The Reaches of all Branches.. Fact or Fiction?

Over the past months we have seen what has happened in Operation Yewtree, court cases heard and tried. But what exactly has gone on, in all this we have seen performers go from one end of spectrum to the other. As such I felt it is the right time to tell you my experience, many years ago I was an autograph collector writing to celebrities to get them before Yewtree happened. During this I did write to Stuart Hall and Rolf Harris for their autographs, I realize there will be people questioning why I did this, some will be shocked and other will decry this. 

But whatever you think I am not holding them up to be idols or hate figures, only telling you my experience of this. Am I embarrassed that I did this, no. Am I pleased that I did this, no.  Maybe some people may not think this is a position at all, but there maybe other people who did the same over the years. By the wave of social media, there have been jokes, there has been opinion and debate over it all. Though where does it leave us now? At anything like this, jokes will be made, plus video clips have been drawn on to say they are banned or comments made as to alter what something might be. 

How things are read is something as well, a sketch by Not The Nine O'Clock showing children being rounded up to be taken see 'Rolf on Saturday, OK' has now got a another meaning although the original meaning was that the show was boring and they had to ship children in to be in the audience. Though how do we know that John Lloyd and Sean Hardy were not saying something else, but with them including Chris Langham as part of their original line-up for the show and knowing the knowledge about himself now. Should they be criticized for making part of their show?

Sometimes after the event things can be reflected on as such, where as Operation Yewtree ten years down, what will be the thoughts of people. How do we know that people now are doing what went on back then? We do not know, as they did in the past. In hindsight we can use what we know know, however the press who built up the celebrities and reputations have knocked them down.

Though is this self-justifcation on their part, almost a cleansing of the soul. The programmes of those who have been convicted will never get seen again, but can we just leave a blank space where once things existed? Naturally enough, people of the future will ask why, as such with the Second World War that period has not been blanked. So why should this period be blanked as well? There maybe not want to be understanding about this, which is fair enough as people also want to understanding. 

In darker times we have gone through things to be healed on the other side, but like any fresh wound, if poked healing cannot start. As much we will be reminded through satire about what has gone in this period with the likes of Charlie Brooker skimming the surface for jokes, there can be only so much which can be got out of a subject or event. 

Myself, do I question every day why I did what I did? Maybe, somethings you have to live with because what happens in the future, either good or bad nobody can tell.

Jack's Bean and gone...

So here we are, the first of my 12 bits leading up to Christmas. Taking the festive season and making it drink so much Egg Nog and Absinthe, that come Boxing Day it'll be wondering about a recipe for scrambled eggs...

Starting off with...

1. Pantomines...

"He's behind you!" The regular call heard at theatres up and down the country over December and Early January, usually when someone's drink is split... Either that the refrain of children excited by sweets and also a character searching for someone. The panto has developed over the years from the early Harlequinade to today's sophisticated lights and music shows, in modern times the attraction is the stars who are in the panto itself. Taking its lead from Music Hall, the great entertainers have always appeared. From Pop stars to comedians and sports stars, they have each done their turns. Each story in turn has been adapted for the major star to show off their talent, for instance Rolf Harris would do his Jake the Peg act in the middle of Cinderella. Which bears no relationship to the plot itself, but it gave the chance to for others to shine. 


The dame is a key role in any pantomine, acting as a foil for the comical turn such as Buttons but also entertaining the audience in themself. The role has been filled with performers with the magnitude of  Chris Harris famous in the South for his time presenting 'Hey Look That's Me!' but also the quality of Les Dawson, Dawson is the master of the dame. His style, the demeanour and also the way he sells the role to the audience.... A true pro...

In myself, my experiences of panto are sort of mixed really from the Kings Theatre in Portsmouth seeing the great stars performing and getting up on stage with Brian Cant to tell an awful joke. But in meeting the great man was enough, but in that same performance... Major embarassment... When Lorraine Chase was playing Aladdin and was at a crucial scene when she finds the lamp originally, guess who shouted at the top of his voice as the lone voice "Rub the Lamp!" Which she replied "Thanks..." I could have nearly died, thinking back on it... Not the best move at all... Thinking over all the stars I saw in panto, it encouraged my love of Light Entertainment...

"Its Bobby Davro... Who?"

This gem comes from 2009 when Bobby Davro, and Mickey Rooney starred in panto in Milton Keynes... Milton Keynes isn't funny in itself, but it comes from the tradition of the stars being put into the panto who maybe don't fit as such... When Frank Bruno went into panto, it was because he was famous for his boxing but with the trend for reality stars now it seems that panto has changed into a vehicle for people who may have been on the television soon enough. The nature of this has been shown in the previous year when Britt Ekland came out of the jungle and to the Kings Theatre, it might be good publicity for the show itself. But with the currency of this, it leads to more people coming to the theatre and also something as such with their effect. 

So what else is there? Maybe a bit of festive time ads, involving panto... This from 1987 with Children's ITV , in which it feels right to be involved with panto time...

More fun here on Saturday... Enjoy people!

A quizzical situation...

In these times of the credit crunch everyone is feeling the pinch, especially the television industry. So it comes down to what ideas are cost effective and usually the solution lies in mass producible programmes such as Deal or No Deal and Countdown leading to monster runs of each basically spanning the whole year.
The phenomenal success of Pointless shows that a stranded show in the schedule puts the channel into a position where they can control what they want to do.  In the re-runs of early Pointless on Challenge, the seed is sewed as far the game is so addictive and being able to play along at home, which any quiz is giving its back teeth for.

ITV have experimented somewhat more then the BBC by re-introducing The Price Is Right with Joe Pasquale some time ago. But everyone knows about Golden Balls and Weakest Links of this world, though if it gets worse what shows will be brought back?

Here we ponder at the lesser lights which could fill up a wet Wednesday afternoon against Dickinson’s Real Deal...


Takeover Bid (BBC 1)
The Brucie lead vehicle of the late 80’s and early 90’s when he came back to the BBC, encouraging players to steal prizes off their opponents. Quite right for these times when it seems like every other company is taking over everyone else, so why not have that business-like jolly uncle turned entertainment host Gerry Robinson takes over the role of quizmaster plus with the added bonus of Adam ‘Shaw’s Shares’ Shaw as the glamorous assistant. “Your prizes value may go up or down owing to market conditions….”


Talkabout (ITV 1)
Verbally adept game show once introduced by future Peep Show executive producer Andrew O’Connor is brought up by Simon Cowell’s Syco TV in which the self appointed entertainment guru ditches the game and makes up the rules as he goes along. Contestants are punished if they don’t talk about The X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent or any show presented by Ant’n’Dec, the show is given a trillion week monster run by ITV as they see the potential to use a phone vote to get rid of the contestants one by one…

  Lucky Ladders (ITV 1)
Presented by the woman from the accident claim line adverts. As contestants come on and claim for such things as a loose fitting pen lid to a violent sneezing fit because the waitress in a Little Chef dropped the pepper. If their claim is suitable enough they are given thousands which they have to pay back eventually at double the rate of inflation…

"Gordon Bennett! No it's actually Lennie in fact..."

The Travel Quiz (BBC 1)
Contestants are giving the chance to win pictures of all the destinations that they cannot travel, all to due to the rising costs of air fuel. Due to copyright restriction, only pictures of British seaside resorts maybe used thanks to a dusty box of photos left over from Holiday ’78 found in a cupboard at the back of BBC canteen behind tins of semolina and prunes. (Andi “Ow, that’s rather hot isn’t it?” Peters not included…)




That’s My Dog (ITV 1)
Ironic twist gameshow, where half the staff of Heat Magazine are charged with
trying to control certain nightclub *ahem* beauties and keep them from getting
too merry before filming whilst Derek Hobson tries to reflect where his career has
gone and why they have turned the South-West’s number one produced gameshow
into a scene from Footballer’s Wives…



If that the case of being funny, by suggesting them its a serious business that people will tell you in the number of quiz shows have been piloted for BBC and ITV, with The Weakest Link leaving us soon, it brings into focus that when a format finishes, the next idea has to be ready to go....

So when they've started I'll finish and hopefully it'll be a starter for ten...

Shame about the show...

What makes a show real? Realism or a mixture of stories with something to say? Now Shameless has reached 100 shows, it has changed drama and made a debate about how it should be. Some people may see it as chavs and naer-do-wells upto no good while other may see it as the best drama in a long time. In terms of kitchen sink drama it has pushed the boundaries to the edge, learning that the basis for its drama should be what people see everyday. Of course people don't always live on a council estate, they may live in the country or in a town, but they can recognise characters they know in a show.

But these types of dramas have always tried to hold a mirror upto the nation at various time and said "Have a good look at yourself and see what you see.." Now people may not like what they see, other may see themselves and others may start to see what they are becoming. Through films such as Kes and also Saturday Night and Sunday Morning which reflected a realism which people were crying out for in the 1960's and 1970's came through a spirit, almost akin to their own properties. As we look at the 80's for example with Alan Bleasdale's Boys from the Blackstuff, showing the situation with employment as people got laid off from jobs and had to fight to survive in the atmosphere which had been created at that time. The mantra of Yosser Hughes being 'Gissa Job' was never so true at those times.

Fast forwarding to today, Shameless fills the gap where once costume drama would have filled and the characters are as compelling as any in Dallas. For Frank Gallacher, has become an idol to some but also a clarion call to others. Through the riots recently, people were screaming about this, that and everything. It is convient to show people reclaiming their cities when they think its appropriate, but for the small person it doesn't hold much truck to them. I wouldn't say that it could be claimed that I was a chav myself but in Shameless its the need for something which exists in our minds only. The need for putting everyone in the same box, there are good and bad people out there, never I could say that in judgement I could pick everyone on either side. I might be right, I might be wrong... It might be Shameless to say, that Shameless has pushed the boundaries again...

Off course you can...

Some people may question where about the quest and thirst for knowledge comes from, what makes up someone who wants to learn more and more. I will admit I've never been the most intelligent of beings, but I've always had a thirst for learning new things. After leaving school as a 16 yr old with no GCSE's this made me want to know more about the media and the industry surrounding it. Fine, I could read TV listings from a young age but I wanted to know about the companies behind the programmes and the people who made them.

Like many things nowadays, anything like this is seen in the newspapers as quirky and odd. These stories come with a 'Good for a Laugh' image, but I don't never see this as that. Since I have been tweeting I have learned more and more from various people and their knowledge of such things, where as I would have looked at a book and read now I can discuss with people about all angles of an industry set up to inform, educated and entertain us. 

Learning such information on my own seems like a little triumph for myself, knowing that I can know something that it might not be 100% right, but just the knowledge of knowing that particular fact. Then again some of the most influential people in the media and entertainment sphere have search for that knowing all their lives. By example Jeremy Beadle was supplying information to shows, Bob Monkhouse built up a huge collection of videos of shows and other items as well. We all want to be able to say 'Here's something that you don't know...' Maybe such not as pub trivia but being able to impart knowledge to other people each and every day. I read mostly reference books and autobiographies of people and have done all through my life, knowing what people have been through to get where they are today. A good true life story is as good as a fictional one, where as you could say that you couldn't make it up at all. 

By using this knowledge I can impart thing onto other people and help them in whatever I do, even by doing this and passing on little bits of knowledge to the likes of Iain Lee and Danny Baker, if they used them that was upto to them. But knowing I can provide a little bit of trivia and knowledge with what I do, it makes an audience sit up and listen. I'm not saying that I'm no memory champion as such, but when you are given a hand of cards to be able to sit in front of a television set, it'll be used to do so.

I was never going to be a world champion being able to kick a ball around, but knowing that Mickey Dolenz  

directed Metal Mickey, that's one thing I will take with me....

Sign here, here and here...

The article in question...

Back the turn of the century, I was an chap full of ideals looking to get into the media. Having stumbled into hospital radio, it was ambitious time maybe spreading my wings away from a Monday afternoon radio show. So how do you ask for advice when you don't come from a media family?

In the 80's my eldest brother brought a very early edition of Who's Who on Television and from that there was so much to learn, not only about the people inside but also contacts of who to write to. Really this was my inspiration, maybe with a touch of desperation in there too.

After searching, I bought myself a copy of said book to see what I get from it. Apart from addresses, a lot as it turned out. When just looking at this tome, a thought came into my mind. Could I wrote to all the people in this book and get an autograph from them, thus turning on the charm and praising celebrities to the hilt. From this came autographs from the likes of Rolf, Melvyn Bragg and even Lou Carpenter himself... All people I admired from the television, but my record Hale and Pace aren't on television any more and the less said about Angus Deayton the better!

So on 29th May 2000, came first my autograph... So I thought, but it was something more...

A hand signed letter from Arabella Weir, from this I was tickled pink that she would take the time to do this...

The onslaught of ink continued, which got me think who was the best person to go to for advice. The one man who had been there for me through my life...

Hello again!

John Craven was always a influence on me, watching him on Saturday morning and also on Newsround as well. The plunge taken I wrote off with in trepidation thinking he was too big for likes of me, but then this arrived with said photo.

The nicest guy in the world...

This gave me the boost to go on and start on a path towards media, I did hospital radio till 2004. Then we sort of drifted apart and from that Televisual Cabbage was born to indulge the comedy side but if it wasn't for John Craven's kind words I wouldn't have had the confidence to go further...