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The Strange Case of the Inaccurate Viewing Figures

Published 18th September 2021

Children's TV

Here is today’s bold and dangerous statement here on Dirty Feed: Danger Mouse did not get viewing figures of 21 million viewers in 1983.

To me, this statement would seem to be self-evident. The idea that Danger Mouse beat every single episode of Coronation Street broadcast that year would seem to be highly dubious. Many others, however, seem to disagree. Take this BBC News article from 2013, “How Danger Mouse became king of the TV ratings”:

“A curiously British cartoon, it parodied James Bond and was influenced by Monty Python’s anarchic humour.

Thirty years ago children’s cartoon Danger Mouse topped the TV ratings, beating even Coronation Street. But what happened to the legendary Manchester animation house Cosgrove Hall Films, which created the rodent secret agent?

Voiced by Only Fools And Horses star David Jason, Danger Mouse was the flagship of Cosgrove Hall Films, based in a quirky studio in the Manchester suburb of Chorlton-cum-Hardy.

Vibrant, surreal and deliciously silly, an astonishing 21 million viewers reportedly tuned in to watch it in 1983, a record for a children’s programme which has yet to be beaten.”

But the BBC are far from alone in reporting this. A quick Google search reveals this factoid to be absolutely everywhere. Sure enough, many people clearly grabbed it from the 2013 BBC News piece, as in this extremely recent piece in the Manchester Evening News, “Calls for a Danger Mouse statue in Chorlton”:

“A resident has called for a Danger Mouse statue to be erected in the centre of Chorlton.

A post by Andrew Jones in the Facebook group Chorlton M21 shared the idea of crowdfunding for a Bronze statue of the animated mouse on the corner of Barlow Moor Road and Wilbraham Road.

The idea proved popular and was met with more than 150 likes.

Silly, exciting and with a huge amount of custard, Danger Mouse was a huge success on screen, and in 1983, once racked up 21 million viewers, beating Corrie, and smashing records for the highest viewings of a children’s show.”

Other sources are rather more troubling. When I first started researching this article, I thought the 21 million figure might just be traced back to an over-enthusiastic fan, and we could just have a jolly good laugh at their expense. Unfortunately, this is very much not the case. In 2020, The Guardian posted “How we made Danger Mouse – by David Jason and Brian Cosgrove”.

And what does Brian Cosgrove, co-creator of Danger Mouse have to say?

“I worked with a small group of animators. We had certain rules. Danger Mouse was a mouse living in a world of humans. When he drives around London, his car is mouse-sized – he could get stepped on! That’s what I like about animation: you can ignore common sense. We never talked down to our audience. Children were mature people, just small. We didn’t realise were making something that would achieve such a level of affection. It certainly wasn’t due to the quality of the animation, but I think Danger Mouse had heart. At one point in the early 80s our viewing figures – 21 million – were higher than Coronation Street’s.”

Ah. Erm. Hmmmm. OK.

When the co-creator of the show is literally stating the 21 million viewing figure as fact, the onus is on me to prove that the figure is false, rather than pointing and saying “don’t be ridiculous”. And sure, we can easily have a first stab at that. If we look at the Top 10 rated programmes in 1983 from BARB, we can see that the highest rated programme that year was Coronation Street… with viewing figures of 18.45 million. And 18.45 million is a figure which is lower than 21 million, I am fairly confident in stating.

But I think we need to go deeper. Where exactly does this 21 million figure come from?

*   *   *

I’m not sure I can answer that for sure. But I can pinpoint a relatively early reference to it. Much earlier than 2013, at least.

From the BBC itself, we have this image gallery published in 2006, which confidently states:

“Danger Mouse (1981 – 1992): The world’s greatest Mouse detective Danger Mouse with his trusty sidekick Penfold achieved cult status and in 1983 viewing figures topped 21 million!”

But we can go further back, and to a rather more primary source to boot. The old Cosgrove Hall website – now long gone, but preserved on the Wayback Machine – has this to say about Danger Mouse, published right back in 2002:

“At one stage in early 1983 Dangermouse viewing figures hit an all time high of 21.59 million viewers. In the same week the movie Superman managed a mere 16.76 million!”

Which suddenly gives us some extra information to work with. We have a very specific figure of 21.59 million, and – crucially – we now know that Superman was broadcast in the same week as the supposedly record-breaking Danger Mouse figures.

Superman – its UK television premiere, no less – was broadcast across ITV on the 6th January 1983. And Danger Mouse was also on that week: in fact, it was the opening episodes of Series 4.1 Between the 3rd – 7th January 1983, the five part serial “The Wild, Wild, Goose Chase” were broadcast. And all of a sudden, we’re not waving vaguely at “21 million viewers in 1983” – we have a very specific week we can investigate.

Reader, I have investigated. I have gone beyond the annual figures on the BARB website, and asked them for anything they could provide for this specific week. Incredibly, they actually indulged me. Here is the Top 10 programmes for ITV, for the week ending 9th January 1983 – figures not publicly available anywhere else online, as far as I am aware:

BARB viewing figures for week ending 9th January 1983 - all relevant details discussed in body text

Danger Mouse is nowhere on that list. Moreover, the top-rated programme of the week – Coronation Street – had viewing figures of 17.25 million, significantly below 21.59 million. As far as I am concerned, case closed. Danger Mouse wasn’t pulling in viewing figures of 21 million viewers. It wasn’t even close.

As to why Cosgrove Hall were claiming that figure… I can’t say. 21.59 million is an extremely specific number. Moreover, Cosgrove Hall’s claim of Superman getting 16.76 million is pretty much correct.2 It is rather tempting to suggest that somebody with a dodgy grasp of mathematics added up all the figures throughout the five episodes shown that week, and that each episode got a rather more reasonable 4.3 million instead. Sadly, BARB seem to have no record of Danger Mouse figures at all from 1983, so there’s no way of proving or disproving that theory.

Other potential solutions are available. Maybe the 21 million includes overseas viewing figures. Or, y’know, maybe the decimal point is just in the wrong place. Who knows? All I know is that Danger Mouse very much did not beat Superman, at least on its own terms.

I will, then, leave you with one final thought. Recently I received copies of the 1984 and 1985 Danger Mouse annuals. If the show had been getting 21 million viewers back in 1983, you would think there would have been at least some mention somewhere in those annuals. Frankly, you’d expect it plastered across the front cover.

There is nothing.

Danger Mouse didn’t get viewing figures of 21 million. Tell your friends.

UPDATE (9/11/21): The great thing about writing this site is that I can put together an article, fail to quite reach the end of the story, and then have a reader step in and do the final part for me.

So many thanks to Anthony Forth, who has done some further research on all this, and actually managed to prove what we all suspected. Consulting the full BARB Weekly Report for the week ending 9th January 1983 – available at the BFI library – the viewing figures for the Danger Mouse episodes in question are as follows:

  • Mon 3 Jan: 7.281
  • Tues 4 Jan: 2.524
  • Wed 5 Jan: 2.980
  • Thu 6 Jan: 4.105
  • Fri 7 Jan: 3.985

Those figures add up to 20.875 million. Which doesn’t quite match the 21.59 million that Cosgrove Hall quoted, but is very much near enough to conclusively prove where the erroneous 21 million figure came from. And let’s be very clear about this: it is erroneous. You don’t get to add together your five different episodes across the week, and say you beat a single showing of anything else. That’s not how viewing figures work.

Anthony also points out that the Bank Holiday Monday figure of over 7 million is very high for the series – twice that of what the BBC was getting at the same time, and more than the programmes which followed on ITV. His theory that this success got conflated and exaggerated over time into “beating Superman” seems to me to be a very sound one.

It’s also worth noting that the figures for the following week’s serial, “The Return of Count Duckula”, are as follows:

  • Mon 10th Jan: 4.041
  • Tue 11th Jan: 4.381
  • Wed 12th Jan: 4.556
  • Thu 13th Jan: 4.115
  • Fri 14th Jan: 4.535

The total for this serial comes to 21.628 million… or more total viewers across the week than the supposedly famous serial in the same week as Superman. And with that, I think we can safely put this nonsense to bed.

After all: over 7 million viewers for the first episode of the serial is still pretty damn good for the slot. We don’t need to misrepresent anything for that to be considered a success. Danger Mouse did well enough without all that.

  1. Out of interest, this week was also the launch of the Children’s ITV branding – in fact, the first episode of this serial was the very first programme shown under the new name. ↩

  2. 16.75 million according to BARB, but who’s counting? Oh, they are. ↩

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Raw, Trembling, Naked Sketches

Published 10th September 2021

TV Comedy

It’s official: I talk about Red Dwarf too much on here. But sometimes it’s just too difficult to resist, if only to make a point about how absurdly lucky Red Dwarf fans actually are.

For example, with Dwarf‘s first series, glimpses of footage beyond the actual episodes themselves are plentiful. Across various VHS and DVD releases over the years, we can see an earlier version of the opening scene of the show… and an outtake from the closing moments of the final episode in that first run too. Both ends of the series, represented with extra footage giving insight into the production of the show.

Rimmer and Lister in corridor
Alternative opening…
Danny John-Jules, Craig Charles, and Chris Barrie in Drive Room set
…and an outtake from the last show

Sadly, with the first series of A Bit of Fry & Laurie – shot and broadcast just a year later – we’re not so lucky. There are no DVDs full of deleted scenes available here, nor any outtakes. Indeed, the only bit of extra footage beyond the the broadcast shows that I’m aware of for Series 1 is this trail, shown in the week leading up to broadcast.1

To get our deleted scenes for A Bit of Fry & Laurie, we have to work a little harder. And yet they exist, at least in written form. The script book for Series 1, first published in 1990, might frustrate some completists a little, as not every sketch from the series was included. I confess to being mildly irritated that it doesn’t contain a single sketch from the 1987 pilot, which is one of my favourite single shows Fry & Laurie ever did.2

But that is tremendously unfair, when I’d kill for a book like this for most shows. It’s worth it for the brilliant stage directions alone – these are the actual scripts, not dodgy transcripts. Moreover, the vast majority of sketches in Series 1 are there, along with plenty of sketches which never made the broadcast episodes. So while we may not have our deleted scenes in video form, we do have them, sort of. And while I suggest you pick up a secondhand copy of the book if you don’t have one – Fry & Laurie practically demands to be read in a civilised manner – all the sketches have been transcribed and are available online, albeit extremely unofficially.

Having wallowed in Series 1 of Fry & Laurie for the last month, the unused sketches spring out at me like a… spring. So if you love the series but have never read the book, I’ll say that you should be reading “Operations”, “Toaster”, “Maternity Ward Ten”, “Remembering Lines”, “Little Chat”, “Sex Change”, “Forward to the Past”, “The Old Folks”, “Ignorance”, “A Bit of a Pain in the Bottom”, “Orthodoxy”, “A Frank Talk”, “Café”, “Fascism”, “Jeremiah Beadle”, “Architect”, “Naked”, and – most famously – “Spies Five”. And that’s plenty to be getting on with.

Still, what interests me today is: can we imagine what any of these sketches actually looked like on the screen, rather than merely on the page? Indeed, can we figure out which audience sessions they might have been recorded in? In two cases3, I think we can get a pretty damn good idea.

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  1. From the Boat Show 89 slide, we can ascertain that this particular broadcast of the trail was on the 10th January 1989, at around 7:25pm – just before The Rock ‘n’ Roll Years. As for when it was shot, the set is the same as “Gordon & Stuart Eat Greek”, so it was almost certainly done during the very first recording session of the series, on the 10th December 1988.

    The mention of “January and February” is a little odd for a series when you’re already in January; it would have made a lot more sense broadcast in December. Productions providing material for trails which doesn’t quite fit with what’s required is an evergreen problem, it seems. ↩

  2. “Blimey, you’re ugly.” ↩

  3. In fact, more than two, but we’ve covered “Inspector Venice” and “Naked” before. ↩

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I’d Like Some Information, Please

Published 30th August 2021

TV Comedy

Stephen Fry next to a camera, from Series 1 of Fry & Laurie

Something sets Series 1 of A Bit of Fry & Laurie apart from every other run of the show, you know. Something which, unless you actually went to a recording of the series, is entirely invisible.

In true Dirty Feed style, let me throw a bunch of exciting dates at you, and see if it becomes apparent.1

  • Pilot. RX: 8th and 9th December 1987. TX: 26th December 1987.
  • Series 1. RX: 10th December 1988 – 1st February 1989. TX: 13th January – 17th February 1989.
  • Series 2. RX: 14th January – 20th February 1990. TX: 9th March – 13th April 1990.
  • Series 3. RX: 20th July – 24th August 1991. TX: 9th January – 13th February 1992.
  • Series 4. RX: 14th March – 19th April 1994. TX: 12th February – 2nd April 1995.

Sorry, that’s a bit too exciting. Just give me a minute…

…right, all done. Now, the obvious tale concerning these dates is Series 4, with the programmes having been recorded nearly a full year before transmission. Which lead plenty of people watching the episodes at the time to speculate on Stephen Fry’s current mental condition, from material shot a year previously. But we have better things to do than climb into Stephen Fry’s head. At least today.

No, the real story here is: Series 1 of A Bit of Fry & Laurie is the only series of the show to start transmitting while the shows were still being recorded. The pilot was shot a shade over two weeks before TX; similarly, Series 2 finished shooting two weeks before the transmission of its first episode. Series 3 had a longer wait of a few months before making it to air. Series 4, as we already said, had a whole year. But Series 1 only gets halfway through its audience recording sessions before it starts being broadcast to the nation.

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  1. The recording dates here are for the studio sessions, not the location material – which was, of course, recorded earlier. ↩

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Yet Another Boring Post About Twitter Which You Can Safely Skip

Published 26th August 2021

Internet

Recently, I was involved in some TWITTER DRAMA involving my account being locked. I won’t recount the story here, because TWITTER DRAMA is boring, and I write about interesting things on here, like Fry & Laurie recording dates. Suffice to say, Twitter literally think I post material which “promotes or encourages suicide or self-harm”. You can read the whole thread about it here if you’re really interested.

So I was not in an especially good mood, as I read this post about Twitter, by Greg Storey. Because I would really like to leave Twitter for good. The company accusing me of encouraging suicide does not especially make me want to stay on the service.

But something about Greg’s post gave me pause.

“I would also add, what does it do for you? Engagement isn’t nearly what it was in the first five years, not even the first ten years. So why do we continue? What’s the point anymore.”

Because my question is: engagement for who? Surely not just for himself, which would be a perfectly legitimate thing to write; he specifically includes the reader in his question. “Why do we continue?”

So, let me give you my answer. I continue because engagement on Twitter for me, right now, is at an all-time high. I get far more interest in the stuff I post on there now than I did two years ago. Something happened during the pandemic which meant that I approached some kind of critical mass concerning interest in my writing. Cumulating with by far the most popular thing I’ve ever written.

With all this, I’m reminded of Adam Buxton’s views on Twitter. I’ll quote the relevant part of his discussion again:

IAIN LEE: If I wasn’t doing this career, I would get rid of Twitter, but Twitter’s a really good tool for selling stuff, for selling, you know…
ADAM BUXTON: Yeah, is it? I don’t know.
IAIN LEE: Well it is… I think here, because this is a brand new radio station, you’re building an audience from nothing, so for me to say to 47,000 people: “I’m on tonight at 10 o’clock and I’ve got Adam Buxton on”, some of those people will listen.
ADAM BUXTON: But if you weren’t on Twitter, I just don’t believe it would really materially affect the way that your show went.
IAIN LEE: I’m going to bear that in mind, thank you for that.
ADAM BUXTON: I just don’t believe it. I really don’t. I mean, I’m sure it’s different if you’re sort of a pop star, or maybe if you’re younger, I don’t know.
IAIN LEE: That’s rude.
ADAM BUXTON: But I often say at gigs: “Raise your hand if you’re here because I tweeted about this” – two, three hands go up.
IAIN LEE: But those three people, though… loud laughers.
ADAM BUXTON: I mean, they are amazing. They’re the best chaps in the audience.

Since that conversation in 2016, Adam Buxton has left Twitter. And I’m sure it’s working out great for him. He really doesn’t need to be there. Like Greg Storey, he got to the point where Twitter didn’t help him any more.

But this is my problem. With the point I’m at right now, I really do need Twitter. Pretty much my entire audience is on there. While Greg Storey can scoff that engagement has fallen, or Adam Buxton can say that he doesn’t need it, that is simply not true for everyone.

Which is fine. I’m not trying to say that people can’t talk about what is true for them. That would be ludicrous. But with these conversations, there needs to be some understanding what what might personally be true for you, isn’t true for everyone. If I deactivated my account and left Twitter now, virtually nobody would read anything I wrote on here. Most of my hits come from Twitter. And that’s the kind of situation that Greg misses entirely.

And so I’m stuck. Stuck with a service which directly accuses me of promoting suicide, because I want people to read my silly writing.

Cheers Twitter, thanks a bunch.

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Inspector Venice

Published 22nd August 2021

TV Comedy

As I continue my trawl through recording dates for the first series of A Bit of Fry & Laurie, I can hear some of you plaintively cry: what is the fucking point, you utter moron?

Whether I have an actual answer, I shall leave to your extremely capable judgement. I think the following is at least vaguely interesting, though. Let’s take a look at Series 1, Episode 4, broadcast on the 3rd February 1989. Nearly eight minutes into the show, we get what appears to be a normal restaurant sketch. That is, until a member of the audience pipes up and claims authorship of the routine. Well, Benjamin Whitrow pipes up, to be exact.

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I Hate Doing Research, Part Two

Published 31st July 2021

Meta / TV Comedy

Gather round, hardcore comedy scholars. This isn’t one of those nice articles I write where everything is tied up with a neat bow at the end. Instead, it’s a cry for help into the void.

Let’s take a look at a few pictures from A Bit of Fry & Laurie on Getty Images. Firstly, Series 4:

Comic actors (L-R) Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry, Kevin McNally and Fiona Gillies in a hospital sketch from the BBC television series 'A Bit of Fry and Laurie', March 22nd 1994. (Photo by Don Smith/Radio Times/Getty Images

This is from Episode 2 – the episode featuring Fiona Gillies and Kevin McNally. Getty suggests that this picture was taken on 22nd March 1994. A quick check I have of the paperwork for the show does indeed have this listed as the recording date. So far, so good.

Oddly, Getty doesn’t seem to have any pictures at all from Series 3. But if we look for Series 2, we have this:

Comic actors Stephen Fry (right) and Hugh Laurie in a scene from the television comedy show 'A Bit of Fry and Laurie', January 14th 1990. (Photo by Don Smith/Radio Times/Getty Images

Ah, The Rhodes Boysons. This one is a little more tricksy; the sketch was broadcast as part of Episode 5, but the paperwork I have here indicates it was actually shot during the first audience session for Series 2. That was on the 14th January 1990… and Getty agrees. We’re doing well, yes?

Too well, unfortunately. Things had to go wrong eventually. Finally, take a look at this brilliant photo from Series 1:

Comic actors Stephen Fry (left) and Hugh Laurie (on a television screen) on the set of a television show, December 17th 1988. (Photo by Don Smith/Radio Times/Getty Images)

This looks like it was taken from the sketch “Censored”, shown as part of Episode 1. Let’s take a look at a couple of screengrabs of the sketch in question.

Fry in the studio, Laurie on a monitor
Fry in the studio, Laurie on a monitor


At first glance, you’ll notice a few oddities. Both Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie’s hair looks different, the framing of Laurie on the TV screen is also different, and even the border round the TV set seems to have changed. Perhaps all this can be explained by the fact that the picture was almost certainly taken during rehearsal, rather than the shooting of the sketch itself. This was standard practice; take a look at this publicity photo from The Young Ones, for instance, and note Ryan’s attire.

There is still a problem with this picture, however. The paperwork I have here indicates that the sketch “Censored” was not only broadcast as part of the first episode of the show, but was actually shot as part of the first audience session, on the 10th December 1988. Why then, does Getty claim the picture was taken on the 17th December 1988, the date of the second audience session of the series?

You may choose from the following possibilities:

  • Getty has the wrong information, the production paperwork is correct, and this was shot on the 10th December 1988. After all, Getty has been known to be wrong before.
  • The production paperwork has the wrong information, Getty is correct, and this was shot on the 17th December 1988. After all, the production paperwork has been known to be wrong before.
  • Both Getty and the production paperwork are correct, and the “Censored” sketch was shot on the 10th, reshot on the 17th, and then they decided to use the original version shot on the 10th in the final show.
  • Both Getty and the production paperwork are correct, and this is a different sketch entirely, shot using the same setup of Fry on the stage and Laurie on the monitor, which they then decided to cut before broadcast.
  • Some random mix of the above.
  • Something else entirely.

Sometimes, things are just impossible to nail down, at least with the information we have available at the moment. Bung me a camera script for the 10th and 17th recordings of the show, and I’ll know for sure.

As things stand, my best guess is based on the following description of the picture on the Getty Images site:

“Comic actors Stephen Fry (left) and Hugh Laurie (on a television screen) on the set of a television show, December 17th 1988. (Photo by Don Smith/Radio Times/Getty Images)”

If you don’t even know what the TV show is called when writing the metadata, I’m willing to bet you might get the date wrong too. I’ll stick with the production paperwork date of the 10th for now.

But I’ll definitely lie awake worrying about it.

UPDATE (1/9/21): Well, now. I’m not sure we have an exact answer to this conundrum yet. But while browsing through the script book for Series 1 of A Bit of Fry & Laurie, I found the following unused sketch titled “Naked”, with an alarmingly familiar setup:

Stephen and Hugh are in a black limbo area. Hugh is on a monitor, Stephen is really there.

STEPHEN: I’m afraid that we’ve now got to ask you to do some work, and help us a bit, ladies and gentlemen. Use your imagination, as it were.
HUGH: That’s right. For the purposes of this next sketch, ladies and gentlemen, we want you all to imagine that we’re both naked.
STEPHEN: Yes. I’m sorry to have to ask this of you. Speaking for ourselves, Hugh and I really wanted to go the whole way, and actually be naked for this one but, unfortunately, we ran out of money.
HUGH: That’s right. The budget simply wouldn’t stretch that far, I’m afraid. Never mind.
STEPHEN: Now to help you build up the picture in your minds, I should tell you that the sketch is set in a church.
HUGH: That’s right. Stephen will be playing a Bishop.
STEPHEN: And Hugh will be playing the organ.
HUGH: The organist.
STEPHEN: What?
HUGH: I’ll be playing the organist.
STEPHEN: The organist. Yes. But you’ll be playing the organ as well?
HUGH: No. No. That’s the whole point. I play an organist who can’t play the organ.
STEPHEN: Oh God I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Of course. Have I ruined it?
HUGH: Yes, frankly.
STEPHEN: I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen.
HUGH: You’d better all stop imagining that we’re naked.
STEPHEN: Yes stop. Hold it. It’s all my fault. I’m sorry. Damn.

I would now remind you that one of the possibilities I mentioned in my original article was that the publicity photo on Getty is of a different sketch to “Censored” entirely. This suddenly seems an awful lot more likely.

So I propose the following. “Censored” was shot on the 10th and was broadcast, and “Naked” was shot on the 17th, is the sketch seen in the Getty picture, and eventually went unbroadcast. I have no proof, but this seems the most likely option at this point.

Someone send me every single camera script for A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and I’ll nail this bugger down for sure.

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Mike, You Bastard!

Published 27th July 2021

TV Comedy

In a stunning break with tradition for Dirty Feed, who’s up for an obscure fact about The Young Ones?

So let’s poke our head in and see what the gang’s up to. Ah, that’s rather unpleasant. Rick has just found out that his bedroom has been turned into a roller disco by Mike. Unfortunately, Mike was clever enough to hire a bouncer.

SLOBBER: Sorry, guv’nor. Apples and pears, tit for tat, I love London Town, AAAAAAAAAAND I was at Violet’s funeral…

Quick quiz, and no cheating: what exactly does “Violet’s funeral” refer to?

If you know, you can give yourself a good pat on the back and feel very clever. If you don’t, you are far from alone. In this spectacularly unscientific survey I conducted yesterday, over 80% of people didn’t understand the reference. And I didn’t get it myself until I looked it up a few years ago.

The answer, then: “Violet’s funeral” refers to the funeral of Violet Kray, mother of the Kray twins. This was a newsworthy event, not least because both Krays were actually allowed out of prison in order to attend. This report from Thames News sums up the day’s events.1

But there’s more to this story than what has become a slightly obscure reference. What I’m really interested in is the timing of all this, back in 1982. Because when I first started researching all this, I had assumed that the reference was at least a few years old, even then. It sounds like something that Slobber would boast about in order to prove his long standing in the community of the slightly dodgy.

It doesn’t take much poking for this theory to disintegrate, though. The Young Ones reference to “Violet’s funeral” appears in “Oil”, which was transmitted on the 16th November 1982. The funeral of Violet Kray took place on the 11th August 1982; just three months previously. This already makes it a topical reference for a sitcom.

If we look at when “Oil” was actually recorded, however, things get even more startling. Because “Oil” was recorded on the 25th and 26th August 1982. The funeral itself had only taken place two weeks previously. So far from this being an ancient thing at the time, it had literally just been part of the news agenda. And for the studio audience watching it that night, instead of it being a mouldy old reference, it was as burningly topical as a sitcom could really get. Which is a delightful thing to discover.

Which just leaves us with one final thought. What did the script originally say, before the “Violet’s funeral” reference was bunged in at the last minute – possibly in rehearsal the week before? Was there another gangster reference, swiftly replaced with something more current?

  1. I seriously suggest you check out the official Thames News YouTube channel. It’s an absolute treasure trove of stuff, and it doesn’t seem to be widely known about. ↩

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Northern Star

Published 22nd July 2021

TV Comedy

Sometimes, finding out the true story about an old sitcom legend gets very complicated. But not always.

For instance, take this old Londonist article from 2008, as rumours swirled about the potential sale of a certain Television Centre. But don’t worry! They have an interesting “fact”.

Interesting Television Centre fact no. 1: Studio 1 is the biggest and most expensive studio in television centre. For the early series of Red Dwarf, there was no budget for any set after the production team hired it for filming so they had the hapless space team running around the exposed lighting rigs and gangways, which worked brilliantly (and cheaply) for convincing us they were on board a massive spaceship.

It’s difficult to know where to start with that paragraph. I mean, the idea that early Red Dwarf had “no budget for any set” is not even remotely true. It is also the case that the show was never recorded in Studio 1 at TV Centre. Or let’s get right to the point: Red Dwarf never recorded a single frame of material at TV Centre full stop.

To be fair to Londonist, I think I know where they got this particular misinformation from: the BBC itself. Back in 2013, I went on a tour of the soon-to-be-closed TV Centre, and sure enough, a version of this anecdote was told to me as well: the series was shot at TVC, and you could see the lighting gantries used in the finished episodes as part of the ship. Believe it or not, no, I didn’t start an argument with the tour guide. I just went back home and wrote a passive-aggressive article, obviously.

So, if Red Dwarf was never recorded at TV Centre, where was it recorded? For its first three series, the answer is: New Broadcasting House. Not the current NBH in London; this was Manchester’s New Broadcasting House, on Oxford Road.

Picture of New Broadcasting House in Manchester

To be more specific: Red Dwarf was shot in Studio A at Oxford Road: the network production studio.1 Over the years, a great many nationally-broadcast programmes originated there; among others, the Oxford Road Show, A Question of Sport, Filthy Rich & Catflap, Cheggers Plays Pop, some editions of The Old Grey Whistle Test2, and a particular childhood favourite, The Satellite Show. And that’s only scraping the surface. Oxford Road Show aside, I expect plenty of viewers had no idea any of those series came from Manchester.

Still, for all the misinformation about Red Dwarf being shot at TV Centre, or having “no budget for any set”, the tales from the BBC tour guides were correct in one respect: certain scenes from the show really were shot on the lighting gantries in Studio A, standing in for the ship itself. Which is indeed an actual INTERESTING FACT.

Let’s take a look.

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  1. Studio B was the smaller regional production studio, although this was also used for some daytime network programming such as Open Air and Daytime UK. ↩

  2. I have to be honest, before researching this article, I thought that The Old Grey Whistle Test always came from TV Centre. But no. Here’s one of the first television performances by Dire Straits, transmitted live from Manchester’s Studio A. ↩

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Between Fact… and Breakfast

Published 16th July 2021

TV Comedy

Recently, I have come across something rather disquieting. Every time I check out the accepted TX dates of a programme I’m researching, something turns out to be awry. Last time it was The Brittas Empire; this time, A Bit of Fry & Laurie comes under the microscope, if you’ll pardon the pun.1

The story behind Series 4 of A Bit of Fry & Laurie is oft-told; transferring back across to BBC1, with celebrity guests in all but one episode, it’s generally regarded as the weakest of the four series, with its reputation not helped by Fry’s disappearance and flight to Belgium near the beginning of the run. I personally love it, but now isn’t the time for my brilliantly iconoclastic and dangerous comedy opinions. Let’s stick to the facts.

And the facts, at first glance, seem to be clear. Plenty of websites seem to think that the series was transmitted in the most straightforward manner possible: seven episodes, weekly on Sunday nights, from the 12th February through to the 26th March 1995. For example, Wikipedia, the British Comedy Guide, and IMDB all state that this is the case.

Unfortunately, a bit more poking reveals some discrepancies. epguides.com still thinks the series started on the 12th February, but also that it skipped a week on the 5th March; meaning the final episode transmitted on the 2nd April. The BBC itself, meanwhile, also indicates the series skips a week; however, their missed week is the 12th March. The Beeb also unhelpfully list the series as six episodes long in the episode descriptions, rather than the correct seven.

Our mission is clear. Can we disentangle this load of old nonsense?

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  1. What pun? ↩

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I Never Tossed Off

Published 12th July 2021

Film / TV Presentation

What is the best way for a teenager to watch John Hughes’ Weird Science?

I first saw it on a black and white portable TV in my bedroom. Maybe a black and white portable TV isn’t the ideal thing to watch Weird Science on. But the important thing here was that it was in my bedroom. Which means there is one scene absolutely seared into my mind, yes?

Lisa in the doorway

I mean, yes, that scene meant a great deal to me growing up. But my visceral memory watching Weird Science for the first time isn’t actually that shot. My memory is of the ridiculous hacking scene which precedes it, the big ACCESS DENIED sign, and then… this:

Skull from the hacking sequence

I can still remember the shiver that went through me as I glimpsed that horrific visage. The fact I was watching it in black and white made it even worse, if anything. I was absolutely terrified. And anyone who has hung around on Dirty Feed for any length of time knows exactly why. Clearly, my brain linked that skull with a certain life force symbol in Knightmare. Put into that context, I don’t even feel like I was being a wuss. Unexpected skulls which remind you of something you’re already scared of, when you were hoping for something naughty instead, would surely freak anybody out a bit.

Oh, OK, fine. I was also being a wuss.

*   *   *

When writing these pieces about my TV memories, I always try to nail down a date. Sadly, I’m not sure I can really do that here. I suspect the BBC network premiere on BBC2 in December 1989 is too early – I would have been eight years old. This BBC1 showing in November 1991 is possible, as is this August 1993 showing. It could even be later, I have no real idea.

But I can give you one date: Saturday 10th July 2021. That was the date I sat in NC1 – BBC One’s control room – and transmitted Weird Science to the nation myself. Three decades or so after watching it as a kid, I was on the other side of the TV screen, playing out exactly the same thing. Every time something like this happens, it completely blows my mind. It’s not something I ever could have conceived of happening, all those years ago. Two ends of my life, suddenly joining together unexpectedly.

The skull didn’t bother me this time round, mind. And as for Lisa… we’ll draw a veil over that one. Though I will admit I got excited at one point. Extremely excited.

Well, who wouldn’t? I got the end credit VO to fit perfectly over the instrumental section of the theme, so it didn’t crash any of the lyrics. That’s enough to get anyone tumescent.

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