Transcript
Speaker: May I fasten your seatbelts and smoke if you wish to.
Speaker: You're nearly half an hour late, Hannah. What happened? I've been here ten minutes. Yeah, I just circle around three times. Thought I was being followed by another TV podcast. Damn it! They'll stoop to anything. We can't trust those nefarious hosts from... Two Ts, please, Ray. And 20 Embassy.
Speaker: What did they look like? We don't ask questions in this job, Pete. But they were middle-aged. Average height, average build. Both wearing anoraks. Could have been any of that lot. Very suspicious. They're trying more underhand tactics to get onto our CRT TV plans.
Speaker: But I still think Ray's Cafe is the perfect spot for our D-Ops investigation of the BBC, the ITC and the YTV. We'll have representatives from each of the Allied regions.
Speaker: We can't trust anyone, especially if they're carrying a small briefcase. Mmm, perfect place for concealing DVD box sets. Exactly. But I know we've recruited the perfect sandbagger to help us on this week's mission. Ruthless, determined, intelligent, award-winning. We've done well to rope in the notorious pensmith Una McCormack for one last job before we all take early retirement.
Speaker: She should be enough to save us from those cunning bastards. Over it! Ah, she is now.
Speaker: MUSIC PLAYS
Speaker: Welcome to Cathode Rays. Each episode we pick a theme and use it to discuss three episodes of British television. The only rule is we must have been able to watch the programmes on a CRT television set.
Speaker: This week's theme is Spies and Espionage and we're going to talk about three series looking at different aspects of that murky dark world. We've got Death is a Good Living.
Speaker: Working for a travel agency should be so romantic. You make he yourself ill one day, Warring. That's the cause of your stomach pains, in my opinion. get an ulcer before you're much older. Yes, Mother, yes, all right. Yes, yes, right.
Speaker: Espionage.
Speaker: Uranium to fuel. It would destroy a city the size of London. Or New York. Or Moscow. And soon... Very soon, I will be able to build such a bomb.
Speaker: And the sandbaggers.
Speaker: If you want James Bond, go to your library. But if you want a successful operation, sit at your desk and think. And then think again. I understand.
Speaker: you know It's great to see you. Thank you for joining us. We brought you a cup of tea and a cup of coffee, whichever you prefer. Oh, my coffee. you Yeah, gin and tonic would be nice. He's got something under the bar, I think. Yeah. Good man.
Speaker: Good man. Now, when we talked to you first about maybe joining us here, you came pretty quick off the mark, I felt, with the idea of spying and espionage and all of that. Is that something you've got a good affection for?
Speaker: Oh, absolutely. Real affinity for for the spies. So I think partly it's because of my ongoing obsession with Garrick from Deep Space Nine, but also I love things like Callan and Tinker Tailor. I absolutely love Le Carre.
Speaker: And there's something very um interesting and appealing about these characters who are who are sideways to the societies that they're uh working to uphold but are never quite involved in yeah they're always these sort of hollow men i think of them that are always you know doing all the dirty work but never really enjoy the benefits of the the world i'm not really interested in james bond it's it doesn't float my boat at all but these kind of broken violent men
Speaker: I just feel really represented. So spies, it had to be spies, I think. And I think I suggested we talked about Callan, didn't we, which seemed a bit obvious. But then you came up with all these these things I hadn't even heard of, actually. i mean, Sandbaggers signed out really well, but the other two I hadn't heard of.
Speaker: No, well, and and Hannah's really, yeah this is Hannah's pitch more than mine. I'm um um um the ingenue word I learned from KD Lang in 1991 and rarely get to you. But I'm using it tonight because, yeah, this is, ah I've really enjoyed watching these, but it's not my usual, not my usual thing. But yeah, had Hannah, I mean, I know Sandbuck is well known, um but particularly and particularly Death is a Good Living. How have you even heard of it until recently? Either of you? No. No, someone shared the first episode that had cropped up on YouTube. And i literally just saw that it was a show with Leonard Roster in a dramatic role from 1966. And I went, yeah, go on. And and so I sat down watching this 25 minute episode, not,
Speaker: i sat down watching this twenty five minute episode not not knowing how many other episodes there were. So it's a four-part serial. But i was just i I purposely didn't look ahead because i I was watching each one, wanting to know what was happening. i was like, I don't look ahead. It feels like spoilers if it tells me how many episodes are. um And I've been really curious about it since because I've just not been able to find out a great deal about it. um i know it went out on BBC Two in May and June 1966.
Speaker: ninety sixty six At about half past seven on a Sunday night, which took me back a bit because I'd have kind of product it probably more post-Watershed. i don't know, thinking about how much to give away. but now Yeah, when you watch it, there's not that much violence, actually. It's quite studio-bound, isn't it? And it's quite set-bound. And there's not actually, you know, considering it's about, I think we can be clear it's an assassin, can't That's sort of implied in the title. but But yeah, I had never heard of it. And I've i've heard a lot.
Speaker: You know, I've come across a lot of weird old stuff in my time. But this one hadn't popped up. I will say the copy I watched, ah which magically appeared in time me to be able to pass his face put in, was in beautiful condition. It's a really nice nick. But so yeah, it's a Sunday night. It's like, you know, I think of that as all creatures great and small, not Leonard Rossiter taking our hit.
Speaker: What happened to you? I've killed a lot of men, Bertina. I've never had a bloody scratch. But tonight, you go out glory hunting and I get this.
Speaker: I mean to get out of all this without any trouble. This is why I followed you. I drew that bloody van in front of Prescott. I could have got myself killed for you. We've got a guy, Ramon, who's been sent to Europe to get money for revolutionary government exiled in Miami and from a a a country in South America. That wonderful 1960s staple, a random country in South America, Africa. We won't name I would say it's it's the Caribbean and it's absolutely not Cuba.
Speaker: ah How could anyone think that? Just somewhere that happens to be a ah blockade between America and topically at that particular time. Leonard Roster is playing Norman Lynch, whose sort of undercover job is working for cosy tours, international travel, but really he's a professional assassin. And he wants to retire. He's had enough. He's got an elderly mother. They want to move to Bournemouth. But for one last job, he's got to train his replacement...
Speaker: who's come from somewhere in eastern europe um and it's pinned down to finland it is pinned down to finland eventually yeah yeah his accent threw me to be honest yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's apparently he's the canadian brando something that's all something or was it james dean one of the two but um he came over here and uh collared himself so a good ah a good living and playing east european types Yeah, it's based on a novel by one Philip Jones. And I've got very like little, you know, trying to dig up anything on that. There is um an Australian thriller writer at the time and who'd
Speaker: does this sort about about sort of think about four novels as far as I can gather. um that who It's in that kind of world and the reviews compare him a bit to Le Carre um but there doesn't seem to have been any novel published under that name so it could have just been a manuscript, an idea but yeah, saying it's based on a novel sounds a bit nicer.
Speaker: Yeah, and it but the novel might have a different title, of course. This might be the problem problem finding it. So I will just say ah that the the bit that I, there were two things that I immediately enjoyed from your summary, which are two of my favourite things, which are, first of all, his mum.
Speaker: Isn't she great? Yeah. That's just brilliant. It's one of my favourite things ah when you get characters like this and then you meet their mum. It's just a of you know it just brilliant. But also, literally, we have somebody going, just one last job, Lynch. One last job, you girl.
Speaker: Where's this going to take me over the next hour and 30 minutes? I know i wonder. yeah i want It's absolutely great. He's kind of like a big target painted on his head, isn't there? So um immediately I thought, I'm interested to see where this is going. And then it went to Ireland, which is always a plus for me. yeah It is actually partly filmed on the west coast of Ireland. They're there at Shannon, aren't they? Yeah, with the Shannon Airport in Irish. And I thought, they've not mopped that up, have they? They've got pretty much the entire episode three at the airport on location. yeah like It feels pretty amazing, the amount of location work in this. And night shoots as well.
Speaker: Night shoots, yeah. And it's a little bit mini-moak, that episode three, isn't it? It's a bit like they're in the prisoner going around in their little carts. the the The pivotal role, I think, yeah, far more um adventure series should make use of baggage carts as um as as vehicles for, a well, maybe. It's always difficult.
Speaker: Another of my favourite lines is in that bit where ah Rossiter's character turns to the other guy and goes, don't worry, we're allowed to drive this. It's not covered by union regulations. what I'm in a different universe now. yes We'll have no union problems. I'm in history now.
Speaker: So, yes, I'm just picking out some of my favourites. But, um yeah. What did we think of Rossiter? I think he's rather good. Yeah, yeah. You would not, and you wouldn't look at him and think, this guy's going to be one of the biggest comedy stars of the Yeah.
Speaker: it' just He's just a really good leading man. he's and there's' he gets a really cluck Towards the end, there's a moment where he gets that classic film noir detective shot with his hat with his with a hat on, and and knew that we know that he's facing a bit of a showdown. and And he just inhabits it perfectly. There's no element of him being remotely uncomfortable with this role. No.
Speaker: It does get mentioned. Eventually it gets mentioned that he's, hang on, he's retiring from any job at the age of 40, even in 1966. That's pushing it a bit, isn't it? But it does become a plot point eventually. They actually say he's 47. Oh, he's 47. Oh, well. Leonard Roster himself is only 40. Ah, right.
Speaker: So they clearly think he can pass as 47. And yet 10 years later, he's Reggie Perrin and he's playing 46. So I just feel he permanently looked like he was in his mid to late 40s. Mid to late 40s. Well, they all look... I just wonder, the thing about watching TV shows like this is where you look at the lead and you go, 52.
Speaker: And then you look up how old they actually are and it's 37 and you go, my God, cigarettes aren't kind. LAUGHTER You grew up before the NHS, didn't you? Yeah. And smoked your way through national service.
Speaker: I enjoy life, people... You're a psychopath. Something peculiar. I'm not. I'm normal, believe it or not. And I shall be when all this is over. Oh, yes, yes. When you retire, you'll, what, come back alive again? Get all your feelings back out of the cold storage.
Speaker: That's right, I will. I've got to say, it took me... I watched this through twice, and and it took me a fair while to go through that process of de-Rigsbyfication, I think.
Speaker: The closest thing. I found it pretty hard not to have Rigsby or Perrin there, but then when I kind of got in the rhythm, once I knew the plot, I could kind of concentrate on what Rottis was doing. And I really like that he's sort of a...
Speaker: He's not a hard man. You know, in Callan, Edward Woodward is is kind of, you know, he's meant to look inconspicuous, but he just switches it on. He's got that great line. can't remember if it's in the show or in the film. He says, ah I hit him and he died of it. Absolutely great.
Speaker: And there's just occasionally Rossiter gets that menace. You think, oh, yeah, this is someone who... who, you know, punched a man and he died and he went to jail for it. Yeah.
Speaker: oh yeah Yeah, that's right. Yeah, when he but he describes that, i completely believed it. There's no, it's not done with a ah smirk or anything. You know, there's no but of course, yeah it would be different different if they'd recorded this after he'd become a famous sitcom star and he was trying to convince you he could do more than that. But suppose at this point, he's's that's not of he's he's just doing everything. To me, he's always going to be... um 2001's Leonard Rossiter, specifically because every time I've watched 2001, I've forgotten that he's in it. I've watched it quite a few times. It's like, what next? You know, um yeah, Ronnie Corbett, I don't know. But um but and of course, he'ss he's just carved out of that. Yeah, that sort of early middle aged 1970s Yeah.
Speaker: yeah and And he just sells it with such complete conviction that you forget who you're meant to be. I mean, I had, watching this, I had no particular sense of who I was or wasn't rooting for. I don't think it was trying to do that at all. Did any of these people deserve to live or die? Well, Armagnon Ramon, who's set up as the the victim, from who gets the very first scene. And and obviously he's but he's what he's a counter-revolutionary, trying to get the...
Speaker: who's been driven out of his country. But it's it's clear that he's not really the star of the show. is it it it does It is the Leonard Rossiter show, even if Leonard Rossiter isn't as big a name then as he'd go on to be.
Speaker: It is, yeah. And it's a really punchy move to start with, Ramon, actually. I think you're sort of, it dislocates you for a moment, doesn't it? And then I think i'm i think maybe I came as well with my Reggie Perrin goggles. I had my Callan goggles on and I was thinking, oh, is this guy like a government hitman? No, he's just a hitman. You know, he's he just does it for the money. um But so I love the way it straddles those moments of sort of,
Speaker: hardness and and almost amorality. And then he's literally going around to his mum you all right, love? Do you need a cup of tea? Has Mrs Potter been in? you know Has the doctor come and given you his pills? Yeah.
Speaker: There's a line he says, i we we don't ask questions, which felt very Callan, except the way he says it and the way he is throughout the rest of it is, oh, you're not like Callan. Callan cares too much. You don't care at all. He's so, like...
Speaker: cool calm and dismissive of it and it's it's just a job yeah to him at all like he's just it's just been a way to make money and he's done well of it and that's it he doesn't care anymore except his old mum his old mum that's what he cares about yeah so his mum at the end has this really good insight into him where she says you know he's he's he was always very secretive you know, as a little boy, you know.
Speaker: ah And that's that's really interesting, I think. You know, what it what does she know, really? I mean, I imagine that she knows there's something, but she's probably not imagined exactly what it is.
Speaker: But all this money's appearing and, you know, he's retiring at 47. Yeah. Yeah. She's turning a blind eye to something, isn't she? As long as you're not a prostitute, Norman. I don't mind if you're a hit man. Yeah.
Speaker: It's proper like that like East End villain stereotype of they always look after their mums. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah No, he's he's great. It's an interesting performance. There's a sort of snare to it and ah a weariness. And then he's got this sort of frankly incompetent young finnish guy yes the beatles haircut and steely blue i imagine steely blue eyes in monochrome if you can have steely blue eyes in monochrome you've sometimes just got you've got the vibe of having i mean it's supposed to be from finland as well so that but that's probably what i was coloring imagine did you andtain and the tony want a room You imagined his feely blue eyes. Yeah, I could do that. but um and there's's And he's too headstrong and doesn't want to do it by the book. And Lynch is trying to make him learn you've got to take it slow, you've got to be calculating like me, which course becomes huge hugely important at the end. No spoilers, but it's it's got a really good ending, both in terms of drama and emotion. like like It's that moment where you're halfway through episode four and it's kind of like, OK, that's wrapped up.
Speaker: most of the plot is it just gonna it could just have spent a long time dealing with that or it could really crack into a turbocharged finale uh and that's what it does it's a really turbocharged last half of episode before and bonus brian kant just a minute no right to take over this hospital doctor i warn you if you don't play this my way there may be a gun battle in your hospital so make up your mind what but Just when you think, yeah. Just when you think you can get better. I'll pop him out himself, you know.
Speaker: So it delivers, really. And what I liked about Vatainen is he just wants to shoot everything. It's like, well, she's like, my bed isn't comfortable. I'll shoot it. It's like he's one of those Let Me Adam characters. Yeah, exactly. And she's there going, it's an art. And he's like speaking out. yeah very unprofessional, you know. Have some pride in your work. No, I just want to shoot stuff. and then we've got And in the midst of it, it's kind of overshadowed by everyone else, but sort of in the midst of it, we've got the ah the British agent who's trying to keep the guy alive and his Irish... it's Is the Irish guy um a security person as well? He is, isn't he? Yeah, yeah. They're they're from the two... See, this is interesting, Pete, because i wasn't sure whether they were both meant to be Irish because the guy doing an Irish accent is not Irish. and No. And the guy not doing an Irish accent is actually Irish. No.
Speaker: You should not kind of cast them the other way around. oh london One of them born in Dublin. Union
Speaker: There's probably some, no, we can't cast the Irish guy in a kind of this kind of role or something, you know. Yeah, it's not the best Irish accent I've ever heard. And I do a terrible Irish accent, so, you know. and and Oh, and just fleshing out the the cast, it's got a big cast as well, hasn't it? For 90 minutes of telly, you've got a good slice of cast. There's um the the lady, woman plays ah Maria, um thalliette Daniela Penn. I don't think I've seen her anything else.
Speaker: But she's the ah the sort of his old love interest, ah the potential assassins, victims, love interest from back home. Or is she in on the assassination? tantalise you about that successfully, about not and not knowing what she really, how much she knows and what she thinks.
Speaker: And yeah, it's not apart from his mum and her. Is that it? That's it on the on the female cast side, isn't it? On the lady front. It's not a Bechdel passer, is it? some think we're going to say. But, you know, don't you think? I'm not even sure they're both in an episode.
Speaker: um I'm sorry we've had our woman for them. yeah So I'd like a little shout out for Jack May, who I'm always on the lookout for people who are in the ah BBC radio adaptation of Lord of the Rings. And as I'm sure listeners know, he plays Theoden.
Speaker: in the BBC radio adaptation of Lawler. He's a very good Theoden, he is too. So I'm always excited when people like that pop up. I go, oh, there he is, Theoden King.
Speaker: And on the more lowbrow end, he's Igor from Count Ducula to a generation of his as well. Of course, Count Ducula's butler is... As well as a a million years in the Arches, wasn't it? Yeah. Yeah. yeah a bit A million.
Speaker: Yeah. They're packing it out with with really good people. Look, you're twisting my words. Why should I want to kill Ramon? Why should anyone want to? For patriotism, for propaganda, for revenge, to stop a war? He was going to London to get armament funds. You knew that? Yes. He told you? Yes. He told you everything, including what plenty of the army. No, he didn't know.
Speaker: I've told you. Yes. You've told me everything. Butler's must have been a thing of his as he's also Adam Adamant lives. course he is. Yeah, I always forget about that. Pretty much contemporary with this, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, similar sort of time. No, but I do like him. He's a lovely fruity voice. So I think I'm too old for Count Ducula.
Speaker: Although I was, but it didn't stop me. Fair enough.
Speaker: One thing I was curious to look up is that and we're told that Lynch is earning £1,250 a year, plus expenses, but with no pension.
Speaker: i'm So I had to do some digging into 1966's wages. And ah at the same time this is going out, Granada are looking for a props man um and advertising that at earning over £1,000 year.
Speaker: and But if you were a sort of a mine worker, you were on a little bit less than that. well So I think it was doing all right. My parents bought their house in 1966. They bought it outright, four-bedroom semi-detached in St Helens. They bought for about £4,000.
Speaker: Wow. Now, I will say that when it came to trying to sell four-bedroom 77th house in St Helens, it's pretty much what they got for it.
Speaker: It wasn't quite that bad, but but yeah. but yeah Those wages are quite decent when you think of the cost of houses. That's just Yeah, but the way it all worked is just crazy. i Like my my dad used to tell the story about how he would never get he said, I'll never give you financial advice because my parents gave me the worst financial advice of my life, which is they they talked him out of buying a house in Hertfordshire for like a three bedroom bungalow that he would have been paying like, ah you know, 10 pounds a month in mortgage or something. It's like you'll be in debt to the bank for the rest of your life. Just rent. Then you've got the freedom. And, you know he tracked that house when it went through half a million and when it went when he went off to sale for a million. And then I think he stopped. yeah Bitter for decades. Oh, dear.
Speaker: Yeah, I'd hunt them down in the afterlife for that. Yeah. And I mean, it's quite... But that is one of the things that this this TV windows give you. You just see, see there are some things, you I mean, for example, the fact that like 90% of people smoked, I guess, in this day and age, in 1966. It's just as an ashtray and almost you could spot the scenes where there isn't an ashtray would be easier spotting the ones where there are. It's funny the things that have just, ah yeah, just gone without or changed without leaving a footprint.
Speaker: Absolutely, yeah. And it's really marked, I think, in contemporary telly when anyone lights up, you go, oh, is this ah is this a historical drama? And if it's not a historical drama, it's slow horses. You've got to be more suspect to smoke nowadays. You do, yeah, exactly. It's a sort of failing, isn't it? Yeah. could
Speaker: Do you know what you have done? Where did you find him? We stumbled across each other, actually. do You have exposed me, the school, everything. We can't take prisoners. How can we take prisoners? Why didn't you shoot him? Well, I was going to, but... Now, it's too late. It'll be like shooting a horse in the house. We'll have the body on our hands.
Speaker: So Espionage, Una, you've picked an episode from this, Never Turn Your Back on a Friend. Espionage is an ITC series from 1963, four.
Speaker: And so tell us why you've picked this episode. Right, OK, so i had I had not seen Espionage and it hadn't registered on me, although it it turned out that we did in fact own the DVD. But set the reason it kind of bubbled up when we were talking about shows to do that perhaps were a little bit offbeat. And the reason I really wanted to do this show was that three episodes are directed by probably my favourite director, who's that giant of British cinema, Michael Powell.
Speaker: And people will know Michael Powell with his collaborations with Emmerich Pressburger in a series of films in the 1940s, like The Red Shoes, Black Narcissus, my favourite film, A Matter of Life and Death, their best film, which is the life and death of Colonel Blimp, which everyone should drop everything and go and watch now, just blank out the weekend and watch it. So when I saw that Michael Powell had directed a handful of these episodes, I thought, I've got to watch these, particularly as the that he's directing them after he makes his film Peeping Tom, which is a sort of schlock, um psycho style film that's released in 1960, which is a brilliant piece of filmmaking. and absolutely ends Powell's career.
Speaker: It's so shocking. People find it so shocking that he doesn't he he can't get a film off the ground again. Now, I suspect as there's always another side to these stories where it turns out that Michael Powell's been a bit of an arsehole for the DVDs.
Speaker: But genuinely, Peeping peing Tom, people were repulsed by it. And it's a film about movie making and a man, it's about a man who who murders, it's a serial killer, and he he murders and films the murders and kind of kills people with the point that he's got attached on the camera. It's an unbelievably amazing film. And Powell didn't work in movies again.
Speaker: um so To jump in on there, and I got shown like the tiniest clip of this in A-level media studies just because what I'll teach it was flicking through stuff, trying to find something else. And was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, what's this? Because whatever shots of it he showed me ah really drew drew me. And then it was quite a few years later before I actually got around to seeing it.
Speaker: Yeah, it's ah it's, and you will ah agree, it's an incredible film. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just, it's a masterclass and a kind of meditation on filmmaking as well. And and finishes him off. And then after that, he's doing bits of telly and and other projects. He ends up teaching at Dartmouth where he ah he starts working with Ursula Le Guin on a collaboration project. to do the Earthsea novels which never, there's a script but it never gets filmed and there's tiny bits of footage that he does with film students at Dartmouth and then in the middle of this he does three episodes of an IT t series, ITC series called Espionage and they're what, 50 minutes long? It's like an anthology series, isn't it? It's got the most shocking yeah opening ah credits. Oh, the music is really dramatic. And then the opening credits, going, oh God, that's like ah a pogrom and a death march bleep bleep you know nothing more frightening till the owl service I think and then this this starts and you immediately go oh well there's a what's her name Pamela Brown who's been in a load of ah Powell films and was actually his partner at the time And then it's it it looks like a Michael Powell film.
Speaker: it It looks and feels and is lit like a Michael Powell movie. And ah partway through, it sort of goes a bit... I think it turns into, to like, Faust or something. It gets really...
Speaker: Really, really creepy midway through. So um should we should it should we give a sort of overview of the plot? it's ah It's a very nifty set up.
Speaker: So we we we see Pamela Brown as a Norwegian woman who's giving an English class to say she's in occupied Norway. And all these she's giving these lessons and the the class leaves and these men start arriving. um They've got code names and we rapidly work out that we've got a team of um ah agents from three separate countries who are here on a mission. And that mission is to locate a German scientist.
Speaker: And shenanigans ensue, I think I would say. Yes. Uranium 230 could destroy a city the size of London or New York or Moscow.
Speaker: And soon, very soon, I will be able to build such a bomb.
Speaker: And it's a nuclear thriller, isn't it? It's ah it's about nuclear secrets. but But of course, they're in the 40s. Somebody says heavy water. And of course, you're watching in the 60s and you go, oh, it's the bomb. But of course, they're all in the 40s. So they go,
Speaker: Heavy water? How can water be heavy? Don't be ridiculous. those life on Mars moments. Yeah, exactly. yeah Really important. so so and And it's about how these group this this group of three agents sort of turn on each other, or manipulated, in fact, by the the German, to turn on each other and fight for the secrets that he carries. And as I say, halfway through, I think you realise that the you know he's not a he's not an innocent scientist. yeah he's He's someone who's quite calculatedly manipulating these people. And the lighting changes. He's sort of shot... like something from massre Master of Mulgurries or something, he looks, you know, becomes menacing. He has all this shadow. There's a shot of him, like, against the blackboard that, like, immediately ah reminded me um of it ah Actually, it's shots I'm not sure what actually from, but it shots from Mark Gettys' History of Horror.
Speaker: Are you thinking of the cabinet of Dr Caligari? Yeah. Yeah. that yeah It's like the one shot against like the stage curtains and there's like sort shadows and it just feels like he's menacing over you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. it's It's straight from German Expressionism, which is Emmerich Pressburger, who was his writing and producing collaborator, had come out of German cinema in the nineteen twenty s And it's exactly that kind of looming shot of a shadow behind you where where it stops being realist movie and it becomes something more figurative. And that's absolutely that's so as's straight from the 20s. And it's straight through all the Powell and Pressburgers films. And there you get it in the middle of this ITC series. yeah I turned it on and I went, this is a Powell film. yeah Yeah, it just looks like a Powell film. incredible.
Speaker: Yeah, and there's no need, like, i' fine it's fine for TV to be TV. It's fine for TV to be in a little studio and they put it on a play and they're working miracles and and that can absolutely enrapture me. So cinematic can get overused as if it's a compliment always. It doesn't have to be. yeah But wow, this is cinematic and it's really, it's really good cinema. Yeah. It's cinematic, but it's absolutely televisual as well. It's it's it's four people in room, well, it's five people in a room, isn't it? And it's tight on them. There's a little bit of, you know, it's mostly in this sort of schoolroom and it's mostly one-on-one. That claustrophobic feel yeah that you can do sometimes with studios. Yeah, the efficiency of it. But it just so happens that you've got the genius of British cinema behind the camera. Yeah.
Speaker: Because he did a he did a film in 1960 that nobody liked. you know so I haven't watched his other two yet. I've kind of got them lined up. I've got to watch them. But I imagine they're just they'll be absolutely peaceful as well. There's just something that he does to the to the film stock that just feels he just gets something out of it. It's incredible.
Speaker: Yeah, two shots in particular in my mind. It's when Jensen, the woman, the teacher, has to go to radio for instructions. What do we do? It's quite early on, this isn't a spoiler, quite early on they end up with a German prisoner that they weren't expecting and they have to decide what to do about him so she has to go off to radio for help to radio for a decision and there's a shot of her just walking away in the dark because they've taken out all the lights and and does it she walks up an alleyway in the dark or into the darkness that's the shot but you can't I can't put in words how uh how much I was there with her as she was doing it yeah It's like Mark Eden's viewpoint as he's looking out the window. He's peering out through, of course. Yeah, that's the techniques that they're using.
Speaker: and And there's another bit with the with the professor lurking when they're in in ah in the back of a shot where two people are discussing his fate and the stakes have already gone quite near the end. The stakes have already got really, really high. And his face is just there, almost almost on their shoulder, like ah like a little deep like little devil.
Speaker: um oh he's satan by then mean yeah yeah yeah and there's a i don't know how much how spoiler we can go they're they they're kind of all being convinced of his sort of innocence and then he makes a play for one of them and he comes out with like a mouth mouthful of nazi ideology and you just go oh no this guy is not a good guy yeah beware beware Nazi you know so it's a very nicely done little play I think really really good who was the writer did anyone catch the writer
Speaker: Yeah, Waldo Salt, and in but in brackets, as Mel Davenport, um which isn't... neither Neither of which I know, but has a really long CV. Well, it's a cut production, isn't it? It's got a lot of American money in it, hasn't it? Because it's got American styles in it. because the I'm super excited because the the guy playing the German is... I'll get his name wrong so you can correct me. Is he George Voynich? Yes.
Speaker: And I was super excited because I immediately recognised him as one of the 12 Angry Men. So he is. Yeah, he's the, he's the yeah I assume I'm told you people familiar with Henry Fonda movie, 12 Angry Men, which my brother was obsessed with. So I must have seen about 30 times. he's the he's the He's the watchmaker who's very cautious and precise. And then excitingly, I saw from, you know, when you've got your DVD and and it lines up all the little cards for the other episodes, Martin Balsam is in another episode of Espionage and he is the foreman in 12 Angry Men. So, you have hit a rich vein of nerdity for me on this one. So, um but Foydich is incredible. He just, I think he he plays...
Speaker: He plays the lights and shades of this role extremely well. And we've not even mentioned Julian Glover. but It's just like a headline news, isn't it? Julian Glover in espionage. Yeah, if we haven't convinced everyone to go and watch it, yeah, there's not much point. Surely we already have, but Julian Glover too. I mean, come on.
Speaker: What kind of world is going to be here? In Stalingrad. It takes a thousand bombers a day, four weeks to blow up a city. This Niemiecki pig can do it with one of his atoms.
Speaker: He's about 11, isn't he? He's absolutely baby Julian Glover. He's the Russian. he's the he's er russiantion he's He's young, but he's big. And there's all this bonhomie. And it's the kind of bonhomie that you go, he's a nasty piece of work. LAUGHTER When the pressure mounts, yeah. And the booze. He ends up at the booth sok were spending a lot of time sat in the corner with a bottle of vodka. yeah Even early on. ah He must have been shit-faced by the time they were looking at me. In and i did that i one of my one of my notes said, good, fairly drunk acting, which must be quite hard to There's a point where I just felt that their lines were starting to slur just a tiny bit, ah but they weren't overdoing it because they had been on the vodka for a couple of hours. But but they do want to obviously didn't want to throw us off the thing by by getting clownish. And they get snapped out of that pretty quickly as well. Yeah. Well, if you can't get an eating part, you may as well get a drinking part. like
Speaker: So this was a hit huge hit with me. Great choice. I mean, i don't I don't know what decision-making we went through to come to this one. and This one seems to have kind of emerged organically by accident almost, but I'm really glad it did, yeah. yeah Espionage, well, there's a show called that. Well, it's got Michael Powell episodes. Yeah, we'll do that one. it's do yeah yeah And Julian Glover. Yeah.
Speaker: Cool, so move on to number three
Speaker: number three. I would give my right arm for your three sandbaggers. Yes, well they spend most of their time shoveling paper from in-tray to out-tray. But they are there, ready and capable.
Speaker: I think The Sandbaggers is relatively well known among people who like old TV, I'd say. And maybe this is just because I speak to too many other people similar to myself. Because when I've spoken to people who were actually around the time who aren't submitting old TV, it doesn't seem to be one that was quite so well remembered.
Speaker: But so to for people who might not be familiar with it, I'll give us a bit of a background on its creator, Ian McIntosh. He served with the Royal Navy until 1976. The first year of the Sandbaggers is 1978. So it's not all coming that long after.
Speaker: and there's a lot of rumours about what he actually did when he was in the Navy. But it seems pretty certain, really, that he had something to do with intelligence services. He'd written a series for the BBC called Warship, which, no surprise, is set on some ships. um And then he gets hired as a staff writer for Yorkshire TV and when something falls through he ends up pitching the Sandbaggers. um Sam Wagner's first series goes out in 1978 and then in July 1979 when the second series is being filmed off in Malta, cast and crew, Ian McIntosh is on a plane im flying over the Gulf of Alaska when his plane disappears and no trace is ever found. Cue lots of rumours about what the hell ever happened to it. um So that's where we're coming in with the Sandbaggers.
Speaker: Pete, Una and I are both fans of the series. um What did you think of the very first episode? oh Yeah, so for this one, i I'd heard of it. i knew I knew it was the name of a show and I knew nothing more than that. I'd never i'd never seen it um and didn't have any any, I couldn't have told you who was in it or anything like that. So yeah, it just it had just passed me by. um was fun coming into colour suddenly, having watched these three having we watch these three chronologically. Suddenly we're in colour. Still Yeah, but still, yeah. And that colour is mostly brown, to be fair. Brown or beige. But also, and it's of course, it's some it's it's set in the then present day, as is Death is a Good Living. So it's not a period piece like the like the World War II escapee previously. But it... it's yeah it sets up really interesting content because it's it's more like there's there's lots of it's corridors of power um structure isn't it not the series i have actually i have seen that series but um it and it's so it makes it clear that this is mostly about how decisions get taken and it's people having meetings and then it cuts to something else and i'm gonna have to i'm gonna have to have a meeting with c and then off he goes and and and And I love there are sort of three tiers of meeting. There's the sort of open plan office where people got typewriters clattering away at. And then there's his immediate boss's office, which is just sort of a bit more managerial. But then and I noticed the crockery goes up a scale each time to the point where when you're meeting with C, C has got bone china. The guy, the the main boss has got sort of a mug with a saucer. and And whereas it's just mugs in the. yeah I don't know if that's actually meant to be profound, but it just struck out to me as this is how we're escalating this problem.
Speaker: um The Kola Peninsula sounded made up, so I googled it, and the first thing I got was a news story about tensions rising with Russia due to Norwegian flights over the Kola Peninsula last week.
Speaker: ah So it's funny how things go around. My operation in Norway has gone wrong. oh We had an aircraft full of classified monitoring equipment of scientists and engineers flying along the border with Russia.
Speaker: What was the aircraft doing? There is the naval base at Murmansk, the missile submarine base at Severimersk. Exactly. an area sensitive enough for the Russians to shoot up a Korean airliner that overflew it.
Speaker: Well, Russia has confirmed multiple air bases have come under drone attack in the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions. According to local witnesses, explosions were heard near the base in Murmansk and fires began in several places.
Speaker: And it's it's it's it's clear that it's going to be about's about power struggles within organisations more than people going and having shootouts, I'm guessing. Is that how the and it' that how the series rolls?
Speaker: Pretty much, yeah. I mean, i've i've not watched sunba i I've not watched Sandbaggers through for about 15, 20 years. So it it felt like watching it again, not for the first time, because obviously i I knew it was all about, um mean, it's catnip to me, people sitting in rooms going, I just have to escalate this to another room, you know?
Speaker: Great, I'm here for this. So I forgot most of the plot and and as I was watching it, i was thinking ah I could sit and watch people talk in rooms for ages. But then it was it was clear that they they start to mount a mission, that the sandbaggers are the the kind of crack squad that they send out to do these missions on behalf of government, these weirdo missions. And I'm thinking, it kind look you know, when you're kind of, you know, and you're watching an episode of the Avengers and you go, about 11 minutes from the end now, we're going to get a fight. Yeah. Yeah. ah
Speaker: And so I was watching this guy, are they going to, is this serialized? Are they going to mount this mission in like the last 10 minutes? And by golly, they did. they city They went in and filmed on Ilkley or wherever it was and and, you know, took our lads to the Calder Peninsula. um Yeah, so it was it sort of suddenly went into this actually quite a good action to see, you know. There's like parachutes and stuff, there? You kind of go, oh, there's a bit budget on this. So um um all the heart of it is is the talk.
Speaker: And, you know, ah right Roy Marsden striding down Whitehall and meeting his American number in a park. But you're right, it's mostly conversation. And then this sort of cut at the end to something much more, I think it puts it, I mean, where it it actually it cuts to the two sandbaggers on the ground having a conversation, but in a field. Yeah. But you've kind of gone, oh, right, they've because they've gone into some action.
Speaker: um But it reminded me how much I loved this show. i think it's it feels serious and it feels knowing. and it feels like somebody's got... it It's sort of like an unfunny Yes Minister. Do you know what I mean? It's like somebody knows exactly what works what's going on, and they're faithfully portraying it yeah yeah I pitched this series to people, including Pete, as Callan meets Yes Minister. That's very, very good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, as you said, because Callan kind of leeches the laughs out. that'st it But I think it's, oh, there's also a lovely nuance that the the kind of highest level is our hero's ex-father-in-law. so they'll be talking high high policy and then he'll go and by the way my daughter says you can pick up your lousy jazz records or whatever you know there's a kind of a frisson to it all the way through there's clearly a messy divorce has happened or something uh which i love i'm not sure if the daughter actually turns up at any point we do get a woman's standbagger eventually don't we which uh seemed very um uh utre for the time yeah just I go through a few sandbaggers.
Speaker: and that Yeah, exactly. I won't give too much away, but yeah, think we we we meet a number of sandbaggers and course they're not all that safe. No, it's not it's not a safe job. is and that was the Yeah, I mean, watching it, I was i was genuinely thinking, ah ah these is it are they doing what they the the thing that's often done, well, often, occasionally done for a shock of introducing lead characters and are they going to kill them all off? Because they did, or the agents anyway, were are in genuine peril ah the in the climax. Yeah.
Speaker: And Sam Bagawan is livid about the whole thing, which The mighty Ray Lonnan, who people will see in Harry's game a few years later, which we nearly did, didn't we? We nearly chose Harry's game. Yeah, that was on the short list. But he's mightily fed up about this clearly insane mission, which involves...
Speaker: dropping him behind enemy lines into Russia. I love how sarky and cynical he is in the briefing. And then Burnside is as like, Sandbanger 1 will see me after the briefing. Like he's a the teacher, he's dragging him back. I quite understand, but not in front of the service.
Speaker: Well, well what? You're my lead sandbagger. I don't expect you to behave at briefings like a spoiled child. All right, you jump out of the plane tomorrow morning. I did my time in the section, and as far as I can recall, I didn't sulk about it. How many times did you parachute into Russia? If you've got mission twitch, you should have about it. If I didn't mission twitch on this, I'd be a right idiot.
Speaker: But when your mission is kind of to to parachute into Soviet Russia and seems to be to drag a plane out. It was an actual plane on the earth tomorrow. Did they blow up a plane?
Speaker: that There's a big, results spoiler, something explodes. Okay, a plane explodes at one point. won't say who's playing yeah There's a bit of money on this show. And this is that what you said at the start, Hannah, about how people, you've talked to people who were watching telly at the time, they don't seem to remember it. That's really interesting because it's massive. in it it was um I remember the the reason I heard of it.
Speaker: was that it was massive in media fandom in the 80s. I think it got a really big American following. Yes, it got... People watching the professionals and stuff. and some Yeah, and Roy Marsden had been in um another series that had got sold to the US s and did quite well. Right.
Speaker: I went over there in the late eighties, early nineties. They had conventions over there. Yeah, it was big, wasn't it? And it gets a big afterlife, doesn't it? There's a comic book artist called Greg Rucker who does a series of graphic novels called Queen and Country, which are basically sandbaggers. I mean, he says, look, I just did sandbaggers, but with a girl. I think one reason perhaps why it does get forgotten is that the first series goes out in September 1978. And then the second one doesn't go back until January 1980. In between, get little series called Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Yeah. Which I think as much as I think they're both fantastic, I don't think you can argue against the production values that Tinker Tailor gets. And it goes to clearly...
Speaker: you agent' is is rightly lauded. yeah And then very rapidly, because you get you you would get the third season of Sandbaggers, not long after that you would get Edge of Darkness. So again, it would be you know the best film in the world if something is tucked in between Tinker Tailor, Smiley's People and Edge of Darkness. Those are the ones that you're going to remember. but everyone remembers Callan don't they because they remember the light bulb I think is the uh yeah yeah Callan gets some 80s repeats as well so of course it does yeah and I can see why when you're contrasting this with you've got Roger Moore in the box office at the time um this I could see people I know this is a proper spy show you know this is this isn't doing it for yeah for for arch fun this is what it's really like yeah yeah
Speaker: And it it must have, because of just being at the the late 70s and the early 80s, it must have looked incredibly outdated, incredibly quickly. Like if you think of the stuff you'd be watching by 1984, there would be a computer on some of those desks. yeah yeah I mean just one but there would be one and it's not it's all just pieces of paper with cigarette ash being dropped on them yeah and you know and an unnamed secretary running in she's very good actually in that part she does have a name actually it's Callum where she's she's you know Diane his secretary
Speaker: the whole of Westminster is treating us like lepers they're a lot worse off than lepers They get some sympathy.
Speaker: Yes, well, I'll be in the ops room.
Speaker: They do try to be topical, though, I noticed even from this first episode. So um they meant to mention going over the Kola Peninsula. Yeah, that place. Kola Peninsula.
Speaker: that kind of collincia um And they referenced the Korean airliner that got shot down over there. And that was only five months before this went out. Oh, wow. Okay. yeah um So I believe it was not necessarily in the original script, ah potentially, but possibly got no wrote in references added in when they were filming. Yeah. And worth mentioning in passing that espionage is in Norway, isn't it? That episode is...
Speaker: set in Norway as well so um you know they're always dealing with that that pops up again um yeah do you think there's a Pepsi pin it's sponsored yeah pei cola wars exactly nor web fights yeah yeah so it was great to go back to this because i'd i'd watched it all the way through but a while ago I mean, easily 15 years. And then you come back to it. It's one of those things you come back to and and you go, oh, actually, the the object of my love was worthy of my love. That's a good sign, isn't it?
Speaker: This is a great show, yeah. but The opening couple of scenes is pretty much just some people wandering around the streets of London. Yeah. ah like I love that the opening scene, Burnside is watching someone and we never see who he's watching. yeah so Not until we get to the office that you find out that he's clocked, that someone's following him. But, oh, it's just like MI5 are training people.
Speaker: Or is it? that Isn't that Pat Gorman? It's one of those moments. We've all been stalked by Pat Gorman in one life or another. Yeah, exactly. be Disappointed if you haven't. Yeah. and and And if you think of where that story starts and then kind of where you end up by the end of the episode...
Speaker: for ah For a kind of narrative structure that is basically just people in rooms, it really cracks along. you know there's ah There's a pace to it. um And you know we talk about the world feeling slower in the past, but this does feel like there's pace and there's jeopardy. Yeah.
Speaker: I always like the way that it does the cuts between the office scenes and the field operations. think far more so than lots of other spy series. And I am thinking to... I feel like we're slacking off James Bond a fair bit here in that...
Speaker: But it's just different. And whereas that, it always feels like once the agent leaves them, that's it, you're on your own and you're in charge of what of whatever happens next. With this, like it feels like the sandbaggers actually don't have a great deal of autonomy. They do as they're told, and like ours not to reason why. and even when they're out in the field, we keep cutting back to what's going on in the corridors of power and how that's still impacting what they're doing in the field. yeah And see I really like that connection that of shows that who's really making these decisions that have an impact on people's lives.
Speaker: And it's a horrible combination of no autonomy over their mission where they go. And then basically because the technology is so rudimentary, once they're down on the ground, that's it. You're basically good luck. Yeah, you just want to think this and Death is a Good Living both have feature of, the plane's taken off. We can't stop it now.
Speaker: for the different reasons but that's a plot point yeah yeah yeah yeah um well and not not to spoil the language it's a wonderful line not knowing whether whether or not they've crossed the border um you know to which you would you would um just know yeah what country we're actually in yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah but um in fact and i loved ah i've just checked my notes because yeah i wanted to get it right even he even says doesn't he at the end if you want james bond go to your library which which is almost trailer aspect that yeah that's almost trailer speak if it wasn't that it does actually fit perfectly because it's just almost so perfect for a trailer i don't know if it did get put in one but it's if i was making a trailer for this episode that would definitely go in it it's a mission statement yeah yeah oh absolutely
Speaker: yeah yeah I love that little speech he gives. It just sums up the series perfectly. Olaf Pooley gets put in his place. That was a great show. And I'm going to dip back into that one, I think. I watched episode one and then immediately went, I think I'm going to have to watch episode two. I'm just thinking the Norway thing, it's a coincidence that we picked two episodes that both dealt with that. But I guess it sets it apart from the war movies we're probably more used to seeing that people were particularly more used to seeing at the time about because we know win in France. And so it's sort of it's a yeah, it's set in a zone of Western vulnerability rather than. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: and it and it doesn't stop being relevant it's like you could you could set something in afghanistan at any point between now and you know the 19th century great i mean you could do it you know flat there's a flashman in afghanistan isn't there so could uh do that at any time and it's these sort of little border flash points i guess uh so um no we just dropped on there And and then the other one's at Shannon Airport. Yeah, which is awesome. Also a hinterlander. Not as glamorous. hinterlander in its own side. Wasn't it? didn't Didn't they invent Duty Free or something? I'm sure I've got that somewhere because it was the... Like Shannon. Because flights coming over from America and Canada could only just make it to Shannon. and so so they had to land and refuel and that's where... And and Duty Free Shopping somehow got invented as part of all that. I think it was like one of the first...
Speaker: I think US Custom Points was established. there yeah Wow, how interesting. Right, they could just they could just make it to the west of Ireland and then hop over. Have we mentioned any of the guest cast on Sandbaggers? Who are the regulars? got some good ones, haven't we? We've got Jim McNaughton, haven't we?
Speaker: Sorry, Ian McNaughton. Alan. Alan, thank you. All three of them. I knew it had vowel in it.
Speaker: i was I was really glad that we did get a brief explanation of what that why it's called The Sandbaggers. It wasn't, although it was very much in passing. yeah But the idea, they're just, oh, I see. They're shoveling stuff into in trays as if they were just stuffing things into, sand into bags. Yeah.
Speaker: Menial, in other words. yeah Because i because that was a I was aware that it was the name of a show and I'd never paid enough attention to actually think about why it would be called that. What it would be. And then i'm I'm going to get his name wrong as well, but is it Jerome Willis? He's a regular that pops up, isn't he? I mean, you you say it's Helen McNaughton, but he's Jim to his friends, so...
Speaker: he's gone on And then who else is there? there Are there any other... The American guy is great, but I don't think he's in anything else. The CIA gay c i c i a guy. That's quite hard to say. Geoff Ross is the character's name.
Speaker: Thank you. yeah i um He's very good. leapt out at me as ah as as a what do I know him from person. Richard Vernon. Yeah, and it turns out I could have known him from 100 things probably, but it's some slutty barfart. from the jagger's guide is what he uh he will hit that voice is uh is unshiftable that is a matter of interpretation yeah yeah yeah yeah now so it's a great kind of i assume ah most of those come back as semi-regulars or regulars don't they yeah so yeah yeah yeah they're all all their relationships like well with one another and with burnside are always so interesting um
Speaker: I was like the Burnside, Peel, Jerome, Willis one. He's such a like stick in the mud. And it's there from... like I think they're probably less antagonistic in this opening episode than they become later. yeah yeah He asks for his help and his support on something. And it's just like...
Speaker: my opinion is that we should carry out our orders. on a spot I And there's always a subtext of resenting him for whom his ex-father-in-law is, that you know that he's got this kind of a hotline to a higher level of power, yeah? Even though the marriage... yeah was or is it Is there an implication that... I picked up an implication that maybe he only got the job because he was married to the daughter and now they're divorced so he's that he's at risk. I don't know. that was That crossed my mind. He's also good at the job, I think. is the ya so it's thought but He was a sandbagger before and has now moved up into so the management level. Do we know what he did before he was a sandbag? We know Sandbaggawa was parrot, don't we?
Speaker: I think it's mentioned that he was in the Marines. Right, he was in the Marines. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they're all army coming through and then... I don't see Sandbaggawa becoming a sort of desk jockey, though. Don't see him kind of, you know.....becoming D-Ops. LAUGHTER
Speaker: I mean, Burnside's not that great at balancing the politics of it. Will is never going to manage that. No, he's notnna he's not going to get further up the chain, is he? They're not going to give him his own ministry, I think. But then he's good because he's entirely focused on not wasting the resource, which is the only way that he's going to command the loyalty of those of that team of sandbaggers.
Speaker: Are you going to watch any more of it, Pete? Yeah, definitely. um I did really like it. And I mean, both of them, both both of them, obviously. I wish I could watch more of the of um ah Death Good Living, but um that's all there is. So yeah, no, these are this is this is really good, really watchable. um And yeah.
Speaker: If you could have box set of just one of these... ah Like a deluxe all-out box set. Interviews, and and ignoring the fact that they're no longer with us. Interviews with all the cast and everything.
Speaker: Making of...
Speaker: Oh, right. Well, in that case, I would, i would even though I've only seen one episode of it, because I think it's probably the most interesting of the three, I would say Espionage, because I think it's the show that would probably individually be incredibly rewarding.
Speaker: And i think there's a I think they're pulling in a quality of talent, presumably with the ITC money, that with the best one in the world, Yorkshire telly can't necessarily. They're really, yeah, punching above their weight with this, aren't they? And it's tricky that I've seen all the sandbaggers, so perhaps it's that sort of, I have seen it all already. So I think espionage is the one that I thought, oh, that's one I would, I'm really interested to see the variety of filmmaking.
Speaker: and who they've pulled in and uh and and how it all got put together i think what about you hannah good question i'm quite torn on this um i think i'd like sandbaggers but mainly if i could bring like ian mackintosh back from the dead and like like so what did you do tell us what you did oh we could hold a massive sale That would help a lot with these box sets, I have say.
Speaker: Yeah. Well, in that case, we've got a good mix because ah because while I did, I liked them all and I will definitely enjoy the other two. I did sit there thinking, as the final credits of Death is a Good Living Role, I thought, oh, we'd just love to see an interview with Leonard Rossiter about this. and And particularly once he got famous for for other stuff.
Speaker: ah Surely he must have looked back on this really fondly. It's the first time I've ever podcasted about something that doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. It's remarkable how underreported. it is because it's thick because it's so good and although it's only 90 minutes i'm not getting value for money per minute with my with my box set compared to the other two yeah but um yeah no i would i would i could really immerse myself in a lot of bonus features about this i think yeah And it exists. And it's just incredible. It's just there. It's there and nobody talks. The whole thing's there. Nobody talks. Except us. Well, maybe we contribute to a bandwagon. Get rolling for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's never had a physical release, has it?
Speaker: Is that right? Oh, right. I haven't a clue how this appeared. I'm just so glad it did. There's ah a new YouTube channel that's just putting stuff up and I presume they're doing it legally because they put a lot of effort into making it look good. was not to reason why. Simply to click.
Speaker: MUSIC PLAYS
Speaker: So we're closing down for the night at the cafe now. So thank you very much for listening to the Cathode Rays podcast. This has been an HP TV production from the Midlands. You've been listening to me, Pete.
Speaker: Una. And me, Hannah. We hope you'll join us next time for another chat about CRT era telly. If you liked this episode, please tell someone about it. For now, we'll wish you goodbye and please remember to turn off your set.
Speaker: Goodbye. Goodbye. Bye-bye.
Speaker: but Who's paying for the coffees? They're on the tap. Excellent. Oh, good
Speaker: man.
Speaker: Thanks to Andrew Pixley for helping source some of the details about Death is a Good Living.
