VISION ON SOUND

PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI talks about the women in his TV life.

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on September 15th 2024.

This week PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI is back, and, I don’t know about you lot, but I’ve been noticing something about the kind of shows that PAUL has been telling us that he enjoys as he’s come onto the show to talk about them over the years.

I mean, regular listeners will already know that, yes, he obviously enjoys his Australian soaps, and they’ll recognise his liking for horror stories, (and he’ll sometimes mention that mixture of soap opera and horror stories that begat DARK SHADOWS), and, of course, the regard in which he holds BERGERAC is beyond repute, but there does seem to be a common factor in the shows that particular draw the attention of those YETI eyeballs, and that seems to be that the majority of them do feature very strong female characters in significant roles, and so that’s what I decided to get him to talk about today.

So, for the next hour, alongside his usual meanderings, we’ll mull over this topic and mention in passing series like THE AVENGERS, DOCTOR WHO, BLAKE’S SEVEN, SAPPHIRE AND STEEL, THE BIONIC WOMAN, and DEMPSEY AND MAKEPEACE, as well as venturing briefly into the more familiar territory of RAMSAY STREET and CELL BLOCK H.

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.

VISION ON SOUND live on stage at WHOOVERVILLE 15 with TOMMY KNIGHT, CHRIS CHAPMAN, & JASON QUINN.

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on September 8th 2024.

Whilst VISION ON SOUND is a show where we do like to try to explore the wider world of archive television, and is not just about one specific television series that gets a lot of far better coverage in other places, it’s hard not to admit that DOCTOR WHO was definitely the gateway into that wider world for a lot of people who grew up watching it.

It is just one of those shows, I guess, that happens to have a lot of documentation written about it, and a lot of people who love it enough to want to find out more about it. Running on television for more than sixty years probably helps a little bit with that, too.

This week, thanks to show regulars STEVE HATCHER and ANDREW-MARK THOMPSON, for the third year in a row, I was invited to record an edition of VISION ON SOUND live on stage at WHOOVERVILLE 15 the one-day DOCTOR WHO convention that they organise and run in conjunction with both their own fan group THE WHOOVERS, and with THE QUAD in Derby, which this year took place on the 31st of August 2024.

I’m delighted to say that, for our afternoon VISION ON SOUND recording session this year, I was able to be joined on stage in Cinema 2 by TOMMY KNIGHT, the actor who, alongside other roles, played LUKE SMITH in THE SARAH JANE ADVENTURES.

Alongside him, I was able to welcome CHRIS CHAPMAN, the television producer/director, and writer for Big Finish Productions, who is currently one of the team producing new content for the popular DOCTOR WHO COLLECTION Blu-Ray sets.

We were also very lucky to be joined by JASON QUINN who is the latest editor for DOCTOR WHO MAGAZINE, and between us I think that we managed to have an interesting session discussing DOCTOR WHO in a slightly wider context, and I hope that the audience on the day enjoyed it, and, hopefully, those of you who are now tuning in will enjoy it too.

You’ll also hear STEVE introducing me at the beginning, but, because he is always having a very busy day when the event is running, he does have to slip quietly away to leave us to just get on with it.

As ever, I’m always very moved and humbled that they are prepared to take that leap of faith in what we do here on VISION ON SOUND, and appreciate the trust that they have in me to do whatever it is that I do, and I can’t thank them enough, once again, for allowing me to take part.

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.

STEVE HATCHER on some "Edwardian" Adventurers

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on September 1st 2024.

This week we welcome back STEVE HATCHER, and this week STEVE wanted to talk about two particular shows that he’s been enjoying recently that are based upon literary works, and which are both from a genre that we might like to call THE EDWARDIAN ADVENTURER, despite the fact that neither are truly set in the EDWARDIAN era, although they have a look about them that we have come to associate with those times

The shows are RAFFLES, from the mid 1970s, featuring ANTHONY VALENTINE and CHRISTOPHER STRAULI as a pair of gentleman crooks, and HANNAY, from the late 1980s, and featuring ROBERT POWELL not exactly fresh from playing the role in the 1978 movie THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS.

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.

RICK LAWLOR on discovering classic cinema via TV.

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on August 25th 2024.

This week we welcome back, after far too long an absence, an old friend of the show, RICK LAWLOR, who moved to Canada from the UK over a decade ago, and occasionally likes to keep me posted as to what’s going on in the world of telly on the other side of the Atlantic.

Not that we always just talk about television, of course, but that is always the initial prompt for conversations that can take us pretty much anywhere.

This time RICK specifically wanted to talk about how his lifelong love of the sort of old movies that keep a viewer amused on a damp and dismal weekend afternoon was born by watching films on television when he was a youngster, and how exposure to such wonderful films as OH, MISTER PORTER, starring WILL HAY, or ALFRED HITCHCOCK Directed classics like THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS, or the Ealing Comedies, led to an appreciation of the art of movie lighting.

Over the course of the next hour, a few technical issues aside, we indulge ourselves a little, whilst wondering whether seeking out the delights of watching Black and White cinema is something that people are starting to worry might be getting lost as our increasingly parochial and targeted viewing habits start to prevent many viewers from trying out something older or unfamiliar, and so not discovering what might be a classic from another age that they come to love, and whether this is perhaps meaning that new generations may never come to enjoy such cinema in the way we once did.

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 some 1970s USTV Cop Shows.

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on August 18th 2024.

This week WARREN CUMMINGS is back, and we’re going to talk about all of those 1970s US TV Cop Shows that we used to love like KOJAK and IRONSIDE and THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO, all of which were on our British television screens during a decade in which it seemed not a week could pass without a brand new cop show turning up on TV, each one with a brand new quirk or unique selling point to persuade us that it really was not the same as all of those OTHER cop shows that you might be enjoying, often with attributes so distinct that they made inroads into the pop culture of this country to the point that the likes of BENNY HILL or MIKE YARWOOD could don the old raincoat, or brandish a lollipop, and everyone watching at home would know exactly what they meant.

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 REWATCHABLES, with PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI.

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on August 11th 2024.

Here we all find ourselves in realms that I never thought possible, as I really had considered not carrying on with the show beyond that 200th edition, but those lovely people who support me in producing VISION ON SOUND keep on suggesting things to talk about, and so, well, we keep on talking about them.

This week’s lovely person is PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI who joins me to talk about what I’m going to refer to as THE REWATCHABLES, or rather, what is the kind of telly that draws you back again and again and again, and why it might do so.

So, during the next hour we talk about several of PAUL’s familiar favourites, but really we’re giving some thought to what it is about certain shows that makes PAUL want to rewatch them, and whether – or not – he actually does.

Along the way we mention shows as diverse as SONS AND DAUGHTERS, PRISONER (CELL BLOCK H), TWIN PEAKS, DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES and QUANTUM LEAP, in a conversation that I hope might inspire you to consider your own list of REWATCHABLES.

I have snuck in a few British classics along the way, but let’s just take ourselves back to the eighties for an hour of pure televisual audio nostalgia…

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.

Eighties TV music special...

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on August 4th 2024.

This week, there isn’t a guest with me on the show, because I thought I’d do another of our theme music specials, and, because I’ve finally crossed into sniper’s alley, I thought I might share a selection of some of my favourite theme tunes from a decade when I was full of hope, vim, and vigour, during which a whole host of classic TV title tunes assailed our eardrums as they introduced some of the more memorable shows from the nineteen eighties, and also, perhaps, some of those you might prefer to forget.

Strangely, it seems that quite a few of the most recognisable tunes come from the television of the United States, and so many come from series that might be deemed “Action/Adventure” series, which probably explains a lot about the sort of television that I was watching in my late teens and early twenties.

I have snuck in a few British classics along the way, but let’s just take ourselves back to the eighties for an hour of pure televisual audio nostalgia…

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.

PLAYLIST:

HOWARD’S WAY

MIAMI VICE

AIRWOLF

BLUE THUNDER

KNIGHT RIDER

BAYWATCH

THE FALL GUY

ROCKING ALL OVER THE WORLD (Status Quo)

DANCING IN THE STREET (Jagger/Bowie)

DRIVE (Cars)

THE BLACK ADDER

ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES

LOVEJOY

THE HITCH-HIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY

THE JEWEL IN THE CROWN

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

HILL STREET BLUES

MOONLIGHTING

THE A-TEAM

DYNASTY

MURDER SHE WROTE

CHEERS

QUANTUM LEAP

THE EQUALIZER

INSPECTOR MORSE

WARREN CUMMINGS on city living, TV style...

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on July 28th 2024.

You might have noticed that one of my regular co-hosts on VISION ON SOUND, WARREN CUMMINGS, has been conspicuous by his absence for a few weeks recently, and it’s not because he’s been up to no good, but because he’s been reorganising his working life and making a move back to the big city.

So this week we give him a warm welcome back, and what better topic to take as our prompt for this week’s show than to talk about television representations of big city living, and how they compare with the reality of actually living there…

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.

LISA PARKER on SHARDLAKE

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on July 21st 2024.

This week, our returning guest is the ever-popular LISA PARKER from the ROUND THE ARCHIVES team, and for this edition of VISION ON SOUND she’s returning to one of those subjects that she’s most fond of, namely the historical drama, only this time her observations come with a bit of a twist, as the drama might be historical, but she’s been watching one which is right up to date and almost as new as anything we’re ever likely to discuss on this show.

LISA got in touch because she’s been really enjoying the brand new four-part drama series SHARDLAKE, and wanted to talk about it on the show.

SHARDLAKE is based upon the novels by the late C J SANSOM, and stars ARTHUR HUGHES as the investigator who, in this instance at least, is employed by SEAN BEAN’S THOMAS CROMWELL in the Tudor era, to investigate a murder that occurred within the cloisters of an isolated monastery during the 16th century.

Because SHARDLAKE does manage to combine two of LISA’S greatest televisual joys in one programme, as it combines the historical drama with a form of traditional detective fiction, it’s one of those rare modern series that feels just right for her, and has almost become an instant classic that has left its fans desperate to see more of it.

And so, for once, we don’t have to dive deep into the archives for the programme we’re discussing, but, instead, we can journey into history for the subject matter of that programme instead, which is a little bit back-to-front in terms of what we normally do on VISION ON SOUND, but I hope that you won’t find this breaking of the format too traumatic.

This week, PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI himself returns and, in that way he has of watching new stuff to recommend so that I don’t have to, he’s been watching some shiny new TV shows that he’s going to talk about.

So, in today’s show, he’ll be introducing me to Andrew Scott as RIPLEY, some DEAD BOY DETECTIVES, those very French ESCORT BOYS, the highly topical and controversial BABY REINDEER, and finally taking part in several versions of A RACE ACROSS THE WORLD.

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 talks about his recent viewing.

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on July 14th 2024.

This week, PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI himself returns and, in that way he has of watching new stuff to recommend so that I don’t have to, he’s been watching some shiny new TV shows that he’s going to talk about.

So, in today’s show, he’ll be introducing me to Andrew Scott as RIPLEY, some DEAD BOY DETECTIVES, those very French ESCORT BOYS, the highly topical and controversial BABY REINDEER, and finally taking part in several versions of A RACE ACROSS THE WORLD.

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.