Christmas With BBC Records And Tapes

RESL124 Orville's Song/I Didn't - Keith Harris And Orville (December 1982)

Although a TV regular since the mid-sixties, ventriloquist Keith Harris’ career didn’t really take off – ironically – until he introduced bashful luminous green duck who couldn’t fly Orville into his act in the late seventies. By 1982 he, or rather they, had landed a prominent variety slot on BBC1 with The Keith Harris Show, although he remained a popular and enthusiastic stage performer, which gave rise to this single written by pianist and former talent show winner – and old friend of the ‘duo’ – Bobby Crush. Taking the form of a dialogue between Harris and his puppet charting the latter’s inability to take to the skies, Orville’s Song is certainly cloying, sentimental and delivered by a gratingly-voiced character that not all of the target audience found quite so loveable, but is in its own way an effective and endearing composition that in no way deserves the deluge of ‘Worst Record Ever’ accolades that have been heaped upon it since. Certainly record-buyers at the time didn’t seem to agree, sending the single to Number Four over Christmas 1982.


RESL138 Come To My Party – Keith Harris, Orville And Dippy/Thank You For Telling Me ‘Bout Christmas – Keith Harris And Orville (December 1983)

A seasonal outing for Keith Harris and his many puppets, with the a-side again written by Bobby Crush. Although the single did enjoy some minor chart action, climbing to number forty four over the festive season, it surprisingly failed to corner the lucrative Christmas market and ultimately caused few worries to Paul McCartney and David Essex.


RESL162 The Box Of Delights/The Carol Symphony - The Pro Arte Orchestra (December 1984) 

Marked out by top-drawer acting and pioneering video effects, BBC1’s 1984 adaptation of John Masefield’s 1935 festive children’s novel The Box Of Delights – something of a favourite with the BBC, having been adapted seven times across several media – was rightly fanfared as a landmark production and remains held in high regard by audiences and critics alike to this day. For theme music, the production team elected to use an extract from the third movement of Victor Hely-Hutchinson’s 1927 Carol Symphony, an extended piece based on orchestral arrangements of themes and motifs from numerous traditional Christmas Carols which had in fact originally been written as a contribution to an early BBC radio broadcast. The extract featured a variation on The First Nowell, and was taken from a 1966 recording of The Carol Symphony for EMI by The Pro Arte Orchestra; it was, however, subjected to minor manipulation by Roger Limb of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to make it more in keeping with the mood and style of the serial. Limb’s modifications were frustratingly absent from the direct edit featured on this single, which featured another excerpt from the movement, this time based on a segment of the Coventry Carol, on the b-side. Selling in small quantities at the time, and one of only a handful of pieces of official The Box Of Delights-related merchandise, this is now one of the most eagerly sought-after BBC Records And Tapes releases.


RESL179 The Ballad Of Sandra Claus/The Goulash Break – Bryan Joan Elliott and The Elf Service (December 1985) 

American comedian Bryan Joan Elliott was something of a minor star in the UK in the mid-eighties, largely thanks to her regular appearances on the ITV game show Punchlines. This unusual attempt at cornering the Christmas market for 1985 came about as a result of some recent well-received appearances on high profile BBC chat shows, notably BBC2’s The Bob Monkhouse Show.


RESL234 Christmas Is Here Again/Awake Zion Awake - Bryn Coch Primary School (December 1989)

The first release after a gap of almost a year – suggesting that all was not well at BBC Records And Tapes in the new John Birt-led regime – was a Yuletide-themed offering from the pupils of a Welsh primary school accompanied by harpist Glenys Lightfoot, recruited by the label following popularity with local radio listeners, in an attempt to create yet another school-sourced singing phenomenon and indeed to secure a hit in the lucrative Christmas market. Sadly, this single fell short of expectations on both counts.


RESL236 Christmas Past And Christmas Present/Christmas Past And Christmas Present (Festive Fun Mix) – Euphoria (December 1989)

Seemingly determined to corner the Christmas market for 1989, BBC Records And Tapes put out a staggering third Yuletide-themed single in the form of this choral effort based on Kings College Cambridge’s traditional Festival Of Nine Lessons And Carols service. Unsurprisingly, this one didn’t sell very many copies either. The ‘Festive Fun Mix’ fails to live up to its title. RESL237 was set aside for yet another Festive-friendly single – Glory Be To God On High, a re-recording of the EastEnders theme with yet more new lyrics by Simon May, performed with a choir of children and premiered on BBC1’s Songs Of Praise. Contractual difficulties saw to it that this was instead released by Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful label; however – perhaps mercifully – it still failed to make the charts. This all took place, however, late in 1988, suggesting that some or all of the preceding singles may have been in the works since the previous Festive Season – a sure sign that the writing was on the wall for BBC Records And Tapes...

---

This is an extract from Top Of The Box - The Complete Guide To BBC Records And Tapes Singles, which is available as a paperback here, or from the Kindle Store here.

Top Of The Box

Top Of The Box is the story behind every single released by BBC Records And Tapes, from Every Loser Wins to Awesome Dood!.

Between 1970 and 1990, BBC Records And Tapes released almost three hundred singles, ranging from some of the best known and most loved theme tunes in television history to full-length versions of ones that nobody had even asked for a short version of to begin with. Along the way they also put out one-off oddities by everyone from George Formby impersonators and up-and-coming folkies to a 'computer orchestra' and some posh blokes going on about how marvellous The Queen is. Oh and then there's the one that's just the sound of someone hitting a phone.

Possibly the most bafflingly diverse catalogue of singles ever issued, viewed as a whole, it's a fascinating indication of what really was popular - and sometimes unpopular - with viewers at the time. Top Of The Box tells the story behind each of these singles, taking in familiar names, cult artists and obscure bafflements alike, and including the likes of Simon May, Peter Howell, Nick Berry, David Munrow, Roy Castle, Anita Dobson, Fascinating Aida, Aled Jones, Hazel O'Connor, Richard Stilgoe, Spike Milligan, Johnny Dankworth, Eric Clapton, The Grange Hill Cast, The Dooleys, Alan Hawkshaw, Enya, Keith Mansfield, Julie Covington, Georgie Fame, Godiego, Lena Zavaroni, Brown Sauce, Alan Price, Russell Grant, Kenneth Williams, Floella Benjamin, The Not The Nine O'Clock News Team, B.A. Robertson, Paddy Kingsland, Richard Denton & Martin Cook, The BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and of course Keith Harris & Orville. So many singles by Keith Harris & Orville. Including one that wasn't even released...

You can get Top Of The Box as a paperback here or as an eBook here, or from the Kindle Store here, and - after thanking Graham Kibble-White for the excellent cover art - I'll just leave you with a couple of personal favourites from the catalogue...

BBC Records: The EastEnders (When It Was Good) Files

RESL160 EastEnders/Julia's Theme - Simon May

Launched in a blaze of publicity in February 1985, the BBC's new twice-weekly soap opera EastEnders was a huge gamble and one that, initially, did not seem to be paying off. Press reception was hostile and viewing figures were low, and its brash and visually drab combination of intentionally mundane drama, multiculturalism and boisterous East End humour did not seem to be finding an audience. Arguably the one factor that it had working in its favour was Simon May's naggingly catchy - and cleverly arranged - theme music, released as a single to coincide with the series launch. Perhaps reflecting the initially muted reception, the single did not chart but within months EastEnders was on an upwards ratings trajectory and subsequent singles spun off from the show, as we shall see, would enjoy much greater success. Named after the series' formidable producer Julia Smith, the b-side was a slower alternate arrangement occasionally used for 'landmark' episodes.


RESL168 Killin' Time/Winner Takes All - Barry Blood

One early indication of how huge EastEnders was about to become was the fact that this rock ballad, heard in the background of a key scene in which early characters Oscar Carpenter and Angie Watts were revealed to be having an affair, was considered a suitable prospect for single release. Former Glam Rocker Barry Blood – whose 1975 single Poor Annie has since become a cult favourite – was a regular contributor to soundtrack and library work around this time.


RESL191 Anyone Can Fall In Love - Anita Dobson/Julia's Theme - Simon May

Following a shaky start, EastEnders had grown steadily in popularity during its first year on air, and to the surprise of many had quickly become one of the most popular shows on air. Such was the feverish public interest in the show and its cast that many of the stars were asked to make records, regardless of musical ability. Most of these releases were for other labels and had little chart success, but BBC Records – noting the recent success of Always There, a hit single featuring Marti Webb singing lyrics to Simon May's theme from BBC drama serial Howard's Way (which itself had recently been a sizeable hit single) – had the shrewd idea of asking May and veteran soundtrack composer Don Black to put lyrics to a new arrangement of the theme, and then enlisted Anita Dobson, who played Angie Watts in the series and had a solid background in musical theatre, to perform it. Despite being the subject of much ridicule, Anyone Can Fall In Love was a top five hit, and inspired an album REB594 Simon’s Way which collected newly-arranged suites of music from May’s work on EastEnders and Howard’s Way. Less imagination was shown in the b-side’s re-use of the b-side from the original EastEnders theme single, and even less still by the 12” which also included the original single version of the theme.


RESL203 Something Outa Nothing/Time Square - Letitia Dean & Paul J Medford

EastEnders' popularity soon exceeded all expectations and for a time it was the single most popular programme on UK television by some considerable distance. This encouraged the show’s producers to experiment with a number of attempts to expand its popularity into other media, including – largely at the instigation of theme composer Simon May – the formation of a pop band by some of the teenage residents of Albert Square. Varying their name between Dog Market and The Banned, the five-piece outfit were seen to enter talent contests and bicker over stage prominence across several months’ worth of storylines that failed to connect with their intended younger audience and their musical ambitions came to an abrupt end. However, enough time and money had been invested to make this single – ostensibly written by keyboard player Simon ‘Wicksy’ Wicks, though actually by May – commercially viable. Credited solely to the performers who played Sharon Watts and Kelvin Carpenter, it actually managed a quite respectable number twelve on the singles chart. The 12” featured extended versions of Something Outa Nothing and the instrumental b-side.


RESL204 Every Loser Wins/Every Loser Wins (Instrumental) - Nick Berry

And it doesn't end there. Partway through the storyline, 'Wicksy' left The Banned in acrimonious circumstances, venting his frustration by regularly performing his other composition – or, to be more accurate, Simon May's other composition – on the piano in the Queen Vic. The slightly mawkish ballad then became a major plot point, played endlessly on a cassette by barman George 'Lofty' Holloway as he descended into a nervous breakdown. Quite a few viewers seemed to like it without suffering any ill-effects, and the result was this rush-released single (in the shops with such haste that they had to use a photo of an unshaven Nick Berry on the cover) which ended up topping the singles chart for three weeks. Along with So Easy, the extra track on the 12", Every Loser Wins would later appear on REB618 Nick Berry.


RESL212 It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time/Too Close To Heaven - Nick Berry

Judging from the interviews he gave around this time, nobody was more surprised by the success of Every Loser Wins than Nick Berry himself, who speculated that it wouldn’t have been a hit without the relentless exposure afforded by a primetime TV show. The lack of a chart placing for this single – again taken from REB618 Nick Berry - would seem to have proved him correct. As a result, Berry became a regular sighting on lists of One Hit Wonders, though that all changed when he wound up singing in an ITV show...

---

Can't Get A Ticket (To The World Cup), a non-BBC Records And Tapes single by early cast member Peter Dean (Pete Beale), is featured in the edition of Looks Unfamiliar with broadcaster Bob Fischer which you can find here.

Top Of The Box, the story behind every single released by BBC Records And Tapes, is available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here.

Ten Incredibly Strange Singles Released By BBC Records And Tapes

BBC Records And Tapes released some really, REALLY weird singles in their time, spanning the entire spectrum of 'popular' music all the way from from the That's Life team posing as comedy punks about ten years after punk happened, to the sound of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop hitting a phone. At least they were interesting, though; here are ten singles where you can't help but wonder who anyone in their right mind thought might actually buy them...


RESL172 Wimbledon Break Point/New Balls Please - Bass Line

Originally commissioned as backing music for the BBC’s Wimbledon coverage, this upbeat electropop track was extended and bolstered by samples of top tennis ne'er-do-well of the day John McEnroe for single release, to no particularly beneficial effect. The b-side was a remix of the a-side, as if one was in any way actually needed.


RESL185 'Heroes'/A Long Way To Go - The County Line

 
Billed as featured ‘Essex Artistes for BBC Children In Need’, this rather theme-misinterpreting cover of David Bowie’s 1977 hit was one of the less inspired contributions to the mid-eighties vogue for multi-handed charity singalongs, and featured contributions from Suzi Quatro and members of The Kinks, The Rubettes and Bronski Beat amongst many decidedly less famous others.


RESL187 Boss O'The Black/Willie Thorne, King Of The Maximum Break - Jed Ford

UK country music star Jed Ford wrote and performed this bewilderingly-targeted snooker-themed song, regularly used at the time in the BBC’s television coverage of the sport, with the b-side paying oddly specific tribute to the popular snooker player who had won the previous year’s Classic Tournament. Released, it should be noted, in direct competition with Snooker Loopy by Chas'n'Dave And The Matchroom Mob.


RESL189 It's 'Orrible Being In Love (When You're Eight And A Half)/Big Sister - Claire & Friends

In 1986, Saturday Superstore launched ‘Search For A Superstar’, a lengthy contest in which viewers voted for their favourite of a group of talented youngsters. The eventual winner, narrowly beating a band of teenaged Duran Duran wannabes, was ten-year-old Claire Usher from Stockport, who sang humorous pop songs in a broad accent. In the final, she had performed It’s ‘Orrible Being In Love (When You’re Eight And A Half), written by Mick Coleman and Kevin Parrott (who, as Brian & Michael, had a number one hit with Matchstalk Men And Matchstalk Cats And Dogs in 1979), and this became a surprise hit, reaching number 13 in the charts. The 12” also included a ‘Megaminormix’ of the a-side, though is now notorious as one of the lowest-selling 12”s of a hit single for the entire eighties. Usher went on to record REB606 Super Claire.


RESL194 The Wedding Song/Sad Movies – The True Love Orchestra

 

Issued to commemorate the wedding of HRH Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson on 23rd July 1986, this synthesiser medley of Wagner’s Bridal Chorus and Mendelssohn’s Wedding March was largely the work of BBC Radio Clyde presenter John MacCalman, who had a sideline in composing library music to order. The Wedding Song was used several times in television coverage of the event. It clearly served the happy couple well.


RESL196 Superman/Rainbow – Claire

A second single outing for a now friendless Claire Usher, with another two songs lifted from REB606 Super Claire. Perhaps predictably, it failed to repeat the success of the earlier single (though more surprisingly, given what happened that time, there was a 12” featuring an extended version of the a-side), and Claire retired from pop music to pursue a successful career in stage musicals.


RESL198 Power From Within/Power From Within (Instrumental) - International Athletes Club with Steve Menzies

A fundraising effort for the International Athletes Club, this charity singalong featured bona fide athletes Sebastian Coe, Roger Black, Phil Brown, Kriss Akabusi, Todd Bennett, Tim Hutchings, Eugene Gilkes, Myrtle Augee, Kim Hagger, Sharon McPeake, Mary Berkeley, Linda Keough, Lindford Christie, Shirley Strong, Jane Parry, Paula Dunn, Kirsty Wade, Christina Boxer and Wilbert Greaves, and was written and produced by eighties chart star Phil Fearon. You can probably start humming it as it is.


RESL205 You Know The Teacher (Smash-Head)/Don't Stop - Grange Hill Cast

While others recognised its obvious novelty status, the success of the Grange Hill cast's anti-drug anthem Just Say No convinced BBC Records And Tapes that it would be worth issuing an album by the cast of their popular school drama. REB609 Grange Hill The Album featured one side of middle-of-the-road pop covers, and one of original schoolroom-themed songs with lyrics by series creator Phil Redmond. The lead single's bafflingly titled a-side – largely performed by series regulars George 'Ziggy' Christopher and John 'Gonch' McMahon – was drawn from the latter, and the ensemble Fleetwood Mac cover on the b-side from the former, with the 12” also boasting Redmond original Girls Like To Do It Too and actor Ricky 'Ant Jones' Simmonds’ cover of I Don’t Like Mondays. Despite the show’s huge popularity, and the single being afforded the rare privilege of a specially-shot video (oddly featuring the vocalists walking about in silence rather than miming), it failed to chart.


RESL206 Soapy/Al's Way - Top Of The Box

Alan Coulthard, a remixer responsible for many a chart-topping 12” Extended Version in the mid-eighties, was the man behind this peculiar medley of soap opera themes, taking in EastEnders, Dynasty, Dallas and Howard’s Way, and doubtless issued in an attempt to capitalise on the success of certain recent soap-related singles. However, club patrons were to prove to be not quite so keen on soap themes and the record failed to find an audience, despite the presence of – what else? – an Extended Version on the 12”.


RESL226 We Wanna Be Famous - Buster Gobsmack & Eats Filth/ The Toreador From Japan - El Shaftit & The Timeshares

 
One of the most convoluted stories behind a BBC Records And Tapes single release started early in 1988, when the production team of That’s Life! received several letters from struggling Manchester-based musicians complaining about a local video producer who hadn’t captured their act to their satisfaction. As part of an investigation, the show sent presenters Adrian Mills and Grant Baynham to make a video with him posing as punk rockers ‘Eats Filth’ (an anagram, in case it wasn’t obvious, of That’s Life!), ‘parodying’ a long outdated youth cult that the show still seemed to find inexplicably hilarious; as the excellent Left And To The Back blog put it, "the shrieks of laughter from the studio audience whenever a London punk was vox popped by Mills or one of his cohorts proved a baffling noise to hear". Though the video they produced was hardly likely to win any MTV Awards, the ‘expose’ on the hapless aspirant film-maker responsible was possibly a little unfair and the story was conspicuous by its failure to progress beyond one edition. We Wanna Be Famous, however, had more staying power, performed on the show – with the instruments actually played by the That’s Life! team, led inevitably by Doc Cox and including Gavin Campbell on drums and Esther Rantzen on percussion, for an authentic ‘punk’ sound – to huge gales of audience laughter, and inspiring so much viewer correspondence that it ended up on a single, which surprisingly failed to chart. It has since become, by virtue of its sheer ineptness both as a piece of music and as a lyrical parody, something of a cult classic. And as if that wasn’t all confusing enough, the b-side related to another That’s Life! Investigation into dodgy timeshare deals, which had resulted in Mills’ strangely Japanese-sounding attempts at a Spanish accent becoming a running joke. This has not quite become as much of a cult classic.

Top Of The Box, the story behind every single released by BBC Records And Tapes, is available from here.

Ten Reasons Why The Doctor Who 'Expanded Universe' Is A Bad Idea

How do you decide what's official Doctor Who 'canon'? Not easy, is it? Obviously the televised adventures (and yes, before anyone writes in, Shada) are all that's eligible under the strictest definition, but sometimes you get something that the then-production team clearly intended as a legitimate spinoff; witness RTD's subtle references to events in the official tie-in novels, the countless comic strips and short stories overseen by original showrunner David Whittaker, and that schools radio thing where The Doctor and Sarah Jane have a smackdown with Megron over who knows the most about geology. And then on the other hand, there's Death Comes To Time.

Some fans have gamely tried to map out an 'Expanded Universe', where after much brow-furrowing everything - no matter how self-contradictory - is slotted in around the TV episodes proper. The problem with this is... well, where do you stop? Tom Baker was a bit Doctorish when presenting The Book Tower, so should we be counting that? What about that fan fiction you wrote as a youngster that started with a Cyberman 'bursting through' a room? Does that Big Finish play about an imagined future Britain run by inept public school idiots mean that the current Tory administration should be considered 'canon'? Does anyone even care about Abslom Daak - Dalek Killer??

Of course not. And here's ten reasons why the 'Expanded Universe' is a bad idea...



Terry Nation's Dalek Annual 1977

Start looking into this 'Expanded Universe' business, and one of the first things you'll come across are character profiles that have been heftily beefed up through the incorporation of backstory details gleaned from spinoff books, plays and what have you. Whether you like it or not, this would also have to include those late seventies Dalek Annuals, which presumably slipped under the approval radar while Terry Nation's attention was focused on Blake's 7. Particularly worthy of elevation to 'canon' status is the 1977 offering, in which they elect to dispense with all of that pesky 'extermination' business in favour of pissing about with phone number-based secret codes.


Not So Old by Roberta Tovey

Numerous attempts have been made to incorporate the mid-sixties Dalek films into proper continuity, with the 100% human Peter Cushing-essayed bumbling inventor 'Doctor Who' variously passed off as a Next Doctor-esque tribute act, an interloper from another dimension, or even a memory loss fever dream thingy. As part of the movie-pushing publicity blitz, Film Susan Roberta Tovey recorded an in-character pop song celebrating her time-travelling antics with her troublingly-monickered grandfather. On the flipside was an equally in-character number in which the time vortex-straddling fourteen-year-old outlines her desire to 'do things' to a much older man, on the proviso that he doesn't tell her mother. Possibly not something that the BBC would be happy to have attached to the Doctor Who franchise right now.


Jason & Crystal from The Ultimate Adventure

Go on, admit it, we'd all have loved to have seen comic strip-derived talking penguin Frobisher, platform-straddling Lara Croft inspiration Bernice Summerfield, or that chain-smoking girl-chasing proto-Inner City Unit beatnik geezer from the Eighth Doctor Novels make an appearance in the show proper. And that's just the tip of the Non-TV Companion Iceberg; there's probably even some people out there who'd make a case for TV Comic irritants John and Gillian, or those 'Blaxploitation' blokes from the Pertwee strips. But does anyone really want any further exposure for that Kylie and Jason-infringing pair who conducted a confusingly trapeze-enabled romance-in-song beneath the stars to the accompaniment of Tetraps and Veroids hoofing it up in that bizarre late eighties stage play? No, thought not.

Daleks And Cybermen

For some reason, the question of who would win out of the Daleks and the Cybermen was a particularly vexing one for eighties-based correspondents to Doctor Who Magazine's question and answer page Matrix Data Bank. Long before RTD had even thought of Army Of Ghosts, this issue was addressed by a set of twenty plastic snap-together, well, Daleks and Cybermen, of rare proportional correctness to boot. These were made by Citadel Miniatures, and possibly had something to do with the sanity-defying Doctor Who role-playing game, though nobody's really got enough cerebral stamina to check. In case you were wondering, the cover illustration appeared to show a Cyberman being trounced by a Dalek with a controversial 'water pistol' weapon attachment, whilst his Cyber-pal looked on in alarm. Well, that's that question answered, then.

Son Of Doctor Who

From Anthony Coburn's hastily rejected second ever story in which some robots 'did' Daleks only more boringly, right up to that Stephen Fry business nobody's ever really got to the bottom of, the history of unfinished or rejected Doctor Who scripts is a long and fascinating one. But by their very nature they're not part of the show continuity proper, and often for editorially sound reasons to boot, and any attempt to tie them in with what actually did make it to screen is an absolute non-starter. Start making too many claims for them, and you'll also have to invite William Hartnell's insane idea for a story in which he met his 'evil twin' progeny - and thus conveniently had to have double the screentime - along for the ride. If the production team never took that seriously, then neither should you.

"And Greetings To You From The Time Lords!"

According to some sources, any non-series appearance in which The Doctor remained entirely in character throughout should be considered 'canon'. Presumably this also extends to Hartnell-doppelganging cheese-scoffing Five Doctors First Doctor stand-in Richard Hurndall, who - bless him - made a great many promotional appearances despite apparently possessing an almost complete lack of comprehension of anything at all to do with the character. Worse still, an equally true-to-the-role Jon Pertwee once met up with the original cast of The Tomorrow People, and you really don't want Kenny getting involved. And speaking of in-character promotional appearances...

The Frog Chorus

In August 1975, a decidedly Doctored-up Tom Baker hosted the BBC's long-running celebrity-fronted clip show Disney Time. This ended with him being handed a note from The Brigadier, leading directly into the forthcoming Terror Of The Zygons. We're now in a crossover of televisual 'universes', with other canon-by-association hosts of Disney Time including Paul Daniels, Paul 'Dinners' McCartney, Jim Davidson, Bing Crosby and Rod Hull and Emu. This presumably allows all of their artistic works in through the back door, from The Bunco Booth to that song in praise of Page 3 Girls, and given that Emu's Broadcasting Company featured its own running Doctor Who parody fuelled by bin-hewn Daleks, we're really opening a can of canonical worms there.

Teen EastEnders - Solid Ground

There is a surprisingly large contingent of fans who will argue until they are as blue in the face as McCoy in his opening titles that the ludicrous Children In Need-supporting 3D music hall hoedown Dimensions In Time is in fact a proper legitimate instalment of Doctor Who, and not a bit of played-for-laughs frippery like you thought. Dimensions In Time was, of course, a crossover with a sort of imagined 'dark future' EastEnders, in which characters made much mention of Albert Square-based events from years gone by. This effectively means that the entire history of EastEnders is as 'canonical' as The Vervoids, including this cheapo BBC Books tie-in novel about Sharon Watts trying to track down her 'real' parents. There's not a single mention of a battered broad-brimmed hat in it!

Graham Linehan

Alan Moore's graphic novel series The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen is literally bursting at the seams with characters from and references to all shapes and forms of classic literature and cult TV. Needless to say, given Moore's interest in the show and 'form' on Doctor Who Magazine, there are are tons of appearances by everything from Silurians and Torchwood Three to a stray Second Doctor and an hallucination-derived Dalek. Also making an appearance in one volume is comedy scriptwriter and Twitter Policeman Graham Linehan, seen being forcibly ejected from a bookshop by his fictional creation Bernard Black. By a process of six degrees of separation, we're that bit closer to having Ricky Gervais accepted into 'canon', and that can't happen.

The Sleeze Brothers

In the late eighties, for reasons best known to themselves, Doctor Who Magazine went seriously overboard in pre-publicising an imminent comic strip cameo by Deadbeat and El Ape Sleeze, the not-at-all Blues Brothers-inspired Graphic Novel creations of John Carnell and Andy Lanning. None of the readers were really that bothered. But they're in your Expamded Universe now, and you've just got to like it...