A look through Emily's shop window at a couple of things you might have missed if you haven't been following my main site (which you can find here)...
And You And I Would Call Them Dragonflies
The story of my long search for the original recordings of the music from Bagpuss, with all manner of diversions about 'Acid Folk' and making tapes from off-air VHS recordings of Cable TV repeats, and a look at the new Bagpuss soundtrack CD. Which is handy. You can read it here.
Shindig! Issue #85
I've got a feature in the latest issue of Shindig! about the hidden beat, psych and folk highlights in the BBC Records And Tapes catalogue, featuring everyone from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop to the Play Away team, and even TV 'Girl' and 'Clown' (Test Card). Find out more about it here.
I've Heard Of Politics, But This Is Ridiculous
Now that charity shops are better organised and make more money for
charity with sensible prices, it's a lot less fun rooting through them.
Although they do smell slightly less of damp cardboard.
Back in
the days when everything was stacked together in haphazard piles without
any thought for genre, media or even size, though, you could chance
upon something that literally changed the way you thought about
everything. Well, that or fifteen copies of that The Adriatic Formula book.
This is the story of how I found an early sixties book based on a then
long-forgotten television satire show, and how that changed everything
for me. Read all about it here.
You can find more tales of record collecting in dingy charity shops
and hunting for obscure television soundtrack music in my book Can’t Help Thinking About Me, available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here.
From the very earliest days of Gala Night At The Mayfair and Inaugural Speeches By The Lord Mayor, The Postmaster General And The Chairman Of The Independent Television Authority Sir Kenneth Clark, if there was one thing that ITV's top television stars could count on, it was full page photo ahoy cover to cover coverage in TV Times. Whether it was soap stars 'opening up' about their 'personal struggle', newsreaders hilariously trying their hand at an 'ordinary' job for a day, or Brucie making something out of 'leftovers' in an oversized comedy chef's hat, each issue was crammed with page after page after page of features on commercial television's all too often here-today-gone-tomorrow headliners - seriously, you won't believe how many people who warranted a three page interview in the average fifties or sixties edition are almost impossible to find out anything about now - and everyone was happy.
If there was anything else that they could count on, though, it was that TV Times would not allow them to self-promote in any way that at all afforded scope for the retention of a sub-atomic amount of self respect. Or that they would make any effort to avoid printing letters from viewers saying you were rubbish and should be thrown off television and into a skip with immediate effect. Here, then, are just a handful of the series-promoting profiles that probably nobody in their right mind will ever be allowing anywhere near any DVD extras...
If there was one programme that dominated TV Times more or less throughout the sixties, it was The Avengers; indeed, they were right behind it right from the outset, as you can see from this interview with original 'Avengers Girl' Ingrid Hafner in which she is charmingly asked about virtually nothing apart from her two male co-stars. We've seen plenty of examples of the barely disguised perving over her more catsuit-inclined successors in previous instalments of this series, so this time let's turn our attention instead to Patrick Macnee, whose sporting of a bowler hat on television apparently qualified him as a somewhat baffled and reluctant expert on any and every matter related to 'style' and fine gentlemanly living. Here, for example, is an interview in which he's keen to play down any resemblance between himself and John Steed, followed by his struggling to get a word in edgeways in the thick of someone else's breathless opinions on wine and when he does get to spear appears to try and steer the conversation towards whiskey instead, a plaintive 'they're not my real clothes, you know' conversation about his on-screen attire, and finally a frank admission that he knows absolutely nothing about the Football Pools and that if you see fit to adopt his gleefully randomly and panic-strickenly chosen tips then more fool you. With this sort of nonsense going on, you can understand why actors worry about being typecast. Mind you, he was not without his fans, as evidenced by this clear, concise and doubtless warmly received praise from schoolteacher Miss Margaret Tully, and a bewildering missive from (Miss) Jean Higson, which elicits a para-intelligible response that can only be described as purest refined goobledygook. So much so that it's a wonder that they didn't ask Patrick Macnee for his opinion on it.
Not all stars of the brand spanking new commercial channel enjoyed quite so enthusiastic a level of support, though. TV Times initially got right behind Tony Hancock when he pioneered the invariably disastrous 'Going To ITV' manoeuvre, but as soon as his ratings slumped in true When They Went To Thames At The End fashion, suddenly they became a touch more wary and each new series came and went with a simple 'oh and apparently there's been some sort of summit this week as well'-hued throwaway feature, such as a the alarmingly negative and accusatory one seen above. He still had his fans, though, and one took the trouble to write in fuming that even if you didn't like his new material, you should just say you did because reasons. Yes, that usually works out just fine.
Needless to say, widespread viewer bafflement and hastily shifted timeslot antics caused TV Times to more or less turn its back on Anthony Newley's short-lived deconstructionist sitcom The Strange World Of Gurney Slade while it was still on air. Nowadays of course we're all familiar with it as an ahead-of-its-time lost masterpiece rediscovered after half a century of neglect, but back then it had few supporters apart from the young David Bowie. Mind you, Miss V. J. Johnson was sufficiently aggrieved by the mass chorus of 'if it's too hard, I can't understand it' to write in and point out that it actually made perfect sense and was jolly amusing and what in the name of Moogies Bloogies are you all on about etc etc. Her opinion was clearly shared by an undaunted Anthony Newley, who responded to the critics with this fascinating article about how television was a new and exciting artform and should be treated as such, and for that reason The Strange World of Gurney Slade was a mistake worth making. It's that kind of thinking that got us The Prisoner. And Zokko!.
Sometimes, though, you just couldn't win against the viewers. Flirty, zany and not averse to singing filthy songs on the b-sides of her singles, satire's leading redhead Millicent Martin was almost literally everywhere in the early sixties, and you could scarcely move for articles like the one above featuring TV Times columnist Dave Lanning practically slobbering over her. But familiarity breeds contempt, and overexposure breeds people writing letters to a listings magazine demanding to see less of you as if that was in some way an achievable objective and the indeed direct responsibility of the hapless layout editors pasting up regional variations for Television Wales And West. Noele Gordon and Troy Tempest must have been thrilled with the idea that Millie was on every time viewers switch the TV on, though.
Anyway, back to the BBC-to-ITV ship-jumpers, and the cautionary tale of Carole Ann Ford, who left Doctor Who at the absolute height of 'Dalekmania', bringing the never-bettered original Tardis crew to an all-too-hasty conclusion, as she wanted to avoid typecasting. Hence this prominent feature on 'The Back To Earth Girl' to promote her appearance in gritty down-at-heel detective series Public Eye as what TV Times cautiously described as a 'vice girl'. As she herself has wryly reflected, this resulted in angry letters from mothers who had allowed their youngsters to stay up to see the new thing with 'Susan' in, little anticipating the exceptionally mild filth therein. By the end of the year they were still sufficiently taken with their new star to include her in resident astrologer Maurice Woodruff's 'Gemini Prediction Party', but the dazzling lights of fame soon fell elsewhere, leading her to embark on a lower-key career that if Doctor Who fan writers are to be believed consisted entirely of an endless procession of 'comebacks'. Apparently her stars suggested that in 1965, she'd be falling in the sea fully clothed for a film or TV part. That must have been quite a comeback.
Quite what fixation Maurice Woodruff had with 'Geminis' will have to remain a mystery, but here he is taking a fraudulent sham punt at what 1967 might hold for 'Dinners'. Even aside from saying he will put his money in 'building' rather than a big brown bag inside a zoo, it doesn't mention Carnival Of Light once!
Of course, Carole Ann's screen grandfather William Hartnell was a star on ITV long before Doctor Who, thanks to his appearances as the aptly named Sergeant Major Bullimore in National Service jape-wrangling sitcom The Army Game. However, TV Times apparently only ever owned one photograph of him. Here we see it called up to accompany some trademark grumbling about The Army Game not being 'legitimate' acting and how he was sick of authority figure roles and would rather be playing Polonius than policemen, despite revealing right at the end that he was literally just that minute off to make Brighton Rock, followed by a baffling piece about how he gets recognised in the street but something or other about wanting to wear 'civvies' on screen. No, us neither.
Character Actor Cyril Shaps, as it is apparently a legal requirement to refer to him as, had to wait until Patrick Troughton had taken over to get his first of many roles in Doctor Who - nearly all of them playing 'characters' funnily enough - but he was a regular sight in co-conspirator type roles in ITV series for years before that. In an early incarnation of the time-honoured 'you'll know the face, but you might not know the name' article that still thrives to this day, TV Times presents a profile of Cyril and his 'changing face'. Which you have to admit looks practically identical in all of the examples they've chosen.
Far more successful in the 'changing face' stakes was Bob Monkhouse, seen here in the little-remembered flop original live action version of Mr. Benn.
We've seen quite a few examples of the much-favoured TV Times gambit of getting telly stars to do something zanily unlikely and different for a the sake of filling a couple of column inches, but few can have provoked as much bafflement as this surely spurious filler item about Arthur Lowe, then starring as Leonard Swindley in Coronation Street spin-off Pardon The Expression, taking up judo. Answers on a postcard if you've got any idea of how they posed that photo.
And finally, here's Brucie, sans comedy oversized chef's hat, managing to get a full-page comic-pose-ahoy feature out of the fact that he's just had his tonsils out. A procedure that they're keen to point out will not affect his weekly presentational schedule in anywaywhatsoever. But then again, that's the typical ITV star for you - cheerful, professional, enthusiastic, able to put a positive spin on just about anything, and with bags of the right kind of talent for their chosen mass audience-pleasing niche. Good clean family fun, and with absolutely no reason to suspect they might have been up to no good.
Oh right. Yes. Still, THEY ALL KNEW at the BBC, eh?
If you can work out what the joke is here, or how and why it involved Peter Cook, you're doing better than us. Anyway, join us again next time, when we'll be looking at some of the many occasions on which TV Times printed something that made absolutely no sense whatsoever...
If you've enjoyed this article, you can find lots more slightly more serious writing about fifties and sixties television in Not On Your Telly, which is available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here.
George Martin. Joe Meek. The BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Nowadays you'll find cheerleaders for just about every once-overlooked Brit-based sonic pioneer of the pre-Rubber Soul era, and rightly so. Even Freddie Phillips and his Trumptonshire-traversing hammer-ons, though in fairness you'll probably actually have to read something written by me to find that.
But who's singing - doubtless with over-elaborate vocal extemporisation - the praises of Johnny Dankworth and Cleo Laine? Well, given that the general public's entire image of them seems to be based on The Two Ronnies impersonating them every single week with jokes seemingly based on two other performers altogether, probably very few people. So it's time to put a stop to that nonsense. Before they settled comfortably and deservedly into middle-bit-of-Pebble-Mill-At-One ubiquity, Johnny and Cleo were amongst the first to mess around with concept albums, global rhythms, pre-synthesiser electronic keyboards, sound effects, multimedia, reverb, spoken word comedy bits and much more besides, most of it in glorious mono to boot. So join me as we take a stroll through some of the highlights of their jaw-droppingly prolific early output, all of which is almost as exciting as The Exciting Mr. Fitch himself...
Experiments With Mice (1956)
One of George Martin's first productions, as Johnny reads out his absurdist Beat Poetry reworking of the saga of the Three Blind Mice, relocated to a recording studio and zigzagging in and out of different Modern and Trad Jazz styles as they try to avoid being assailed by a 'cat'. Packed with sound-effects and verbal and musical in-jokes, and it's not hard to see how George got from here to being so creatively efficient in the studio with those Beatle Boys. Back in the days when putting together a good 7" single was an infinitely bigger deal than even thinking about releasing an album, this climbed to Number Seven. Stitch that, 'Murs'.
Soundtrack Music From 'The Criminal' (1960)
A no-holds-barred look at prison life starring Stanley Baker as an inveterate pilferer with a penchant for racecourse cash boxes should usually call for frenetic Crime Jazz, and that's exactly what we get here with the likes of the swaggering Riverside Stomp and the alarmingly haphazard Freedom Walk. Those in search of the full experience will also be wanting Cleo's moody theme song Thieving Boy, with remorse-lust lyrics co-penned by none other than Alun Owen, which was released as a standalone single backed by Let's Slip Away, her more wistful and optimistic curtain-raiser for the same year's big-screen version of Saturday Night And Sunday Morning. It's also worth noting that this soundtrack dates from Dudley Moore's brief spell with the Johnny Dankworth Big Band, which doubtless proved a source of great amusement to Peter Cook.
African Waltz (1961)
The EP of the Big Pop Hit, featuring not just the shrill 3/4 foot-twisting top ten smash title track, but also percussion-hefty Mod dancefloor filler Chano, swaggering Soul Jazz slow-groover Moanin', and the original version of the original theme tune from Honor Blackman era The Avengers. Although it's hardly on the same level as Laurie Johnson's subsequent more celebrated Steed-accompaniment (though, to be fair, few TV themes actually are), only the most blinkeredly cloth-eared of Popular Beat Music-averse Archive TV obsessives could realistically deride it as a load of old rubbish. And unfortunately, there are a lot of them out there. Still, some decidedly more funky types clearly thought it was something approaching lost fabness...
What The Dickens! (1963)
With the aid of an all-star horn-honkin' line-up including Tubby Hayes and Ronnie Scott, Johnny takes an impressionistic instrumental trip through the collected works of Charles Dickens, improvising across the pages of The Pickwick Papers, The Old Curiosity Shop, Nicholas Nickleby, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol and David Copperfield, though sadly there was no accompanying EP based on Sketches By Boz. Inspired by the 'feel' of the source novels, it's like the soundtrack to some sadly non-existent Swinging Sixties-era Dickens biopic, with highlights including catchy street-saunter Little Nell, and Pickwick Club, which is so warm and quirky that you can just imagine Tupman and Snodgrass taking their boots off in front of a roaring fire with hilarious social faux pas consequences. It's probably more useful than the average A-Level Study Guide too.
Shakespeare And All That Jazz (1964)
Not to be outdone, Cleo also turned her hand to the exciting new world of Literary-Jazz crossover, and came up with an entire album's worth of adaptations of Iambic Pentameter into Iam-bee-ba-ba-doo-bah-be-dah-dic Penta-mah-da-doo-da-de-dam-eter. The Bard may only have been the fifth greatest wordsmith of history (after Dickens, Douglas Adams, PG Wodehouse and Richard 'Skinhead Escapes' Allen), but this is every bit a worthy companion piece to What The Dickens!, with highlights including the surprisingly riqsue (well, by 1964 standards) It Was A Lover And Her Lass, Scottish Play-summarising breathy Jazz Cellar epic Dunsinane Blues, and the suitably chilly Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind. Much beloved of English teachers desperate to prove to their charges that they were still 'with it'.
Beefeaters (1964)
Originally composed and recorded as the theme for long-forgotten ITV X Factor template Search For A Star, a talent show that reportedly discovered future Doctor Who companion Wendy Padbury, this wild jazz stomper was later picked up as theme music by a certain Pirate Radio DJ, and - with the judicious addition of 'barks' from Arnold The Dog - subsequently became, as over-literal hern-ing bores will never tire of pointing out to you, technically the actual first record heard on Radio 1. Which makes it something of a weird coincidence that the not-that-dissimilar b-side was entitled Down A Tone.
Sands Of The Kalahari (1965)
Only two tracks were released from the soundtrack to cinema's most edge-of-the-seat baboon-plagued desert trek, but what tracks they were. The massive-sounding yet inappropriately jaunty title theme waltz is pretty much the musical embodiment of a time when British Cinema could do no wrong, while the moodier and more reflective flip Night Thoughts showed up in a key scene but was perhaps still, erm, a little too jaunty for the on-screen action. You'll find the movie itself on Film4 every couple of minutes, but unfortunately there's still no sign of a release for the full score.
Little Boat (1965)
More 45-only action (though the a-side later appeared on the fabulously 'Pipe Down, Blokes'-themed album Woman Talk, which you can see the fantastic cover of below); Cleo's chart-scraping translation of Bossa Nova favourite O Barquinho is fab enough, but it's the b-side you should really look out for, with its percussion-rattling piano-smashing ode to the charms of some heart-fluttering cocktail-swilling ski-jumping Jeff Winger-esque aesthete who apparently has his own personal brass band to fanfare his entrance, but not any tangible hint of a first name. All in all, not altogether surprising that this didn't make it to the album...
The Zodiac Variations (1965)
While Cleo was musing on gender-politic rumblings, Johnny got a bit cosmic with this set of twelve impressionistic Late Night BBC2-friendly instrumentals based on the purported characteristics of the dozen chronological subdivisions of everyone's favourite dupe-fleecing hokum. From his musical findings, we can deduce that while Librans like to chill out with a hefty book and a good strong coffee, Aquarians are rather more fond of doing a dance in front of a mirror with a glittery top hat and cane. Though I would say that, being a Taurus. TV's Catweazle will mayhap be pleased to hear that this rotating plastic demon also includes a 'thirteenth' star sign sign in the form of ecliptic-straddling medley Way With The Stars.
The Idol (1966)
We're heading into the sadly all-too-brief Golden Age of Dankworth/Laine film soundtracks now, with this obscure number starring Michael Parks as a pranksterism-friendly hip'n'happenin' art student with a 'thing' for whatever they called MILFs in 'old money', and John Leyton as a disapproving best friend/son. Not quite the lost classic that it might sound, if we're being honest about it, but the frug-tastic party scene-friendly musical contributions deserve a bit more exposure than the film itself.
Modesty Blaise (1966)
She'll turn your head, though she might use a judo hold! One of cinema's most glorious psychedelic messes scorches the projector when Monica Vitti puts in an impenetrably-accented turn as the pulp paperback spy as she shags, hallucinates and assassinates her way across Europe, in pursuit of some stolen diamonds that haven't actually been stolen yet. Nosebleed-inducing pop-art mayhem with a soundtrack to match, from the ridiculously camp and overblown title song featuring the vocal talents of long-forgotten pop hopefuls David And Jonathan, to the overdriven wasp-trapped-in-Farfisa thrills of The Willie Waltz. The sort of film that can nowadays get you No-Platformed for liking it, though in mitigation the b-side of the single version of the main theme features the more politically acceptable strains of the swaggering vibe-heavy blare that introduced The Frost Report, the perfect accompaniment to David Frost holding up a microphone to a Keep Left sign and doing a 'sceptical' face.
Fathom (1967)
And if you weren't quite tutting enough yet, get a load of Raquel Welch as a military skydiver in an impressively cantilevered lime green bikini, trying to recover a stolen nuclear detonator whilst dodging a bull intent on stealing her bra, and Richard Briers occasionally saying some lines in the background. This all a tad more subdued, sultry and samba-tinged than the walloping Modesty Blaise score, but somehow you get the impression that the music wasn't really one of the most prominent points here.
The $1,000,000 Collection (1967)
It wasn't just pop that went a bit psychedelic over the summer of 1967, and here Johnny treats us to a series of Prog Jazz-anticipating 'sound paintings' inspired by his favourite pieces of pricey modern art. It's a strangely under-acknowledged fact that the UK Jazz community were the most enthusiastic and profligate patrons of the pop artists, op artists and photorealists, and Johnny and Cleo actually owned Derrick Greaves' Two Piece Flower, as seen on the album's cover and sketched out here in a catchy experiment with plucked strings. Also well worthy of their purported price tag are the kaleidoscopic sleighbell-underpinned frost-on-the-windows salute to Thomas Kinkade's greetings card-esque Winter Scene, and a Late Night Line-Up-evoking beatnik jive rumination on Modigliani's Little Girl In Blue, which is certainly more cheerful than her miseryguts expression should warrant.
Off Duty! (1969)
The Prog Jazz leanings continue with an album of covers of recent genre favourites including Charlie Barnett's Skyliner and Gerry Mulligan's Bernie's Tune, alongside an alarming reworking of African Waltz and the blaring Dankworth-composed American sitcom theme-esque mini-suite title track. Also on board is a seriously funky reworking of Holloway House, an early effort from little-known piano-pounding jazz trio leader Laurie Holloway, later to furnish many an ITV Saturday Night Light Entertainment show with a near-identical theme boasting the exact same eight-note ending as each other.
Portrait (1971)
Cleo treats us to interpretations of a handful of her recent soul and jazz favourites, amongst them a soaring rampage through Aquarius, a peculiar bit of architectural satire on Model Cities Programme, a reworking of Bossa Palma Nova from the Fathom soundtrack, and best of all, a rip-roaring blast through Northern Soul stomper Night Owl. Snorted at by purists, apparently, presumably while spinning round and not having much imagination.
Lifeline (1973)
We're now in proper full-on Test Card Funk territory as wah-wah guitars and slap bass wallop their way across the stereo mix, and the entire second side taken up with some sort of suprious Journey To The Shopping Centre Of The Earth-style musical narrative, which is really just an excuse to indulge in some seriously heavy extended grooves. Meanwhile, over on the first side you'll find Johnny's legendary theme for Tomorrow's World, a tune so aware of its own brilliance that it takes an entire three opening fanfares and a Hammond Organ voluntary before it sees fit to properly get going. Also worthy of note is the accompanying non-LP single Bitter Lemons, featuring a wonky Sly Stone-inspired groove underpinning some abrasive trumpet that appears to be being played underwater.
Movies 'N Me (1974)
An updated re-recorded rifle through Johnny's soundtrack back catalogue, taking in extracts from deleriously obscure sixties Brit Movies like Darling, The Servant, Return From The Ashes and more, including the first ever outing for his main title for controversial gorilla suit-facilitated mental breakdown comedy Morgan: A Suitable Case For Treatment, sadly still not available in its original form (though the contemporaneous cover by Manfred Mann's Mike Vickers is well worth checking out). The break-festooned whipped-up-tempo take on Modesty Blaise was later sampled by Gorillaz, but the real highlight is Look Stranger, his inappropriately funky theme for BBC2's long series of grainy ruralist-pluralist documentary films about beardy blokes in coastal towns lamenting how they don't make them new-fangled fishing nets like they used to or something. Who'd have thought it? For a similar discrepancy between theme music and on-screen action, see Telford's Change, released as a single by BBC Records And Tapes around this time (and also covered in Top Of The Box!).
MISSING IN ACTION...
Johnny's utterly bonkers theme from early seventies ITV children's show The Enchanted House, a maddeningly catchy yet disconcertingly topsy-turvy tune welded to a wall of tuned percussion. You can read more about The Enchanted House in my book Not On Your Telly, but the show itself hasn't been seen anywhere since the early eighties, and even the trebly recording of the theme that was on YouTube seems to have disappeared now...
