Tom and/or Jerry, would be easy to find.

Alas, not so – or rather, easy but not cheaply. If only I’d had the presence of mind never to play with the Rotadraws we had as a child and had instead locked them away in a cupboard, I could now have been sitting on a goldmine. Especially if it had been the DC Super Heroes set (currently £150 on eBay).

To cut to the chase, and much as I love Mrs Curnow, she’s definitely NOT getting a Rotadraw (not Robin Hood, not Masters of the Universe, definitely not DC Super Heroes) for Christmas. So I’ll just have to think of something else, and quickly.

Back to the (rota)drawing board!

Advent #11

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1980s, BBC, Christmas, TV

Still making my way through The Box of Delights, and I’d quite forgotten that the bishop of Tatchester, cheerful in part one, scrobbled in part four, but ultimately released and full of yuletide spirit in part six – is played by the late John Horsley who is probably best-remembered for having been Doc Morrisey in The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin.

Current image: Actor John Horsley as Doc Morrissey, holding a stethoscope to the chest of Leonard Rossiter as Reginald Perrin.

The first time I saw anything of Reggie Perrin was, ironically, the last thing they did when a five minute sketch from the Perrin team featured in The Funny Side of Christmas in 1982. Hosted by Frank Muir, it was like a selection box, an-hour-and-a-bit of specially-made Christmas sketches from a dozen or so comedies of the day.

It’s hard to imagine such a show nowadays, partly because that sense of the BBC family has gone (in the rose-tinted sense, but also in the pragmatic sense that the entire output is no longer coming out of Television Centre, Wood Lane, W12 8QT).

I was also going to say it’s hard to imagine such a show nowadays, because there aren’t any decent sitcoms anymore–

–except that’s clearly not true. But I must confess I’ve never once bothered with Count Arthur Strong, Derry Girls, Ghosts. Not even Gavin & Stacey. Somehow, the great British sitcom has become one of those things that I never bother to support but which I would be outraged about losing (like my local library or the Church of England).

So, on reflection, I suppose… I mean, really it would be no more than my civic duty to spend some time this Christmas just watching sitcoms, wouldn’t it.

Not that I want to suggest all I do is watch TV.

(I didn’t get where I am today by suggesting all I do is watch TV.)

Advent #8

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1970s, 1980s, BBC, Childhood, Christmas, Doctor Who, TV

At this time of year, I often find my thoughts turning towards the latest BBC Doctor Who blu-rays. (Because yes, season of goodwill notwithstanding I really am that shallow.)

The latest, released in October but promptly squirrelled away somewhere in the house to await Christmas Day, is season 13. First aired from Autumn 1975 to Spring 1976 (nicely helping to pass the time between the two long hot Summers) it’s got everything – assuming that by ‘everything’  you mean disembodied brains, killer plants and, er, some nonsense with an eyepatch in The Android Invasion. But my favourite is the opener, Terror of the Zygons, in which some whispering alien shape-changers plot to take over the world using their pet Loch Ness monster.

I was too young in 1975, so the first time I laid eyes on this beauty was in 1988 when the BBC brought it out on video – released in November but promptly squirrelled away somewhere in the house to await Christmas Day.

On the face of it there’s nothing at all Christmassy about it, other than a bit of snow on some of the location filming – but because of that first viewing all those years ago, it feels to me that it has Christmas running all the way through it. Half-drowned oil rig worker shot dead on a beach? The Doctor and Sarah Jane left to suffocate in a decompression chamber? An alien doppleganger of Harry Sullivan impaled on a pitchfork? I can practically smell the mulled wine already.

Even the Doctor puts on a special outfit for the (non-)occasion. OK, it’s not a santa suit, but it IS something special, a one-off just for this story. So special in fact that he’s sporting it on the front cover of…

Did I mention it’s out on blu-ray?

Current image: Bluray cover, featuring Tom Baker as Doctor Who wearing a Tam O'Shanter hat and a Tartan scarf.

Advent #3

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1980s, BBC, Christmas, Doctor Who, TV
The current image has no alternative text. The file name is: xmas25-3-box.png

Having cynically poo-poo’d it a couple of years back I’ve given in to temptation and, almost four decades since I last saw it, am rewatching The Box of Delights.

It’s a sprawling six-part tale of time travelling and villainy (a bit like Doctor Who) and  belongs to a more innocent time – not just its period setting of England between the wars (and a rather upper-class England at that); but also in the sense that it was made in the early-eighties.

As such its special effects, though expensive for the time, are often a case of ambition outstripping technology (a bit like Doctor Who). Of course, back in the day it was accepted that you entered into the viewing contract with an agreement to suspend your disbelief where necessary. But nevertheless, I can assure you that nobody was convinced by the cartoon creatures added to the live-action footage, nor by actors got up in mouse or rat costumes. No, not even back in the naïve eighties.

But it has a superbly-haunting theme tune (a spooky rendering of The First Nowell in the opening titles, a stirring full-on orchestra version over the end credits) and a cracking first episode… Alas, the other five struggle and ultimately fail to live up to the promise of the opener. A bit like Doctor Who (The Web Planet/Underworld/Etc).

It also has a lot of snow, and a lot of warmth, and with its tale of wizards and magic, of kidnapped clerics and cathedral choirs, it’s brimful of Christmas spirit.

Not to mention the cast list. Robert Stephens as the villain. A lovely turn by James Grout as the village policeman. And as the mysterious showman Cole Hawlings… Well, I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed but he looks, well…

A bit like Doctor Who.

The current image has no alternative text. The file name is: xmas25-3.png

Advent #19

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1970s, 1980s, BBC, Christmas, TV
The current image has no alternative text. The file name is: ofah.jpg

Not that I want to suggest all I do is watch TV but…

Oh! BUT– actually, maybe I DON’T. Because I’ve never watched Gavin & Stacey!

I may have caught two minutes of it once (Alison Steadman discussing her breakfast I think) but that was en route to something else and I didn’t hang around. Apart from that brief encounter, it’s a show that entirely slipped under my radar. Likewise Count Arthur Strong, Ghosts, Miranda…

For all that we like to bemoan the death of the sitcom, actually it still seems to be in fine form. No, not every show is a triumph – but nostalgia has made us forget that even back in the day, for every The Good Life or Yes Minister there were half a dozen Goodbye, Mr Kents or Sweet Sixteens.

Gavin & Stacey is currently making my radar ping like there’s a U Boat fleet headed straight for me, because a whole load of hype in recent weeks has made it very clear that it’s coming back for one final episode on Christmas Day. It’s the BBC’s big hope for huge festive viewing figures.

Of course, ‘huge’ is different nowadays – you can no longer ever expect to claim that almost half the population of the country has watched something, as they did back in, for example, Del & Rodney’s heyday. TV is now too fragmented, and the days where “Stupid Boy” or “Listen Very Carefully” or “Just the One, Mrs Wembley” or even “You Plonker!” would enter everyday language by cultural osmosis have gone.

But that’s not to say TV is dead (thank goodness). Less high profile, but I see there’s another one-off revival on Boxing Day, with a new episode of “Outnumbered. Now that I AM looking forward to.

Not that I want to suggest…

Advent #12

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1980s, BBC, Christmas, Doctor Who, TV

Not that I want to suggest all I do is watch TV, but…

The current image has no alternative text. The file name is: greatest-show.jpg

Still working my way through the season 25 boxset, I’ve just finished The Greatest Show in the Galaxy. Part 3 has half a claim to being a Doctor Who Christmas Special, back in 1988 when there wasn’t any such thing. Or at least, it went out inbetween Christmas and New Year, due to the ‘unexpected’ late start to the ’88 season (caused by the Olympics which, to be honest, shouldn’t really have snuck up on anyone).

Fortunately – I’m sure the Pertwee massive would like me to say ‘serendipitously’ – this particular story, with its madcap cast, its scary clowns, its circus setting and its general air of silliness is a good fit for the Christmas period; and part 3 has some great moments, from Bellboy’s ‘death by clown’ to Ace’s assessment that the Doctor is “just an aging hippy”.

Back in the day we were out when it aired so our VCR was duly programmed to record, something I found easy at 17 but would probably struggle with at 53. And because you could never quite pin down the exact start-time of anything, it was set to record with a very healthy margin of error.

Consequently, until the advent of the BluRay release this year, my copy of the story was still from that off-air VHS, meaning part 3 was preceded by a good ten minutes of Terry Wogan’s special interview with the legendary Jimmy Stewart.

All these years later, I’m afraid I no longer have my off-air tapes. And sadly neither Jimmy Stewart nor Terry Wogan is still with us. On the other hand, I can report that, at sixty-one and still fighting fit, the greatest show in the galaxy is doing just fine.

Advent #6

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1980s, Christmas, TV

I’ve scarcely mentioned it at all, but over the past few years I’ve been watching classic Scots soap Take The High Road from the beginning.

It shows its age of course (it ran from 1980 until 2003) and, perhaps because back in the good old days different ITV regions showed programmes at different times, it rarely pins itself down to being set at a particular time of year. Episodes with a Scottish transmission date of June and July, for example, will often have scenes set in blizzard weather, betraying the filming rather than broadcast date. And strikingly, to the modern viewer accustomed to big Yuletide storylines (sensational weddings/murders/divorces/alien abductions/plane crashes and the like) TTHR doesn’t make a big thing of Christmas – never mentions it at all in fact.

Or so I thought until I came across this picture in an old book about the show:

The current image has no alternative text. The file name is: tthr.jpg

I’ve religiously avoided any spoilers (if you can even have ‘spoilers’ for a programme that finished over twenty years ago) so I don’t know anything about it other than what can be gleaned from this brief entry. But it’s a tantalising hint of something unusually specific, a Christmas episode – and it comes with a tantalising caption, making it clear that as a sassenach viewer I didn’t just miss it, I never even had the chance to watch it.

Perhaps, when I finally finish watching the series proper, I’ll trawl the internet to see if I can track down ‘the Christmas episode’ (I’ll put it on the list alongside the actual final episode of Secret Army). But for now, perhaps oddly, I’m happy to leave it a mystery – to leave it, if you like, as one more present to unwrap.

Meanwhile, episode 1210 and Mrs Mack has a new hat…

Advent #2

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1980s, Christmas, Moaning
The current image has no alternative text. The file name is: psb.jpg

I don’t know much about music, but I know what I like (to coin a phrase). Or at least, what I DISlike.

Certainly, I can remember quietly seething in the Winter of 1987 when the Pet Shop Boys ‘stole’ the Christmas Number One slot from The Pogues & Kirsty MacColl. The Boys’ high-speed, technopop cover of an Elvis classic seemed to my teenage ears a very poor excuse for a Christmas number one, not mentioning trees or snow or Santa once, not even jazzing up the backing-track with so much as a sleigh bell.

But as time has passed, with each year I find I rate You Are Always On My Mind a little more. Maybe my taste has improved, maybe UB40 murdering another Elvis classic in 1993 helped put it into perspective for me. Either way, in hindsight I have to say hats off to the record-buying public of 1987 who got the Pet Shop Boys to pole position that December.  I can’t include myself among their number, my single-purchasing days spanned the Smurfs in 1978 to Anita Dobson doing the theme to EastEnders in 1986, after which I think I pretty much gave up on buying records. (Or possibly the Hit Parade carried out an intervention and told me to just give it up as a bad job.)

This year the Pet Shop Boys are back, with a cover of All The Young Dudes. I’m not that struck to be honest. I mean, it’s OK but it doesn’t really add anything to the superb Mott the Hoople original, and frankly–

No, never mind. Give it another three decades, I’ll probably be telling you the Pet Shop Boys version is the best record ever made.

(Although of course, I don’t know much about music.)

Advent #20

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1980s, Childhood, Christmas

It may be that it was around long before and I’m just misremembering (again) but I always think of Connect Four as being an invention of the early 80s.

I like a game at Christmas, but there’s no point reaching for the Monopoly unless you’ve cleared your afternoon schedule first. Cluedo’s something of a long-runner too (and Trivial Pursuit) but Connect Four is the sort of game you can quickly play a couple of rounds of in the gap between stirring from your post-lunch nap and heading off to the kitchen to research potential answers to the question of what’s for tea. It’s easy to understand (for kids from 8 to 80 as they say) and it even makes that deeply-satisying noise when the counters clonk into place.

My memory (with the usual qualifiers) also suggests that at the same time as Connect Four, we were gifted Guess Who. That’s another game that’s easily and quickly understood, and it too makes a gorgeous sound, when you flip over the tiles.

Given the absurdly huge number of variations of Monopoly (we got our daughter the Simpsons version one Christmas, cue much hilarity and a lot of very bad impersonations (and in my case, a chain of bankruptcies)) I’m always surprised there aren’t lots of different Guess Whos, themed around films or TV shows. (Does he have a hat? Does he have a moustache? Was his first wife tragically electrocuted and did his third wife have a scandalous affair with Mike Baldwin?)

The only thing I can’t remember is who actually gave it to us, although whoever it was certainly deserves our heartfelt thanks. Maybe it was… Is it a man? Does he have a big white beard? Does he drive a sleigh pulled by nine reindeer….?

Advent #3

by andrewcurnow1971, posted in 1980s, Christmas, Doctor Who

They used to say that if you could remember the sixties you weren’t there – in similar vein, if you don’t remember Trivial Pursuits in the eighties, then you weren’t there either. An extraordinary blend of a boardgame with the opportunity for passive aggressive one-upmanship, it seemed to be, for just a couple of years, a constant threat hanging over any social gathering.

We were given it as a family one Christmas; and, for those few mortals unfamiliar, the premise is a quiz where you have to collect a different coloured slice or segment from each category, the first to get all six wins. Green was Science & Nature I believe, and there were questions also on History, Geography, Sport… in other words all the things I know nothing about. All I can really remember is that my only hope of ever possibly getting an answer right was if it was pink for Entertainment.

The game became, in Doctor Who circles, notorious for getting the answer wrong to the question ‘Who created Doctor Who?’ because, although his Daleks likely made it a success, Terry Nation (the answer on the card) didn’t actually create the show. With my anorak on I’m not sure you could definitively give one specific name in answer to the question. (Or alternatively, if there’s a pink slice in it for me, definitely Sydney Newman.)

It became, in our circle, if not notorious at least briefly memorable for the fact that when the local Superintendent Minister and his wife were around one evening, he was given the question, “What is the name for an animal with two penises?”

In case you’re wondering, no, I can’t remember the answer. And I’m certainly not Googling it to find out!

(I’m pretty sure it’s not Terry Nation though.)