PPS - Programme Preservation Society - Radio TellyScope 34

When I was at school this one of the most talked shows, even though it wasn’t aimed at children. We loved stuff like Gerald the Gorilla, Rowan walking into a lamppost, hedgehogs being run over, Game for a Laugh murdering people, the McEnroe’s at home and Nice Video, Shame About the Song. It’s great that people are now appreciating this series as every bit as influential as the Pythons. Without it I doubt we would have had The Young Ones, Blackadder or even The Office. The insistence of making the filming and presentation of sketches as gritty and realistic as possible gave TV comedy a fresh look at a time when most sitcoms and revues were still fairly cartoonish in their production. Editing news footage to new soundtracks wasn’t a new idea but they took it to a new savage level. Possibly their finest moment was Constable Savage, as sketch so perfectly ridiculing police racism that there almost hasn’t been another attempt like it since, just references back to it. Not the Nine O’Clock News defined the early eighties as much as punk, Boys from the Blackstuff and Mrs Thatcher. Oh - and Pamela was rather lovely wasn’t she?

I’ve only recently seen this properly on DVD. British television is swamped by quirky comedy dramas but very few are as perfectly served up as Alan Plater’s six part celebration of humanity and jazz. Everything dovetails so satisfactorily, from the casting of James Bolam and Barbara Flynn as the unlikely pair of heroes, to the production values and Yorkshire locations, to the Kenny Ball music, to Plater’s intelligent yet accessible writing. This is a story about all manner of subjects, eighties materialism, changing communities, romance, corruption, standing up for principles, anger and compassion. Above all it’s very funny indeed. The dialogue manages to be dizzyingly witty at times without ever sounding glib. There are some splendidly droll subplots such as an eccentric black market running beneath the radar, an elderly would-be ‘supergrass’, the control freakery of the local headmaster and an idealistic young police detective trying to update the police force and proving to be more complicated than he seems. This is a deceptively gentle drama, for underneath the whimsy and comic observations there is some real anger not only at the destructive economic policies which were currently affecting small northern town but small minded officialdom which seemed to be designed to make people’s lives worse. Our teacher heroes are quietly heroic and realistically they only achieve partial victory, but enough to reward their individualism and decency. Two sequels followed which were nearly as good but the Affair is perfect. It is rare but great when popular mainstream entertainment has this much quality to it.

By rights Press Gang could have been a bland ITV knock off of Grange Hill, just another school based children’s drama. But in Steven Moffatt’s hands, backed by the happy accident of an accomplished cast and a good production team, this comedy drama about a school newspaper soared to unexpected heights. Taking its cue from Moonlighting but surpassing it, Press Gang combined fast talking comedy, serious drama and some delirious moments of surrealism to create one of the most unique shows of the late eighties. Long before people were raving about the imagination of Six Feet Under and Ally McBeal, this show was mixing the everyday trials of teen romance with guardian angels, a hostage drama, a lead character going to Hell and a disturbed actor who believed he was a Doctor Who surrogate. But even without the flights of fancy, Press Gang would be one of the greats. It had a wonderful ensemble cast of strongly defined characters who interacted in a complex web of relationships. Moffatt could write tightly structured character stories like the one location ingenuity of "A Night In" or impressively fill a twenty-five minute episode with three rich sub-plots and dove tail them perfectly such as "Money, Love and Birdseed". The two parters were even better. "Something Awful" tackles the subject of child abuse with great sensitivity and "The Last Word" puts many an adult police series to shame. Julia Sawalha, Dexter Fletcher, Leticia Dean and Gabrielle Anwar have all gone on to greater fame but Press Gang is still the best show they ever did.

"It is the GREATEST drama ever made by the BBC!" booms Brian Blessed in the DVD documentary and I’m not going to argue with him. A brave undertaking to cast the cream of British acting talent in a studio bound Roman epic and to tell a story crossing eighty years. A delicious blend of family intrigue, black comedy, perversity, politics and history, I Claudius is still being discovered by new generations. It often teeters on the edge of preposterously with its age make-up, the theatrical studio sets and the mix of modern dialogue with ancient settings but it never tips over. It remains beguiling drama and quotably funny. Brian Blessed, Sian Lloyd, John Hurt and Derek Jacobi give career best performances. And there’s great fun to be had spotting all the famous faces in supporting roles. The only problem with I Claudius is that it’s hard to sum up interestingly without descending into a mere list of superlatives. It is more entertaining than most Hollywood sword and sandal epics. A lasting reminder of everything that’s good and brave about BBC drama.

It’s been a joy to see this programme return so triumphantly to popular television. It’s been filled with elements I would have said a year ago would not have worked but how wrong I was. It’s spectacular, imaginative, funny, thoughtful and amazingly it’s even cool. This is the show I have loved almost as long as I can remember. It is anarchic, imaginative, often anti-establishment. The Doctor is a great hero: mysterious, compassionate, inquisitive, accepting, brave and imaginative. His enemies are nearly as intriguing: the vicious Daleks, the dehumanised Cybermen and the subversive Autons to name but three. The ingenuity of the many production teams over the decades as they wrestled with those famously tiny budgets has been astounding. Few shows entered the public consciousness like it. At its best there is nothing as good on television. Quite aside from its own qualities, this is a programme that has had a massive effect on my life. The good friends I have made. Becoming a writer, first for fanzines, then my own radio plays and later for official Doctor Who spin-off stories for BBV. Not to mention acting and filmmaking and indeed getting to wider world of cult and vintage television appreciation. In short, Doctor Who has given me a lot of special memories.