Hello! It's a Thursday, and we begin our look at today's telly with one of ITV's new afternoon shows.
ITV, 2pm
ATV's General Hospital, which opens with a gloriously groovy theme by Derek Scott, borrowed the title of a long-running US soap, but was to all intents and purposes a revival of an earlier ATV hit, Emergency Ward 10, which had been cancelled in 1967 after 10 years on air. It even features an EW10 regular, David Garth, in a near-identical role as a consultant. Shown on Thursday and Friday afternoons, it debuted in the same week as Granada's Crown Court (which I'm looking at in a separate series of posts) - which was the week before this, the show's third episode, was transmitted. Although made and transmitted in colour, the only existing copy of this episode (as with most of the other ones that have survived) is in black and white, which sadly means we don't get to experience the early 70s fashions in their full glory (though most viewers in 1972 still only had black and white sets, so you could argue that seeing it this way's a more authentic experience).
Two questions of identity currently dangle over the hospital. Firstly, there's the matter of Dr Thorne, a local GP who also has a consultant role at the hospital: a patient, Mr Benchley (Jeffrey Segal, future neighbour to Rentaghost), has recognised him and insists he knew him years before - but that he wasn't a doctor and he wasn't called Thorne (perhaps he got inspiration for his new name from the Anthony Trollope novel). Benchley's doctor, Martin Baxter (James Kerry) tells his colleague Peter Ridge (Ian White) about it, but as Benchley can't remember who Thorne was or where he knew him from he immediately dismisses the patient as a fantasist. The bloke in the huge specs below has been the most consistently noticeable extra in the last couple of episodes. This week he asks the other doctors if they want a coffee, but still doesn't get a credit.
But Baxter now gets a call from Benchley, who insists he now remembers just who Thorne is.
The other mystery surrounds a beautiful woman (Jennifer Daniel) with a broken leg and no memory of who she is. Psychiatrist Dr Stern (a curiously uncredited Harold Kasket) has a go at getting to the root of the problem, with no joy. Stern seems to be German, and it's just as well he doesn't get Dr Baxter's joke about him being supposed to have "vays of making zem talk". "Miss Smith" seems very concerned when told that the police are investigating her.
Then there's the case of young Leonard Tate (Mark Rogers), admitted with kidney failure. His parents (Anna Barry and Philip Brack) are happy to learn that he might be getting a new one.
Nurses Hilda Price and Katy Shaw (Lynda Bellingham and Judy Buxton) appear on briefly in this episode, in a thrilling subplot about escorting an elderly patient (Joe Ritchie) to the lavatory.
An enthusiastic local reporter (Nicholas Evans) is very excited about covering the story of the mystery woman. Dr Matthew Armstrong (David Garth) finds him rather wearing.
Mr Benchley tells Baxter and Ridge that he knew Dr Thorne eight years previously when he worked as a pharmacist in Salisbury.
Consultant William Parker Brown (Lewis Jones) has a look at young Leonard. He insists the boy will soon be playing football again.
Dr Ridge is accosted by nervous Mr Unsworth (Peter Hill), who's concerned about another patient, Miss Finch, who he feels isn't getting the care and attention she needs. Ridge assures him Miss Finch is a hypochondriac who's only got a chest infection which she's nearly over, but that she loves exaggerating how awful things are in order to depress people. Rather ominously, Mr Unsworth decides to do something about her (Miss Finch is played by the wonderful Patsy Rowlands so it's a shame she doesn't appear in this episode).
Mr Parker Brown explains to Leonard's parents that the best thing would be for one of them to contribute a kidney. Mr Tate's keen to do it, but his wife is concerned about the consequences if it means he's off work for a long time, and insists that she be the donor. Dr Thorne sits in on this meeting, and actor Ronald Leigh-Hunt pulls some very interesting faces as he listens.
Talking of Dr Thorne, Baxter's been sniffing around his practice area, and has heard glowing reports about him from local people - certainly nothing to suggest he's not a qualified and perfectly competent physician. But Ridge has found what appears to be Thorne's entry in the medical register, and it gives his address as Barnes in London, far away from the Midlands town where this is all set. The mystery continues...
Dr Armstrong calls Mrs Tate in and explains that she can't donate her kidney because she suffers from chronic pyelitis. He suggests that Mr Tate donate his after all, but Mrs Tate has taken this as a sign, and has decided she won't allow Leonard to have the operation...
Here's that theme tune, by the way.
We'll switch the telly off now for a few hours, but let's tune in again in the evening (we've splashed out on a colour set by now, by the way).
BBC 1, 8pm
This is the first series in colour for Eric Sykes and Hattie Jacques, who'd been playing a pair of the screen's most unlikely twins since 1960. Episode seven (of a remarkably long 16-episode run) begins with an ominous caption and an introduction by Frank Bough. He's been called to Cleopatra's Needle by Hattie and a disguised Eric, who's been in hiding since the fateful day he refereed the big football match between Sebastopol Rangers and Wood Lane Athletic ("Weren't you suspended?" "Yes, from a lamp post"). He's here to tell his side of the story.
The trouble began with Hattie putting a bet on Sebastopol Rangers with the woman from the bread shop. News gets out that Eric's due to referee the match, and everyone in the neighbourhood, assuming Hattie's bet means she has inside knowledge, bets huge sums on them. The milkman (Tony Melody) slips the siblings an extra pint by way of further encouragement: "His wife only got a yoghurt on their wedding anniversary," marvels Eric.
A quick look now at the Sykes' very 1972 sofa cushions:
Eric has no intention of fixing the match, and is deeply uncomfortable with everyone's assumption he will. And he's not impressed that Hattie's taken to show her support for Sebastopol Rangers in the most conspicuous way possible.
Madge from the bread shop turns up in the form of Joan Sims, and proves to be an old flame of Eric's. Having bet against Hattie, she's not happy with the idea of the match being fixed the other way ("You've got a nerve! After all the doughnuts I've slipped in your carrier bag!"). Her shop's packed out with people placing bets. In the end she puts £20 on Wood Lane and £50 on Sebastopol.
Next door neighbour Mr Brown (Richard Wattis) pops round now: "Do you think I could have a word with you alone?" he asks Eric flirtatiously, and insinuates it would be well worth his while to arrange a Sebastopol win.
PC Turnbull (Deryck Guyler) is well into all this bribery and corruption too. He pops round with some flowers for Hattie ("Oh, it's no expense, ma'am, my beat goes past the cemetery") and a nod and a wink for Eric.
That night, the rest of the cast gather in the Sykes' living room to watch as Eric referees the match.
The suspense is palpable.
In the last 10 minutes of the match, it looks certain that Sebastopol will win. Mr Brown gets especially carried away with the excitement.
But then, Wood Lane take the lead, and the match comes to an end.
Eric makes it home after being nearly torn to shreds by an angry crowd, and offers to reimburse all his disappointed neighbours.
Frank Bough reveals that Eric had to sell all his possessions to do so. But we end with a smug Eric passing Bough in a limousine: turns out he bet on Wood Lane!
Corny and predictable as a Beano strip, but hugely enjoyable for exactly the same reasons. Mind you, this cast would be able to make even the direst script a joy. The "You Have Been Watching"-style end credits include this head-scratcher.
BBC 2, 8.30pm
Spanning 20 45 minute episodes and co-produced with Time-Life Films (a taste for British costume drama having by this time become a signifier of a high brow among US TV audiences) and Belgrade's CFS Kosutnjak, Jack Pulman's adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's infamously doorstop-like novel was one of the most ambitious TV projects undertaken to this date. In this pre-catch-up, pre even VCR era, BBC 2 ensured people got an extra chance to see their big show by showing it on both Thursday and Saturday nights, and, as the Radio Times listings inform us, you could even buy a special commemorative War and Peace magazine from your local newsagent, priced 50p (if anyone has a copy, I'd love to see it).
The big star of the production, certainly to 21st century eyes, is Anthony Hopkins as Pierre Bezukhov, but he's not in this week's instalment, which focuses entirely on the War part of the remit. Here I have to admit that I am completely unable to follow anything military-focused. Even Dad's Army's a struggle for me. So the finer points of strategy discussed at length here sailed right over my head. Instead, I saw the episode mainly as an opportunity for spotting familiar character actors. And on that basis, it doesn't disappoint. First off, on the French side, we have David Swift being all growly as Napoleon, with John Ringham as one of his generals.
To the Russian camp now, and camp is indeed the word for Neil Stacy's performance as Boris Drubetskoy, whose reunion with his cousin Nikolai Rostov (Sylvester Morand) suggests an altogether closer kind of relationship. Mind you, there's something remarkably sexy about Stacy here - far more so than when he was in Duty Free, at any rate.
Nikolai's boasts about his heroism at the Battle of Schöngrabern gets short shrift from Prince Andrei Bolkonsky (Alan Dobie).
Here we see the BBC's wig and false facial hair department working overtime.
At one point, Tsar Alexander himself (Donald Douglas) stops by to see the Russian troops, inspiring young Nikolai to rapturously exclaim "I would die, die for him". "No one is to fall in love with the Tsar," chides his Commanding Officer (Gary Watson).
Frank Middlemass plays grotesque, one-eyed General Kutuzov, who snores his way through a presentation by Prince Dolguruchov (the exceedingly rich-voiced Philip Morant, in what surprisingly appears to be his last screen credit) and German General Weirother (Michael Beint).
It seems inevitable that one of British (and later American) TV's most ubiquitous guest actors, Tony Steedman, should turn up in this production at some point, and here he is, giving us his own special brand of scowl as France's Marshal Davout.
Philip Morant and Alan Dobie are joined here by Tenniel Evans as the wonderfully named Prince Bagration.
And here's an actor named Richard Poore, giving a brief but very enthusiastic turn as French Messenger.
The battle itself, when it comes looks impressive, and impressively grim, on film.
There's a surprising amount of gore - here's General Kutuzov getting shot in his good eye.
The French decisively beat the Russians and Germans, and we end with Napoleon paying tribute to the fallen of both sides, including Prince Andrei.
It's a production that screams quality, though unfortunately I'm with Andrei on most of the episode's goings-on.
BBC 1, 9.25pm
Oh hooray, more war! But this time it's one that many viewers in 1972 would remember all too well.
This is the second episode of Colditz, but like last week's opener, it doesn't feature the infamous prison in it at all, instead telling the story of how one of its British prisoners came to be sent there. Last week it was Edward Hardwicke as Major Pat Grant; this week it's an RAF man, Flight Lieutenant Simon Carter (David McCallum). And hooray, hooray, it's Peter Halliday as his CO!
Carter's glottal stop alerts us that he's from several rungs down the social ladder to his new bride, Cathy (Joanna David, also currently starring in War and Peace as Sonya, though absent from this week's episode), who plays in a string quartet and has a wealthy father (Noel Johnson) with an extensive wine cellar. The latter is trying to get his son-in-law a safe office job for the duration of the war, but Carter's determined to fight, and is having none of it.
When Carter pops by where Cathy's rehearsing to say goodbye before going off his bomber, director Viktors Ritelis gives us this arresting shot.
Carter's bomber is shot down over Germany. He and co-pilot Dougal Maclean (Roy Boyd) parachute to safety, but Maclean's injured his leg and can't move.
Back in England, Cathy's informed that her husband is now missing, presumed dead.
Back in Germany, Carter ventures to the nearest village and, after stealing a change of clothes from a washing line, appeals to the local priest (Joe Dunlop) for help. The priest flees inside in terror.
It turns out the priest's being watched by a Gestapo man (Michael Wynne), who chases and eventually captures Carter.
Carter and the priest are both bundled in the back of a van (the priest was under surveillance for sheltering Jewish children). The Gestapo man holds them at gunpoint, but Carter attacks and disarms him with the priest's reluctant aid.
When the driver comes to see what all the fuss is about, Carter locks both he and the Gestapo man in the back of the van, and, leaving the priest to make his own way, drives off. He's almost immediately stopped by soldiers, and this time is sent to a POW camp. John Ringham makes his second appearance of the evening as the senior British officer there, exasperated by the conspicuous heroism of RAF chaps like Carter who refuse to settle down and be good POWs. There's a plan of escape, but everyone has to take his turn and Carter's won't be till the following year.
But the latest escape attempt, via laundry hampers, is foiled, and in the ruckus Carter drives off in the laundry van.
His good and bad luck continues to alternate with the van breaking down. He decides to jump a train, listening to the tracks while clutching a posy of wild flowers - more, one feels, because it makes for an interesting shot than for any practical reason.
After disembarking from the train, Carter uproots a small tree to lay it across the road and stop a driver while he sneaks on top of his lorry. It stops at a farm, where Carter heads for the hen house and hungrily sucks at an egg before being caught by the gun-wielding farmer and his vicious dog.
So it's back to the POW camp, where the commandant (Oscar Quitak) informs Carter that as they're having trouble keeping him there he's going to be sent to... well, you can guess the rest.
Terrific stuff. Yes, I know what I said about military things, but that was mainly just escaping, and brilliantly directed escaping at that.
BBC 1, 10.15pm
Next tonight, a daring expedition in the tradition of Thor Heyerdahl, as Mr Brian Norris sets out to prove his controversial theory that the astonishing similarities between the cultures of Surbiton and Hounslow are due to a migration from the former to the latter millennia ago.
The highlight of the expedition is this intriguing restaurant, supposedly in Tooting, at which Mr Norris have their last meal before leaving civilisation.
If you haven't already worked it out, all this is the preamble to an episode of...
...specifically the second episode of the show's third season. It's gone off the boil a bit by this stage, and the second sketch, with a group of schoolboys proving to be involved in a number of unlikely extracurricular activities (insurance, gynecology, making films for Panorama about the black ghettos) is pretty flat, though the Blue Peter spoof it leads into (How To Do It, offering the vaguest possible advice on achieving such goals as harmony between black and white people and curing all known diseases) is more fun.
Next, John Cleese plays the Minister for Overseas Development, still treated like a baby by his mother (Terry Jones) and her friend, the, erm, interestingly named Mrs Niggerbaiter (Michael Palin).
Halfway through the sketch Mrs Niggerbaiter suddenly explodes (offscreen), to her friend's consternation ("Don't be so sentimental, mother", chides Cleese, "things explode every day.")
A vicar-cum-door-to-door-salesman (Eric Idle) calls round, and pops up again as doctor Graham Chapman explains to the viewers at home that exploding is a perfectly normal medical phenomenon.
After an animation, it's time for a Farming Club special on the life of Tchaikovsky, which, despite the participation of gay lib campaigner Chapman, is more of an excuse for a snigger about the composer's homosexuality than anything else, and features Michael Palin broadly camping it up as Maurice, a "famous music critic and hairdresser". And it goes on for ages.
The episode's most bizarre sketch spoofs a genuine, extremely bizarre product heavily advertised in the early 70s: Trim-Jeans, which weren't jeans at all but inflatable shorts that supposedly aided slimming while you got on with any number of activities. Here an entire series of Trim-Jeans Theatre, combining performances of the greatest plays in history with weight loss, is postulated.
After another animation it's one of the best-remembered Python sketches, though a very slight one, the fish-slapping dance...
...which leads into another, fish-themed animation, featuring a Chinese caricature that now seems extremely dodgy.
This piscine Communist takes a bite out of a Western ship, causing it to sink. Aboard, Captain Terry Jones calls for women and children to man the lifeboats first, as he and his crewmates clamber into drag and children's clothes. He's forced to extend the call to other outlandish beings as the supply of these costumes runs dry.
A quick change of scene later they come ashore in a South American dictatorship. Apart from Jones the crew are all now very obviously played by non-speaking extras. John Cleese is now an official trying to prevent his staff from driving up the show's budget by saying lines and performing stunts...
...though newsreader Eric Idle insists the BBC is not running out of money, and has been allowed to stay in its bedsit till the end of the week.
Back at the sketch, the South Americans have sold their trousers and things have taken an unexpectedly panto turn with the arrival of Puss in Boots (Julia Breck). For me, the highlight of this extended sketch (and the whole episode) sees the screen go all wobbly as Terry Jones begins to narrate a tale of terror, yet the flashback this appears to promise fails to happen, much to Jones' puzzlement (well, it made me laugh - I think Python's at its best when sending up TV conventions of its era).
The whole thing comes to an end with the set being dismantled and landlady Mrs Kelly (Michael Palin) storming in and venting her dismay at the programmes being made under her roof. After she's evicted the Horse of the Year show from her kitchen Jones (still wearing his dress) briefly pops up as BBC 1 controller Paul Fox.
The handwritten end credits appearing on sheets of paper posted through the letterbox, which are then stamped on by Mrs Kelly's slippered foot, is quite an inspired touch.
But, as is so often the case, that's not quite the end of the show, as we move on now to a glitzy, Simon Dee-esque chat show with guests Lulu and Ringo Starr (yes, real Lulu and real Ringo Starr), and Palin hosting as the ragged character familiar from the show's opening. Once he utters the inevitable "It's.." the Python music and credits start up and Lulu and Ringo storm off.
And that really is the end.
Pop spot
Also on BBC 1 tonight was Top of the Pops. I haven't seen the full show (if indeed it still exists), but here's something that would certainly have featured. It's this week's number 1 single - surely one of the greatest of all time.
I hope you enjoyed this first clamber through the arch window - any feedback would be very much appreciated. Join me again next week, when we'll be visiting the year... ah, now that would be telling.
