Cult TV Blog

I have decided to make this the last post in my current Documentary Season, purely to try to keep it in some sort of control. There are of course loads of other documentaries sitting on my hard drive that I want to write about - in fact I might do a Home of Your Own series of posts which they would fit in - but I don't want it to take over the blog for now. Hence I will attach some conclusions to this series of posts in this post. Apart from anything else I've had a bit much of reality for the present and am gagging for the unreality I usually see on TV. This documentary is about the Ashwood Day Centre, a day centre for people with mental health needs, in Leeds, and was made by the University of Leeds in 1982. This documentary has one serious defect, which isn't a reason not to watch it because seeing the day centre and the interviews with the service users is fascinating, which is that it doesn't include a formal statement of who runs the day centre and what it specifi...

So far I've been good and stuck to my self-imposed rule of doing TV documentaries for this series of posts, but y'all knew I would never stick to that. And so here we have Murray Grigor's 1972 16mm film called Space and Light, about Cardross Seminary, just outside Glasgow. It's available to be seen on youtube  here . You may wonder what makes me think it's documentary enough to be included here, because it's rather unusual. In fact the more unusual features are what I think make it an absolute masterpiece of documentary. It is short, for a start, just over twenty minutes. Not one word of dialogue or interview is spoken, the only sounds you hear are music specially composed for it based on the Veni Creator Spiritus sequence for Pentecost and odd snatches of what is happening in the scenes shown. Instead what you get is the visuals alone with no description of any sort. And it's glorious. Absolutely glorious. The seminary is a sort of architect's wet dream...

I have literally just come across this series of BBC podcasts and have gone out of my mind for them. Please don't be put off and think it's overdone if I tell you that they are about a podcast about true crime called the Mystery Machine podcast, and what happens when the two hosts, Martin Heawood and Kennedy Fisher, get involved in a series of adventures inspired by HP Lovecraft's stories. It is true to say that it could be seen as a bit meta because of course it does refer to the podcast they produce, but it isn't arty farty. It takes plot elements of one Lovecraft story each series, and transplants them to England, mixing in elements of the occult, folklore, history, espionage, ufology, mythology.... Trust me, if you love The X-Files you'll love this podcast, this is like The X-Files on acid. I pride myself on my extensive knowledge of weird shit and even I had to keep looking up things that they'd brought up and I had never heard of. The podcast is available ...

I still feel very bad that I have recently been so critical of Sapphire and Steel's third television assignment, and as you apparently do when you feel as if you've just murdered your grandmother, I need to make it up. The Passenger actually isn't TV (since when did I stay on topic?) but is the first audio Sapphire and Steel adventure that Big Finish released back in 2005. Since it isn't TV and since I'm also aware that it's now rather rare and people may not have easy access to it I'm going to confine myself to one post to blog about it. I would recommend  here as an excellent summary of the plot and another review. The reason I was so critical of Assignment 3 was that it was waaay too complicated and introduced far too many complicating elements while also spending far too much time in emphasising how confusing it was, before resolving the plot with a leg of pork. I'm not writing it off, because if it wasn't worth watching in my opinion it wouldn...

The advantage of themed series of posts is they keep my grasshopper mind on the subject and the disadvantage is they don't necessarily represent what I'm watching and detract from the principle that I blog about what I'm actually watching. Hence a sort of round up post of some things I have been watching and some things I've just discovered. Some of these might get a post of their own as well. When I was doing the posts about orphaned episodes it brought home to me that it is important not to give a show or a film the same name as another one. Obviously we know all about this problem with The Avengers, but it turns out there was a TV comedy show between 1983 and 1988 called  Who Dares Wins . Even at the time that name was a mistake because since it is the motto of the SAS it had already been used by  this  film, and has since been used by  this  TV show and then  this  one. What is wrong with you people? You might think you're giving your show a punchy...

I am sure that readers are familiar with  The Goon Show , despite its being a radio show. There were several attempts to translate its humour to other media - TV in this case and a film called  Down Among the Z Men  spring to mind. There were a couple of TV series - I'm thinking of doing a series of posts on orphaned episodes, in which case A Show Called Fred will definitely appear.  This isn't strictly speaking TV, but for the sake of this post I am going to stretch the definition of TV to anything you sit and watch, and this was originally a supporting short for the cinema. It's also something I know will appeal to people who like cult TV so I think it can be allowed. Mukkinese Battle-Horn also to my mind feels like a TV programme, but that may be because of its short length. It also feels like a TV show because one of my heroes, the comic legend Dick Emery, replaces Harry Secombe in The Goons line-up. The plot is a parody mystery taken from the files of Scotland Y...

I love a 1970s sex comedy, me. Obviously this means I'm deeply superficial but the reason this one is appearing here is because I love it so it deserves one of my rare posts about non-TV subjects. Actually it's not completely unrelated, because this film shows what was going on in the cinematic world outside the more-controlled world of TV. I have commented before about the war which went on at this time about the nature of what is shown in media. Mary Whitehouse's Clean Up TV campaign started in 1964, and while this film is very far from being porn (it depicts boobs and bums and frequent casual sex) the material in this film is clearly a step on from anything you can see in the TV of the time. Given that Mrs Whitehouse already wanted to clean up TV she must have already thought that what it was showing was unacceptable. I must confess to being somewhat mystified that she campaigned against broadcasting footage of the liberation of Belsen (footage she described as filth) an...

I have to come clean at this point - I haven't seen any of the other films in this series but I found them for sale at a price I was prepared to pay and chose this one because it features a railway station. In the unlikely event that my televisually literate readers haven't come across this series, here is somebody else's account of what they are about: The first unofficial Doctor Who spinoff video was  Wartime , in 1988.  This was made by Reeltime Pictures, known for their  Myth Makers  interview tapes, and is the only one of its kind that was made while Doctor Who was still on television.  Their second effort was  Downtime , in 1995, which we will be looking at soon, probably the best known unofficial spinoff.  The point of these things mainly was to fill the gap left by Doctor Who when it went off air in 1989, to give the fans something new.  Another company was also doing the same kind of thing in the 90s: BBV, which stands for Bill Baggs Vide...

I have rarely had the opportunity to write about 1950s TV here and I'm not really doing so now, since I'm writing about the Hammer film which used the original TV series as its source. This 1953 series is a legend in the world of cult TV: Originally comprising six half-hour episodes, it was the first science fiction production to be written especially for a British adult television audience.[1] Previous written-for-television efforts such as Stranger from Space (1951–52) were aimed at children, whereas adult entries into the genre were adapted from literary sources, such as R.U.R. (1938 and again in 1948) and The Time Machine (1949).[2] The serial was the first of four Quatermass productions to be screened on British television between 1953 and 1979. It was transmitted live from the BBC's original television studios at Alexandra Palace in London, one of the final productions before BBC television drama moved to west London. As well as spawning various remakes and sequels, T...

We have lost a couple of actors already this year, who will be well known to the readers of this blog. Tim Brooke-Taylor succumbed to Covid-19, and I feel that is the reason his death has had a higher profile. I have recently featured him in drag  here  and you can read a tribute to him by Grant Goggins  here . Instead I have chosen to post about Honor Blackman and feature a film of hers contemporary with The Avengers. Serena has what is a rather simple plot under the surface  and cunningly hidden by layers of deceit and confusion. This film really does take a few viewings to sort out what is happening. I am going to say as little as possible about the plot, but I do have a few films I think are out of a similar mould to The Avengers but have not so far got round to doing a post about them. This one has very much the same atmosphere as the early Avengers. It is set in a rather Bohemian setting, based around an artist whose wife will not divorce him because she's...

I am accustomed to saying that the world depicted in The Avengers is not real. Until now. British Pathé did a series of films on eccentric vicars and this one (from 1963) is straight out of The Avengers. Many a clergyman must have been involved in wrestling or boxing, but working in Canada  buying a horse from 'the gypsies' and giving the horse beer to drink take it to the next level. And that wrestling match in the open surely wasn't set up for the camera was it?

Last Christmas I made a post about Fanny Cradock and fortuitously this weekend I have bought the Central Office of Information volume 2: Design for Today and thus discovered this gem which provides an excuse for a post featuring Joyce Grenfell. I realise that I am being inconsistent but some people, like Fanny and Joyce  are so much themselves that I make an exception to my usual rule about familiar faces for them. In my opinion it is worth buying the set for this sweet film alone, but you can also watch it at the Internet Archive  here . It is about a young couple moving into their first home without much idea of how to go about it, and the film is about the contrasting demands of design and art. Grenfell plays Miss Arty and Audrey Fildes plays Miss Design - the booklet describes them as ethereal beings - who just appear in the couple's house. Grenfell plays her artistic part wonderfully, and the arrangements she makes in the house are hilariously impractical. Of course the...

You didn't think I would be able to concentrate on the viewing list I set out in my last post, did you? Naturally I've got distracted. Do you like the genre of films where somebody sets off by train (usually) to see a relative who lives in an Old Dark House? I do, and funnily it's a genre which lends itself to humour. I'm thinking of Morecambe and Wise's Night Train to Murder and What a Carve Up! Those films loud pedal the mystery leanings of the train journey into the country genre, but this one of course loud pedals the genre's horror leanings... While also being funny. I suppose this film won't be to everyone's taste by any manner of means. The opening scene shows two runaways from the hospital being beheaded by knives which come out of the side of the doctor's car. No matter how often I see that scene it makes me roar with laughter. I think this is because the scene is so obviously a parody. Nonetheless if that sort of thing doesn't strike...

The tag I have put on this post may seem to be a mistake, but if you thought that this was another of my occasional posts about films which are obviously not TV shows but which I think will be of interest to my audience, you would be mistaken. In fact I have been meaning to write about this film here for ages, because one character is credited with being an (or possibly the) inspiration for the John Steed character in The Avengers, so this show is, as it were, one of the things which come under my heading of What Came Before the Avengers. Perhaps I should say that in the US it was released as Clouds Over Europe. A mere two and a half minutes in we get to see the Major Hammond character for the first time - and frankly, it's Steed. The hat isn't right, but the suit, umbrella and silly ass presence are all Steed there in person. And Major Hammond not only looks like Steed, he acts like Steed. It would be such a Steed thing after getting knocked out on a job and arrested by ...

This was very nearly another blog post about a film - or rather two films, as will become apparent. Instead I will drag myself back to the subject of this blog, write about the Avengers episode Take-Over and comment on the films which inspired this post at the end. I know I say this about every Avengers episode but this is actually one of my favourites. I love it for its incongruence - I love the respectability of the baddies. I love the absolytelu chilling sweetness of Circe. I particularly love Tom Adams in his cold, calculating role. This Avengers episode is also in my opinion a bit of an odd one out. Particularly once you get into series 6 you can watch The Avengers for the atmosphere of Avengerland. It can be seen as comfort viewing. Take-Over allows the viewer no respite. None. And it does it marvellously by creating an atmosphere of terror in a charming country house, which also manages to be wildly modernist at the same time. This is one of the ways in which this episode m...

It literally hasn't stopped raining here for most of today, and so I have perforces remained at home for much of it. A rainy day turns my mind to the fact that when I was a child I had something called a 'rainy day' box, which was actually an old coal scuttle, in which lived toys which I didn't use at other times. I was allowed to put things in it when it wasn't aa rainy day, but not take things out of it. I find that I still actually do this with a small heap of books waiting to be read, in the back of the wardrobe. Similarly old TV is a classic occupation of rainy days. I was going to comment that this post was not about TV at all, but I realise that actually it is. I started off looking on Amazon to see if any new-old TV shows are around which I haven't heard of, and ended up reading reviews of old films starring Arthur Askey, Will Hay, and Old Mother Riley. I realised that many of the Amazon reviewers had the same memories as me of what TV was like in the...

I touched briefly on The Sweeney, when I did a series of posts on 1970s TV shows earlier in the year. Re-reading my post, I find that I was mainly interested in the historical context of the show, making reference to the contemporary history in my local area. To tell the truth, I have never actually got on well with The Sweeney. I thought for a long time it was because one of my old neighbours put me off it by describing it sneeringly as 'very old fashioned', and recounting how she and her partner, who likes it, would fight over the remote interminably until her got so drunk he would go to sleep and then she would watch what she wanted. Unfortunate and largely irrelevant associations aside, I didn't realise that The Sweeney also spawned two films, the subject of this post, and through watching them I have discovered what I think is wrong with The Sweeney. The show is much better served as a film than as a TV show. There, said it. These two films are basically Sween...

This film may seem like a departure from the normal televisual delights blogged about here, but I am actually writing this piece because this film is worthy of probably the highest approbation I have ever given here: it is almost like an episode of The Avengers. It is necessary of course, to ignore the fact that Diana Rigg plays the baddie's daughter, and the baddie's ultimate target is played by Ian Hendry, but the plot itself is worthy of The Avengers: 'Shakespearean actor Edward Lionheart (Vincent Price) appears to have committed suicide by diving into the Thames, after being humiliated at an awards ceremony. But he has been secretly rescued by vagrants, who welcome him into their circle. Weakened by meths-addiction, they prove to be a docile crew, that he will use in a campaign of revenge on the drama-critics who failed to salute his genius. 'Lionheart plans to destroy his critics in a series of poetic killings, based on classic Shakespearean murder-scenes. S...