VISION ON SOUND Martin Holmes

MICHAEL HERBERT on DOOMWATCH.



First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on June 16th 2024.



This week’s returning guest from our ever growing group of returning regulars is MICHAEL HERBERT who, you might remember from some earlier editions of VISION ON SOUND, has spent a lot of the last few years researching the life of MALCOLM HULKE, which, of course, because everything in the world of television is all interconnected somehow, means that he comes across other things that interest him, and he got in touch to see if I fancied having a natter about DOOMWATCH.



Now, despite rumours to the contrary, I absolutely adore DOOMWATCH. Perhaps it’s because it simply appeals to my own inflated sense of pessimism, but there’s just something very entertaining about a television series built around the potential disasters that humanity is capable of causing through its own hubris if we allow ourselves to go ahead with our experimentations unchecked and without a certain amount of accountability, and there is an enduring appeal to the stories it told more than half a century ago, many of which still feel very relevant today, when some of the actions of governments and individuals really do feel as if they still need reining in.



Created by DR KIT PEDLER and GERRY DAVIS following their successful collaborations on DOCTOR WHO, and broadcast on the BBC across three series between 1970 and 1972, DOOMWATCH explored new and unusual threats to humanity which were appearing in many ways, as the human race was busily developing the white heat of technology in the post-nuclear age, in a series of stories involving subjects as diverse as plastic-eating viruses, artificial hearts, toxic waste, and rats with a genetically enhanced taste for human flesh.



The series involved the dramatic experiences of the fictional DEPARTMENT FOR THE OBSERVATION AND MEASUREMENT OF SCIENTIFIC WORK – You can see why they preferred to use DOOMWATCH as a title – as they attempted to protect the world from the dangers of unprincipled scientific research, as they were set up “to investigate any scientific research, public or private, that could possibly be harmful to man” which basically meant that DOCTOR SPENCER QUIST and his team were often irritants to those who were heavily invested in the steady march of progress.



No change there then.



Starring JOHN PAUL, JOBY BLANCHARD and SIMON OATES, amongst others, the series made a star of ROBERT POWELL, whose character TOBY WREN’s untimely demise at the end of the first series sent shockwaves through the pages of the RADIO TIMES in a way that the serious concerns being talked about in the storylines seldom did.



It may surprise you just how many of the stories told in this series seem to be about things humanity has only recently begun to have concerns about, when the writers involved were trying to warn us about it decades ago, but, well, that’s human beings for you, isn’t it?



PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.

STEVE HATCHER considers the TV life of HADLEIGH.



First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on June 9th 2024.



A few weeks ago on VISION ON SOUND, STEVE HATCHER took us on a brief tour through the television lives of several characters who were the kind of testosterone-fuelled monsters that used to inhabit the boardrooms and bedrooms of those high-profile dramas of the sixties and seventies whose dodgy dealings and shady shenanigans somehow came to define the notion of what the world of big business resembled for generations of viewers.



It was in VISION ON SOUND 186, if you are the kind of listener who might want to look that sort of thing up.



One character who was initially on that list ultimately didn’t manage to make the cut as he turned out - unexpectedly - to be rather too nice to be included on such a list, and that was JAMES HADLEIGH, as played by former ADAM ADAMANT GERALD HARPER, across four incredibly popular series of a show which was created by ROBERT BARR and ultimately consisted of 52 hour-long episodes (unsurprisingly titled HADLEIGH), which was produced by Yorkshire Television that ran across the ITV network between 1969 and 1976.



HADLEIGH told of the various ups and downs in the life of the local squire – something I’m sure we can all relate to - as he protects the welfare of his tenants in the role of a kind of knight in shining armour, correcting social injustices from behind the wheel of his Aston Martin as one description would have it, although it’s probably more about HADLEIGH’s financial trials and tribulations, and the ups and downs of a complicated personal life, all of which seemed to become compulsive viewing for anything up to 17 million viewers during the years that it was being broadcast.



Also, as STEVE will explain, the HADLEIGH series was itself a sequel to a very different hour-long drama series that was also created by ROBERT BARR and produced by YTV in 1968, GAZETTE, which was an altogether much harder-hitting and more working class drama based around the activities of a local newspaper based in the north.



Anyway, as STEVE’s now finished watching all of HADLEIGH’s televised adventures, he thought it might be fun to come back onto the show and discuss what he made of a series that he actually found quite compelling viewing despite it sounding like it really would not exactly be his cup of Earl Grey in a bone china teacup at all.



PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.

PAUL CHANDLER considers his TV happiness.



First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on June 2nd 2024



This week PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI himself is back once again for another of our cosy chats that might take the subject of television as its starting point, but then plays fast and loose with the self-imposed restrictions VISION ON SOUND has set itself.



I was in something of a downbeat, sombre mood when I arranged to talk to PAUL, and so I thought that I might try something slightly more philosophical than our usual run through his most recent archive TV discoveries, or something fresh, new, and exciting that he was going to try and persuade me of the virtues of, and, instead, I thought that I might try and get PAUL to help me pin down what it is about the kind of television he watches, or his interest in the subject of television itself, that brings joy and happiness into his world, in another of our experimental formats that are usually for one week only.



As ever, by the end of the hour, I’m not sure that we come to any real conclusions really, but PAUL takes us on a very personal journey through the friendships that he has made by sharing his love of certain television shows with other people, and tells us a little bit about some of the creative elements in his life that have come about from simply having an interest in the process of making television.



Anyway, I hope that you enjoy what he has to say in this week’s edition, and, should our conversation inspire you to want to take part in a similar discussion, feel free to get in touch with me via @visiononsound1 in the social media service formerly known as TwitWorld.



PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.

LISA PARKER on DIXON OF DOCK GREEN and more!



This week’s returning guest from our panel of returning regulars is LISA PARKER from the ROUND THE ARCHIVES podcast who volunteered to take part in another of our more random chats which sometimes happen when there’s not much going on in the wider world of ever decreasing telly appreciation circles, at least nothing much that I’m paying all that much attention to.



But things have been getting rather exciting lately with regards to the rediscovery of missing television, and whilst we can’t quite get the flags and bunting out because the entire missing ABC archive hasn’t turned up, there are still those occasional golden nuggets that are found that give some of us jaded old hands just a little bit of hope that there are indeed still many archive TV gems to be found out there.



And so, knowing that LISA is a big fan of crime dramas, and has been something of a champion when it comes to advocating just how good DIXON OF DOCK GREEN is in the face of much suggestion of its perceived air of cosiness (often from many who’ve never bothered to watch it), it was something of a joy when TPTV announced the discovery of DUFFY CALLS THE TUNE from its fifth series in 1959, one of those finds from the missing episodes of 1950s telly that are just about as rare as hen’s teeth, and unfortunately, mess with the previously neat mathematics of missing DIXONS.



Perhaps more amazing too is the fact that TPTV were allowed to actually broadcast the episode very quickly after its discovery, and make it available to all of exactly the sort of viewers who are most eager to see such newly rediscovered gems.



So anyway, with LISA (and, you may notice, a sleeping cat) in place, it didn’t take long before we got talking about this find, DIXON OF DOCK GREEN in general, and several other topics across a free-flowing hour of exactly the kind of telly-related chat that VISION ON SOUND is here to provide.



First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on May 26th 2024



PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.

SANDY McGREGOR considers those ROCK FOLLIES.



First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on May 19th 2024



This week SANDY McGREGOR returns and, wearing his incisive musical expertise hat, he’s going to talk us through the various madnesses that are the ROCK FOLLIES, a BAFTA award-winning drama series about the experiences of women in the music business which starred CHARLOTTE CORNWELL as ANNA, JULIE COVINGTON as DEE, and RULA LENSKA as Q, a series which was made by THAMES TELEVISION, first broadcast in 1976, with a sequel ROCK FOLLIES OF 77 the following year.



PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.

STEVE HATCHER looks at some of the more obscure 1960s sitcoms.



First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on May 12th 2024



This week, STEVE HATCHER returns and we’re going to start a short occasional series in which STEVE talks about some of the more obscure or forgotten sitcoms of the 1960s.



Whilst we’re all probably rather over familiar with the more famous sitcoms of that era, the likes of HANCOCK”S HALF HOUR, STEPTOE AND SON, and DAD”S ARMY were all on TV during that decade, and rightly went on to become mainstays of the conversations we as a nation often have about the comedy of that era, we do sometimes neglect many of the lesser known TV comedies that were on during that rather innovative decade.



Several have, of course, been quite rightly forgotten because they were awful, and many suffer from the problem that is the bane in the lives of many archive TV enthusiasts, in that they were largely wiped, but, as STEVE explains, amongst the ones that do at least partially survive, there’s rather a lot of largely forgotten TV gold to be found.



Well, I say forgotten, but this week’s selection include several very familiar and even rather iconic TV sitcom titles, but I do sometimes suspect that even these are largely forgotten in the wider world as they are all from the nineteen sixties, were mostly shot in black and white, and haven’t enjoyed quite as much exposure over the years as some of the more well-known comedies of the 1970s have enjoyed as their repeats endlessly cycle around.



So today we’ll be talking about the demob happy BOOTSIE AND SNUDGE, the workplace trials of THE RAG TRADE, the domestic travails of MARRIAGE LINES, and the age old battles of GEORGE AND THE DRAGON, along with a few other shows that happen to get mentioned along the way.



STEVE’s drawn up a list of around fourteen of these kinds of shows for us to talk about, and, given that this first hour only covered around four of them, I suspect that we will be returning to the topic at least a couple more times as the year rolls along, so you’ve all got that to look forward to over the coming weeks.



PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.