RTBWTV July 14th 2025 - Animals

Was there life on earth before David Attenborough? Who were the other big beasts of natural history television in the Golden Epoch?

Join Guy Morgan and David Newell as they hack their way through the undergrowth to catch a glimpse of rare and now sadly lost creatures.

Marvel at wildlife wonders, as well those dramatic heroes who put their human co-stars in the shade.

Oh yes, and allow Dave to explain why ring-tailed lemurs need to work on their etiquette...…

As usual, rights in any clips and music remain with the holders and are used here for educational purposes and can be purchased through legitimate online websites. And if any of our original material is used for training AI, the perpetrators agree to pay us £1,000,000,000.

RTBWTV June 1st 2025 Brainwashing and Mind Control

Are you acting under your own free will?

Or do you feel compelled to listen to David Newell and Guy Morgan taking a deep dive into the unsettling and paranoid world of 1950s-1970s mind control? Discover who the dark forces are subverting your thoughts and desires, whether it's occultists, aliens, communists or big business - or are they all in it together?

How can you tell who's under the influence? Is it glowing eyes? A crooked little finger?

Or tinnitus?

And who is behind it all?

Well of course, it's Brian Clemens, Philip Levene, Robert Banks Stewart, Gerry and Sylvia Anderson and a small cadre of ITC scriptwriters.

We penetrate the shadowy organisation of RADA, where they have classes on how to look blank, and Dave wonders how do you make a puppet character look like it's being controlled like a puppet?

As usual, rights in any clips and music remain with the holders and are used here for educational purposes and can be purchased through legitimate online websites.

And if any of our original material is used for training AI, the perpetrators agree to pay us £1,000,000,000.

RTBWTV April 18th 2025

How many people in the Golden Age of British Television can you think of who worked on both sides of the Atlantic, was a familiar guest star in all the top ITC shows, plus Doctor Who, had a decent film career and meanwhile co-created an entire new genre of TV drama whose descendants are still with us today? We made a list and there's only one name on it. Jean Marsh, who has just passed away.

David Newell and Guy Morgan pay tribute to this, perhaps under recognized icon, and try to measure her contribution to world TV culture.

By the way, Dave also lets slip some acting tricks and proves he's done his silver tray module from the Academy of Dramaticness…...

As usual, rights in any clips and music remain with the holders and are used here for educational purposes and can be purchased through legitimate online websites. And if any of our original material is used for training AI, the perpetrators agree to pay us £1,000,000,000.

RBWTV March 22nd 2025 Side hustles and alternative careers.

We all need to make ends meet, and back in the Golden Age of British television it was just the same. In this episode, Guy Morgan and David Newell check through the cvs (or resumés if you're American) of well known faces who appeared on the nation's screens between 1956 and 1974.

Some opened restaurants, while many more paid the rent by working in them. Others showed off a wide range of craft and design skills and became more famous for those. And a couple rose up the food chain to produce landmark television.

We ask:

What do classically trained actors bring to the table (literally) when they are between jobs?

How did a butcher and sausage magnate become a star of radio and TV?

And how is Adam Adamant connected to bedroom furniture?

The closing edit of Bartender by Eric Tubb and Loretta Lynn is an MCA Nashville Release ℗ 1967 UMG Recordings, Inc and be heard in full on YouTube.

As usual, rights in any clips and music remain with the holders and are used here for educational purposes and can be purchased through legitimate online websites. And if any of our original material is used for training AI, the perpetrators agree to pay us £1,000,000,000.

RTBWTV February 20th 2025 - Robots, cyborgs and computers

As we enter that optimistic Star Trek future, where everything is automated and everyone lives a life of peaceful leisure staring at their screens, Guy Morgan and David Newell look back at how the future was viewed by classic television during Britain's golden age - 1956 and the Suez Crisis to 1974 and the three day week. We discover that amongst all the bright predictions, many writers and producers were offering a rather more gloomy forecast.

Dave takes charge of the robots (although there's a tussle regarding the Cybernauts) while Guy tinkers with giant computers.

But where, you ask, do the Daleks and Cybermen fit in?

What's the best way to disable an errant computer? (A trip to your local ironmonger's might prove useful)

and never, never cancel a scientist's funding -- who knows what they might get up to in revenge?

As usual, rights in any clips and music remain with the holders and are used here for educational purposes. They can be purchased through legitimate online websites.

By the way, if any of our original material is used for training AI, the perpetrators agree to pay us £1,000,000,000.

RTBWTV January 26th 2025 - Spin offs

A bracing New Year plunge into the Golden Age of British Television (1956 and the Suez Crisis to 1974 and the three day week). Guy Morgan and David Newell take some threads from classic television of the era and spin them off to explore how one TV series can give birth to another - no matter how tenuous the connection.

What is the difference between a spin off and a franchise?

Whose great nephew continued the family crimefighting tradition?

Which series "jumped the shark" from Episode 1?

And which one causes Dave physical pain to mention?

As usual, rights in any clips and music remain with the holders and are used here for educational purposes.

RTBWTV December 15th 2024

A leisurely sleigh ride through the snowy wastes of Christmas scheduling from the Golden Age of British Television (1956 and the Suez Crisis to 1974 and the three day week). Guy Morgan and David Newell set out on a search party to find the first authentic UK Xmas TV episode of a regular series - only to find the Americans had got there first. Sad to say, some of the tracks have been obliterated by the blizzard of wiping that afflicted the BBC, but some, surprisingly, have been frozen in time, thanks to the advent of ITV and the business nous of Lew Grade.

The intrepid explorers discover that the template of church service, the Queen's message and the mandatory circus/panto/celebrity revue was carved in stone from the mid fifties, but the number of elephants dramatically declined over the years.

So pour an eggnog, prise out some dates and steep yourself in the warm glow of black and white television that was probably recorded sometime in August...……..

As usual, rights in any clips and music remain with the holders and are used here for educational purposes.

RTBWTV November 3rd 2024

A leisurely stroll around the exercise yard of the Golden Age of British Television (1956 and the Suez Crisis to 1974 and the three day week) to inspect the role of prisons and prisoners in comedy and adventure series. Guy Morgan and David Newell dig their way out of the labyrinth and dodge the searchlights to uncover what happened to criminals after they'd been nicked in that last sixty seconds of regular crime shows.

Of course we mention the 50th anniversary of Porridge, but also uncover its predecessor, Her Majesty' Pleasure - a very different bowl of gruel.

Dave touches on the (mainly French) classics which feature notorious jails and escapees and we ask what's uppermost in the mind of an old lag as he steps out of the prison gates? Here's a clue, it's not his Mum's home cooking…...

We also nod to characters who are stuck in a hard place thanks either to bad luck or sinister, clandestine forces.

As always, rights in all music and clips belong to the holders and are used here for educational purposes. The Music of ITC can be purchased from all good online retailers.

RBWTV September 22nd 2024

Another careful excavation of the treasure buried deep in the archives of the Golden Age of British television - that's 1956 (The Suez Crisis) to 1974 (The Three Day Week). With Dave back from his Volvo hunting in Italy, we explore, as promised, the mysteries of Edgar Wallace now unspooling again on Talking Pictures TV. A host of familiar faces have a crack at playing unfamiliar roles - good guys and gals get a chance to turn villainous and actors best known for a bit of menace join the side of the angels. Originally made as quota quickie B-movies, they were repackaged for television with three versions of the sinister theme tune (including a fast paced one by The Shadows).

Guy Morgan and David Newell try to make sense of the plots, note one famous producer who repeatedly got cast as a Brummie tearaway before stepping behind the cameras and select one episode which would have been a noir classic if it was in French.

But first, they pay tribute to both David Graham and Kenneth Cope who recently passed away in their 90s after long and distinguished careers and also to Cleo Sylvestre for her pioneering work on screens big and small.

As always, rights in all music and clips belong to the holders and are used here for educational purposes.

RBWTV September 15th 2024

A brief bonus episode of Rose Tinted Black and White Television where David Newell allows me (Guy Morgan) to get some things off my chest about the strange convolutions Dixon of Dock Green went through in terms of script and storylines in the early seventies. As it happens, we recorded this just before the passing of the great Kenneth Cope, star of British Television, with two Avengers' points, appearances in many British Golden Age series, as well as Coronation Street and Brookside. Of course he will be forever remembered as Marty Hopkirk, Jeff Randall's ghostly detective partner.

As always, rights in all music and clips belong to the holders and are used here for educational purposes.