First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on August 13th 2023

Fans of archive television didn’t used to talk about CROSSROADS much, despite it having an iconic theme tune written by TONY HATCH, an amazing array of guest performers, a whole host of top behind-the-scenes talent often cutting their teeth on this show, and being a series that ran for twenty-four years across several golden ages of British television production, which, for a lot of its long history produced an astonishing five episodes of drama week after week after week.

Produced by first ATV and later Central Television, CROSSROADS, the story of the ups and downs in the lives of the people populating a Midlands-set Motel, was created by HAZEL ADAIR and PETER LING and started in November 1964, and would clock up a staggering 4510 episodes before finally closing its doors in April 1988, and then even managed to be resurrected for another 320 episode run between 2001 and 2003 which may, or may not, have all been a dream.

Despite the fame of its most high-profile star, NOELE GORDON, around whom the series was initially built, and creating a whole host of iconic – and much imitated - TV characters, CROSSROADS was never considered to be the highest quality television series ever made.

In fact, in certain quarters it became the benchmark for everything that was bad about cheaply made television, and yet it may have inspired some comedy gold from the mind of VICTORIA WOOD, and been an inspiration for NEIGHBOURS in Australia.

However, in recent times, CROSSROADS has been getting a lot more favourable reappraisal, both with RUSSELL T DAVIES’ high profile drama NOLLIE telling the story of the troubled era in the show’s production when it chose to dispense with its star, and with arguably the last great release from the much-missed NETWORK DISTRIBUTING, who sold a box set containing over 700 episodes across more than ninety discs earlier this year, a box set which sold out, by the way, as it found a new and very delighted audience.

Those regular contributors to VISION ON SOUND, LISA and ANDREW were amongst those eager purchasers, and have become huge advocates for the series, and so they offered to join us today to share their views on CROSSROADS as they continue to work their way through that stack of shiny discs crammed full of high drama, controversial issues, and unintentional moments of hilarity.

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.