Raymond

It really is the cruellest of ironies. This year Doctor Who celebrates 50 years as an ongoing, seemingly unstoppable, worldwide success. It is loved, from one side of the globe to the other. So much of Doctor Who’s iconography is instantly identifiable. The Tardis. Tom Baker’s ridiculously lengthy scarf. That noise the Tardis makes. Most of all though, there’s The Daleks. That silhouette has been tinkered with repeatedly. Sometimes they’re built like a battleship. Sometimes they’re built like a toy advert. Sometimes they’re gleaming silver, sometimes gold, sometimes black, sometimes red. Always it comes back to the fundamental design that seemingly everyone recognises. The eye-stalk, the gun-arm, the sucker-stick, the bumps around the base. The man who created that instantly recognisable design won’t be around to celebrate Doctor Who’s remarkable success this November.  Raymond Cusick, designer of the Daleks, passed away in his sleep on Thursday night.

The story has been told time and time again. Following initially unsuccessful advances by Doctor Who’s first producer, Terry Nation angrily dismisses the idea of writing for a fledgling television series and flounces off to write for Tony Hancock. One night Tub and Terry have a major falling out and Terry’s left with nothing in the pot. He goes back to Verity Lambert and eats a fair amount of humble pie -  then comes up with the second ever serial. He gets the initial idea for the way the Daleks move from watching the Georgian State Dancers, then the concept is passed on to the BBC design department. It lands on Raymond Cusick’s desk.  Terry Nation had the original idea, and we can never – and shouldn’t ever – take that away from him. Cusick took it, made it into reality and the result has haunted the imagination of millions ever since.

As a BBC staffer Cusick wasn’t paid more than his standard working wage for that particular job. He’s reputed to have approached Terry Nation to see if some sort of royalty could be worked out – as he wistfully recalled – “Terry said, don’t worry – I’ll see you right. I never saw him again”.

This particular injustice has exercised the indignation of Doctor Who fans for decades. There’s been mention in the past of some sort of ex-gratia payment, but I always hoped that he’d get some sort of longer lasting reward in the end. Now it’s too late.

Designers Peter Brachacki, Barry Newbery and many others created little miracles on a tiny BBC budget. Dreams provided for you while you wait. Raymond Cusick was part of that team in those early, flickering, black and white days. If you could imagine it, they’d make sure it got on screen. Cusick’s wonderful design work can be seen in several Doctor Who serials, including The Keys of Marinus, The Sensorites, Planet of Giants, The Romans,  and god help him, The Chase and The Dalek Masterplan, after which he moved on to other shows – presumably burned out following some of the most gruelling and punishing production turnarounds television has ever seen.

He kept going though. The Duchess of Duke Street. When The Boat Comes In. The Pallisers. Play For Today, Play of The Week, Playhouse. A lifetime in dedicated service to the simple art of making good television even better. He worked right up until the late eighties, seeing out his career with a variety of Agatha Christie adaptations. His last listed credit on the Internet Movie Database is for one of the Joan Hickson Miss Marple productions – 4.50 From Paddington. Although I’ve yet to see it, I’m sure the design work was impeccable. It always was, with Cusick.

The obituaries will – of course – focus on that pioneering work for Doctor Who. How could they do otherwise? It casts an enormous shadow and somewhere within that shadow was one small, modest man, asking for nothing more than a little recognition. If love and good wishes could be translated directly into money, Ray would have died a billionaire. He really deserved so much, because he sparked the imaginations of so many people. There are an awful lot of people out there who grew up with his work fizzing about in their heads, and many of them went on to create more stories. More wonderful, imaginative, swashbuckling stories, the currency of dreams. With stories, with dreams, with imagination, the human race is immeasurably enriched. From a few simple design drawings back in 1963, Raymond Cusick played a major part in creating an enduring universe that spins uncontrollably onwards. Sometimes wonderful, sometimes aggravating, sometimes captivating, sometimes enchanting. Without Raymond Cusick, it’s doubtful Doctor Who would have got much past the first few weeks.

From me, one little person who can’t imagine his life without Doctor Who in it, to you, Raymond Cusick – one of the ones who started it all – thank you. It’s precious little, but it is all I have. We’ll raise a glass to you in November. The magic lives on. Thank you, Raymond.

Television Archaeology – Manhunt

You’ve been working away on a television series for months. You have your scheduled transmission slot. You want as many people as possible to watch it. How do you promote the living daylights out of it? In the United Kingdom during the first few decades of television, your first port of call was obvious. Get your series featured in the listings magazines.

I’ve written about Manhunt before. First broadcast in the UK on the 2nd January 1970 on the ITV Network it ran straight through for 26 weeks, ending rather neatly on June 26th. While the country was going World Cup Bonkers, ITV broadcast a sobering reminder of an altogether different conflict as Jimmy, Nina and Vincent attempted to fight their way through war-torn France in a desperate race to get vital information back to London. Alfred Lynch, Peter Barkworth did weekly battle with the Nazi menace as personified by Philip Madoc, Robert Hardy, Tony Beckley et al in a series which remains my single favourite ITV drama ever broadcast. Nothing’s come close to touching it. I don’t know if anything ever shall.

It deserved the widest audience possible. To the credit of the ITV listings magazine TV Times, strenous efforts were made to ensure that Manhunt got just that. It may have sunk into relative obscurity in the intervening years but for the six months it was being broadcast, I’m pleased to say that TVT went hell-for-leather to make sure that we tuned in every Friday evening. Let’s have a look, see how they went about it. Click on the jpegs for a higher-res scan. All listings copyright TV Times.

Week 1  fairly low-key start. A box-out on the listings page for the Friday night, but a decent enough summary of what’s to come. Those still loitering near the exits after On The Buses would – it’s safe to say – have been greeted with a remarkable tonal shift in their evening’s viewing.

Week 2

Nothing too spectacular. A basic listing,but enough to whet the appetite. The plot-summary – as with every week – is bang on the money. Either someone is watching preview tapes avidly or the press-pack sent out by the production office is extraordinarily detailed.

Week 3

Blimey, here we go. An unexpected start to the luxurious extended coverage afforded to Manhunt, with a piece on the booming trade in Nazi memorabillia. That’s Richard Hurndall in full costume, looking altogether too comfortable.

Week 4

Week 5

Another oblique approach this week, with more focus being paid on the filming of the series rather than the performers. Makes for an arresting headline, though.

Week 6/7

Week 8

Time to get personal. A revealing and rather sad interview with Alfred Lynch.

Week 9

From the sublime to the ridiculous. Peter Barkworth’s cooking tips. Hey-ho. Rough with the smooth…

Weeks 10-16

Something of a desert, as presumably with the series up and running the listings people are happy to leave things to cook by themselves. Lots of other series to promote, all jostling for page-time.

Week 17

Time for another promotional push as Robert Hardy’s increasing presence in the series (becoming more or less the fourth regular lead by this stage) warrants another “at-home-with” feature. And what a home. Bonus picture of Hunky George Sewell on the listings page, you’ll note.

Week 18/19

Fans of the Madoc rejoice, for here he is at last.

Week 20

Manhunt finally makes the front cover – sort of. An enticing strapline slapped over Des O’Connor’s mush leads us towards Cyd Hayman’s fashion shoot. Well, a gal needs something nice to wear after all those French Ditches.

  

Week 21

Week 22

The extraordinary Intent To Steal this week, an episode with no dialogue whatsoever after the opening recap. A fact not lost on TV Times. Out of all the assorted promotional material here, this pic of Alfred Lynch and Peter Barkworth is by far my favourite. The article also gives away that the working title for the episode appears to have been The Raid. Makes sense.

Week 23

Week 24

The Gratz/Lutzig conflict takes centre stage this week, edging all of the other regulars out. Another series high-point. TVTimes has obviously been taking note of how this particular thread has been developing.

Week 25/26

Before we know it, it’s all over. A simple listing for the penultimate week, a pic of Cyd and Maggie for the final listings page and they’re off. A low-key exit for a series which – once I started digging – revealed itself to be far more visibly promoted than I’d at first assumed. Well deserved coverage of one of the commercial network’s unfairly neglected treasures. We shall never see their like again.

This one goes out to Mary from Frinton, her favourite Monkee is Davy

I’ve been listening to an awful lot of old pop radio recently. It’s been a rum old mix of offshore radio – (the usual suspects – Caroline, London, and the remarkable Radio 390, playing middle-of-the-road classics from Jim Reeves and Bert Kaempfert to the bored housewives of the South of England from a sea fort in the middle of the Thames Estuary). There’s been a fair amount of very early Radio 1 in there as well, dating from 1967 through to 1975 or so.

I began to notice something peculiar – or at least, something that most definitely doesn’t happen any more – and it’s this: when members of the public had a request played, the DJ would almost always read out their full address. Archive recordings are littered with what would now be regarded as confidential information – “I’ve got a letter here from Joan, and she lives at 67 Bakersfield Crescent, Chester – she wants to hear a record by Paul Jones. Well, here’s his latest for you, my love. Hope you enjoy it”. You know the kind of thing.

It occurs to me – there’s an awful lot of people out there who had their requests played. What happened to them all? Where did they get to? What sort of lives did they lead after Skuesey, Mark Roman or Dave Dennis played that one special number just for them? There may well be room for a “Who Do You Think You Are?” style research-intensive documentary there.

Lots to cover – there’s the social history of the people themselves. Where they came from – what changes have hit their old homes since they sent off that hopeful postcard way back when? Are they still living there, or did the social upheavals of subsequent decades lead to them trying their luck in other parts of the world? Did some little future television star – giddy with love for their favourite DJ – dash off an ill-advised missive consisting of the word “Please” repeated 2000 times, followed by a request for “Paint It, Black”?

It’s not just the likes of us that were pinpointed by our favourite DJs, either. Stuart Henry read out his Mum’s address in Edinburgh on one of his early Radio 1 shows. That area – Crewe Road South – has changed almost beyond recognition in the last forty years. I don’t imagine it’s the only one.

While we’re at it, there’s all sorts of other ephemera that we could dip into. Johnnie Walker had a habit of broadcasting his late night show from Caroline with a request for couples necking in their cars on the seafront at Frinton to flash their headlights at the Caroline ship anchored out at sea; when Ronan O’Rahilly decided to expand operations and the MV Caroline took off round the coast for a new anchorage as Caroline North just off Ramsey at the Isle of Man (leaving the MV Mi Amigo behind as Caroline South), the station broadcast continuously for the duration of the journey, commenting delightedly about the people on shore that signalled them, and those who puttered out in launches to say hello. Some of those people might well still be around. I wonder what they’re up to these days? The wonderful Radio London website is littered with reminiscences from people devastated when the Marine Offences Act took hold and their favourite stations had to close down. Be nice to get a few of them to tell their stories.

There’s room there for a fascinating series, I think. Because the people sending the requests were members of the public like you and me, there’s a chance that for once we might get a look at the habits of the music-loving public without the usual “phew – fans. Aren’t they loony?” nonsense that tends to litter retrospective documentaries. The story of Pop Radio in the UK is fairly well known these days. The story of the people who listened to it – in their bedrooms, in the canteen at work, in the garage while they pottered about – that’s not so familiar. There’s an untapped wealth of oral history there. Be nice if someone started digging.

Alternatively, if anyone should by a freak of chance find their way to this site who might have had their request played all those years ago, why not leave a comment or two? I’d be glad to host any recollections here. Meanwhile – BBC4… how about it?

Introducing – the NewleyCast

A few weeks ago myself, Jon Melville, Frank Collins and Robert Ross enjoyed a lengthy chat via Skype about all things related to Anthony Newley. We began by focussing on The Strange World of Gurney Slade, then digressed enthusiastically in an unscripted ramble which was one of the most fun things I’ve had the pleasure to be involved with for a very long time.
The whole thing has now mutated into a podcast, available here…
Four chaps rambling on with love and affection. We hope you might get something out of it too.

Her hair hung across her face, like a bush hangs across a wall

“Favourite line? Difficult, but “the cab took us home through a night I’d not noticed, the neon club lights of Adult Films and Trini Lopez” has to take the biscuit”

I forget just who it was came up with the line “songs you know are true because they happened in your living room last week”. All I can say is, must have been one hell of a living room, because Squeeze became my favourite band when I was fourteen and they’ve remained so ever since. They occasionally share headspace with other suspects but it always – always – comes back to Squeeze in the end. I can go months without listening to them and then I hear one song and it all comes flooding back. BBC4 have just aired Squeeze – Take Me I’m Yours  which played rather a lot of them in a row and my head’s whirling with love, sentiment and memories.

Why do I love them so much? God, where do I start? They’re so inextricably sewn into my life it’s hard to separate them from me. Soundtrack of your life? Oh my goodness, yes. Here are a few random thoughts, observations and ruminations. They mean a lot to me. Maybe they do to you too.

1993 – or was it 1994? I’m at Glasgow Barrowlands. Squeeze are having one of their better nights on stage. Bands frequently do, at Barrowlands. Paul Carrack’s on keyboards. Pete Thomas on drums. Smiles all round on stage. Chris Difford wanders over to the mike and says a few kind words about Glenn Tilbrook. There’s an enormous “clang” and howl of feedback as Glenn rushes over and enfolds him in a bear-hug and two guitars smack into each other. For all their much stated distance and strained relationship, there’s a glimpse of a friendship that – somehow – endures despite everything that either man can throw at it. They crack into Black Coffee In Bed. Glenn does his traditional “divide the audience up and get them to sing the backing vocal” routine. It works a treat. The band walks off. The audience file out. Doesn’t stop singing. About two hundred or so of us walk back to Glasgow town centre singing Squeeze songs, and it lasts all the way to Buchanan Street.

From “Bonkers” – “the swell of her breasts / like woodpecker’s nests / would keep me warm on winter nights”. Possibly the most Chris Diffordy lyric there’s ever been. When it’s delivered with the traditional octave-apart Difford/Tilbrook vocal accompanied by a woodpecker sound effect it becomes so gloriously silly that you have to smile.

Labelled With Love drips empathy from every line. It’s one of the saddest, loving, beautiful songs I know. It may be cast as a traditional country-tragedy song, but it’s so warm, kind, redolent of missed opportunities and lost chances. “He like a cowboy died drunk in a slumber / out on the porch, in the middle of summer”. Delivered by Glenn in his best angelic plaint, while Gilson Lavis taps out the simplest of rhythms in the background. Nobody – although Pete Thomas, Kevin Wilkinson, Ash Soan et al came close – can drum like Gilson Lavis on a Squeeze song.

Oh, what the hell. Astonishing Gilson Lavis moments? Where to start? Sunday Street is probably his defining moment – he manages to be Charlie Watts, Keith Moon and Ringo Starr all in the same song. The trademark rattle-round-every-piece-of-kit thing that he does in so many of the earliest songs is something that always makes me smile. Up The Junction is driven by him as well. Hard to imagine it without that stop-start rhythm that punctuates it.

Labelled With Love is incredibly sad, loving and sympathetic. So’s Vicky Verky, from Argy Bargy. Except, it’s taken at a brisk beat-club rattle with Gilson machine-gunning it into life and then delivering a demon shuffle that keeps it moving. How the hell you can produce an upbeat, sprightly pop song with lyrics like ”She received a letter, and a bit in it / said there was nothing else to do but get rid of it” and make the damn thing work, I will never know.

I mentioned the octave-apart vocal thing earlier. This reaches ridiculous heights on Black Coffee in Bed, when Elvis Costello and Paul Young join in on backing vocals. They’re singing harmony rather than the Difford/Tilbrook “same notes in different registers” thing, but they’ve both got such distinctive voices – one high, one low – that they complement Tilbrook’s vocals perfectly.

Glenn Tilbrook guitar solos. He’s not usually cited as a guitar hero, because he very rarely solos as such – when he does strike out it’s as an integral part of the song, one that actually plays much more like a vocal counterpoint rather than a solo. He’s impeccable, but he can shred with the best of them. I’ve heard him do stuff live with echo-boxes and feedback that would astonish people who think he just sings and plays guitar in a pop band.

Harry Kakoulli’s grumbling bass. John Bentley’s chatty, McCartney-esque bass. Keith Wilkinson’s incredibly expensive, fat sounding bass. Somehow – despite sounding completely different from each other, they all fit perfectly.

Frank. Coming off the back of a brace of albums that suffer slightly from being – ahem – slightly overproduced (and in the case of Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti, definitely overproduced) Squeeze wandered into the studio on an incredibly tight budget – there was no money for catering so friends and family brought in sandwiches – and knocked this out. A finer example of grace under pressure you’re unlikely to find. Jools Holland was getting itchy feet again by this stage (as noted – tersely – on the album cover where he’s represented by an empty passport photo strip and the words “Julian Was On Holiday”) but you wouldn’t know it because the little feller plays his heart out here. Indeed, he starts the whole thing by insulting Gilson Lavis off-mic before If It’s Love, then settling down to doing what he’s absolutely best at – playing piano and adding immeasurably to fantastic pop music. Peyton Place captures the heady rush of finally getting together with someone you’ve lusted after from afar after weeks of dancing around each other. Rose I Said – Difford in excelis. “Yes, I cried the moment that her hand slapped my face, a mouthful of sandwich went all over the place / She left like a tornado, the door of course slammed, I stood in the kitchen a very confused man”. To every man who’s ever found himself standing going “Whaaaa….?” having come out with something so utterly crass and insensitive they don’t actually realise they’ve done it… this is for you. Hang your head in recognition. I know I do.

She Doesn’t Have To Shave tackles the subject of what women have to go through that men don’t on a regular basis – oh, I’m so delicate, aren’t I? Melody Motel dispassionately tells the tale of ‘orrible murder at a local brothel when the killer lives within driving distance and is able to get home to his wife and watch the news breaking live on telly. It’s hard to find, this one – or was until a luxuriant double cd reissue fairly recently. Snap it up. This is the start of a run of albums where they don’t put a foot wrong.

Which brings us to Play . Ignore the conceit – the lyrics are printed in the booklet like a play script, with stage directions – wallow in the sound of a band playing out of their skins, even as they begin to fall apart. The Truth is Chris saying to Glenn the things that he’s far too English and repressed to come out with to his bandmate’s face. House of Love features ridiculous key-changes that will make you grin (and varispeed vocal effects that won’t). The Day I Get Home has Michael McKean and Christopher Guest on it.  They even chucked out a blissful b’side with Maidstone, rightly treasured. I keep quoting Difford lyrics, but you really need to hear Glenn singing stuff like “I pull the pillow to my side / and I imagine that it’s her” to get the full effect.

It all leads up to Some Fantastic Place which is the one I throw at people who ask why the hell I love this raggedy-arsed, occasionally shambolic bunch so much. Gilson’s gone but Pete Thomas pops in for an album, bringing a returning Paul Carrack with him and between them they push Difford and Tilbrook to a career high. Everything works. It’s paced perfectly, kicking off with a beat-group white-boy-soul special (Everything in the World) and ending with the dreamy rush of Pinocchio. In between they pretty much cover everything you might want or expect them to. Pop singles that really should have sold more than they did – I can’t believe Third Rail isn’t more familiar to the world at large than it is. Another Paul Carrack special (Loving You Tonight, which doesn’t quite have the nervy, frightened edge that Tempted does, but – it’s Paul Carrack singing with Squeeze and therefore works just fine). Laments for love lost (Images of Loving – which features what might be my favourite Difford moment of all – “Your initials on the singles that you chose to leave behind / sit in my collection, they get played. From time to time.”). To the best of my knowledge, no-one except Squeeze has ever produced a country song about a drunk man trying to get back into his girlfriend’s house after a fight via the catflap and getting stuck halfway. No-one else would ever try, and certainly no-one else would ever use the lines “Like a slaughtered cow in a butcher’s fridge” as part of the chorus. But that’s them. Somehow, Cold Shoulder works, especially when you reach the tag line, when the girlfriend knocks him arse over tit backwards out of the catflap and Glenn sings “Then I fell over / Into a bush-sssssssshhhhhhh.” How the hell do they come up with such ridiculous stuff and make it work anyway?

The whole thing is almost dwarfed – almost – by the title track itself. Glenn’s favourite Squeeze song – and mine – this tribute to Maxine (Glenn’s first girlfriend, and the one who forced him to answer the advert Chris placed in the local sweetshop window) is… well, if you’ve heard it, you know already. If you haven’t, all I will say is that the moment the churchy interlude comes in about halfway through, you’ll realise you’re in the presence of greatness. Rather neatly, Glenn sneaks in one of the first solos he ever wrote, back in ’73. He never used it. Almost as if it was biding its time, waiting for this.

There’s so many other things I could talk about. The fact that Ridiculous is almost as good as SFP – the only thing that stops it is a rather shonky duet with Cathy Dennis on side two that I suspect Glenn just had to get out of his system.

The tumbling sequencer of Slap and Tickle (single version only, please – the album version pales into nothing compared to it). Their frightening ability to knock out fantastic pop songs even when they’re absolutely shattered (Sweets From A Stranger not only has Black Coffee In Bed on it, but also Points of View, I Can’t Hold On (glorious Don Snow / John Savannah keyboard solo), When The Hangover Strikes and The Elephant Ride. That’s them at half strength.

Same goes for Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti – the production smothers it but Last Time Forever, King George Street, No Place Like Home are knocked out with the sort of effortless ease that you know took months to appear that way. 

There’s lots of other things, but this’ll do for now. I love them. I’ve loved them most of my life, I don’t see any reason to stop now. I wish more people loved them too, but as it is that almost makes them more precious to me. They’re mine. But if you love them as well, you feel exactly the same way. They’re personal. To you, and to everyone.

Thank you BBC4, for reminding me.

Veni Vidi Castratavi Illegitimos. Black Adder – The Untransmitted Pilot

I don’t know about you but there aren’t many television series I know better than Blackadder. With the possible exception of The Young Ones, there isn’t really any other series I don’t actually need to watch – every line, every shot, every gesture, every gag is embedded so far into my DNA that I find myself using phrases and gags in everyday conversation without even realising I’m doing it. Blackadder was born in the eighties and – apart from the odd one-off, died there (on multiple occasions). It transcends the idea of “sitcom” – Rowan Atkinson has commented that it’s “modern day jokes in different clothes”, but it seems to be so much more than that. It’s one of those occasions when television gets it 100 percent, utterly right.

One of the many things I love about it is this – it evolves. Blackadder is always a work in progress – with each series picking up on the one before, refining and fine-tuning as it goes. I don’t mean that Blackadder Goes Forth is the finest, funniest and best of the four main series – I’d find it difficult to choose a favourite out of them – just that it’s utterly consistent with more or less everything that’s gone before. All the main characters behave as you’d expect them to, just because you’ve seen most of their ancestors and you know how they’d react. Blackadder becomes more icily polite and devious. Baldrick continues his reverse evolution, albeit to the point where we reach the dreadful “Sniff My Skids!!!” moment in Blackadder : Back and Forth. Percy becomes more and more of a chinless wonder with every series. Even when he turns up in Blackadder the Third, he’s playing at being one (shortly before hopping into a corner and expiring). George – well, he’s an idiot when we first meet him and an idiot when we say goodbye, but by the time we reach the trenches of World War One he’s a well-meaning, generous soul as opposed to the self-centred, pampered egotist of the third series.

It’s safe to say that Blackadder is loved. Most of it. You never hear a great deal of praise for the original series, least of all from the people who made it. That’s a shame, because it has so much to recommend it. It is vigorously different to everything that came after – almost acting as a six episode prologue before Blackadder settles down into a house style that seems to really work for it.

It looks lushly expensive. The sets are massive and so are some of the performances (yes, the words Brian Blessed should be leaping to mind around about this time). Baldrick and Blackadder would swap characters by the time Blackadder II came along. In this iteration Baldrick’s the schemer, the planner, while Edmund is the idiot. Relatively speaking. This is the classic comedy situation of two complete fools, each thinking they’re the clever one. It’s just that Baldrick is that little bit more devious than his remarkably slimy and incompetent master.

Offsetting Blessed’s screen-eating antics, Robert East and Elspet Gray are wonderful. Howard Goodall’s music is cavernous, stately and memorable. Every episode is rammed with fantastic, scene-stealing guest stars, from Peter Cook to Frank Finlay to Miriam Margolyes.

I love it. I always have, and I probably always will. It doesn’t feel like the rest of the series, which makes it all the more cherishable to me. Michael Grade may have initially cancelled because of the expense of the thing -  “there weren’t enough laughs to the pound” – but by those criteria he’d probably have canned Ripping Yarns as well, which is what the first series of Blackadder reminds me of. It’s full of beautiful, sweeping Jones-and-Palin scenescapes which add precisely nothing in terms of laughs but which make it different.

Back when “Black Adder” was a description and not a surname – and of course, how very wonderful that it becomes one, in the finest medieval tradition of naming yourself after your profession – the BBC produced something as close to “epic” as a six part television sitcom is ever likely to get.

All of which makes it even stranger that it didn’t start out that way. There’s an even earlier version of “The Black Adder” which has never been aired on terrestrial television and possibly never will. The 1982 pilot episode can be found if you look for it and makes the first series an even more alarming tonal shift from everything else. Like the second, third and fourth series, it’s claustrophobically studio-bound. Edmund, Baldrick and Percy behave exactly like their latter incarnations (from Blackadder II on, basically). Much of it is considerably more in keeping with what we know as “Blackadder” than the first series ever was. Yet, the production team decided to take off in a completely different direction, before returning to this particular strand for the second series. It’s all very odd.

Things get off to a stirring start. The theme tune is in place right from the off, and it’s a rousing, romantic, martial version with drums and brass to the fore as a black-gloved hand opens the Blackadder history book to the title page. A title crawl follows, setting up the traditional Blackadder alternate history  -
“It is Europe, 400 Years ago. In Spain, war rages as Christians from every land fight off the threatening terror of the Turkish invasion. The French… are in uneasy peace. But in England, under the tutelage of a powerful King the Ship of State ploughs a steady course as the Court awaits The Queen’s Birthday and the return of a Scottish hero from the war…”

Immediately we’re in Blackadder II territory. This little bit of exposition places us squarely in the early 1580s, which leads us to expect Queen Elizabeth I to be on the throne. She isn’t – although the unnamed Queen we’re about to see looks like her, it’s actually a fictional King who’s in power. That King… is John Savident. One of Blackadder’s major strengths is immediately evident – every character, down to the most minor of bit-part players – is cast to the hilt. There’s one glaring exception which we’ll come to in a moment, and that’s got a lot more to do with what came after and our expectation of who plays whom.

Quite apart from John Savident as the fictitious King, that’s Robert Bathurst as The Prince of Wales. Still with us, still working, here he’s just starting out. Years away from Joking Apart or indeed, Downton Abbey. Sadly the low-quality dub I’m taking these screengrabs from doesn’t really reveal what he’s up to, but he’s painting a still-life of an apple. He’ll still be painting that apple in the final scene, by which point he’ll have got hungry and it’ll have a gigantic bite out of the side. A nice bit of business to book-end things.

The Queen – lovers of the first series will instantly recognise Elspet Gray, one of the major strengths of the initial run as the eccentric, gentle Queen Gertrude (who may or may not be a witch, and who just can’t get Henry Tulip’s name right). She’s calm, still, poised and a very different “Queen Elizabeth” to Miranda Richardson’s later squeaky, oversexed, sociopathic version. She doesn’t get to do much, although her presence motivates the main thrust – and I use that phrase precisely – of the plot.

This pilot script was later used as the basis of Born To Be King, from the first series. All of the main beats of that latter version are present here, although we’re leading up to The Queen’s Birthday, rather than that most beloved of English Public Holidays, St Leonard’s Day.

“What’s Father given you for a birthday present?” asks Bathurst.

“Ah, it’s something rather nice”, says Gray.

“Horses?”

“No”.

“A Coach, perhaps?”

“No”.

“Jewellry, Gold, Silver or something?”

“No. Shropshire”.

A great gag in itself, but it also sets things up later for the moment when the King gifts all of Edmund’s Scottish properties to the returning Dugal McAngus the conquering Scotsman. This script is really tightly constructed.

Meanwhile, the Queen’s other son Edmund is having problems with The Entertainment. As in the transmitted version, The Eunuchs Have Cancelled. It’s time to meet our “hero”, and his faithful companions Percy and Baldrick.

He may be beardless, but in almost every other respect that’s Edmund from Blackadder II leaping fully-formed from the screen. Perhaps not quite as laconic as his latter incarnation, Atkinson’s got it nailed. There’s a boiling, volcanic anger -  almost rage-  in this version that is all but absent from any other Blackadders. He gets angry from time to time later, but he’s pretty much furious in every scene in this pilot. It won’t be seen again in this form but those sudden explosions of fury that all of the later Edmunds exhibit will form a fundamental part of his character, and that’s all to the good.

Tim McInnerny’s pretty much got what he wants to do with his character sorted out straightaway but – there’s no getting around this – that’s Baldrick on the right there. This is the one thing that really sets this pilot apart from the rest of the series, and may well be the reason for its ongoing absence from any commercial release. Almost more than Atkinson as Blackadder, Tony Robinson is synonymous with the series and Baldrick – for all his latter catchphrase driven, easy-laugh-getting tendencies involving dung, turnips and cunning plans – is one of the most recognisable aspects of the show.

Philip Fox isn’t exactly terrible as the character. He’s just… disinterested. Robinson’s a much more naturalistic, conversational actor. This Baldrick’s very stagy and very mannered, which works wonderfully during the scenes where he’s taking part in the play which is supposed to end up in McAngus’s murder later on. It’s just… when it’s just him, McInnerny and Atkinson together there’s a spark missing. All the lines are there, they’re absolutely fine… but they don’t flow. The audience can tell as well, as their response is muted compared to the same gags when delivered later on by Robinson.

Fox himself took the time out to email the fansite Blackadder Hall. According to him he was let go with no explanation from the production team. So far as this viewer can tell it’s a simple matter of the onscreen partnership not sparking the way it should but we’ll probably never know, short of asking director Geoff Posner. It’s a shame for Fox but he doesn’t seem to have let it get him down – a healthy career has ensued and he’ll later turn up as The Head Teacher in the peerless People Like Us amongst many other notable performances.

The plot more or less covers the same ground from here on in as Born To Be King. McAngus returns triumphantly from foreign parts, played here as he would be in the transmitted episode by Alex Norton (albeit a considerably more groomed and less scraggly version).

His motivation for dropping Edmund in it is a lot less clear here, despite a promising rumble between the two when they first meet. In Born To Be King it’s obvious that McAngus has manouevered Edmund into making a prat of himself just for his own amusement. Here, he seems to do it out of stupidity. After all, he loses Selkirk, Roxburgh and P-Peebles if Edmund gets his way and ascends to the rank of heir to the throne.

There’s a crafty bit of scene setting involving Edmund getting his head stuck in a spiked helmet which leads to some impressive stunt-work from Norton and Atkinson. While Edmund’s listening behind a door McAngus slams it right in his face, driving the spike of the helmet clean through to the other side. No stunt-doubles here – it’s the two actors themselves and I shudder to think of how much pain Atkinson went through before they got it right.

This leads into the “Queen’s letters” conversation as per the broadcast episode before Edmund loses his property and gains a burning urge to murder a Scotsman. He’s going to kill McAngus in the middle of the entertainments and make it look like an accident, again as per Born To Be King. Since this is a studio-bound production there’s no room for Edmund stalking McAngus through the forest to the sound of a delicately plucked Cimbalom. Neither does Edmund suddenly get caught in a rabbit trap (with camera view correspondingly shifting rapidly to upside-down). We also lose Norton’s casual “oh, and eh, watch out for the weasel pit” moment as well, which is a shame .

Thankfully, there’s still time to see the main act and The Jumping Jesuits of Jerusalem (transmuted to Jumping Jews in the remake) are mystifying the Royal Court exactly as per broadcast. Oengus MacNamara still does the wonderful “How did it go?” “Not bad, but I don’t think they really understood it” gag while peeling off his false beard to reveal the real one underneath. The version in Born To Be King is much better though – mainly because it’s Angus Deayton doing it.

In this case, the play is much more central to the episode and considerably less Egyptian (sadly this does mean we lose Dominick Prique and the Wooferoonies with their remarkable warmup routine – their “whah-ooooooh!” antics backstage are one of the highlights of the episode).  However, this does put Percy and Baldrick on stage right from the start – leading to this pearler of bad-Shakespearean dialogue:

PERCY Today, Fair Buttock – the birthday is of that beloved-and-much-sainted-Dame, who rules this land with Queenly Name.

BALDRICK ‘Tis so my lord. The land is full of great rejoicing.

PERCY Aye, though art a’right, Buttock.

BALDRICK Aye, and a left one too, if truth be known.

That’s just the start of it. More or less all of the dialogue after this is in rhyming couplets which must have been hell for McInnerny and Fox, given that the next ten minutes or so descend to levels of physical violence that Edmonson and Mayall might have thought twice about. As Edmund desperately tries to stop the phenomenally drunk McAngus from being hung live on stage he delivers a beating to both of his co-stars that really does look incredibly painful. Atkinson kicks Fox in the nuts and breaks a chair over his back, hits McInnerny square in the face and then slips the noose around his neck… it’s remarkable and a real testament to the presence of an honest to goodness fight arranger – step forward Malcolm Ranson – on set. Meanwhile, that really is Alex Norton being hung by the neck until almost dead.

As the play concludes with the rescue – just about – of The Scotsman, the pitter-patter of applause from the court is drowned out by what sounds like an ovation from the studio audience. Well deserved, as what could seem like a good five or six minutes of padding comes across as well played, beautifully staged and above all – crammed full of great jokes. I particularly like Edmund giving a “come on then” gesture to a book wielding Percy. Percy misinterprets this and gives Edmund the book – who then wallops him in the face with it. Bliss.

Next morning we’re back at the main plot as Edmund’s machinations reach their conclusion. The Queen’s ill-considered youthful discretions are revealed – and yes, she still wishes to find herself in “That Kingdom Between The Saffron Sheets Where You And Your Ruler Are The Only Ruler”. Posner’s direction favours a slow zoom on Atkinson’s face at this point which does lose the fantastic work that McInnerny’s doing – mouthing the words of the letters along with Edmund as if he’s read them hundreds of times already.

John Lloyd favours a much more sensible two-shot with McInnerny well and truly present and it works considerably better.

Following the revelation of just how badly Edmund’s cocked it up (with a moment of Atkinson face-comedy that almost rivals his “Great Boo’s Up” moment from Blackadder II), there’s a vigorous, enthusiastic and convincing swordfight between Edmund and McAngus which inadvertantly reveals just what a Scotsman has under his kilt, much to the delight of the studio audience. Before anyone gets too excited, it’s a respectable pair of BBC shorts. Filthy swines that yez are.

While it’s a cut above the usual BBC Studio Swordfights – traditionally under-rehearsed, underplayed and underwhelming – it’s still nowhere as good as Born To Be King’s triumphant staging, which might be my favourite moment from all of the first series – Edmund advancing towards McAngus while carrying out a ridiculous amount of flamboyant swordplay to a twisting, curlicued Howard Goodall soundtrack. McAngus of course,  isn’t moving a muscle, just standing staring at him – until he snaps Edmund’s sword in half with a single blow of his broadsword. It’s a shame, but the fight’s fantastic and it’s just a matter or personal preference. I just love the way the broadcast scene is staged.

Edmund’s then forced to beg for mercy. In Born To Be King he’s considerably more craven, hand wringing and cringing under McAngus’s sword:

EDMUND  I’ll give you everything I own! Everything!

McANGUS Uh huh?

EDMUND I’m, I’m hardly a rich man.

KING  You’re hardly a man at all! (laughs)

EDMUND  But but my horse must be worth a thousand ducats. I can sell my wardrobe – the pride of my life – my swords, my curtains, my socks, and my fighting cocks. My servants I can live without, except perhaps he who oils my rack. (King yawns) And then my most intimate treasures: my collection of antique codpieces, my wigs for state occasions, my wigs for private occassions, and my wigs — heh — for humourous occassions; my collection of pokers, my Grendel- stretchers, my ornamental pumphries, and, of course, my autographed miniature of Judas Iscariot.

Here, it’s delivered much more coldly, almost as if Edmund doesn’t care -

EDMUND I plead… for God’s Mercy. I’ve been treacherous, selfish and disloyal. I’ve allowed the spirit of evil to enter my heart, and it has set me against Mother, Brother… and friend (glares at McAngus). I beg your forgiveness, I’m in awe of your courage, and wish you nothing but happiness and success with your new charge.

After which, Edmund stalks off to camera right, to find Percy standing like this…

McInnerny doesn’t get much to do in this pilot, but by god he makes it count.

Into the home strait now, and the absence of Brian Blessed means that nobody misses the scent of blood in their nostrils, and neither does the Queen have a headache. McAngus is introduced to the royal cannon, there’s rather a messy accident, drains are still blamed and Edmund’s still in freezeframe celebratory mode – although here he doesn’t leap into the air,  contenting himself with a triumphant “yyyyeeees!” gesture – then it’s all over and the credits roll to another standing ovation from the studio audience. The template’s set for the next eight years or so of classic BBC comedy. Almost. They’ll get to it eventually.

When I first saw this – many many years ago – I was so tuned in to how I perceived Blackadder to be that I loathed it. Hated it with a passion. I think it’s safe to say that I’ve mellowed a lot towards it. In almost every respect I still prefer Born To Be King. It’s better staged, everyone’s more sure of their lines and the bigger budget allows things to open up wonderfully. The location shooting adds to the effect more than you might think until you watch both versions back to back.

Poor old John Savident ghosts through this, merely there to facilitate the plot by giving over Edmund’s lands to McAngus. Apart from that there’s no need for his presence at all. Elspet Gray is delightfully low-key, as is Bathurst – again we’d probably care for their characters a lot more if they’d made it to series. As it is, with the shift back a hundred years in setting, Gray becomes one of The Black Adder’s major strengths and Robert East’s Prince Harry matches her scene for scene. Bathurst doesn’t get enough time to establish a character here but he’s fine in what he does. East’s just more assured in the part.

The script’s wonderful, packed with one-liners, assured comedy and masses of insults in the finest Blackadder tradition. Atkinson and McInnerny know exactly what they’re doing right from the start. If you’ve seen that footage from the readthrough of Blackadder Goes Forth you’ll know just how much care Atkinson puts into his performances. I’m not even remotely surprised to find he’s got it nailed almost from the first shot. Fox… well, he may have found depths (or shallows) in Baldrick if he’d been retained in series, but we’ll never know. As it is, this little bit of television archaeology is the only evidence of a Baldrick who at times is even stupider than the one Robinson eventually evolved the character into, and it’s fascinating. A real what-might-have-been. The production team did choose well when they got Robinson. No shame in what Fox does, it’s just that elusive chemistry doesn’t really start bubbling until Tony comes along.

As things stand I’m really glad that they didn’t go down this route when things went to series. The Elizabethan format needed time to mature – actually, what it needed was Ben Elton, who really brings out the best in Richard Curtis in series 2 to 4. If they’d gone with this, we’d have lost the wonderful atmosphere and slower, almost stately pacing of The Black Adder, and that would have been a shame. This pilot episode’s not an ignoble failure as I long thought it to be. It’s a compelling glimpse of what might have been, and cherishable as an example of how nearly they got it right even from the earliest stages. Almost but not quite there. Compulsive viewing, nonetheless. Well worth seeking out.

Review : Audiobook – The World of George Orwell (Modern Scholar Series)

Always said I’d never do this again. After years working my way through the British Higher Education system followed by several years’ work towards my basic library qualifications…then another seven years of Open University work – I told myself enough was enough. I always enjoyed the actual study component of being a student. It was the assignment deadlines that did for me. The jangled nerves, the late night panic as deadline day approached and I’d once again utterly failed to keep to my schedule… couldn’t ever see myself wanting to drop back into that routine.

Never say never. I would appear – almost by accident – to have become a student again. Sort of. He’s back… and this time it’s totally voluntary.

If you use Amazon, LoveFilm or any number of online retailers these days you’ll be familiar with Audible’s banner advertising. As an Amazon company, they’re everywhere. If you’ve not encountered them before…. they deal in spoken word material. Unabridged readings of novels, dramatic works, radio broadcasts, speeches…if it’s commercially available, chances are they carry it. You can either purchase each item on spec or take out a subscription plan where for a fixed price each month you get a certain amount of credits which can then be redeemed against your purchases.

What you get comes to you in Audible’s own proprietary format, usually (although not yet universally) playable on any number of devices. Most mp3 players and mobile phones can handle the format with no problem, and it’s 100 percent compatible with iTunes. I lament the absence of any packaging – I do love a nicely researched sleeve-note -  but the extensive cloud-based library of purchases I’ve built up over the last few years is one of my very favourite things. I love being able to just grab an audiobook when I need it.

If you’re making a single purchase you’ll frequently find some of their enormous unabridged recordings are pegged at the higher end of the price range. Usually you’ll pay something close to the publisher’s recommended retail price. If you’re a subscriber you can redeem your monthly credit against these higher-end items as well – one credit equals one purchase. In the past I’ve gloried in almost 60 hours worth of unabridged readings for the cost of my single subscription credit – £8 instead of £40-50. It all balances out.

Obviously I use my monthly subscription to feed my BBC habit. Dick Barton, Goon Show, Journey Into Space… all of the usual, timeless suspects. Occasionally though – Audible will throw something at me that I wouldn’t normally consider trying. Invariably I’m hooked in. Last time this happened it was with a series called Shakespeare Appreciated – such a blindingly simple idea, in which a particular play is taken line by line with context and discussion, followed by a full, unabridged performance. The depth of understanding I’ve gained from working my way through these… well, they really do feel like a completely different and new play each time.

It’s happened again. I stumbled across a series of releases recently called Modern Scholar, released by a company known as Recorded Books. They’re effectively a series of University-Level lectures delivered by academics who clearly not only know exactly what they’re talking about – but also who love what they’re talking about. Normally they’re about 10-14 specially recorded lectures, running at about half an hour each. The Modern Scholar website has supplementary material and if you choose to do so there’s an online exam you can take at the end of your listening to test how much you’ve learnt. They’re not dry or dull in any sense – they crackle with enthusiasm and they’re really rather wonderful.

I’m working through The World of George Orwell at the moment. Presented by Professor Michael Shelden – lecturer at Indiana State University and long-term features editor at the Daily Telegraph, these lectures sing. I thought I knew a fair bit about Eric Blair. These recordings show me that I very much don’t.

Orwell’s always fascinated me, but he’s a bit shadowy. Outwith of the novels his journalism is compelling -  the burning anger of pieces like “A Hanging”, the shame of the narrator in “Shooting an Elephant”,  the clinical detachment of Down and Out in Paris and London… all of this, I know. That’s Orwell. Eric Blair… he’s another figure altogether. What you get in Orwell’s writing is what he chooses to tell you – we edit our own lives and it’s telling that after his first published book Orwell switched to fiction, while still apparently using characters and situations from his own experiences. Certain aspects of the man’s past appear to be laid bare in those early books. You can never be too sure.

So much of Blair’s early background has suddenly been filled in, the early novels have gained context I didn’t even know they needed (Burmese Days, especially – I never knew much about the vigorous real life of the thinly disguised femme fatale ), and each talk is crammed full of “I didn’t know that!” moments. I had no clue – just as an example – that one of Blair’s criteria for choosing his pen-name was simply that if his name started with an “O” he’d be filed more or less at eye-level in most contemporary bookshops. These lectures are full of minutiae like that, and more.

By the time I’m done I know that I’ll be starting at Down and Out in Paris and London and reading everything all over again. Job done. After which, I think it’ll be time to dive in and try their Life and Times of Mark Twain course – again by Shelden, whose halting, earnest delivery suits these lectures to a T.

I genuinely can’t recommend these highly enough. Purchased from their own website, these courses are pretty expensive (albeit having worked my way through this one, I think they’re worth every penny). Via Audible I’m able to get them for 8 pounds a go and they’re enriching my life immeasurably. I heartily suggest you allow them to do the same for you.

Well, well, well. All of a sudden, I’m a student again. Never thought I’d see the day.

The Modern Scholar series of lectures are available via Audible or via their own website. Hugely and warmly recommended.