Home • About • Archives • Best Of • Subscribe

The Pictures Are Much Much Better on Television

Published 6th July 2023

TV Comedy

Here’s a question for you. When did Alan Partridge first appear on television?

Caveats: a) I specifically mean television. Radio is brilliant, and also outside the scope of this article. b) For now, ignore any unbroadcast pilots. I’m talking about actual, broadcast telly. c) I do mean material exclusive to television, not just part of a radio programme aired on TV.

If you immediately went for the first episode of The Day Today, on the 19th January 1994, then join the club. That’s exactly where my mind went at first. So that would be this trademark awkward exchange between Chris and Alan:

But wait! The day before each episode of The Day Today aired, BBC2 broadcast The Day Today MiniNews, three minutes of extra material which served essentially as an extended trail for the next day’s episode. Or in other words: the closest you’d get to deleted scenes this side of a LaserDisc, at least in the first half of the 90s.

Partridge makes an appearance in the first one, which was broadcast on the 18th January 1994:

So is that the answer? Not quite. Because, of course, there were trails1 running for the series the week before air. Here’s one from the 14th January 1994, which features a brief bit of Partridge:

Incidentally, isn’t that a great trail? For all that Chris Morris has the reputation for scowling at publicity, you couldn’t ask for a better introduction to the show.

The above would usually cause me to make a variety of shrill and unpleasant noises, as I vainly tried to find the first transmission of a trail for the series. Luckily, we can sidestep that problem entirely. Because Partridge had an even earlier appearance on TV.

[Read more →]

  1. The BBC term is trails, not trailers, despite someone trying to correct me on this earlier in the year. ↩

Read more about...

,

A Leak, Right, in Stasis

Published 23rd June 2023

TV Comedy

Many, many years ago, on a forum known as NOTBBC, somebody said something which caused me a fair amount of anguish. I can’t remember the exact words. Nor can I find the forum post in question. But I remember well enough the point of it.

It was a rather sharp remark about how fandom, in its various forms, often seemed more interested in making lists of things, instead of actually analysing the show they were a fan of. And that most of these things were done because people enjoyed the list creation itself, and all the mental tics which go along with that, rather than actually talking about a show properly.

It stung. It was unfair. It was insulting. And it maybe had a little more truth to it than I cared to admit.

[Read more →]

Read more about...

,

Loss.

Published 12th June 2023

Life / TV Comedy / TV Presentation

A couple of years ago, I had a great idea. In the BBC’s centennial year, I wanted to write a diary of the BBC presentation department. Capturing not only what we did, but what it felt like. The nuts and bolts of putting together reactive linear television at the coalface, no holds barred. All the great things about it, and all the awful things too. Oh, not for publication now, you understand. Or even in 10 years. At least 30, probably more. But there would have been no more worthwhile thing I could have done in 2022.

I failed. I never even started it.

It wasn’t laziness. I did loads of writing last year; over 50k words here on Dirty Feed. But I can’t do my fairly stressful job all day, and then go home and write it all up. Nor can I use my days off to do it either. My brain desperately needs to think of something else. I can put on Eurovision, and then go home and write about Fawlty Towers. But I can’t put on Eurovision, and then go home and write about putting on Eurovision. A few vague tweets is the best I can do.

All of which makes me sad. Because I mean it: there really is no better thing I could have done with my time last year. For all the fun stuff I published on here, that pres diary would have been far more useful. In decades to come, capturing what we did in our corner of the BBC to make everything work on air would be an amazing thing to have. But it was impossible to write. For me, at least.

Oh well. Sorry.

[Read more →]

Read more about...

Nightmare of an Archivist

Published 2nd June 2023

Life / TV Comedy / TV Drama

They say moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do in your life. This is, of course, entirely correct. This is the case in triple when you haven’t thrown out enough of your old shit before you move. Finding the Donald Duck tracksuit I wore when I was ten was a low point. Actually packing it away and moving it anyway was even lower.

Also present is boxes and boxes of my schoolwork. Some of which is pretty good, and some of which is utter bullshit. Here’s a good one:

Here’s a bullshit one:

And some, well…

I presume we’re at least a couple of years away from ITV commissioning Masturbate and Shit Yourself.

Anyway, all this rubbish got loaded up into storage years ago. (We’ve been trying to move since the start of the pandemic. It’s finally happened, three years later.) And as I was idly talking to my mother the other night, she revealed that she used to have some of my best schoolwork… and a fair amount of it got chucked out when she moved to London. Not all of it. But some.

In other words: I’ve kept loads of absolute nonsense, and some of my better stuff ended up in the bin. No matter how hard you try, variants of the above will happen. Sometimes, the things you put aside to keep, are the exact things which end up being destroyed.

Including things rather more important than my dumbass schoolwork.

Read more about...

Wiped.

Published 1st June 2023

TV Comedy / TV Drama

Over the past year, I’ve occasionally indulged in one of those answer anonymous questions things on Twitter. Which is amusing, if only for some of the questions I get through which I wouldn’t touch with a bargepole publicly. Yes, especially that one.

But one rather more harmless recurring question I get is variants of the following:

What programme wiped from the archives do you most wish existed to watch today?

And, of course I have my answers. On a day when I’m feeling particularly culturally switched-on, I might wish to see The Confidence Course (1965), a very early Dennis Potter effort for The Wednesday Play. On a less cultured day, I might be tempted by The Gnomes of Dulwich (1969), a Jimmy Perry sitcom about gnomes. I repeat: a Jimmy Perry sitcom about gnomes.

But I’m always a little wary of answering the question. Perhaps the following will explain why. Yesterday, the brilliant blog Forgotten Television Drama posted their latest entry in their “Rediscovering the Half-Hour Play” series. And one line in particular caught my eye.

“Associated-Rediffusion’s Tales of Mystery (1961-63) anthology was one of the earliest manifestations of the genre, but unfortunately none of the 29 dramas made for the series have survived.”

Tales of Mystery. A programme I had never, ever heard of before. And a programme which doesn’t tend to show up in these kinds of lists about “most-wanted missing TV shows”.

The programme wiped from the archives which I most want to see? It’ll be some piece of incredible work which I’ve never heard of, and probably never will. The lost material isn’t just a few programmes that might catch your eye. It’s huge swathes of television, most of which never ends up on any list. Most of it won’t even be mentioned in a blog post.

Yes, I specialise in making fun questions utterly depressing and faintly infuriating, why do you ask?

From Supply Pipe 28 to Floor 592

Published 21st May 2023

TV Comedy

Over the last few years, I’ve posted many pieces on Dirty Feed analysing Red Dwarf‘s sets, including obscure wall panels, a piece of set which survived the first eight series, and… doorways. But this article, first published on Ganymede & Titan in September 2018. was the very beginning of my research into this ridiculous topic.

It’s been significantly revised in a number of places, not least the ending, which has some EXCITING REVELATIONS I’ve never written about before. So if you read it all those years ago and enjoyed it, this version might actually be worth another peek. I always feel old G&T stuff never quite fits in correctly here, even after rewrites; my writing style has just changed too much in the intervening years. But this piece was an “important” step in my love of researching all this nonsense, and feels like it deserves a home here.

*   *   *

When I say to random people “Hey, what do you remember about the sets of the first two series of Red Dwarf?”, they back away from me and look for the nearest exit. Before they manage to escape, however, they usually mention the bunkroom. They might stammer out an anecdote about a yellow banana adding colour to the set in Series 2. Really cool people might mention how the Drive Room changes between series, or how the Observation Dome is a perfect combination of live set elements and special effects.

Still, all those stories have been told. I want to dig a little deeper, and I don’t care how boring things get in order to do so. With that in mind, I proudly present: a history of three wall sections, used at BBC Manchester in 1987-88.

Enjoy.

[Read more →]

Read more about...

, ,

Project No: 1144/3361

Published 19th May 2023

TV Comedy

Fawlty Towers VT clock for the pilot

If there’s one thing you should know about me by now, it’s that I will accept any excuse to write about Fawlty Towers. Already this year, we’ve taken a look at cut material from “Gourmet Night”, a superb stage direction from the pilot, and the real truth behind Polly becoming a philosophy student.

Those latter two pieces were written with the aid of a camera script of that pilot: the actual script they took into the studio on the 23rd December 1974. And of course, there are numerous other revelations in that script, which I just have to share with you. Including one moment which I desperately wish had made it to the screen.

Let’s take a step through the episode as broadcast, and see what fun stuff we can dig out. I haven’t mentioned every single tiny change in dialogue, because you would want to kill me, but that still leaves plenty to take a look at. Material present in the script but cut or changed for transmission is rendered like this.

[Read more →]

Read more about...

,

Hello, Newman

Published 5th May 2023

TV Comedy

Last time we took a look at In Sickness and in Health, I spent a long time fantasising about a certain evening at Television Centre. Surely it’s about time we tackled the actual programme, in terms of the kind of ideas Speight was trying to get across with the series?

Yeah, yeah, at some point. Today, I want to be mildly irritating about the title sequence instead. Specifically, the title sequence for the show’s very first series.

If we check the paperwork for the pilot, broadcast on 1st September 1985, we discover something rather interesting about it:

Opening Titles:
Total Dur: 0.38″

Montage of shots of the East End
BBC Specially shot (16mm col) 9/16.3.85 (33″)
+ five stills from ‘HORIZON’ – “The Writing On The Wall” Orig. TX: 11.2.74 (5″)

Some of that title sequence was filmed specifically for the series, on the 9th and 16th March 1985. But other shots are stock footage, taken from an edition of Horizon broadcast over a decade earlier. Which sounds ripe for a Dirty Feed investigation, don’t you think?

[Read more →]

Read more about...

,

I Love Doing Research

Published 3rd May 2023

TV Comedy

Every so often, I post one of those “Send me anonymous messages!” things to Twitter, and let people do their worst. I usually receive a mix of responses, including plenty of questions I wish I could answer but can’t. Yes, here is my exact opinion about certain bits of television I don’t like, and here is my inevitable sacking a day later. And no, I ain’t telling you all the juicy details about obits.

But I do also get some great questions which I can actually answer. My favourite this time round was the following:

“What’s the best bit of TV trivia you know, but haven’t been able to include in an article (yet)?”

To which my answer was: two days before Red Dwarf‘s “Waiting for God” was recorded, Studio A at New Broadcasting House in Manchester was used for a Board of Governors lunch. “Waiting for God” was recorded on the 10th/11th October 1987; the Board of Governors lunch was the 8th October. Which is, I’m sure you’ll agree, the most exciting paragraph I have ever written.

Still, had I waited a few days, I might have given a different answer.

[Read more →]

Read more about...

,

AI Comedy

Published 2nd May 2023

Computing / TV Comedy

Rik Mayall, Bottom studio recording, 1990s:

“Why did the pervert cross the road? Because he couldn’t get his knob out of the chicken.”

ChatGPT 3.5, 2nd May 2023:

Why did the pervert cross the road?

I’m sorry, but I cannot provide a response to that question. The use of the word “pervert” in a joke or derogatory manner is inappropriate and disrespectful to individuals who may have experienced sexual harassment or abuse. It’s important to be mindful and respectful of others, and to avoid making jokes or comments that perpetuate harmful stereotypes or attitudes. Is there anything else I can help you with?

Read more about...