VISION ON SOUND

Martin Holmes

ADVENTURES IN TWENTIETH CENTURY TELEVISION... AND BEYOND...!Where the television of the past… …becomes the conversation of the present.Join us as we take a nostalgic journey through the television vaults, and my guests and I investigate, discover, enjoy, and chat about a whole world of televisual delights, with some occasional nonsense thrown in from time-to-time.

  1. VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 283 - TX APRIL 19 2026

    3D AGO

    VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 283 - TX APRIL 19 2026

    STEVE HATCHER on OUR FRIENDS IN THE NORTH (part one of two). First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on April 19th 2026. OUR FRIENDS IN THE NORTH was an epic drama series produced by the BBC in 1996. Written by PETER FLANNERY and based upon his own stage play, it consisted of nine 63 to 75 minute episodes, each of which charted events in a particular year in the lives of four friends from Tyneside as they survived the ups and downs of their complex, interconnected, and political experiences across three turbulent decades from 1964 to 1995. Often heart-breaking, but also occasionally life-affirming, it’s been argued that this series does a lot to confirm some suspicions that it’s grim up north, but it starred (and arguably made stars of) CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON, GINA McKEE, MARK STRONG and DANIEL CRAIG as NICKY, MARY, TOSKER and GEORDIE respectively, and weaved tales of corruption in local government and the police force, as well as documenting the effects of civil turmoil and several destructive political choices, and how they affected the lives of these four particular northern friends as they grew older. Also featuring a host of notable actors, and featuring star turns from PETER VAUGHN and FREDA DOWIE as NICKY’S troubled parents, this production cost £8 MILLION to make which famously consumed half of the entire drama budget of BBC2 for the year. Earlier this year STEVE HATCHER had been eagerly devouring this series and posting his thoughts about it on FACEBOOK, and offered to talk about the series with me for VISION ON SOUND. Naturally, this gave us a lot to talk about, and we over-ran somewhat, so this week we’ll be talking about the first half of the story, and next week we’ll come back and do it all again to cover the second part, as well as the radio remake from 2022 which attempted to bring the story up to date. 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.

    52 min
  2. VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 282 - TX APRIL 12 2026

    APR 12

    VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 282 - TX APRIL 12 2026

    WARREN CUMMINGS joins me to talk all about the strange and peculiar history of BBC2, Hullaballoo and Custard. First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on April 12th 2026. 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.

    1 hr
  3. VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 281 - TX APRIL 5 2026

    APR 5

    VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 281 - TX APRIL 5 2026

    PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI himself talks about his memories of watching TOP OF THE POPS First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on April 5th 2026. 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.

    1 hr
  4. VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 280 - TX MARCH 29 2026

    MAR 29

    VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 280 - TX MARCH 29 2026

    WARREN CUMMINGS joins me to talk about TV spin-offs First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on March 29th 2026. This week WARREN CUMMINGS is back, and he wanted to talk all about TV spin-offs, which we do sort of manage to do, although I go off on a lot of tangents and spin-offs of my own which somehow all seems rather appropriate. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it, once I’ve fired up those trusty FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL time engines once again and transported you to a sunny new location in which HOLMES AND CUMMINGS INVESTIGATE… 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.

    1 hr
  5. VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 279 - TX MARCH 22 2026

    MAR 22

    VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 279 - TX MARCH 22 2026

    MICHAEL HERBERT joins me to talk about TIMESLIP First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on March 22nd 2026. TIMESLIP was a children’s science fiction series made by ATV for the ITV network back in the early nineteen-seventies. It starred CHERYL BURFIELD as Liz Skinner and SPENCER BANKS as Simon Randall, two teenage actors who manage to hold their own playing against some of the finest television character actors working at that time, including DENNIS QUILLEY, JOHN BARRON, DEREK BENFIELD, IRIS RUSSELL, DAVID GRAHAM and IAIN FAIRBAIRN. Running across twenty-four episodes made in full colour (most of which now only survive in black & white), and consisting of four serials of thought-provoking, philosophical, and time-jumping adventures (THE WRONG END OF TIME, THE TIME OF THE ICE BOX, THE YEAR OF THE BURN UP and THE DAY OF THE CLONE), the series ran from September 1970 through to March 1971, and is fondly remembered by the generation that sat down after school to enjoy it and found that it somehow managed to sear itself into their memories and stimulate their imagination. This week an old friend of the show, MICHAEL HERBERT, got in touch to tell me that he’d been watching TIMESLIP, and wondered if I might want to talk about it. Naturally I’m always happy when someone suggests a topic for VISION ON SOUND, and today’s edition is the result of the conversation we had which, whilst prompted by TIMESLIP did take us off in other directions to discuss other television series that had a similar style. As ever, when your chat involves a certain amount of spontaneity, and you’re working without copious notes, sometimes facts and memories can get a little confused. So I apologise in advance if any of the details got a little fuzzy, but the enthusiasm for what the show was about does, I hope, still shine through, and we’ll put the rest down to interference via the fourth dimension. Incidentally, the TIMESLIP event that I mentioned is on APRIL the 18th at the QUAD in Derby, if you want to find out more just head over to their website derbyquad.co.uk/events 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.

    1 hr
  6. VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 278 - TX MARCH 15 2026

    MAR 15

    VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 278 - TX MARCH 15 2026

    PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI, on TV shows that moved from black & white into colour. First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on March 15th 2026. This week PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI himself is back, and he suggested for our archive telly-related topic this week, we might want to discuss TV shows that started off in black and white, but then successfully survived into the colour era, and whether or not something changed about those shows in any significant way due to the introduction of colour. This was prompted by PAUL’s continuing exploration of some of the Australian archive TV shows that we have covered in some of his recent appearances, but also covers shows like the original LOST IN SPACE, VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, DARK SHADOWS, THE AVENGERS, BEWITCHED, DOCTOR WHO, PUBLIC EYE, CALLAN, and STEPTOE AND SON, all of which are at least name-checked during our conversation, and managed to a lesser or greater extent to be produced in both formats, and some of which did seem to feel like very different shows once the full spectrum was added. We also wonder whether some Black & White classics like THE TWILIGHT ZONE would have benefitted from being seen in colour, and how significant it was when films and programmes made in glorious colour were experienced on our old black & white TVs. 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.

    59 min
  7. VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 277 - TX MARCH 8 2026

    MAR 8

    VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 277 - TX MARCH 8 2026

    STEVE HATCHER on remakes of classic cop shows. First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on March 8th 2026. There’s been a tendency in recent years for modern television makers to take a long, hard look at the archives and realise that some older television series were actually once quite popular, and think to themselves that they quite fancy a bit of that kind of success and brand recognition, and so they decide to remake, repackage, reimagine, or reboot some of those brilliant old ideas for more modern television audiences, and perhaps one of the more popular genres for drawing this kind of attention had been the crime or police drama series. For example, even as I was writing this intro, ITV announced that a new version of DALZIEL AND PASCOE was in the works, to add to a growing list suggesting that everything old is new again. I suppose this isn’t really all that surprising, considering just how many cop shows have filled the schedules over the long history of television, but sometimes it does start to seem as if there really are very few new ideas out there, or that the viewers these days, like with their supermarket shopping only really trust something that is wearing a familiar brand name. So, whilst new variations on the police drama, often involving quirky detectives living on houseboats, or crossword compilers and little old ladies helping the police with their enquiries, are popping up all the time these days, many of the new shows somehow seem more than a little bit familiar… 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.

    59 min
  8. VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 276 - TX MARCH 1 2026

    MAR 1

    VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 276 - TX MARCH 1 2026

    PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI discovers THE PERSUADERS! First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on March 1st 2026. This week PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI himself, is back yet again, to discuss a show that rather neatly complements his most recent appearance on VISION ON SOUND where he wanted to talk about the humour of THE AVENGERS. This led him to finally try out an early 1970s TV show which you might be surprised to find he had never actually seen before, which to many of its fans perhaps represents the very pinnacle of the ITC adventure series, the high-budget, high-glamour, glossy series THE PERSUADERS! which starred ROGER MOORE as LORD BRETT SINCLAIR and TONY CURTIS as DANNY WILDE, a pair of rich, womanising international playboys who were recruited by JUDGE FULTON to redirect their wastrel energies into the pursuit of justice and the righting of criminal wrongs across 24 action-packed episodes, first broadcast in autumn 1971 and which, by coming across as being the kind of must-see television that also filtered through into comics and other media managed to make an indelible impact on the children and parents of several nations. And whilst those 24 episodes might not seem all that many, these programmes had all the quality to match the feature films of the time and all looked rather fantastic, meaning that the series, whilst not becoming the huge American hit its producers were hoping for, was still nevertheless, an enormous success across Europe. 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.

    1 hr
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About

ADVENTURES IN TWENTIETH CENTURY TELEVISION... AND BEYOND...!Where the television of the past… …becomes the conversation of the present.Join us as we take a nostalgic journey through the television vaults, and my guests and I investigate, discover, enjoy, and chat about a whole world of televisual delights, with some occasional nonsense thrown in from time-to-time.

Information

  • Creator
    Martin Holmes
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    296
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Martin Holmes
  • Show Website
    VISION ON SOUND

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