Another year, another Missing Believed Wiped? What treats
would be in store? What shows would be a chore? Top Of The Pops – have they
found more? Or some Lulu or Sandi Shaw?
Sorry, no more rhymes. First up this year, beginning and ending the first session and beginning the second, was a section of TV continuity. Which I’d feared would be a History Of Anglia Idents, and there was an element of that, but fortunately it was edited with a sense of pace and humour. So while I never want to watch all the Granada 'G’s bouncing around the screen again, it was rather nice to see little promo clips of The Two Ronnies and Reginald Perrin, as well as the original ITV presenter so accurately lampooned by Susie Blake on Victoria Wood As Seen On TV. And certain idents prodded at the nostalgia cortex; watching the slow but inexorable progress of the BBC For Schools clock took me right back to sitting cross-legged on a varnished dining hall floor waiting for Words And Pictures*. What was it with BBC For Schools and baroque classical guitar?
First highlight of the evening was a 30-minute play by BS
Johnson called Not Counting The Savages, from 1972 but only preserved as a
slightly dodgy black-and-white off-air recording. Like far too many of the
plays of the day, it was domestic, indulgent, unstructured, rambling and possibly
point-scoringly-autobiographical and appeared to have been knocked off in one
drunken evening with no time for a second draft. It reminded me of Dennis
Potter’s Shaggy Dog in that regard; it’s characters arguing to create false
drama, with peculiar, hollow moments of surrealism (a character playing an
electric keyboard which is switched off and re-setting the date). It wasn’t, it
has to be said, any good, but I’m glad to have seen it; the main
disappointment, though, was that I had hoped, being a BS Johnson piece, it
would end with characters acknowledging their own fictional status and giving
up on the story, when it just ends with a clunking great Do You See What I Did
There. Oh, and some of the dialogue, some of the sentence constructions, oh
dear.
After that was part three of Doctor Who: Galaxy Four, the
episode Air Lock. Not the most spectacular, fast-moving or action-packed
episode of the series, but wonderful to see nonetheless. It’s problem is that
the story is far too thin to sustain the duration (probably because
responsibility for it fell between two production teams), most significantly in
part three where a large portion of it is dedicated to the villainess Maaga delivering
a monologue (near enough) about Drahvins soldiers being genetically engineered
to be unable to think or imagine.
It’s also quite a static episode; most of the characters spend it in one
location, Steven Taylor barely moving more than half a dozen yards during the
course of the episode, the Doctor being sidelined sabotaging an air filter for
the first half.
It’s also a slightly wobbly production; the story repeatedly
makes the point that the Rills can’t be seen in their ammonia chamber, when in
fact they’re quite clearly visible (and very lovely). At one point Vicki is
trapped by a sliding wall that the Doctor describes as immovable when it is
anything but; later on there’s an accident with his cane and a scene
where the Doctor is told by Vicki not to shout at the Chumblies, when he hasn’t raised his voice in the slightest.
But there were many delights in this episode too. A very
nicely-directed flashback scene. The rills. Peter Purves’ enormous hair (he’s
always said that his role in this story was written for Jacqueline Hill, which
may explain why he has her hairdo and cardigan). The Chumblies, some
endearingly wobbly robots that resemble enormous upturned salad bowls covered
in Christmas decorations. And most wonderfully of all, William Hartnell’s
interaction with the Chumblies, giggling with delight as they whizz past at
quite a lick, prodding them with his cane, giving them instructions and leading
them on the charge.
I should also add that the restoration job on the episode is
fantastic, it looks utterly beautiful and the repair to the ending is virtually
unnoticeable even if, like me, you can’t help looking out for it. And who would've thought, reading K9 And Other Mechnical Creatures all those years ago* that I would one day get to see a Chumblie in action?
In the second section, as well as more continuity, we got to
see a clip of Roxy Music performing Street Life on Top Of The Pops. Not one of
their better songs, but it was good to see. Unfortunately the BBC in their wisdom
decided that we couldn’t see the whole episode as it features Jimmy Savile and
Gary Glitter; presumably there was a danger that their images could spring to
life and emerge from the screen like the girl from The Ring and molest innocent
members of the audience. Or that there might be someone in the audience who,
despite having had forty-odd years to be desensitised by Savile’s appearances
on TV (particularly over the last few months), might finally be tipped over the
brink by seeing him on the big screen at the BFI. I mean, seriously, how can it
be insensitive to repeat a Top Of The Pops presented by Savile when it’s okay
for clips of Savile presenting Top Of The Pops to be shown endlessly on the
news and ITV hatchet-mentaries? Which is more likely to be seen by, and
distress, his victims? It’s the same magnetic tape, the only difference is that
one is in the context of providing musicians with royalties and maybe a chance
to see the one time their band ever appeared on telly, and one is in the
context of trying to cynically provoke an emotional response of salacious disgust
and anger. Oh, I’m ranting, and we all know the real reason, it’s because the
BBC is scared of the Daily Mail.
So instead, we were treated to a couple of youth shows.
Firstly, an edition of A Whole Scene Going. To begin with, I was on tenterhooks
as a shopping montage to The Kinks' Dedicated Follower Of Fashion looked like
it might contain a NEW SIGHTING OF SIXTIES TOP HAT GUY but alas that was not to
be. The show then included a few pop acts, which I have already forgotten, and
a little clip about the making of the second Dalek movie and an interview with
a very defensive Gordon Flemying (father of Primeval’s Jason Flemyng). This was
followed by an interview with some directors and a feature on The Spencer Davis Group with Spencer Davis being interviewed by a panel of ‘young people’. These ‘young
people’ were hilarious, with their vague and yet aggressive line of
questioning, and the fact that they all appeared to be in their mid-forties.
The show’s presenters, though, were fab; the utterly delightful and gorgeous Wendy Varnals, and Barry Fantoni, a dead ringer for Sonny Bono. Whatever happened to Wendy Varnals? She should’ve been presenting Newsnight by now. Her report on Birmingham's swinging nightclubs was the epitome of quality journalism.
The show’s presenters, though, were fab; the utterly delightful and gorgeous Wendy Varnals, and Barry Fantoni, a dead ringer for Sonny Bono. Whatever happened to Wendy Varnals? She should’ve been presenting Newsnight by now. Her report on Birmingham's swinging nightclubs was the epitome of quality journalism.
And whatever happened to Ayshea, the gorgeous presenter of
Lift Off With Ayshea? She’s great, the (only) highlight of her fairly ramshackle
children’s TV show. The reason why it’s been generally ignored by the Brooker,
Collins and Maconie nostalgia mill is that almost all of it has been lost,
otherwise it would surely have had its own section in We Lazily Mock The 70s; ‘The
Feet, what were they all about, eh?’ Ayshea’s co-star was a ‘Hacker’-type dog
called Barker, disconcertingly voiced by the same guy who did Basil Brush; a
very funny character but a truly shit puppet c/o Oliver Postgate. The show was
weird and misjudged, the sinister Animal Kwackers-type dance routines and
puppet seemingly intended for primary school children whilst the pop acts (which
seemed to be three identical servings of Creme Brulee) were presumably intended
for teenagers. As such, it could only serve to alienate and frustrate both sets of viewers.
And that was it, Missing Believed Wiped 2012. A much better
and well-considered presentation than last year and it looks like there will be
even more Missing Believed Wipeds during 2013 so maybe I should finally get
that BFI membership as I’ll be attending them all.
* Twenty-eight, I was.