Autumn View(ing)

Originally invented by Americans as a way of flogging even more cars than usual, the idea of the 'Autumn Season' is deeply embedded in television scheduling culture. Although the BBC never actually had anything to 'sell' (well, unless you count things like the output of their record label), they nonetheless saw it as a good way of drawing viewers in with a largely manufactured sense of new programmes carefully tailored to suit cosy winter-draws-on evenings gathered around the telly. Needless to say, and indeed as you can see from this Dougal-meets-The-Machine-Stops cover, Radio Times was right behind this, although their attempts to construct a 'New... For Autumn!' narrative and fill the requisite amount of pages at the same time often led to desperate flanneling, bewildering leaps of logic and inappropriate levels of excitement about programmes that most viewers could probably take or leave really. And as you can see from these extracts from the Autumn Preview in the Radio Times dated 2nd October 1965, not everything that showed up in the run-up to Christmas was quite as thrilling as Rubber Soul...

You'd have to have had your ears filled in with cavity insulation foam whilst on your way to return your MBE in 'protest' at Ringo Starr having recieved one to have been unaware of the increased prominence, importance and relevance of the ever-amorphous concept of 'The Arts' in the mid-sixties. As this peculiar illustrative mish-mash featuring binoculars, a violin and a Bridget Riley painting calling to mind The Clown off Camberwick Green getting 'cultured' suggests, the BBC were only too aware of and indeed only too keen to reflect this, and Autumn 1965 saw the launch of four new arts programmes - Sunday Night on BBC1 and New Release, Intimations and the proto-aaaaaaaaahhhhh archfest Line-Up Review on BBC2 - which were to all intents and purposes the exact same programme only with a different producer and a marginally different chair.

It was a bumper autumn for Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, with a brand new series of their unprecedented hit Steptoe And Son - seriously, several of the earliest episodes were in the list of top ten most-watched UK television programmes for over a decade - and 'selected' repeats of Hancock's Half Hour at its 1959-to-1960 peak, which Radio Times are careful to emphasise featured Sid James alongside The Lad Himself. There is a bittersweet air to this repeat season and its conspicuous prominence, sat somewhere between celebration of what was even then already evidently a high watermark of the small screen, and a determined distancing from the shambolic mess that followed it. Since their acrimonious split in October 1961, the two hapless writers had systematically trounced the genius comic - well, maybe not with Citizen James, but you can't win them all - on both commercial and artistic terms, and in September 1965 Tony Hancock was hard at work on being 'between projects' while they continued to ride high. Elsewhere there are big-ups for the not exactly unexpected likes of Sykes, Harry Worth, The Benny Hill Show, The Dick Emery Show and Meet The Wife, but only right at the very end do they throw in a mention of Not Only... But Also.... And the series with John Lennon doing his guest-rhyming bit at that. You could probably just about argue that this was possibly intended as the setup for a convoluted 'not only but also' gag that they forgot to actually put in, but either way, small wonder that they wiped them all the second that Peter Cook's back was turned. Meanwhile, the less said about what may or may not be them driving a car at the head of that horse-scoffs-astrakhan-collar 'comedy' procession, the better.

Apparently the BBC were still pushing The Voord from Doctor Who And The Keys Of Marinus as late as 1965, this time as a popular beat combo. Who - sadly - did not get their own series, though fans of pop music could continue to enjoy Top Of The Pops and Juke Box Jury, along with Stramash!, an 'explosive new show' from Scotland with a name that apparently essentially translates as 'riot'. Somehow you can't help but suspect that it may not have lived up to its billing. Folk who like folk get a bit of a cursory brush-off with a vague suggestion that if they like that sort of thing then they might as well try Show Of The Week where they might potentially find the not particularly folky likes of Nina And Frederik, while jazz enthusiasts are casually told that there's so much jazz about that the BBC might as well not bother showing any of it; followed by a throwaway mention of upcoming performances by Thelonius Monk, Oscar Peterson and Jimmy Smith. The reason for this glib disinterest in those pesky styles of music that are popular enough to require deliniation is that anything more serious apparently comes under the simple banner of 'Music', be they 'public concerns or one-act operas specially mounted for BBC-tv at Glyndebourne', the Tortelier Master Class with 'this most televisual of maestros', or a headlining series for the unfortunately appropriately named baritone Tito Gobbi. Yes, well, we'll see how many people are still listening to Catch The Wind and Look Through Any Window half a century later, 'Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra'.

Despite the illustration showing what appears to be absolutely nothing being filmed on a blank white set, this was something of a boom time for standalone television drama, with new Dennis Potter, David Turner and N.F. Simpson works in the offing, not to mention The Wednesday Play, Theatre 625 and Thirty-Minute Theatre continuing apace. So much so, in fact, that it's nigh on impossible to come up with any pithy or perceptive observations about any of it. 1965 was slap bang in the middle of a time when everyone involved at every level treated television drama with the utmost seriousness and many believed it would come to be the benchmark by which all other artforms would be judged. Until television was invented by HBO in 1990, that is.

There's something oddly melancholy about seeing the Home Service, the Light Programme and the Third Programme proudly announcing their brand new autumnal wares, blissful in their lack of awareness of the fact that they wouldn't really exist for very much longer. Nonetheless, there were some clues that all was not well across the pre-Flowers In The Rain wavelengths, not least the Home Service announcement that longstanding Current Affairs cornerstone The World At One was being replaced by the essentially identical This Time Of Day, accompanied by small print-esque statements about their most popular shows being shunted around the schedules. Things seemed a bit brighter - well, obviously - over on the Light Programme, with the launch of the Andrew Sachs co-penned Dear Girls, a fascinating-sounding daily soap set in the 'happening' world of fashion models and photographers. Over on the Third Programme, heavyweight epic The Thirties In Britain looks at the anxieties and intellectual climate that led up to what they tactfully refer to as 'strife', and considers whether there are any parallels with events in Britain in the early to mid-sixties. There is absolutely no reason to dig this series out of the Sound Archive and give it another airing now, obviously. Meanwhile, while there's no doubt that companion series The Negro In America was well-intentioned... well, it was a different time. Anyway, on a lighter matter, get a load of those illustrations. Radio Times was absolutely full of this sort of throwaway Pop Art/Post-Advertising icon-heavy visual collision, which probably went mostly unnoticed by people looking to see when Hardluck Hall was on, but is the sort of thing that really ought to be collected into one of those big lavish hardback books now.

Following the blockbusting news that the BBC will keep showing Westerns on Saturdays and 'A Film' on Tuesdays, there's more or less the same bafflingly-fanfared lack of innovation on display in sporting coverage, though admittedly the fact that there had never been a fully televised rugby season prior to 1965 does come as something of a surprise. Nature and Science lovers get to look forward to a similarly welcome but hardly thrillingly new line-up boasting the return of Horizon, Tomorrow's World and Look, while Variety boasts the all-new up-and-coming eight millionth series apiece of Billy Cotton's Music Hall, The Good Old Days and the sodding Black And White Minstrel Show. There's also yet another plug for Nina And Frederik on Show Of The Week. Someone must have REALLY been a fan.

Under the bafflingly mismatched Sam-Tyler-Meets-Captain-Zep heading of 'Spies... Cops... Spacemen', and in amongst a head-walloping array of clashing fonts, we get to possibly the most fascinating corner of this Autumn Preview. Alongside the expected likes of Dixon Of Dock Green and Z-Cars, there are three new series that speak volumes about where the UK - and the BBC - had its head 'at' circa 1965; imported procedural drama Arrest And Trial getting yanked over to the main channel after a well-recieved showing on BBC2, Dinsdale Landen fighting the Cold War undercover in the ficititious Soviet state Amalia in The Mask Of Janus, and full-blown paranoia as an electrical engineer gets falsely accused of spying in Moscow in An Enemy Of The State, with only the launch of BBC2 sci-fi anthology series Out Of The Unknown on hand to justify the 'Spacemen' tag. And it didn't even have that many spacemen in. 'The Past' promises a standard array of historical documentaries alongside BBC2 clip show Plunder, which intends to raid the BBC Archive for 'recordings of pre-1955 television programmes'. It's astonishing, frankly, that they'd survived long enough to be trawled for clip shows, and deeply ironic in turn that the clip shows in question have long since been wiped. 'Series' concentrates its efforts on promoting two new, erm, series - Jimmy Hill technically-advised weekly chronicle of the trials and tribulations of a second division football team United!, and city-types-go-rural gritty social issue hard-hitter The Newcomers, both of which ran to hundreds of editions yet only five of the latter now survive, along with absolutely nothing of the former. Unless anyone and their 'lockup' knows different. Finally, as well as a roster of returning Children's Programmes that includes - ha! - Doctor Who, younger viewers can also look forward to 'quirky' American cartoon that wasn't Hector Heathcote, unappealingly titled folk song showcase Dance And Skylark, and the first of approximately eighty four billion Radio Times billings for The Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe. They're also the only ones not to get an illustration, which seems a tad unfair given that the 'Series' one is almost as big as the boxout itself.

Anyway, that's Autumn on the BBC, and hopefully you'll have found loads of things that you want to watch. And Nina and Frederik. Incidentally, yes, I did know that the cover at the top of this article dates from 1966. It just looked a bit more eyecatching and in tune with the mood and tone than the genuine article. And if misleading viewers about contents isn't the true spirit of Autumn, then I don't know what is.

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If you've enjoyed this article, you can find lots about sixties television in Not On Your Telly, which is available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here.

There's So Much More In TV Times Part 12: The Changing Face Of Cyril Shaps

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 any way whatsoever. 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...

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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.