Back in May, I handed over control of the evening’s programming to one of our group who was having a birthday that week, allowing them essentially to create their ‘perfect night in’. The schedule may contain anything reasonably obtainable, from things we watched years ago to things we always wanted to watch but were afraid to ask.
Well, this week it’s my turn, and seeing as it’s a special week I’ve bought us proper East End pie and mash out of our £1 weekly “licence fee” savings. Tonight’s schedule breaks away from the regular format, and we will resume watching Big Deal, Hardwicke House et al next time.
Following our recent theme of “banned” programmes, what better way to start than with a “banned” song?
First programme proper is an (untransmitted) edition of Look Around You (BBC Two, 2000), a double length edition of Serafinowicz and Popper’s spot-on spoof of 1970s schools TV. Don’t forget your copybooks.
I’ve peppered tonight’s schedule with some old adverts.
Time for some more music, so let’s go, go, go with Status Quo, performing a pounding rendition of Paper Plane from 1972.
This leads us nicely into something I earmarked for us to watch a while ago, and hadn’t yet found a slot for: an edition of Mike Read’s Pop Quiz from 1982. Your team captains are Francis Rossi and Roy Wood.
More ads…
Next up we’re pleased to bring back into the fold Keith Floyd, who this week is visiting Vietnam.
More light relief next with the Pink Panther
For our final musical interlude of the evening I’m springing the incomparable and beautiful Kirsty MacColl on my friends. Kirsty would have celebrated her birthday a couple of days before me had it not been for that awful boating incident in 2000. I have to confess, I shed a little tear for her, watching this.
Action drama next. I couldn’t have a perfect night in without an ITC classic, so here’s Roger Moore and Tony Curtis in The Persuaders! (1971) with special guest Cyd Hayman.
Tonight’s final programme, and one I have been meaning to screen for years, is Brass Eye (Channel 4, 1997), a masterwork if ever there was one. Skewering the pomposity of hard hitting news documentaries, Brass Eye was essential cult viewing for me in 1997. I’ve always liked Morris’s absurdist humour and attention to detail, and lapped up all the outrage it stirred up at the time. With its gloriously over the top graphics, Brass Eye looked excitingly like the future, but all TV news looks like it these days. Still, it’ll be a good watch. Chris Morris is back in the news with a new film, I see, and maybe we’ll get to see it one day.
As usual we play out with the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra.
