DR TOM MAY on PLAY FOR TODAY

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on February 23rd 2025.

This week I’m joined by another new voice for the show, DOCTOR TOM MAY from NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY who I was put in touch with because he’s written his PhD thesis all about the BBC’s long running drama series PLAY FOR TODAY which ran throughout the 1970s and well into the early eighties and presented an eclectic mix of so many iconic dramas many of which are still talked about in hushed and awed tones even today.

I was very kindly allowed access to read his thesis, and it really is a fascinating and highly detailed piece of work. DOCTOR TOM MAY has done the kind of astonishingly thorough in-depth research that TV archivists adore, and, luckily for us, he is planning on publishing a book based upon this fascinating topic, which should already have you eagerly anticipating being able to get hold of a copy.

PLAY FOR TODAY was such an iconic and eclectic series, written by perhaps the most well-known writers of that generation, directed by some of the giants of the art, and starring many of the most iconic actors of its time, that we can probably only touch upon it in the most general terms today, but I hope you’ll enjoy our efforts if you stick around for the next hour.

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.

PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI on the part location plays in his TV enjoyment.

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on February 16th 2025.

This week PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI himself returns to talk about a subject that he himself suggested, which is all about the locations used on television series, and how much of an effect filming in real places has upon his own enjoyment of a programme.

So, whilst inevitably we touch upon several of his favourites such as DOCTOR WHO, BERGERAC, TREASURE HUNT, NEIGHBOURS and DARK SHADOWS, we also manage to venture into the more philosophical territory of the sense of reality, the proliferation of green screen technology, and the sheer delight of being able to say “been there!” when somewhere you’ve visited pops up on your TV screen, or the leaps of imagination that occur when a potted palm plant on a balcony comes to represent the entire exotic possibilities of venturing to foreign parts.

We also give some consideration to filming locations both artificially constructed, or completely genuine and wonder about the value they might add to the series we are watching, or the support they give to the performances of the actors, and, as ever, I’m very grateful to PAUL for taking ourtopic du jour and taking it off in some quite unexpected directions, which is, I suppose, what I hope we try to do in some of the better conversations we have here on VISION ON SOUND.

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.

WARREN CUMMINGS on our shared cultural TV heritage.

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on February 9th 2025.

This week we welcome back WARREN CUMMINGS for another of those television themed conversations that we like to have that can take us practically anywhere from the prompt I set us up with.

This week I’d been fretting somewhat about my cultural life in terms of what people laughingly call Britishness, and often try to test people on. Does the fact that I pay little attention to many of the shows that many other people enjoy and share their experiences of matter very much in the great scheme of things. Does my ignorance of all things STRICTLY, or ROYAL, or SOAP OPERA-Y, or TRAITORS, or OLYMPICCY, or FOOTBALLY mean that I might not pass the tests when the thought police come crashing through my door and demand that I prove my knowledge of our alleged shared cultural heritage?

Such things, perhaps unnecessarily, tend to bother me during the wee small hours, although thankfully I have come to realise that other shared phrases and responses “’AVE A BANANA!” tend to bind us together more than we think, and the advertising jingles of our youth might prove more uniting than we might often be aware of.

Listener beware – this edition of VISION ON SOUND might include something not entirely unlike singing. You have been warned!

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.

ADAM HENLEY talks about his TV history and THE WEST WING

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on February 2nd 2025.

This week we welcome a new voice to VISION ON SOUND, that of ADAM HENLEY, an archive television fan who I first met when he offered to help out with some of my technical support when I was recording our live show on stage at WHOOVERVILLE in Derby last September. He expressed an interest in taking part, and suggested we might talk about THE WEST WING for the show.

However, because he hadn’t been on the show before, I also wanted to talk a little bit about his own life as a fan of television, so, whilst we do get to THE WEST WING in the end, it’s on a journey that takes via LOGOPOLIS, the PYE TUBE CUBE. THE YOUNG ONES, EASTENDERS, BLACKADDER GOES FORTH, THE TIME MACHINE, and the films of POWELL AND PRESSBURGER to finally reach the Oval Office, which is certainly a very different route to the one taken by the current incumbent, and I hope that you’ll stick with us for the full term of this edition of the show, which is, luckily enough, only going to take up an hour of your time.

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.

BEN BAKER urges everyone to "KISS YOUR TELEVISION"

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on January 26th 2025.

This week we welcome back BEN BAKER to VISION ON SOUND and not just, he assures me, because he’s got a new book out. He has got a new book out, of course, but that’s not the only thing we talk about, although, given that it’s all about precisely the sort of archive TV we like to feature on this show, and that it has the rather intriguing title of KISS YOUR TELEVISION, it most definitely was a very good place for us to start, and I do hope that you’ll stick around for the next hour as, well, yes, we do mention his new book, but we also talk about a whole lot of matters arising from the topics that he’s chosen to talk about in his new book.

I did mention that he’s got a new book out, didn’t I?

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.

SANDY McGREGOR talks about VACUUMING COMPLETELY NUDE IN PARADISE.

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on January 19th 2025.

It’s perhaps a bit of a strange one this week, or maybe it’s just a bit of an obscure one. Anyway, our old pal SANDY McGREGOR got in touch and told me that he really fancied talking about VACUUMING COMPLETELY NUDE IN PARADISE, which seemed an odd request at the time, but, well, you know what they say, live and let live.

Anyway, after my initial bafflement, it turns out that VACUUMING COMPLETELY NUDE IN PARADISE is a film for television first broadcast in September 2001 written by JIM CARTWRIGHT and directed by DANNY BOYLE, just under three months after the broadcast of another hard-hitting collaboration on STRUMPET which starred CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON.

VACUUMING starred TIMOTHY SPALL in a barnstorming BAFTA winning performance as the aggressive high-performance salesman TOMMY RAG, alongside MICHAEL BEGBY as the reluctant trainee PETE, alongside a whole cavalcade of the kind of appalling characters conjured up to represent the hard-selling cutthroat business of selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door at the turn of the century.

What was it that drew SANDY towards this obscure televisual delight, you may well be asking yourselves? Well, theatrical representations of Salesmen had been very much on his mind after he’d recently been watching GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS by DAVID MAMET in the theatre, and, after making comparisons with the rather more subdued American Classic DEATH OF A SALESMEN by ARTHUR MILLER, he decided to complete a trilogy of sorts with this TV movie that, in many ways, ploughs very similar storytelling furrows as the weekly television dramas of PLAY FOR TODAY did in the last century and might very much be considered part of the continuation of that proud legacy, which often made for television that could occasionally be just as shocking and challenging in its own way in perhaps less liberated times.

Running at seventy-five minutes, this stylistic, high-octane, and sometimes terrifying tour-de-force pulls few punches, and portrays a seedy, sleazy world that doesn’t hold back on the language and attitudes that were commonplace in that sort of business at that time, and, as a very dark tragicomedy, can leave you feeling both tainted and exhilarated by the experience of watching it.

Anyway, having hopefully kept his clothes very much on, SANDY joined me to talk about his experience of watching this television curiosity, and I hope you’ll stick with us across this next hour despite the hard-hitting nature of the subject matter, and I do hope you enjoy it.

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.

MICHAEL HERBERT talks about THE CHANGES

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on January 12th 2025.

Way back in 1974, children’s television legend ANNA HOME, as part of her commitment to producing challenging and interesting drama serials intended for older children, wrote an adaptation of a trilogy of books written by PETER DICKINSON (The Weathermonger, Hartsease, and The Devil’s Children) which turned out to be one of those TV serials that somehow, with its powerful images of a country descending into chaos, managed to sear itself into the minds of a generation.

Produced for the BBC, and broadcast in 1975 across ten episodes that were each just shy of half an hour in length, and mostly filmed on locations across the south west of England, THE CHANGES took the basic stories told in those three books, turned them on their heads, made one character the centre of each, and made a compelling drama that found many schoolchildren dashing home to watch the next episode, and involving themselves in fascinated conversations about it in the playground the next day.

Or maybe that was just me and my mates. Who knows?

Nevertheless, opening with scenes of wanton destruction of all sorts of vehicles, domestic equipment, and entertainment devices, as humanity both young and old was influenced into destroying all the mechanical objects that were taking over our lives, and destroying our planet, the series in many ways resembles other post-apocalyptic dramas as Britain swiftly reverts to a feudal society full of mistrust, fear of outsiders, and superstition.

NICKI GORE, played by then nineteen-year old VICTORIA WILLIAMS, and later on, her friend JONATHON, played by KEITH ASHTON, embark on a quest to find the source of these apocalyptic CHANGES and try to restore humanity back towards its way to civilisation. On their way NIKKI is helped by members of the SIKH COMMUNITY in a very progressive take on the outsider for seventies TV, and hindered by the kind of sinister personalities that always seem to rise to the top when civilisation collapses.

And whilst some of the stories may resemble a kind of SURVIVORS-LITE for the children’s hour, and some of the storylines do, perhaps, stretch your credulity when watching them as an adult, much of what they have to say tells us of the types of prejudices and problems that lie just beneath the surface of 1970s Britain, many of which still feel rather familiar today.

This series with its many very forward thinking images seared itself into our imaginations, and TV historian MICHAEL HERBERT - who is very much a fan of television science-fiction - returns to VISION ON SOUND today to discuss the series with me.

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.

Just before Christmas, LISA PARKER joined me to talk about her recent TV viewing.

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on January 5th 2025.

As we reach the moment when the decorations are supposed to be coming down and are being packed away as yet another festive season reaches its inevitable conclusion, we’ve just got time to welcome back LISA PARKER for a chat we recorded way back in November, in which we talked about her recent archive TV viewing, some of which was in the latest edition of the ROUND THE ARCHIVES podcast that she produces with her partner ANDREW, her delight at the return of WOLF HALL in THE MIRROR AND THE LIGHT, as well as discussing some of what she planned to watch as a whole host of classic TV Blu-Ray releases were on the very brink of being delivered to their home just in time for Christmas.

So, whilst our conversation wasn’t really meant to be a festive one, the season was very much on our minds, so it only seemed right to share this show with you now whilst we are all still feeling at least vaguely in the mood for one last festive treat.

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.

WARREN CUMMINGS joins me for a pre-New Year's Eve seasonal chat.

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on December 29th 2024.

As it’s usually a bit of a quiet time of year in Radio-land, I thought I might try and sneak out one last show for 2024 whilst nobody was paying all that much attention, and so I invited WARREN CUMMINGS to join me for one more chat before we pack up the show and start thinking about what to bring you next year, which is, as ever, swiftly heading our way without a care in the world.

At least not so far, anyway.

So, as we settle down for a slightly seasonal chat, we naturally cover one or two of the films that are likely to show up on the telly around this time of the year, and reflect upon some Christmas classic TV, and consider some of the telly that really doesn’t – and shouldn’t – turn up on our festive TV screens any more.

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.

THE SHY YETI at Christmas.

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on December 22nd 2024.

This week’s special guest our old friend PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI himself who, because it is very nearly Christmas, has decided to pop round for a bit of a festive chat next to our FAB TOWERS crackling seasonal fireplace.

So, we’ll be talking about all sorts of nonsense including his favourite traditional festive viewing which includes several horror films, the bauble that was once JIM ROBINSON from NEIGHBOURS, those BERGERAC and DOCTOR WHO Christmas Specials, MORECAMBE AND WISE, THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN, INSIDE NUMBER NINE, THE AVENGERS, and a whole load of other archive television related nonsense as we meander through the next hour.

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.