Blue Peter was such a facet of BBC television for so many years. Although still on CBBC, the good ol’ days come from when it was on BBC1. We wanted to celebrate the golden era of Blue Peter and talk to some folks involved with the programme!

Peter Purves was a presenter Blue Peter from 1967-1978. His love and knowledge of the program is immense. We decided not to talk about Doctor Who but focus on his time on Blue Peter, talk about the good times and also the times that were frustrating. In another interview with speak with Gethin Jones. Gethin had been a Blue Peter presenter from 2005-2007. These two gentlemen did the same role at very different times. Peter was a presenter during the glorious 70’s while Gethin was a presenter just as the series made a very serious change that would forever change the lineage of the program!

What holds these two interviews together is Richard Marson. Richard had been working on the show for years with finally taking over the show in 2003. He knows Peter very well as well as Gethin, being that he hired Gethin! Richard is the one who interviews these brilliant men but also parts of Richard’s story is weaved into the narrative too. Listening to Gethin’s loves and respect to the legacy of Blue Peter is incredible just as it is heartbreaking to hear what happened to the show once Richard left.

This episode has some downs but a lot of ups as we celebrate on of the greatest series the BBC ever made!

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

Are You Being Served? is one of those great series and I wanted to have at least one episode that featured it. I interview Mike Berry, who played Mr. Spooner. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a more in depth interview with him as we talk about all things from his early career starting out as a musician in the 1960s, modeling, Worzel Gummidge and of course Are You Being Served? I think it is a real fascinating look at the music business in the 1960s with how hits were made and hits were not made. He talks about knowing The Beatles and The Rolling Stones during those early days too.

2021 is the 100th anniversary of Frank Thornton’s birth. I had the great opportunity to interview Frank’s daughter, Jane. Jane has been working with her son to catalogue and preserve Frank’s scrapbooks, notes and general archive he had kept from the time of his very first acting job until much later. You will hear some of the private comments he has written over the years about different things and it is really fun to see how Frank loved to use words. This is a very unique perspective on a much loved actor.

For many of us, our festive viewing includes the groundbreaking 1984 BBC television adaptation of The Box Of Delights. This has enthralled viewers for 35 years. We have decided that we needed to celebrate this milestone by having a conversation with the director of this incredible serial, Renny Rye. Take a listen as we talk with Renny about his career and how he got connected with The Box of Delights. It’s a fun conversation that spans not only that series but some of his other work too.

We are also happy to finally bring everyone the second part of our interview with Richard Marson. If you recall way back to Episode 10, we talked with Richard about the his documentary, Tales of Television Centre but this time we talk about what it actually was like to work within BBC Television Centre and how fun and how difficult it could be working there. This is a great conversation with some really smart analysis on how the BBC works.

Sprinkled into the episode is some clips from the missing 1971 Boxing Day edition of The Golden Shot. Clips include Bob Monkhouse, Alfie Bass, Stephen Lewis, and a performance from Mary Hopkin.  These are some wonderful archive clips that haven’t been heard in nearly 50 years!

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

It’s a pretty special episode of the podcast to have both Doctor Who and The Beatles in the same episode and generally talking about the same subject: off-air audio recordings from television broadcasts!

Back in December of 2018, Kaleidoscope announced that they were given a number of off-air audio recordings of Doctor Who episodes from the 1960s. These were given to us by Robert Wyn and have since been dubbed “The Randolph Tapes” as the name Randolph appears on the tapes themselves. Mark Ayres kindly stepped in and had a listen and was impressed by the quality. We wanted to share the background and analysis of these recordings by talking to Doctor Who Researcher Robert Franks about what he thought of them. Of course, we include clips so you can hear them yourself plus some rarities from the tapes you may never have heard before unless you were watching at the time of broadcast.

We move onto that unknown Liverpudlian group known as The Beatles. Of course we jest but we have a great conversation with author and Beatles expert Keith Badman about off-air audio recordings of missing television appearances by the Fab Four plus so much more. The idea of missing music programs (apart from Top of the Pops) sometimes gets overlooked in favour of other series but Keith’s knowledge of the subject is very intriguing! Plus, we are happy to include some very rare clips of The Beatles from the Kaleidoscope archives.

If that wasn’t enough, how about a brand-new missing off-air audio discovery of a television broadcast featuring The Rolling Stones? You want to know what it is? Well, you’ll have to listen and let Neil Ingoe tell you!

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

Permission to upload a new episode of the podcast Sir!

We could litter the description of this episode with loads of famous Dad’s Army catchphrases but this series is so much more than that. Now, 50 years after its first broadcast, it is still entertaining people around the world with a very healthy following. We wanted to celebrate this series!

First off, we wanted to talk with someone from the cast of the show and immediately Frank Williams came to mind! Frank perfectly played the role of the Vicar from Series 3 onwards. He graciously gave us his time to talk with him and he didn’t disappoint! He talked extensively about his time on Dad’s Army, The Army Game, writing and acting in general!

In keeping with the archive theme to this podcast, we had wonderful conversation with Martin Geraghty. Martin worked on the animated Dad’s Army episode “A Stripe for Frazer” as well as on the animated Doctor Who stories “The Power of the Daleks” and “Shada”. We talk about all of it.

Finally, you may hear some Dad’s Army rarities. We just wanted to sprinkle some stuff in the episode that maybe most of you have not heard before that might make this episode just a little extra special!

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

BBC Television Centre has a place in many of hearts that adore British television. When news came about its closure, it upset many that the BBC would leave such an iconic location. A wonderful documentary was produced before it closed. Directed by Richard Marson, Tales of Television Centre, brought together a wide spectrum of people who worked most of their careers there to bring us some of the warmest memories of our “concrete donut”. We talk with Richard about the making of this documentary and what it was like making it, creating the tone of the piece and an insight on what the BBC wanted to name it just prior to transmission! This is the first of a few conversations with will have with Richard and this is a fun one to listen to about Television Centre!

We also talk to Andrew Gavaghan who is the Archive Manager to the ITV archives. Conducted on location at the ITV Archive in Leeds in December of 2017, Andrew gives is an insight into the workings of the archives. It’s a great conversation!

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

Doctor Who has an established history of DVD sets chocked full of amazing extras and interesting documentaries about the series’ past. Now, as classic Doctor Who enters the realm of Blu-ray sets by season, how do they top themselves?

This episode of From the Archive: A British Television Podcast, takes a look at how the team lead by Russell Minton decided to evolve the range to not only make it more appealing to fans but unleash the floodgates of archive material never made available to the public before now.

We talk with Russell Minton about his vision for these sets, Richard Bignell about the research and work that went into providing the loads of archive material to this set that has never been available to fans before now, Ed Stradling about updating old documentaries and making new ones for this set, and Derek Handley who not only talks about the work that goes into the photo galleries but also the BBC Photographic Library and his work tracking down photos we have not seen before for the sets.

We also talk to Stephen Cranford who was a close friend to Graham Strong who recently passed away. Graham gave us the gift of crystal clear audio recordings to many missing Doctor Who episodes and we pay tribute to his legacy and find out more about who Graham was.

It’s a very interesting episode that shows off the sheer amount of work that goes into some of our favourite extras on the classic Doctor Who DVD & Blu-ray range.

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

When we think of Lost TV Shows, it’s possible that the same 10 to 15 series may come to mind. Different series are important to different people. That is why this Kaleidoscope initiative led by Ray Langstone is so unique. He tallied from anyone who responded to his request to name their top lost TV shows. What did he do with this information and how did he acquire it? It’s fascinating and also interesting to see where some of our favourite series landed on the list! Just to make it even more interesting, we added some audio from missing programs to illustrate some of the choices made for the list.

Next, we have an incredible conversation with Jake Berger of the BBC Archive Development Team. I interviewed him while I was in the UK at the BBC Broadcast Centre. There, we spoke in-depth about the wonderful BBC Genome Project and also some other things that have been going on in that group. This is very much worth a listen; there is some truly remarkable information in this interview.

So much content, this is a long episode! Please enjoy!

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

It’s been an exciting year for the return of missing material and one of the great ways to see some of this material is to go to the BFI’s Missing Believed Wiped event on the 16th of December! We take time in this episode to preview some of the awesomeness that is going to be shown this year!

We talk with two gentlemen who do not need introductions but we will do so anyway: Dick Fiddy TV Historian for the BFI who founded the Missing Believed Wiped event in 1993. We talk about the recent recoveries that will be shown at the event but also what else is going on at the BFI. At the time of publication of this podcast, the BFI is wrapping up its Sydney Newman season and we can a sneak peek at a couple of other events that have yet to be formally announced.

We then talk to Ed Stradling. Ed is a freelance Producer who has done extensive work telling the story of DOCTOR WHO through some of its most famous periods through documentaries but in this episode, we talk about his passion for missing British television material. He has been looking through countless hours of domestic recordings. What is he looking for? What is he going to have for us to watch at Missing Believed Wiped!

Finally, this podcast has been going for a year! Your host is celebrating this by traveling to the UK and will be at Missing Believed Wiped! If you are going to be there, let me know! I would love to say hi!

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

Back before television, radio was King or perhaps in Australia it was Queen! The first part of this episode is an interview with the Managing Director of Grace Gibson Productions Bruce Ferrier. Bruce now runs a production company that started in the 1940s by a woman who hailed from Texas and moved to Australia starting a legacy of commercially and critically successful radio productions. These productions stood the test of time and Bruce is going to talk to us about Grace Gibson herself and the tremendous output of the studio. It wouldn’t be a Kaleidoscope podcast if we couldn’t talk about the current state of the Grace Gibson archives, how master recordings are stored and if any restoration work is being carried out on them.

We then talk with Researcher Richard Bignell as we talk about the 50th anniversary of Season 5 of “Doctor Who”. We focus on this season because there has always been something special about it. Richard gives his opinion why plus we talk about the return of missing material and the research he is doing for his next issue of “Nothing at the End of the Lane”.

Then, we talk about the recent find of the soundtrack to an “Adam Adamant Lives!”. We interview Tim Emblem-English who found the recording about how this find was almost completely looked over. We also scoured through the Kaleidoscope archives to bring out a rare interview with Verity Lambert as she shares some of her thoughts on the production of “Adam Adamant Lives!”.

Finally, we share some exciting news about what we are planning to do this episode of “Adam Adamant Lives!” to coincide with the 30th anniversary of Kaleidoscope and what we are planning on doing may affect other shows where soundtracks only exist. Don’t worry, any examples we provide in this episode we know need to be cleaned up! Lots to listen to in this episode!

If you have feedback or questions you would like to have read on the podcast or general inquiries, please contact us at [email protected]. We would love to hear from you! This podcast is a co-production between From the Archive: A British Television Blog and Kaleidoscope. Thank you for listening.

Grace Gibson Productions: http://gracegibsonradio.com/

Tim Emblem-English (The Flying Spot):

www.theflyingspot.co.uk

TV Brain:

www.tvbrain.info