Transcript
Speaker: Two teas please Ray Quite a mess in here today Quiet too So quiet you could almost record a short scripted intro to a podcast Before cracking on with the discussion Pete! Hannah, you got here before me Shocking isn't it? Hey I'm here in the nick of time So I'm technically not late this time No, I mean the state of this place is shocking. Crap everywhere. It's like the aftermath of a particularly cutthroat village hall jumble sale.
Speaker: Yeah, and what's with that sign on the door? No more than two unaccompanied brats, yobs or scallywags. Ray's furious. He says it all kicked off earlier. Swarm of teenagers came in, all caffeine buzzed up on Monster.
Speaker: They kicked over his Kit Kat variety display stand and knocked over the old TV on the counter. No, not the Kit Kats. Never mind the bloody Kit Kat. The Cathode Ray TV took a tumble.
Speaker: No, but Ray's Cathode Ray TV is what gave us the idea of meeting here once a fortnight to compare episodes from three different British TV series over the decades with a different theme each time that would have been watched on their original broadcasts on a Cathode Ray TV set just like that one. Is it OK?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm fairly sure it's indestructible. Oh, good. Now, have you remembered your homework? Yeah, actually, yes. I've awkwardly brought two episodes of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 and three quarters.
Speaker: Well, I've bunked off with a couple of episodes of Grange Hill and a pair of press gangs. Teacher's pet. Enough off! Come on, let's get our teenage kicks.
Speaker: That was a mistake, if you're honest. You shouldn't have done it, Stumpy, because now I'm going to do you. That ain't going to work, yeah?
Speaker: I've never known anything like it. What is the hope for this school if this is what they're capable of in the first year? So, this is an opportunity for us to discuss the way in that teenagers have been portrayed on TV over the years. When TV was real, obviously.
Speaker: When TV was the right proportions and and when it was magnetic rays blasting at your eyes, none crystal nonsense. Basically, when you had a choice of CBBC or CITV, and that could be quite vicious because I cracked my brother's head open whilst we were arguing over the two of those.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that that that was a time when people were just a bit more civilised. Well, maybe not at your house. We were a BBC family, obviously. I watched Blue Peter.
Speaker: This does not surprise me. What do I know? But if there's one thing that made me terrified of going to the big school, it was Grange Hill. I mean, it it just looked like carnage there. that was People were rude and pushed into each other in corridors.
Speaker: So what's your era of Grange Hill? um that's a good question that i should have prepared and to uh well so it basically if you're over 30 and grew up in the uk you will definitely have been aware of grange hill i think and there's good chance you saw some of it yeah yeah i mean because it ran from 78 2008 of course ah So that covers a real range of of people. And i so like I can remember being little and and it being about teenagers and when it first came on. I don't think I watched it when it was brand new. I think I watched it in the early 80s and then through to probably to the mid 80s. So, yeah, and there's that period of...
Speaker: from the age of eight or nine through to early teens. And so, yeah, Zamo, the whole just say no thing was at the peak of my brain chill watching. And there was, was it Gonch, the redheaded guy? Yeah. He was very Thatcherite, always coming up with schemes and things. ah But there was that awareness that it had been going for a few years before then, and that ah this wasn't the first generation biomiles, but it still had its original theme music, that which weirdly turns out to also be the theme music of Give Us a Clue when that first started. um um And here's your host, Michael Aspel.
Speaker: Yes, written by Alan Hawkshore, who wrote many wonderful stock music. Oh, right. Okay, it's got pedigree. Yeah, yeah. Well, my era of Grunge Hill was right at the end, but I don't remember watching a great deal of it, but I remember being aware that it had been around for a long time, and I first remember watching it in my first year at secondary school. But I think like it was about a term in.
Speaker: So I was already kind of been through some of the stuff that they had. So it it wasn't like a pre-figure of stuff where certainly by my time of watching TV, if I saw it high school, it tended to be American stuff, which completely different. And i had no idea. i just was like, oh, that's... that's that What are they doing? Yeah, they they' all they all drive to school and then they go and then they go to school parties, where which they call proms, and they all drink soft drinks out of paper cups. every I was watching a repeats of Saved by the Bell about 10 years after it went on. So they had these absolutely enormous mobile phones and I just presumed that they were carrying around their landline phones because that was the only thing we had that looked like that.
Speaker: So yeah, I watched an episode of the first series of Grange Hill some years ago and really impressed by it and then ended up going and doing all the first 10 years worth.
Speaker: it's It's a really interesting series to watch as an adult. Yeah. you just kind of realise there are so many aspects of school life that don't change at all. Like, it's very... That's what our corridors look like. And you get so almost like stock teachers and character traits...
Speaker: I suppose it is a bit nostalgic for me to to watch it and be reminded of bits of my school days, which is something I probably would never thought had because don't necessarily have the greatest memories of my secondary school um and days.
Speaker: I think I've probably ah forgotten about some of the small little things that actually made teenage life fun at times, even if it is just you mucking about with your mates. Yeah. and ah and sort of the sort the gossip and the sort of scandals that goes on between when there's rumour about a teacher or a rumour about one of the other kids um seems fair. I'm pretty sure that that is is a universal experience.
Speaker: Well, we've we've kind of got three different shows quite different shows, but Grange Hill is, point out for anyone who isn't familiar perhaps with it and hasn't gathered by now, it is set in a school and you don't see the kids' lives outside of school that much. It's really based around that and their friends are school friends there's not much behind that and i guess it's very good at telling things from the kids point of view often even though there are adults in it of the teachers and in some cases they tend to stick around longer than the kids because they can be there for years and years and the kids grow up and have to leave and usually when you can clearly tell the actors are getting to exams age yeah they do rotate through quite a bit yeah they must be cat like with all these things you've got to cast kids who can still it's fine if they look five years younger than they are now but in five years time they've also got to look five years younger than they will be then and you can't be sure how the genetics are going to play out can you yeah
Speaker: like So I picked episodes for us to watch from series three and four, which covers 1980 and 1981. So it's fairly early days. And we've still got the first lot of first years. You kind of tend to get introduced to a lot a new year. They stick around for a bit, you get another new year you sort younger year introduced, and then for a while you might have two lots and then one leaves and you get to another one come in and do sort of that. So in terms that, we've still got like that sort first year, which is probably kind of well-known names like Tucker and Alan, who...
Speaker: is quite a few years older than I think the sort of 13, 14 year old he's meant to be playing at this point. But as kind of time goes on, I think they're a bit better and a bit, probably a bit more confident at casting younger actors.
Speaker: I do love, there's a very definitive acting hierarchy. of the ones who are sort of saying words, kind of getting it about right. But then I think, I mean, that the more and more expressive kind of acting that we'll get to later, and things we're comparing this to, is is less like what teenagers are stilted. and And they do walk across rooms unconvincingly. Sometimes adolescents ah aren't always sparkling with quips and and they and they do...
Speaker: put the wrong emphasis on words in sentences sometimes so that kind of makes it all feel more real but then I'm just thinking am I just remembering watching kids act like that on tv is that actually what we were like I'm not sure teenage boys can definitely be quite awkward yes Well, the episodes we've got, the first one sees some inner city kids having their horizons broadened in many ways. and that They go off for sort of a day in the countryside and some of them have their first cigarettes and others have their first bras.
Speaker: And this is yeah this is series three, episode three, not episode 10. I started watching the wrong one at first. yes you did yeah um and uh yeah I love that the um the fifth formers are campaigning to have their own fifth form common room because the sixth formers have got one and it's like that kind of high our ah school had that kind of hierarchy that if you were doing your GCSEs as it was by then you were you had to wear a uniform but when if you stayed on to do a levels you didn't and there's a bit of that because I've noticed there's a very lax application of uniform rules in this school So it's a big thing in the first couple of series that they want to get rid of school uniforms. Right. And then by the third and fourth series, there's rumblings about them coming back and they do eventually bring them back.
Speaker: Oh, because they meet an angry sixth former, don't they? Who's like, we're going put uniforms on again because of you. um well she's she's not a sick former but she's like she's one of the older years oh right she's the fish made a big fuss about it but it's interesting so that's all the sims 4 episode and that we did and one of the big reasons they kind of argued for getting rid of uniforms for grange hill was that not all kids can afford a school uniform and it's a point in like the sort of opening episode Grange Hill that there's a lad who comes on and he hasn't got school uniform because his parents can't afford one and Grange Hill is it's meant to be I think quite a mixed area which it's helpful because it reflects the accents of the kids which do vary considerably and we do kind of when we do get an insight sometimes into home lives they can be
Speaker: quite varied but yeah you'll sort see kind of you have have a kind of point where you have some kids in uniform and some not especially the older years who just really sort of didn't want them on but then there's other times as well they're quite lax about it when it does come to to uniform and it's kind of like if you've got like the shirt and tie then and some trousers then it's not then that'll do yeah whatever whatever shoes you've got on that's it that's fine yeah yeah like at my secondary school it was very they it was um Yeah, my school, or the bit that had uniforms, had a different head teacher and was but was very strict about saying that it would this is about an equalizer. i means It means you're not you've just got to have one good pair of shoes. You're not going to be pressurizing your parents to buy trainers and things. So they they they really they pitched it because it was ah it was a...
Speaker: ah but a comprehensive, like like just like in my own grade show, really, it was a comprehensive with you do working class, middle class, a real range. And as we'll see, Adrian Mole later, he goes to the same sort of school where there are girls who've got ponies, but there are and then there are people who've had their electric cut cut off and you're sat next to each other.
Speaker: I look back and I i hated having uniform, but actually had very little like actually branded and logoed up stuff compared to, I think, what seems to be become more and more common. And certainly like it was at primary school, there was uniform, but it was like sort of, you there was no expectation that anything would have have a logo. Most people called very tended to buy a school jumper, especially if it could be passed on to younger siblings yeah um over the years. um So they were red and you'd get various shades of red of them. But there were also plenty of people who just had like gay sort of red school style jumper with no logos.
Speaker: I had to wear a blazer with the alert with the logo on it. We had blazers secondary. were only the second year, and so were called Blazing Squad.
Speaker: which dates that does they and with yeah iron on patch tie and that was it it put like those everything else was just colors yeah did you ever walk quite slowly in the street while explaining what you were planning to do during the day because i noticed quite a lot of that happens in in both of these episodes there's there's some good corridor acting but the kids do have to concentrate on getting the plot out while they've got pan shot going on and the camera can't move all that quickly I feel if I was wandering this slowly down the corridor on the way to lessons, there'd have been some teacher yelling down, stop dawdling, come on!
Speaker: It was good to compare the two episodes just over a year apart, because in series four, everything seemed, I'll put it, seemed a bit stagier. And I don't mean that pejoratively. I just mean it really feels like it's being performed more than in series three. well Series three, there were they were trying to not act like they were performing. They're trying to be a bit more, we're just some kids at a school saying our things.
Speaker: And there's the, um ah there the there's a but the scene, i so i can't remember but which one it's in. My notes aren't good. with the boy who's concerned that he thinks his parents might be about to split up and they just have this conversation about it. Or was that in the wrong episode that I watched? That might have been in the one that wasn't meant to have watched. Oh, yeah, it was. That was in episode 10 of series three. But it was just like there's these two boys having this really awkward, quite flatly delivered conversation. Oh, your parents having a row again. He's like, yeah, I don't like it.
Speaker: and it was just really unstagey to the point where it's quite wooden but then that is probably what 13 year old boys talking about divorce would sound like um yeah there is also that that the series three episode we watch has got quite of stuff on location whereas they're all in the studio for series four one course yeah yeah that that affects performances doesn't it they very much more they'll be much more naturalistic out outside Yeah, and there's always an episode or two each series where there's a trip outward bounds. They do try and get them sort of out a bit. Yeah.
Speaker: That was Mr Lewis. Now it's through his good favour that we're allowed on this land today. and he's trusting us not to do any damage nor cause any nuisance. So let's not betray that trust, OK? OK, that's it, I think.
Speaker: Now fires up, Mr Lewis! CHEERING
Speaker: that This is a good thing for a while of making sure inner city kids got out in the countryside. yeah And as someone who to lived several miles away from school all and went past numerous farms and fields to get to school every day for a good decade, this was baffling to me like as a kid. was like,
Speaker: what Why do they want to come here? It's just some fields and smell of cow shit. Oh, yeah, obligatory. Someone has to stand in a cow pat. That has to happen every time a TV show takes children to a field.
Speaker: yeah so they head off in that there's there's an earlier scene where some of them are trying smoking the first time so it's kind of planted and then they're off again um alan's the regular smoker which is quite right because he looks good five years older than yeah and he's and he's a good actor he's he's one who i know i thought just just was was good at acting yeah He is older and it is he he has is one of the ones who's been in it since the first series. right So he's had a few years on it. And then, yeah, lots of surreptitious smoking.
Speaker: but And I was the only character i I've encountered in that first 10 years of the show who is is a regular smoker among the kids, which it doesn't match the statistics at all for teenage smoking at the time when it's it's something like... so 20% of teenagers were smoking in the 80s. Hence the launch of Nicotine, this anti-smoking superhero. That sounds like a Simpsons thing. Was that actually it was actually real? yeah. It's published Superman-style adverts in like Marvel so comics and posters and stuff. Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah, some of the lads are far more interested, I think, in the glimpse of ah of a bra. Oh, and the girl I love the girl who's um who reveals that she's she got she's been pregnant for 24 hours. she thinks like Apparently girls know that. That's amazing. I didn't know that it was it worked that way, but she just immediately knew. that Her clothes were all changing.
Speaker: So that's series three. Series four is, well, it's not his first episode, but it's an early episode for Norman Gripper Stebson, who will go on to a quite sort large bullying plot later. But...
Speaker: he's He's still quite a nasty sod here. And basically we have Pogo Patterson because plenty of these kids don't have proper names. Obviously, the coolest thing at school is to have a good nickname. To be a kid that gets a nickname. Yeah, most people like us didn't. We just always call each other by our surnames because our teachers always called us by our first names.
Speaker: Well, let see, that is interesting that here all the boys are called by their surname. And this seems to have been more of a thing. Yeah. yeah yeah i remember I once called one of my friends. You would use your you wouldd use your first names in front of each other's, in front of your parents and each other's parents, because you'd get told if you didn't. But then...
Speaker: you'd dumb but like I once accidentally called my friend Neil when there was no adults in the room and and I got the piss taken out of me for ages about Neil it's his name like me this i stupid lamala yeah Pogo Patterson is our like i of this generations year the one on the make So I don't know what you're saying, but there was always someone who was trying to make some money selling packets of chocolate bars, cans of pop, something. And Pogo has many schemes and his current one is people paying him to do their homework, which ah sounds like the worst scheme ever. Yeah. And and and this one seems, um I don't know if this episode is reputable,
Speaker: the The previous episode was much more of an ensemble piece, the the the one from series three, whereas this one, it's it's the Pogo show, isn't it He's the star of this episode. it's and And some other stuff happens too, but all the main narrative keeps coming back to him and his and his his scheme.
Speaker: I think it kind of tends to vary. We do get the big ensemble ones, especially when they go out on um trips, but it tends to have ones where you kind of have others as peripheries and then you can focus more on so a couple.
Speaker: Certainly in the early series, it varies so much and there's some characters who just crop up for like an episode or two and then are never seen or heard of again. Right, so yeah, so they basically they just mix it up as as the plot requires, I guess, but i'll how good the kid is and how how cooperative the parents are around scheduling and that sort of thing.
Speaker: Yeah, ah most of them were recruited by a few different stage schools. So you tend to hope that they got something going for them. But I think it's probably also the case that some are yeah better in front of the camera than others. Now, this is before this is before the most famous, probably, person to join Grange Hill being Mr Bronson. Oh, yes.
Speaker: It is time that young man... was brought into line. yeah i remember him joining. Yeah. And there was, we had a teacher just like him at our school. So it it was like, see any teacher just like him. Yeah.
Speaker: But this is this is McCluskey being sort of regal, just pressurized and sort of just, just, so i look There's a bit where she turns some children and says, are they first years something like that? Like, who are these people? Annoying little brats who do completely trash a room. I mean, that is that you get some good violence on Grange Hill. In this case, its well, they are having a fight, aren't they? But it's mostly the furniture that gets damaged. I thought the fight was quite good, actually. oh the The trashing of the room, we see that it's quite accidental of basically...
Speaker: Poor Pogo is trying to defend himself from terrifying gripper. But is just quite clumsy about it and and really of crashing bookcase and tries to swing a cricket bat. But it's too big for him, basically. And smashing glass. Yeah, Mrs. McCluskey going. All right Well, if you want to behave like infants, you'll be treated like infants. Go to my office. I'll deal with you there.
Speaker: yeah and And yeah, they're doing that teacher thing of walking into a situation where there's clearly a victim and a perpetrator and just saying, you two, stop that! And treating them both as if they are cause the problem. Hotwood literally walks in with, Gripper is on his knees, like, beating the crap out of Pogo, who comes away with a bloody nose and hasn't been seen to do anything. No, stop messing about, boys. Yeah.
Speaker: But yeah Mr. Hotwood's one of my favourite teachers is he's because he's quite firm but fair. And like he's the one who takes them out into the so countryside and in Series 3. And he wants to do nice things for them. He clearly wants to keep non-un uniform get you know not have school uniform brought back. And when when they go to the meeting to decide on it and put and vote for for it, he doesn't go along with Mrs. McCluskey and vote for it. he He doesn't vote. Because he's cool and he's kind of slightly handsome in a sort of, not creepily, had not too handsome to be a real teacher, but nevertheless, you'd see him in a knitwear catalogue kind of look. Yeah. And I imagine and there's that thing and and this does it and other things do it, too, that will come to of there being that there's always that clique of kids, usually girls who are that bit more mature and who are kind of in it. They're in an intermediary hierarchy. It's it's the Miss Jean, prime of Miss Jean Brody. If we were but bugging something, at a movie into the mix of this, all the TV series of it, which is great. So there's that thing of the teacher who picks out the the cream of the crop to treat them as little adults instead of the the others, the ones who've got a bit more maturity and a bit more potential. And there's the lads who he found giving birthday beets to the lad and nearly breaking his back.
Speaker: Did you call it birthday beats? It was it was just the bumps at my school. Probably bit both, but can't seem to dare be to beats. I've not heard birthday beats before. But I get that's the kind of thing that different regions would have their own names for it. There's the...
Speaker: there is the one kid who does a spectacular job of, I think he's doing it deliberately, just being really annoying. a Pogo's brainy friend, Matt, mate, Matt. And I was just like, he he deserves bullying. The one who's like, oh, I'm not doing this. you do it for me? Or whatever. Yeah. That's my soul on him. He deserves bullying. and Yeah. is His friend Dwayne is a bit more, I feel like he gets dragged into Pogo schemes. Yeah. but um oh that's right yeah he he tries to persuade matt he tries to outsource the essay writing to matt because matt's the cleverest boy he knows but matt was having none of it why should i help other people um yeah we we end up like um that um well grippers suspended until the end of term not sure how near the end of term they are um okay because what is it's about just short all of 20 episodes a year isn't it a season yeah for the i don't think the early ones have quite so so many but certainly yeah the the little ones go on. um And even more than that, I think by like sort of series nine, 10 of them. Yeah. ah Poor Pogo gets the cane. Oh yeah. God, that's, can't,
Speaker: I don't remember that being, a yeah I don't remember that ever being a thing in like the the late 70s, early 80s. I know it was still allowed. hadn't been outlawed, but I think schools had decided the teaching profession had turned against it.
Speaker: It crops up in an earlier series, but it's quite kind of... casual in this one like they're referenced to it whereas in that early one it's like it taken incredibly seriously and is like the worst possible thing apart from like getting sort suspended or chucked out um that can happen whereas this he can he gets it for running his homework club basically um Yeah, feels a bit harsh. and But she's clearly in an unforgiving mood at that point. Yeah, she's she's not making friends in her early years there, as Mrs McCluskey. No, no, she's not going to be there yet. She's not, she's not no pushover.
Speaker: Yeah, with neither the pupils or the staff. PLAYS
Speaker: So should we time jump forward a little bit? Although not all that much, because we picked Gange Hills from the turn of the decade. Yeah. And I'm only taking us up to, well, on TV it's 85, but it's set in 81, and it's public, but the book came out in 82, and the book in question is the formative literary work of the 1980s, in my opinion, a lot of people's opinions.
Speaker: Time. Profoundly in love with Pandora My poem as an intellectual thief But whatever happens, you won't forget that I'm fond of you, will you?
Speaker: Fond? It's just that, for some women, marriage is like being in prison.
Speaker: Good night, love.
Speaker: Marriage is nothing like being in prison. Women are let out every day to go to the shops and quite a few go to work. I think my mother is being a bit melodramatic. ah but I don't think it's talked about enough nowadays as how huge it was. The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 and three quarters, was just a defining thing. I mean, it was published when I was nine.
Speaker: And I would have, I would have, but I definitely read it for long time before it came. Everyone has read it. It was a book that just everyone had read, particularly if you're from Leicester ah in your, and it's written by Sue Townsend from Leicester. It's set in Leicester. We'll come to issues about that in the episodes that we're reviewing. It's still, I have questions about your opinions on some of this, yes. It's still Rankle. ah But it was, so it was an it and it already, I mean, she'd written, I think it was a a play of it first, and she'd written, don it appeared on the radio in a sort of pilot sort of sense. I think it wasn't it was called Nigel originally. And Sue Townsend was writing bits and pieces, and then but then she wrote it into this novel. And it just it just absolutely took off. Everyone had read it. I remember hearing my parents reading it. ah After I'd read it, my parents borrowed it, and I could hear them
Speaker: laughing at it in their bedroom when they were like and I could hear mum saying oh look at this is what he's doing um and so this is and it's all about the awkwardness of teenage life and this boy who is on the verge of realising that other people are human too and he hasn't quite dropped yet and so when his parents start behaving strangely he's kind of mystified by it And of course, and it's that great thing. It's really good writing where the the author is putting you two steps ahead of the narrator. And yeah and then and eventually you you get to enjoy the humor of him not getting it. And then you get to enjoy him catching up usually.
Speaker: And so, yeah, it was inevitable that like this biggest children's book of the eighty s sold 2 million copies. Sue Townsend was everywhere. She was on chat shows talking about it before the TV adaptation comes along. And when it does come along in 85, it comes to screen.
Speaker: It's starring, the no one has owned a role as much Gian Samarco. He is just, he's just perfect. he's he He also invented the look. The glasses were added, don't know if it was his idea, but Adrian doesn't have glasses in the book. That's never mentioned. But on TV, it just gives him such a a slightly awkward look at his, The way he dresses is perfect. There's one scene where he comes downstairs and he's got his jumper tucked into his really tight denim trousers with a really high waistband. And that is just so, so 1981, 82, because it's not quite, people aren't quite over the 70s yet.
Speaker: We've got an all-star cast, really. We've got um particularly Julie Walters as his bum, who we only keep for one series. And both of the episodes I picked up from series one, I went with the first episode. And then another one, episode three, which is which jumps about... ah the first episode introduces everything. Episode three is that is a more sort of regular episode, but there's still lots going on in it. And yeah, it begins with him. He starts his diary. His parents' marriage is decidedly on the rocks.
Speaker: And we've got Beryl Reed as his grandma, Oh, I love Beryl Reid as his grandma. You don't see enough of the sort of posh working class. You know, everything's disgusting. That's basically her catchphrase.
Speaker: And Stephen Moore, as his dad, he's in everything. and He's the Hitchhiker's Guide. he's ah He's Marvin the Paranoid Android in Hitchhiker's Guide. guide is but i mean And it's a comedy cast, but it's it's not done as ah it's place it's done for laughs, but it's not a sitcom. It's all on film. It's shot in real houses.
Speaker: uh and yeah so so was this the first your your first taste of the tv series um i had seen an episode a few years ago and it's one i've meant to get around to more adrian moll was still someone i was very much aware of like growing up but you saw you were yeah yeah but um the book and but didn't get around to it until I was an adult and I feel like I probably had like more of like your parents reaction oh being so just far ahead of him um but also I think if I'd read this as a teenager it probably would have been sort of eye-opening of the mind of a teenage boy
Speaker: which just varies from being so weird to filth, basically. um But i love that he's both naive and a total snob well.
Speaker: Yes. And has no right to be whatsoever. um to But even that, like, he looks down on his own parents in a way that is just, I'm better than this. Yeah.
Speaker: I think it probably does lean into more of his personality of he has aspirations and he wants to be an intellectual and go to university. And I don't think anyone in Grange Hill ever was like this. and No.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true. Certainly not, not as even even though you have probably characters who might have some things in common,
Speaker: it's that getting into his head and the underlying sort of stuff that's running through his mind, all thoughts about Pandora. um um And those just inner teenage worries and concerns that everyone has, but he's obviously convinced that he's the only one. um Yeah. It's that thing, you know, people say, oh yeah you get that meme now where people say that they've Isn't it funny how some people don't have an internal monologue? Like they think that other people don't have worries and thoughts. And and that's exactly where he is. it It would never occur to him that anyone else is having it as a diary or and and the way that it's delivered. So he narrates the TV show.
Speaker: And think ah every episode starts with him looking in the mirror. and and you're hearing what he's written in his diary that night. It's just a picture of his face. Although he does occasionally speak to the camera, but it doesn't, it's not, only very occasionally. But even then, you don't really notice it. It's not done like, oh, well we're breaking the fourth wall, because you're hearing his voice narrating in between each scene, and then you just go into the scene ah that that he's writing about. So it's pretty clever adaptation, actually. It's easy to take for granted. The adaptation is so smooth that you kind of don't notice that it's an adaptation and that it's quite an unusual format.
Speaker: Yeah, and I guess because that narration is there from the start as he we open on a New Year's Day and he's worrying about on a new spot. ah Obviously, New Year and that's just ruined his year. to say that He goes to wake up his hungover parents. and i say No, sorry, at 13 years old, I knew definitely knew better than to wake hungover parents and certainly on New Year's Day.
Speaker: But um it's it's so quotable. like get this a bit that he said He makes a joke. He says something to his mum. can't remember is now. And he says, I'm not surprised she didn't laugh. She's not an intellectual. She hasn't washed my PE kit. She's not like the mothers on television.
Speaker: it's just just that Yeah. like Sue Townsend did have a teenage son. And I really hope he wasn't like that. But he's really quite sexist in ways about like like what he expects of yeah women. And it's interesting that it's not just he doesn't think she should do this because she's his mom it's stuff like when the neighbor's wife leaves him to go off look with a fantastic group of lesbians and throw a woman's refuge um it's something like he's like well he won't he hasn't got a woman there to do it for him anymore no and you kind of realize how early these things are set for some people yeah and that's and as but possibly because yeah that's that's all he's seen exactly if we go they do like his yeah his mom does declare that she's going to go out and get a job and just turns around and goes right we're gonna have changes around here because they clearly you have had that traditional setup of
Speaker: dad going to work and mom doing all the housework and stuff. And she reads, yeah, she so his mom gets ah reads ah The Female Unit by Germaine Greer, which he then reads, which triggers his first erotic dream. um And he, yeah, it's like he thinks his mom's interests are cooking food and cleaning up. He thinks that's what she she does because she's a mom. It totally blows his mind that she's being weird and doing other stuff.
Speaker: I do remember a conversation with my dad where was like, I was going through the Argos catalogue trying a birthday present for my mum. I remember him saying, Turner, don't go to the kitchen section. She doesn't want a new carving knife for her birthday.
Speaker: Doesn't she? It's just what she does.
Speaker: feel a bit funny.
Speaker: It could be sexual frustration. on the other hand, it could be the boil-in-the-bag cod-in-butter sauce ad for tea. ah the the full The characters are all... Some characters you only you don't see so much, but its ah i mean I think it works for them. The opener episode is, I forgot, a double episode, so it's 45, 50 minutes, most of them or ish most of them are 25 to 30.
Speaker: ah But the the structure is very episodic within the episode. like the You get little 10-minute stories, that that are clearly a chapter of the book the book's good very short chapters you know well it's a diary obviously but you know there's a there's a beginning and a middle and an end to a 10 minute sequence and then another sequence of the episode starts and he's off somewhere else and they go on going on holiday isn't an episode it's 10 minutes of an episode and then they're back by the end of it it really cracks through his year but it's it's a nice way you've kind of you're building up characters while still just getting like glimpses of them so like
Speaker: By the time we jumped ahead to episode three, at which point Pandora is Adrian's girlfriend. But in the first episode, he's just really become aware of her and is pining for her. There's a petition at the school gate. And I think it might be on one of our our first sight of Pandora. is that like someone like She's trying to get people to sign this and then someone walks past Pandora. And she shouts, scab!
Speaker: yeah and Yeah. It's so much when we find out more about her parents. They live on the road where they get the heavy papers delivered. And at they're clearly Guardian readers, I'm sure. Adrian has to deliver the newspapers to the the girl of his dreams and he's ashamed that he has such a menial job. Yeah. But and and going back to that is that thing where she's got a pony, but the pony is in a field with a broken down car in it.
Speaker: And it's that it it's so it isn't. And, and you know, she's she's got a pony, but she's not going to a private school. She's going to a comprehensive school. There's generic 60s comprehensive, which could easily be the same building as Grange Hill, couldn't it It's exactly the same type of school. Yeah. um It's Neil Armstrong.
Speaker: comprehensive yeah which i couldn't have noticed it says on the front neil armstrong comprehensive 1966 which is very good foresight of them to have named after him three years maybe the original name got changed very quickly yeah they haven't done all the signage yet i don't think that's addressed in the in the book but that is what it's called in the book i remember and we've even got little parts we've got um freddie jones uh as mr scruton the uh the terrifying and slightly mad headmaster uh but who's who's not doesn't do all that much in these episodes i don't think he gets much plot but he's just there as a terrifying presence uh the second episode you know what in a way we could have it's it's always hard to pick ex example episodes it is a bit weird that by episode three pandora is suddenly his girlfriend and they're in love there is there is an incident involving a petition in episode two where he gets behind her petition and that's how they they get to get together yeah we we jump but yeah we move through
Speaker: Timeline's fairly fast because we do just have these snippets of stuff. And it means that it's ah it feels we move quite fast through like his parents' separation, which is always is kind of works well because we have like them having...
Speaker: screaming arguments a bit. yeah But it means that's knock it's not a soap. We haven't had to sit through like six months of this. Or they'll be yelling downstairs and he'll be writing in his diary that my parents are so inconsiderate. Here I am trying to work and they're making so much noise and it doesn't occur to him.
Speaker: as far as he's concerned, they're just making an annoying noise. Why won't they stop being so annoying? And then it does occur to him. And it's going and you get a bit more like of his gran popping around in that first episode. Yeah.
Speaker: just I love Beryl Reid so much I just want more of her her and there's so many moments one where she goes you may think it's amusing George to look like a communist but I don't now go upstairs and shave yes is that her husband used to shave and shaved in the trenches and and we shaved him when he was dead if a corpse can shave you can shave but also when um the third episode it's the royal wedding um the royal wedding the wedding um yeah which was already a nostalgic of course by the time it went out in 85 this is nostalgia for four years ago it's funny yeah but um
Speaker: Well, we'd seen think ah earlier in that same episode, they've had a Hindu family move in across the road, which is fascinating for us, the very casual racism that's there.
Speaker: So, essentially, there must be several years, mid-70s, there's an episode of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, where they're trying to buy up a house cheaply, and they managed to do this by I think so of they they they're trying to buy multiple houses and one of the plot strands of them doing this is convince people to move out because they think that there's going to be like black or Asian neighbours moving in. Yeah. um And thankfully no one's blacked up in this. um
Speaker: It's still sort of there, like of Adrian's dad. It's all just like, oh, they'll be that they'll be sleeping two to a room. Two families to a room. Yeah. he said yeah And I think it's it's handled really interestingly because, and also the early screen appearance of Mira Sayal there as the mum, a long time before, goodness gracious me. And, yeah.
Speaker: But the the way it's handled is that the when the dad sees him, he mutters some generic racist bullshit. And then we cut away and then we cut back. And next scene, Adrian comes. Well, there's a whole thing with Adrian and Pandora are ah really embarrassed by this and go over. but Pandora in particular it goes over and and welcomes them to the neighborhood and reassur and pandora says, my my father is a member of the Anti-Nazi League. So if you have any trouble... from the people on this because obviously Pandora is looking down on Adrian's tatty street at neighbours and is worried that these the vulgar people on his street are going to behave as his dad has behaved but then we cut away and then we cut back two minutes later and the agent's coming home and his dad's there and they're all over and they're all having a lovely time and and and they're all they've all become best friends kind of off screen they've just become friends yeah and when they When they come over for the royal wedding Beryl Reid's face she's stills yeah it's just so It is that thing of being this posh worker class She's not going to say anything but she is like slightly horrified about it yeah There's a nice little actually kind of background dialogue between
Speaker: the hindu um dad and and Adrian's dad, where Adrian's dad, I'm like, oh, start to beers and everything and stuff. And he's just like, oh, well, actually I don't because of my religion. and And that's it. It's just some like kind of background dialogue while like there's proper like action sort of happening elsewhere. Yeah, so it sort of, it just takes the the line that actually, it just just, when people get to know, it's very optimistic, you know, people who get to know each other, it will burst that kind of bubble instantly. And then everyone is friends. Yeah. Rather than it being, you know, Grange Hill was doing a racism episode, which I know it did do, yeah it would be...
Speaker: but But Adrian Mole is a comedy. So it's like yeah you get to Mrs. Mole Senior. They're dressed like the Queen. watch To watch this at home with a glass of sherry in her hand. I'm fairly sure this is it's meant to be something like 11am in the morning. but um and then they've got the Irish couple next to them who are so stereotypically necking a load of beers.
Speaker: and And not fans of the royals, but there to see it anyway. Or the dad's grumbling about it. They're there for the party afterwards. In which... Adrian turns up in a shirt and tie. He has no concept of trying to look cool at all. Yeah, oh yeah because and because then they have a big street party, which really is is is a Jubilee street party on my street. But then that's just because the age I was. i was i was three for the Jubilee and I remember us having um a big street party and it was just exactly like the one on the that Adrian Mould Street have. And I wonder if that's what Sue Townsend was harking back to. more i don't know if there were royal, maybe there were some royal wedding street parties. but um that that's where it took it took me back to 77 rather than 81 but still yeah I just thought it was a really nice resolution to the episode you know all these characters who you've seen them not getting on or whatever including the couples who are getting divorced and everything and the woman ah ah the the woman who just wistfully says good luck lady Di hope it works out better for you than it did for me and that was how do you follow that
Speaker: our One link elsewhere with Grange Hill with this is that there is so much smoking in front of the children in Adrian Moll. And they're just full ashtrays in every room of the house. Yeah. Like, it's, I mean, if Adrian what was an Adrian he was some other child, he definitely would have been this a different sort of statistic of picking picking up his parents' fags.
Speaker: Because it's just constant to the point of his dad comes into his room and he says, got an ashtray in here. And Adrian's like, No, I don't smoke. Yeah, yeah. To point this out to his dad. A 13-year-old has to clarify that he doesn't smoke. Yeah.
Speaker: You're not in trouble, are you? I mean, you've not got into bad company and been influenced into carrying on like a hooligan. No. I'm just feeling depressed.
Speaker: Depressed? There was no such word as depressed when I your age. We didn't rely on video machines to keep us amused. of Some things it's just so locked into its time.
Speaker: And I don't know whether it's doing it deliberately. Well, some things it's kind of like, for example, okay, Leicester love here. A lot of it is for all the scenes where they go into town are filmed in Leicester. I think where the the actual house was down in London, the street or, you know, in the home counties that was nearer because it was a Thames production. But they did come up to Leicester for all the scenes of him out about. And there's always Leicester buses going by with the correct livery of the early 80s, this sort of cream with a maroon stripe. But um yeah, of the Leicester city buses versus the Midland Reds, which then became Midland Fox, which are yellow and red.
Speaker: and More bus talk coming later. No, not. They knew what Leicester people were going to be paying attention to. they And and even at one point, and and details on someone turns on the radio and goes, you're listening to Leicester Independent Radio on 238. And I think that was the frequency, but that wasn't the name of the channel. but ah So, Pete, let's ah let's talk about the accents. Let's talk.
Speaker: im Are there any Leicester accents whatsoever in in this? so Adrian himself, Dian Tamako is from Northampton, which is not near Leicester, but not far.
Speaker: And he sounds more like someone from Leicester than anyone else in the entire thing, because they decided it's the Midlands, do a Midlands accent. What's a Midlands accent? Everyone talks that from Dudley.
Speaker: um It's... um ah Yeah, Peter Barlow. I haven't mentioned Chris Gascoigne, a.k.a. Peter Barlow from Corrie, as ah Barry Kent, the the bully, who was as formative for some people as Pandora was for others. Because he's far too good looking. Bullies at my school were never that good looking. He's a really, really handsome guy. And and his accent, he gets this amazing line that goes, I hate anybody that wears flared trainees. Where is that? In one sentence, he goes from from London to Manchester and back again, but never lands anywhere in the Midlands.
Speaker: Whereas everyone else, Julie Walters is doing a Mrs. Overall Birmingham accent and everyone seems to just roll with that. I think she's at the heart of it. There's a postman with a black country accent. um She goes, I'll tell you what's wrong with the GPO. And they clearly decided that they needed the GPO to rhyme with you. And it's like, OK, maybe Adrian... Clearly there was some mass emigration parts of the West Midlands to the East Midlands. I mean, if Adrian's family were originally from Birmingham and had moved to the Midlands, that would sort of explain it, to move move to a Leicester. But but but like just pretty much everyone, everyone at school.
Speaker: Midlands underserved even when we are being served. mate Yeah Midlands Eagles is the wrong bit. It's is shocking and people in Leicester were really annoyed about about that and I still am. I think I've got a couple of other Adrianisms that I want to bring up which is for um him going to his mum and asking what's happened with the child benefit.
Speaker: Yes. she's just not even entertaining this where edge i spend it all on gin and fags and he's there he's by rights it should be mine i'm pretty sure i remember asking not for my parents i found out oh my god this is a thing why am i not getting this as pocket money and just moment going you want to know how much your stuff costs how much it costs to keep you
Speaker: And the other one and is him asking, sure, it doesn't me ask his teacher. i think it is. What GCs do you need to write situation comedy? so And he gets say ah he gets sort of a rejection letter from the BBC on his on Valentine's Day. right i I have my rejection letters from the BBC somewhere. Yeah.
Speaker: I love the a lot of the the dad. the He says, um that out they're argu my parents are arguing over who gets to have custody of me. And it's clearly an argument over who does not get to have custody of me.
Speaker: So yeah, so they so the series, they made six episodes, one of which is so seven, because one is double length, ah of the first book. And then they came back 18 months later and did the second series, ah Growing Pains of Adrian Mole, which is good also, but it has lost a bit of the the the the the impact, but ah ah but it's still it's still good. Although they do, they recast, Julie Walters is unavailable. So they recast Lulu as his mum, who is a Glaswegian trying to do a Birmingham accent in order to convince you that she's from Leicester.
Speaker: in it it it doesn't work i i find it really ah she's not his mom it's just weird because she's just lulu she's a celebrity lulu is a celebrity you can't um lulu from you know lulu is being herself in ab fab that's where i really don't think of lulu so it's it's very strange her trying to persuade me that she's a mom from the midlands uh and uh but it's still nevertheless it's still perfectly watchable series too as well yeah Sue Townsend said the one thing she really regretted was making Bert, the old man that she loves Bert, but it's her favorite character in in the books, she says apart from Adrian.
Speaker: And um she really regrets that she made him in his late eighty s when it started because she wanted him to because she had to kill him off because the age of the books go on forever as long as the much missed Sue Townsend was able to keep writing them. So she's writing them into the um well into the noughties. or the early noughties anyway, Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction, I think might be the last one. And it does, it gets very weird. I mean, she has to keep like, he has multiple divorces. ah His parents keep marrying other people and getting divorced because the farce element has to continue.
Speaker: Funny things have got to keep happening. So, and um for a while he ends up living in a converted pigsty and it's sort of very strange. But um um she she so too she really regretted having to kill off Bert because she she puts off as long as possible. And he's he's in it throughou throughout all the TV series as the grumpy old man, but who's surprising, like he's able to reveals that he can conveniently speak Hindi. Yes. And that gets on. I really liked Bert in the books. I read the first two. And i feel like I want to go much more to the TV series because we kind of these early ones is yet where we've got him in his sort of grumpy phase. And feels like he is ah like a dirty old man. Yeah, filthy. And that's sort of meant to have been the point of like, Adrian's got this helper role.
Speaker: I don't think it's entirely clear in the TV series, like how he, got it i think it's something through school it is very very yeah i missed it on first watch it's very briefly mentioned yeah i've volunteered for this scheme where you have to do good deeds for someone and he said think he says about i hope we don't get a dirty old man and then or i hope he doesn't have a dog and he goes straight around there and get attacked gets attacked by a filthy old man's dog but yeah it's that thing of adrian gradually discovering there's more to the world than yeah there's there's a lot more to but on the surface and you kind of find out that he's got quite an interesting life and there's a thing oh I think Adrian being in his life opens up his life a little a little bit more and he yeah he's clearly been quite lonely and then he yeah he has an extra sort of family and he got he's kind of like a you know sort new granddad but and and and for Adrian with sort dubious life advice sometimes I think
Speaker: So that's one form of teenage comedy, the awkwardness, the the never knowing the right thing to say, which is very early 80s. And now we're going to jump to at the end of the 80s with a Press Gang.
Speaker: A different flavour. Yeah.
Speaker: Press Gang set in the newsroom of the Junior Gazette, a spin-off from a local paper and written by the kids for the kids. and And it it potentially sounds like it could have been a bit naff, but it's an incredibly good series.
Speaker: And I'd known of it for a while before I dipped into it when it popped up a few years ago one the streaming platforms. And i picked an episode from series one and then a bit later from series four, which I haven't yet really so got to. So it was a bit more in familiar territory for me. And i it's just so good. It's so, I don't even know how to get, because it's hard to go up like a typical episode of it, but it's almost like the opposite of Green Chill sometimes because school is not the most important part. of their lives at all.
Speaker: And it's an incredibly tiny part of their lives. um And you it it isn't a school paper for one, which it could be ah it you could have done that. But it no, this is yeah increasingly a sort of commercial professional thing for a lot of them.
Speaker: Although most of them do all seem to come from the same school, which I suppose just makes it a bit more convenient. if i'd never got Yeah, I was confused by that. i didn't when when um When I noticed it when I was a teenager, I thought it was a bit weird that their school had a a publisher, had its own newsroom. So, yeah, it's I think the first episode shows you that the editor of the main paper...
Speaker: had this idea and I think he approached the teacher as at their school and said, could you suggest some people for it? And then it's, Richard, oh yeah, we're going to get some other schools involved and i don't know if they ever actually do. But it's kind of banded together initially by some people who will actually be keen and enthusiastic i'm and basically kind some people are on the verge of getting kicked out of school and it's like, start doing something useful and productive and, you know, channel your energies into this. So it's led by Linda, who is not really a people person in some ways. is she's
Speaker: She still this often feels like she's learning how to manage people. She cares about the paper above everything. anything, more than anything at all. How old is she meant to be? How old are they all? because So, it's, they're never really clear about it ah of these i've seen coming up but yeah so the sort series one episode i've that i ah picked um is called both sides of the paper which double meeting for the paper the newspaper and their exam papers where um the the all the exams are looming and linda's struggling to keep the paper going because people are starting to drop out and the headmaster of the school is pressurizing the parents of sort of people on the paper to pull them off it.
Speaker: But if the paper stops, then it's going to cost money to get it going again. And they're not sure whether that is actually possible. I think they're meant to be doing their GCSEs because the so the way they talk about them is a range of subjects and they kind of all seem to be doing the same ones.
Speaker: yeah um But it's another sort where there's a mix of uniform and not uniform stuff. and but And no one on the paper seems to wear uniform. No, yeah, which makes me think they might be doing it there might be A-levels.
Speaker: but but they Yeah. so it's i see But it is ah is a choice to not actually specify that, yeah. Yeah. So come on, what's our situation? Upper Creek, running out of paddles, and tomorrow lunchtime I've got to go and see the headmaster again.
Speaker: Why? Because I asked to. So what do you want to tell him? Nothing I could repeat in front of him. And... In this episode as well, we have we have Tony Mirren, the phone ranger from a local radio station, um who's coming round and trying come up with some sort of story for his friend's radio show. And he approaches Linda about a potential job as an editor on his new radio show. and one the things like he asks is, when's the earliest you can leave school?
Speaker: which is therefore we're thinking, well, this has got to be sort of GCSE time. But kind of reminded me as well that there's yeah there were years but until, was going to say fairly recently, but it's probably probably not anymore. It's been a long time since I was doing GCSEs. um and But you could leave school, i think, at like the Easter term and not necessarily like stick around for your exams. Or if you turn 16.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, of course. And I think and he's kind of there implying to Linda of what your, your exams aren't necessarily the most important and and thing here.
Speaker: that's the that She has ah a confrontation with the head teacher, which is really written from a sort of teenager's fantasy of what a conversation with a head teacher might be like, because they're talking to each other as if they're equals almost. yeah They're bargaining with each other. And it's like, I don't know how many 17 year olds get to talk to their head teacher like that. Well, I think so. Why? Originally I've,
Speaker: thought they probably were sick formers because it sometimes feels like they swan in and out and do what they like. yeah um And you're actually ever in this school. But I think it's just just convenience really for some TV show wise. There's other times where it it kind of makes it clearer that they get free periods they're working before and after school. There's a lot of stuff where it seems to be like their evenings, that they're doing stuff in the newsroom. yeah yeah but they're quite organized of they've got like a writing team sort of design graphics and typesetting even they get involved with and it's very um but it's set in a fantasy it's clearly realism is further down its list of objectives than either of the other two it's here to be funny to be zappy to be zingy they've everyone's got a ah witty line julia sawala is off
Speaker: to a stellar career yeah you watch this and you just think this woman is and this is a lead actress of you know yeah ah incredible talent she's gonna she just is not a child actor in and in any sense or even a sitcom actor in a way that some of the others are some of the others are imperfectly adequate sitcom acting there's but there's just something more to you know there's the the the funny one with the flop with the the The one with the dark floppy hair, who's kind of the Xander, if it was Buffy. The Joker, but not a complete clown. but But, you know, they're all the butt of each other's jokes and quips. But there is, like, um Linda's character, Julia Swala's character, is is is the whole thing is she's difficult, yeah know because she wants the best. And she's um and and she's so she's very, very clever. And she finds it very frustrating that other people aren't as clever as her.
Speaker: um the Yeah, so it's written by someone called Stephen Moffat, who I just don't know what ever became of him. Went on to write various sitcoms in the Yeah, something to do with Sherlock Holmes. Yeah. um But yeah, a smart, bossy, dominating woman. who But it was I mean, it's all about she's the star. It's so it's her. ah well it's an en Well, it's an ensemble cast, isn't it? But i but she seemed... I noticed these two... have did i Did I tell you that I found... death I can't remember if when we were floating this. You did tell me. you Have you deliberately picked two Dexter Fletcher light episodes? No, but I was delighted when I realised I had. because i was like I don't want this just to be like, keith like just having to try and enjoy Dexter Fletcher. Right. He's so annoying. I just just... Whenever he's on screen, I want him to not be on I didn't think he was. Now you've mentioned it. I'm now kind of finding him more annoying. He's just smug and... But I think and that the character more so is... And probably even more so when you're only getting glimpses of him in this.
Speaker: You just entered a room without a string of gags about how pretty you are. i Want to talk about it? Oh, it's a sad story, boss. My ego got so big that it left me. Spike... You know how you said you wanted to start dating other women while you tried to figure out how you feel about me? What I said more accurately, Linda, was that I'd rather date any other woman in the entire universe, regardless of size, shape, age, creed or species than you. Sure, but if none of those relationships work out, we're an item.
Speaker: He's kind of told that he's been like ah a of problem kid and stuff, but I find it really hard to delete to believe because I just find him like a kid who just seems like a class clown more than...
Speaker: you know getting properly like properly making trouble um and yeah yeah part of that is that he like he's a bit arrogant and loves himself i mean they all do to some extent and that's partly what i mean i was a bit so i was 17 or something when this started and i didn't ah i didn't see much of it i glimpsed it occasionally i found him really annoying i couldn't believe how bad his accent was and i know that um in case it's not doing a Brummie accent but I know ah i' I've read that actually that does jokes are made about that within within the stories that people say they can't understand what accent he's got or whatever yeah but like why would you why would you shackle someone with having to having to do like that I don't know but yeah so there is there is a there is that sort of smugness to everybody that
Speaker: that didn't appeal to me all that much at the time and stopped me vibing with it despite the fact that I know a lot of even i knew people who who swore by how good it was but I never really gave it a chance because I i do prefer my teenagers to be accidentally gluing airplanes to their faces to their nose this a all end of things I think the thing about it I've realized the more I've watched it's It's not written like a children's series, which... No, it's written like a grown-up sitcom. yeah and see that's Yeah, and it's a ninety s sitcom too. It's very modern that its time. the The opening credits are almost like, and the theme music is almost like a spoof of an of an night of of a late Yeah,
Speaker: so and it's playing with that but yeah it does it like it does feel ahead of its time definitely think the paper element gives them quite a wide remit for stories of you can do ones that are more about the characters relationships and you can do one where you can have the most like dramatic but like They don't shy away from stuff. There's a story um about abuse and child abuse and and there's another one that addresses a teenage suicide and they're all done really well whilst still being appropriate for their audience with which it is children's slot. But then you can completely go off
Speaker: And you can do like the series four episode. Yes. Yeah. Well, i mean, because these episodes are both quite jolly. There's no. Yeah. But yeah. the But the series one, episode nine, was it?
Speaker: Yes. Yeah. Series one, episode nine. And then series four, episode two. Unexpected. As in like the Quatermass experiment. This is going off into Jonathan Creek territory, I think, i get before Jonathan Creek. Just the fourth war breaks are ah really clever. yeah know So discover that he's... what It's not too much of a spoiler, is it? We haven't needed to worry about spoilers too much. I'm talking about these.
Speaker: The plot is one of the newsroom team, Fraz, has agreed to review videos of Unexpected, which is an old children's TV show about this heroic crime fighter played by real Michael Jaston.
Speaker: i'm And then we find out after Fraz gets knocked out and mugged, he comes around and he starts seeing this Colonel X character.
Speaker: Except the problem is the actor who played him died in a car crash years ago. Very well then, since you are treating me as if I don't exist, I will leave now and return later this evening.
Speaker: When I calculate, events will have reached their terrible crisis.
Speaker: It's a very, um very Moffat-y, the whole thing. yeah and And Michael Jason is just having a whale of a time, isn he? So this is a... yeah yeah Yeah. So his character's like, so he's like in a long coat, wide-brimmed hat. He's full like, one-liners. he's, but he's like...
Speaker: someone I love it when someone says, how can you deprogram this computer? And he says, I have a hat pin and some string. Yeah. He's like a mash-up of loads of those, like, I guess, 60s, early 70s, like, TV heroes. So there's a bit of him that is a bit like Steed. um You know, he's a bit... It's a bit... The show almost seems like it could be a bit Avenger-y because it's quite fantasy, absurd plots. We get, like...
Speaker: Brian Glover playing a mad scientist. In a tiny role. yeah so so And it's being watched on a video. It's it's clever visual playing where they um at first you think it's shot as if he's in the room with these people and then gradually it's revealed to you that he's watching them on a video. yeah and He's watching an episode of sort of a TV show. Yeah, the direction and editing of a lot of it is quite good. And you you keep guessing through the episode what's going on we're not entirely clear whether fraz is really seeing colonel x or whether it's the result of his concussion or or whether other people can really see him there's a bit where i think fraz is after he's been mugged and we see him unconscious and then we see colonel x like standing over him
Speaker: And it's like a like, well, is this like more of a dream or is it shot from the TV show? Just the way it jumps back and forth between it leaves you a bit unsure and just wondering for quite a long time until Michael Shear turns up.
Speaker: Looping us back to Grange Hill, even though he wasn't in the Grange Hill that we watched. But yeah, and they get people of that calibre having these tight relatively small roles. Well, I say that calibre because we love them from from all of their other appearances and all sorts of other things. I mean, we've got, we got um what's his name? Silver from Sapphire and Steel. as baby David Collings, head teacher of Norbridge High. yeah um in the in the previous episode. he was um So, yeah, I mean, I guess it's part of the joke, but the idea that Dexter Fletcher, with his strange rubbery face, is telling Julia Sawala that she's never going to get a date because she's too weird, where she's the most beautiful, sort of glamorous looking woman you know that there could be. you have to You have to just take that with a pinch of salt. I guess that but that's maybe a little bit tongue-in-cheek.
Speaker: You'd hate Dexter Fletcher, don't I do! I just loathe him. I feel like you vibe more with maybe Colin. um Yeah, yeah. i would if ah yeah But again, it is that thing in Moffat Scripts. i don I don't think I'd like to hang out with any of these people, actually. They're quite funny when they're doing quips at each other, but I would get really tired of them doing that with me very quickly even react in real life. What have I got myself into?
Speaker: The usual. And it's about up to your neck. ah would although I would ill definitely ah definitely hang out with Michael Jason as Professor X. I want to see the unexpected TV show. i'm i love We get the glimpse video yeah the video cover is mocked up. They mock up a TV Times as well with Colonel X on the cover. um Yeah, that's it.
Speaker: So yeah, you have definitely, although I've still got some of my prejudices, you have, I understand now why it's so popular in a way that I didn't previously. Because yeah, it it does it does zip along and it is very it is funny. i I found myself love laughing out loud. i think, damn you Moffat, you got me. That's such a Moffat-y thing. i But I can't call it a Moffat cliche because it's like, there's ah There's the bit where the guy says, that it's a policy of mine, always to expect the unexp... And then he gets punched in the face before he can finish the word unexpected. that That made me laugh out loud. So yeah, I can't deny it.
Speaker: So I think it might be time to get out Ray's scale for each of these are we gonna how are we goingnna What are we going to do? yeah How are we goingnna how we going to weigh them? So, well, I brought along Grain Chill.
Speaker: You brought along Adrian Mole. Yes. And I kind of brought along Ruskang as well. Yeah. So for Grain Chill, we go from zero, I'd rather watch the test card, to five, I'd spend hard-earned money on a lovingly prepared box set of this. Where where are you sitting with Grain Chill?
Speaker: But it's difficult because also I'm not factoring. There's a lot of episodes of Grey and Sheil. You get good value for money, but we're trying to factor that out. Just go for the quality rather than the quantity. ah And m i mean, I don't spend much time watching old kids shows specifically, but i yeah, I mean, it's definitely...
Speaker: Based on those two episodes, I'm wavering between a three and a four, basically. That's good. Yeah. So, like, i'm no, I'm not buying the collector's edition. I'm not buying the steelbook, even if it's got Mrs. McCluskey on it looking steely.
Speaker: But three feels harsh for something that is... Yeah, no, it's got to be a four. It's got to be a four. What about you? I think the... I'm probably more like on a three, suppose, because I've seen so much of it now. um I know that the quality varies across series.
Speaker: also i am still keen for more. i am still curious of how it will develop. Are you doing the pilgrimage? You're going through the whole thing? Well, I you long pause because the DVDs are available up up im up to series 10.
Speaker: umm And then clearly like nostalgia has a price and there's been no more. they're floating around online. And so as long as I can find enough of them, I'd probably like to explore into the nineties. We are kind of by the late eighties, you know, getting onto about like the, we've got rid of the long, got rid of the first so cohort.
Speaker: Yeah. Still got some remnants of sort later ones really kind of freshly moving on a bit more. Yeah. So Adrian Moore, uh, how did he land you i really enjoyed it and i the lulu kind of slightly probably puts me off well that should yes well let's just go with the secret diary then because one book it's one adaptation i i'm going with the four yeah i i'm on this one it's just you it is so funny i i just love all of them like yeah
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, um people won't be surprised by the way I've raved about it. For me, it's a five. The only release is a bog standard, very washed out network DVD with no so no subtitles, no special features at all.
Speaker: And I would kill to have it remastered because it's all shot on film. Please, Thames, have those film masters somewhere because it could look amazing. Although maybe it shouldn't Maybe it's quite good Maybe it's meant to be a bit dreary It's 1981 1981 was a dreary year But yeah for me This is a 5 out of 5 for me Definitely And what about Breast Gang Even like with Dexter Fletcher light Can I skip Dexter Fletcher So while you have showed it I now appreciate Why other people like it so much
Speaker: I still just find them all a bit annoying and smug. ah And I can't shift that. um So on that basis, I'm going to be brutal. going to give it a two. going to give it two. Sorry. oh god be but i think this is my five. life i think this is the one where I want a bit more like making of, and i want to kind of know their discussions that were going on behind the scenes, especially when they were putting together some of like,
Speaker: the harsher plots but also like just the absurd like unexpected ones as well yeah i love the detail in that yeah all right i've been harsh it's that i can't in reality give it say that it's only one step up from a test card i'm gonna give it a three i will get um ah you yeah i will give it a three because it was perfectly watchable it made me laugh I just, and I can trust it, trust me, I like Buffy, which also, you know, several years later, nearly 10 years later, but that's got the same sort of quipping thing, but it's done, but but I'd like the tone of it more because there's more self-deprecation to it than, than where this is about sparring with other people more. I don't know. It's hard to pin down exactly why it doesn't quite, it's not my style.
Speaker: But um yeah, I can't give it less than a three. It's very good at what it does. And it is funny, even if I wouldn't want to be locked in a room with any of these people. Would you pick Dexter Fletcher over Griffith Stavson? Over who?
Speaker: would you pick dexter fletcher over grange hills oh grange hill um yeah um uh no i think neither of those would would be invited to my birthday party put it out he's so smug smug the whole thing about no one would want to go on a date with you He's gaslighting her. He's literally gaslighting her and playing up to her insecurities in order to make her feel bad and go on a date with him.
Speaker: And I suppose it's a will they won't. But I know also like girls at uni who were in love with him. I kept my powder dry. I just didn't. I was like, okay. Oh, he was gorgeous.
Speaker: Oh,
Speaker: almost all of these are up on YouTube. Everything we talked, the episodes we talked about today, aren't they? Yeah. Except episodes. Especially on the ITV Retro channel. Oh yes, good point. yeah um But good because um but Secret Outery of Adrian Mole, first episode I couldn't find on YouTube, so but I managed to find it on Dailymotion.
Speaker: um but i've got the data ah But I've got the DVD of that anyway, but I couldn't watch that the band. Adrian Mole and Press Gang were both network releases, so um that's good looks. it's Yeah, better than nothing. Yeah.
Speaker: Well, we're closing down for the night at Café Ray now. So thank you for listening to the Café Ray television files. You've been listening to me, Pete. And me, Hannah. We hope you'll join us next time for more television shot. For now, we'll wish you goodbye.
Speaker: And please remember to turn off your set. Goodbye. Goodbye.
Speaker: No, but Ray's Cathode Ray TV is what gave us the idea of meeting here once a fortnight to compare episodes from three different British TV series over the decades with a different theme I should have inhaled before the start of that line. soon as I started it, I realised.
Speaker: And not a... Thought I'd made it less of a mouthful. LAUGHTER
