C
2/3
Click to find your programme:
C.A.T.S. EYES to CHATTERBOX
CHEGGERS CHECKS IT OUT to THE CLIMBER
CLIVE JAMES ON TELEVISION/SATURDAY NIGHT CLIVE to THE CUT PRICE COMEDY SHOW
C |
Click to find your programme: |
|
CHEGGERS CHECKS IT OUT
(MID 1980s)
BBC
FIRST IN a double whammy of Keith, here finding our man essaying a bit of cut-price consumer Watchdoggery. Much brow-creasing over why crisps cost so much money and why BMXs were dangerous if you fell off them. Cheggers' Action Reports ploughed similar furrow. Keith probably had other things on his mind.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."CHEEEEEECK IIIIIIT OOOUUUUUUUUUUT...." THERE'S YOUR THEME SONG
CHEGGERS PLAYS POP
(1979-86)
BBC
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
THIS IS more like it. Sub-Pinball Wizard fanfare was the cue for our man to bound, literally, onto camera, do a little skip and go "Yessss!" by way of an introduction to this neverending rock'n'inflatable roustabout. Two teams of two kids in matching T-shirts then answered pop trivia which'd shame Mike Read ("Name two members of the Human League") before taking a break for the latest from Bad Manners while the BBC back room boys pumped up the bouncy castle. Ending always involved forty gallons of foam and a car hooter. "See you next time!"
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."PLEASE PUT YOUR HANDS TOGETHER FOR...YAZOO!"
CHELMSFORD 123
(1988-90)
HAT TRICK/C4
SMUG BACK-SLAPATHON from Hat Trick executives-to-be, led by foppish JIMMY MULVILLE, RORY MCGRATH, PHILIP POPE and NEIL PEARSON. Essentially a rip-off BLACKADDER style mix of period setting (Roman Britain) and ironic modern swearing.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...CO-STARRING, INEVITABLY, GEOFFREY MCGIVERN
CHEMISTRY IN ACTION
(1970s-1980s)
GRANADA
ONE OF THE EERIEST programmes ever. This secondary schools' science show was a straightforward affair, featuring no more than a man in a white coat performing experiments in a non-descript blue room, a short film of Sellafield or some such installation, animated graphs and the soft tones of Jack Smith. That simple. This led to long periods of silence, often provoking conversation at the back of the class. Each experiment seemed to be timed using a distinctive beige clock with hooks coming out of the side. And the teacher probably made you do the experiment afterwards, for added realism with clock. The spookiness of the show was reinforced by the lack of music over the credits - you had to sit there in silence until "Produced and Narrated by Jack Smith" then "Granada Colour Production" came up. Sorely missed.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."NOW, LET'S TRY FIFTY NEWTONS OF FORCE"
CHICO THE RAIN MAKER
(EARLY 1970s)
CFF
SOME BOYS keep the shrunken head of 'Chico', a sort of shamen, in their tree house. They would then get the head to make it rain for them. Hence the title. Hence the brevity of this entry.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."CHICO CHICO, RAIN MAKER (X3)/CHICO PAKA WANA WANA MAKE THE RAIN"
CHILDREN IN NEED
(1980-DATE)
BBC
ANNUAL TIN-RATTLE from Television Centre, once a reasonably entertaining celebrity drop-in centre affair, now a dreadful parade of promotional star turns and role swapping ("this year: Casualty *do* We Will Rock You; plus, the BBC newsreaders as you've *never* seen them before - since the last time!"). Actual campaign began on radio on Christmas Day 1927, then became a regular ten-minuter on a Sunday night telly, until ex-NATIONWIDE nabob Mark Patterson suggested turning it into a telethon and Bill Cotton dutifully cleared the schedules. The first televised moneyspinner found - naturally - Lord Wogan holding fort from, bizarrely, the Cunard Hotel, Hammersmith at what looked like a rudimentary garden party with groups of fellow personalities seated at numerous round metal tables regaling Terry and us with an anecdote, a song and a shenanigan or two. Something of a freewheeling fancy, all told, albeit with SUE LAWLEY and ESTHER RANTZEN on hand to talk about "why we're really here tonight". Early 80s efforts pretty much forgettable, although proceedings were shamelessly hijacked in 1983 by that three hour long special 20th anniversary episode of Dr Who with all the Doctors in it apart from the one who was dead and the one who couldn't be arsed. Michael Grade had the idea of fashioning a whole night's frivolity around the cause; somewhere along the way that horrendous kiddie-shrieking song was written - "We are the future/we are the seed/if you want to help/help Children In Need" - probably by Mike Batt or BA Robertson, subsequently adopted as the official CIN "theme". Dr Who "trick" repeated a second time for the show's 30th anniversary, this time by way of - of all things - an EastEnders crossover filmed in 3-D. Smell-O-Vision "themed" 1995 offering similarly stank. Will remain on the third Friday in November for evermore, or until Tel croaks it, whichever comes first.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."LET'S HEAR IT FOR ALL THE GOOD FOLK AT PRUDENTIAL!"
CHILDREN OF FIRETOP MOUNTAIN
(EARLY 1980s)
BBC
INTERMINABLE MORALITY saga in turn of the century New Zealand. Dopey settlers face up to wise-old natives, with the latter invariably overcoming the former's "mistrust" to save the day in catalogue of homespun domestic crises. Each episode painfully resolves into preachy do not steal/lie/be miserable "message".
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...DUNNO WHERE THE KIDS CAME INTO IT, FRANKLY
THE CHILDREN OF GREEN KNOWE
(1986)
BBC
MORE POSH KIDS piss about in the snow in Olde Rural Englande.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...AND CUE THE WHEEZING TINNY RADIOPHONIC WORKSHOP THEME TUNE
CHILDREN OF THE DOG STAR
(1984)
TVNZ/THAMES
NEW ZEALAND export about a Tearaway Girl (NB: UK kids dramas = Posh Kids; US kids dramas = Sassy Kids; Australia kids dramas = Tearaway Kids) who discovers a 7000-year-old spaceship from the Dogstar, which starts to control her mind. Also threw in Maori legends, land rite issues, and usual "ambiguous" ending.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...PROBE THING WAS CALLED "KOLOB". QUIET AT THE BACK!
CHILDREN OF THE STONES
(1977)
HTV WEST
YET MORE 1970s MYSTICO-QUACKERY, this time involving some Stonehenge knock-offs casting evil influence on guillible yokels. All the usual stuff. Welsh village? Check. Local madman? Check. Posh kids? Check. Lunatic professor? Check (IAIN CUTHBERTSON).
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...GARETH THOMAS? CHECK!
NOT A misprint, but a weirdo drama (written by DAVID "ARTEMIS 81" RUDKIN) about a kind of kiddie concentration camp with loads of smaller kids "keeping busy" doing various pointless activities while two teenagers loomed outside. Some kind of symbolic stuff, but bloody bizarre all the same.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...CREDITED A "PLAYGROUP SUPERVISOR"
CHILDREN'S FILM FOUNDATION
(1960s-1980s)
CUE THE pigeons.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...YOU'VE NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD!
CHILDREN'S ISLAND
(EARLY 1980s)
ANOTHER BATCH OF pretend wartime evacuees get their lives laid bare on the box, this time courtesy of a plane ride to New York which crashes, leaving them stranded on a desert island. Lord Of The Flies-esque psychological warfare never shows up. Rescue boat does.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...BRING BACK THE CONCH SHELLS
CHILDREN'S TV CONTINUITY
(1980s)
ITV/BBC
BASICALLY, THE bits between the programmes which turned into programmes. WATCH IT! was the CITV forerunner, mainly remembered for its opening circular animated graphic, a bit like those horrible old rotating Victorian lantern things, which changed with the seasons (snowflake in winter etc). Regional linkmen still introduced the programmes (DR SNUGGLES, CBTV) , before Children's ITV (first instance of umbrella branding) was launched in 1983 with MATTHEW KELLY in a cheap'n'nasty spaceship set with giant levers to "cue" the shows. Amusingly all pre-recorded, which meant there was fuck all to do if a programme break down. Other CITV faces then showed up on a monthly basis - DEREK GRIFFITHS, ISLA ST CLAIR, THE KRANKIES, even TERRAHAWKS Terrahawks got in on the act. After a while things settled down to mostly TOMMY BOYD and BILL ODDIE, as most things tend to do. Later still they ditched the monthly guest presenter idea for regulars GARY TEREZZA (still doing the links on Channel Four) and DEBBIE SHORE, before the really dark days of MARK GRAINGER, JEANNE DOWNS and crap puppet dog SCALLY. One defining moment of micro-subversion hailed from this late era, though, when they patched through to a transmission of BLUE PETER and took the piss. A bit.
On the other side, meanwhile, your never-changing format from the 70s remained, consisting of a bog-standard voiceover bloke trying to sound avuncular over a promo still for RECORD BREAKERS featuring ROY CASTLE surrounded by some balloons or cut into the shape of a jigsaw piece. Then round about 1982 they decided to liven things up by doing some primitive computer animations (both vision and sound) on a Beeb model B (of course) - a barely-moving witch, a stiff cat on a ladder knocking paint over, and the one for Blue Peter with Goldie waggling a paw in the "Italian Sunken Garden" pond. Finally in 1985 came the Broom Cupboard, a shameless rip-off of CITV but way way way better thanks to presence of PHILLIP SCHOFIELD manning (literally) the controls. Tiny presentation studio decorated with half-arsed crayola-ed drawings of Dogtanian, later joined by extremely lucrative squeaking puppet rodent Gordon The Gopher (shapeless, yellow mini-Emu given to wearing leather jackets and playing the Clash's White Riot). Obsessions with 'Downtown', downhill skier Franz Klammer and Innovations-catalogue pin-matrix things from Midge Ure's decade-defining 'If I Was' followed. The kids didn't really follow these indulgences though, and when Saturday morning duties beckoned, Pip was replaced by a series of less individually-minded stooges. First was DEBBIE "HELLOOOO" FLINT, then ANDY "HAIRSPRAY GAGS" CRANE, who soon swapped wrong-footed introduction of a comedy broom and unpopular non-puppet Bobby The Banana for bubble-bath merchandise favourite Edd The Duck and (over-egging the pudding a tad) butler's arm Wilson. Nicked Pip's idea for writing out words to cartoon themes (Phil had personally transcribed the lyrics to MYSTERIOUS CITIES OF GOLD), in this instance AROUND THE WORLD WITH WILLY FOGG and ultimately "performing" said song dressed in top hat and frock coat in CSO over the end titles, standing next to a crap prop lamp post.
Elsewhere summer mornings on the Beeb, previously the domain of WHY DON'T YOU, PLAY CHESS and SILAS, became But First This!: an assortment of filler material including Out Of The Inkwell cartoons (shit, they were dull), old 50s Superman shorts, morning repeats of Neighbours and pop magazine THE O ZONE. Presented by in turn by Crane, SIMON "EUROPE'S TOP TEN" POTTER, SIOBHAN "RIVER CITY PEOPLE" MAHER and Our Rita off Jonny Briggs. Rotten meaningless "tell that Aardvark it's a wrap" theme tune introduced around this time as well. Other unmemorable faces from this era included the resolutely uncharismatic SIMON PARKIN, later to follow the money (and go down the dumper) at GMTV; and the obnoxious former Radio Top Shop DJ ANDI "WOMAN'S NAME" PETERS, who once disqualified some kid's competition entry "because it's not written on a postcard". He was that kind of person. Then there was PHILIPPA FORRESTER, a woman now in the strange and unhappy position of being obsessively worshipped by a hundred odd male students but almost totally ignored by everyone else. She grinned and flicked her hair. Fey tosspot TOBY ANSTIS was the final straw before the whole thing became a studio-bound glitzy operation staffed by seemingly millions of ever-changing non-faces, mostly crap save for the likes of CHRIS JARVIS, JOSIE D'ARBY, BARNEY HARWOOD, KIRSTEN O'BRIEN and, of course, the imperial RICHARD MCCOURT and DOMINIC WOOD.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."TIME TO SAY GOODBYE TO VIEWERS IN WALES; SAY GOODBYE GORDON..."
SUNDAY-NIGHT DOWNER guaranteed to send you rushing into the arms of your algebra homework. MICHAEL ASPEL cued in the clips of dopey infants pondering weighty philosophical topics to the delight of SANDRA DICKINSON, NANETTE NEWMAN and a perenially discomfited KENNETH WILLIAMS.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."I ASKED ASPEL 'WHEN DOES THIS SHOW START?' HE SAID 'WHEN YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH' WHICH GOT A HUGE LAUGH AND LEFT ME WITH EGG ALL OVER THE FACE"
THE CHINESE DETECTIVE
(1981-82)
BBC
GROUNDBREAKY ETHNOSLEUTH twatter with DAVID YIP as Ho, sorting out the Triads from the Tripods in London's much-vaunted melting pot. Little Kung Fu (as you might have expected for that stereotyped age), but plenty of meat-and-spuds violence nevertheless.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."INSCRUTABLE" STEREOTYPE STILL GOING STRONG
WELCOME TO SATURDAY lunchtime and the cracko exploits of two Californian Highway Patrol cops on their bikes, namely Ponch and John, played by raw egg-swallowing LARRY WILCOX and the famously porn-related ERIK ESTRADA. Sub-disco orchestral theme did the business, title-wise.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...PART ONE ALWAYS ENDED WITH "BEEP BEEP! ATTENTION ALL UNITS. CHIPS WILL BE BACK IN A MOMENT"
THE THING IS, you've got this computer, right, which "makes" this comic (somehow), with these various PLAY SCHOOL-esque wackos, including WAYNE JACKMAN, a bloke dressed as dog (Sir Harry's errant son ANDREW SECOMBE) and possibly ELSA O'TOOLE doing various "antics" or other in permanent zany overdrive. Jeremy Isaacs' idea of C4 children's programmes, now God have mercy on us all.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...AND YUP, YOU COULD ACTUALLY BUY THE COMIC
TWO GNOMES who live in the backyard of a fish and chip shop (hence confusing title) pledge to help anyone with a problem who comes along, which was often. Strangely affecting do-good moral mullarkey, featuring outsize sets and TONY AITKEN.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...IT'S UP TO US, APPARENTLY
THE BEEB WERE scraping below the bottom of the barrel here, but what they found wasn't that bad given it involved SIR FRED HARRIS. Either Chockabloke (Fred) or Chockagirl (CAROL LEADER) "checked in" via minuscule buggy to a sort of Fisher-Price Cray mainframe, which they then had to teach simple nursery-rhymes and songs by method of painful repetition. Nice Vocodery singalong theme tune, though.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...OLD KING (PFRRRT) WAS A MERRY OLD (PFRRRT)
CHOCKY/CHOCKY'S CHILDREN/CHOCKY'S CHALLENGE
(1984-86)
THAMES
ADAPTED FROM John Wyndham books that nobody read, this was the story of various "quiet" children who came into telepathic contact with a geometrically-shaped alien resembling those computer bits in The Demon Seed, which then promised unlimited energy or something. Inevitably, nasty grown-ups wanted to exploit it. ANDREW ELLAMS played the (gasp) middle class kid. ED BISHOP, MRS JAMES HERRIOTT and that one from THE BOX OF DELIGHTS looked in. Much namechecking of Atari games consoles and Rubik cubes. Doddery aunt character called, by law, Aunt Cissie.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...CHOCKY...CHOCKY!
CHOPPER SQUAD
(LATE 1970s)
ITV/AUSTRALIA
CHIPS-OF-THE-AIR-'EM-UP, FOLLOWING the exploits of a surf rescue team who employed a blue helicopter with waterski thingies that miraculously let it land on water, a red and white speedboat and a 4x4 (all emblazoned with "SURF RESCUE" down the side, leading to some discussion that the show was called SURF RESCUE) to save stupid idiots who'd got washed out to sea/stuck on a cliff/got buried in sand. Sort of a Baywatch dry-run about twenty years early. And made in Australia.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...PLENTY OF TEARAWAY KIDS (TM) ON HAND
GENTEEL KIDS' music and "antics" show with PETER WEAR and the do-you-see ennamed JUSTIN CASE.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...LATE SATURDAY AFTERNOON ALTERNATIVE TO THE VIDIPRINTER
CHORLTON AND THE WHEELIES
(LATE 1970s)
THAMES
MORE BENIGN surrealism from the boys at Cosgrove-Hall. Titular subjects were avuncular citizens with large heads and tri-axled bodies dwelling in a sort of Antarctic-style two-tier community and ruled over by a King and Queen. Got repeatedly terrorised by a green, huge-chinned witch (Fenella), but always retaliated with a jovial orange Northern dragon called Chorlton Cumhardy in yellow T-shirt ("Tara, little lady!"). BRIAN TRUEMAN narrated in a variety of dazzling accents ranging from Lancastrian for Chorlton and Welsh for the witch to Irish and German respectively for her telescope (Reilly) and spell-book (Claptrap Von Schpilldebeanz, if you please), who frequently took the piss out of her failiures, only to be zapped. Fenella also called upon an army of spies in the form of spiky black balls and toadstools with eyes. Other points of order: strange method of locomotion Fenella used (popping up and down at random through the surface of the Earth); sexual tension between Chorlton and Fenella; and the curious forgettableness of the Wheelies (there was one called Scooter or something, a girl one with a bow, and, er...). Still, a job very well done.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...IF YOU SEE THE WITCH FENELLA DON'T BE WORRIED, 'COS THERE'S NO CAUSE FOR ALARM...HA HA HA HAA!
"SIRE, BISHOP BEEFBROTH has come back: the news is good from Rome." Notoriously shit on-the-fly "adaptation" of Winnie's mammoth History of the English-Speaking Peoples Nobel prizewinning anthology. Done on a shoestring (five blokes in tin hats equals a Roman garrison, the English Civil War becomes ten blokes with sticks in a muddy field). 20 hour-long episodes were a massive disaster. See FINGERBOBS for contemporary low budget TV that worked.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."THE FRENCH BISHOP IS TO BE DISEPISCOPATED IMMEDIATELY." "THAT IS GOOD, GOOD"
NUTS-AND-BOLTS ROUND-UP of the week's big screen business, governed largely by whatever clips Granada had been able to wangle out of the distributors. Which was usually 30 seconds from a live action Disney natural history yarn or something starring Richard Burton that had been released four years ago. BAMBER GASCOIGNE was the first to fill in the gaps with wry commentaries on celluloid happenstance, before bailing out after three months for, in turn, DEREK GRANGER, MICHAEL "MIKE" SCOTT, MIKE "MICHAEL" PARKINSON, MARK "PRODUCED BY" SHIVAS, BRIAN TRUEMAN and, best of all, CLIVE JAMES who only did it because he got to travel up to Manchester on train and eat a British Rail breakfast.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...CLIVE'S INTERVIEW WITH PETER SELLERS INVOLVED EVERYONE ENTERING A HOTEL BY THE ROOF AS, ACCORDING TO PETE, THE FRONT DOOR HAD "BAD KARMA"
TOOTING POPULAR FRONT. ROBERT LINDSAY. Wolfie. Foxy. Police inspector (or something) dad (PETER "GROUTY" VAUGHAN, initially). Bloke in woolly hat. Bloke in woolly 'tache. Ups and dahns of a crap wannabe Che Guevara in Thatcher's New Britain. Any UK citizen in America for Christmas having to fight the urge to shout "Paaah to the people!" when they sing "O, Christmas Tree" understands.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."WOULD YOU LIKE A CUP OF COCOA, FOXY?"
CITY BENEATH THE SEA
(1962)
ABC
BELOW THE WAVES carry-on from the PATHFINDERS team set in the city of Aegira. Starring DR WHO companion Kamelion (GERALD FLOOD) and STEWART GUIDOTTI as journos Bannerman and Blake who get captured while testing a new nuclear sub, the Cyana. Discontent follows, as does an uprising, as does the beautiful CAROLINE BLAKISTON.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...FUTURE SHAPE-CHANGING ROBOT MET SIMILARLY SHORT TERM FATE
SURPRISINGLY LONG-RUNNING Beeb mainstay going out on primetime BBC1 north of Hadrian's Wall and BBC2 below. All BOB "KICK UP THE" BLACK's work and set in a Scottish bank, workplace of Willie Melvin (GERARD KELLY) and half the cast of NAKED VIDEO.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...WILLIE'S HOME WAS BOB'S OWN FLAT
PROTRACTED PERAMBULATION by and about the world's finest antiquated artefacts, namely KENNETH CLARK (not that one), who snooped around lofty cathedrals, art galleries and rich nabobs' palaces in order to show how we're actually quite an intelligent race and far more cultivated than any of that Beatles flower-snorting hair-painting riff-raffery. The whole thing was dreamed up by DAVID ATTENBOROUGH while still in his pen-pushing "Administrator" days as a way of showing off colour television. He also persuaded the Beeb purse-holders to double the budget arguing the finished thing would be so good it was bound to be worth showing twice. Not a rationale that could be applied to Two Pints Of Lager And A Packet Of Crisps.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...SNIFFY
HANDIWORK OF ROY "LAST OF" CLARKE, but before you frantically scroll on this was actually not bad. ROY KINNEAR was a used-car salesman who fails to foresee his own car accident but, upon recovery, discovers he's picked up psychic powers (pity they didn't show up before). Mrs DR WHO, aka SANDRA DICKINSON, was his assistant.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...WHO ALSO TRILLED 'QUE SERA SERA' AS THE THEME TUNE
TEARDROP-SHAPED TOOTLING; shoo-in for best kids puppetry ever made. "When we gaze," would go the narration (Oliver Postgate himself), "deep into the inky black of space, who knows what strange and beautiful things we might find." Cue pink-elephant knitted aliens whistling to each other and making merry with whatever crap floated down onto the surface of their dustbin-lid lined planet. Major, Mother, Grandmother, Small and Tiny made up the clan; Soup Dragon, Froglets, Music Trees and Iron Chicken were their mates. Blue String Pudding flowed, Hoots - walking trumpet things - sounded. And they made a boat that could fly using tunes. Utterly fantastic from start to finish.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."LOOK OUT TINY CLANGER!"
CLAPPERBOARD
(1972-82)
GRANADA
CELLULOID-CENTRED ROUND-UP anchored by dapper CHRIS KELLY in a variety of period knitwear which turned up for six weeks but stayed for a decade. Combination of news, interviews and behind the scenes stuff added up to pretty much your only chance - back then - to see film clips outside of your local Odeon. And SCREEN TEST, of course.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
..."NOW, THE FACT MY BODY SEEMS TO HAVE DISAPPEARED IS AN EFFECT ACHIEVED BY SOMETHING CALLED BLUE SCREEN..."
IN PUNISHMENT for her GAME FOR A LAUGH crimes, SARAH KENNEDY was forced to present this tedious sub-THIS IS YOUR LIFE effort, reuniting B-list celebs with their old school friends and forcing them into a grin when some embarrassing anecdote was revealed. Cheery titles showed the programmes name written in the sand being washed away by the sea as an ELAINE PAIGE-theme sounded. Like a funeral bell.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...NO-ONE WAS WATCHING HER, WATCHING THEM
YET ANOTHER PERIOD COCK-UP (see THE BORGIAS) from a dopey Beeb with not enough money or common sense but plenty of bare breasts at their disposal. Over-daubed RICHARD GRIFFITHS (Pot Belly) cavorts with six (count 'em) Cleopatras and a deluge of bosoms, some of which belonged to MICHELLE NEWELL, CAROLINE MORTIMER and ELIZABETH SHEPHERD.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...SERVANTS GOT COVERED IN GOLD PAINT AS WELL, WHICH COULD'VE BLOODY KILLED THEM (DON'T THEY REMEMBER GOLDFINGER?)
THE CLIFTON HOUSE MYSTERY
(1978)
HTV WEST
BELT-AND-BRACES HORROR business dressed up as child's fare more to disguise iffy production values more than anything. Eponymous structure is newly occupied by a family (replete with Posh Kids, naturally) who then discover co-habitee is a poltergeist. Sealed rooms, glowing Civil War helmets, ancient skeletons, exorcism, eerie coloured lights and self-activating music boxes ensue. 17th century soldier "comes back to life", but is quickly put in cupboard. Kids go on local news. The end.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...IS THAT THE RATTLING OF A CLOSET DOOR OVER THE END CREDITS? NO.
ROBIN "DOCTOR" NEDWELL did little in this tale of ambitious genius Harry Lumsden (no relation to Timothy, though it would've been good if he was) stuck working in an all-night bakery with various wacky subsidiary characters who had no surnames (Ted, Shirley, Reg). Suffice it to say, any scheme of Nedders's to "climb" said ladder saw him right back on roll duty by the end of the half hour.
TV CREAM immortality rating -
...HAD AN IQ OF 165. ROBIN, NOT THE PROGRAMME.
C |
Click to find your programme: |
|