THE GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS TELLY PAST (part seven)

In 1979, the cover of the Christmas and New Year Double Issue of the Radio Times seemed to have gone all postal with its rather splendid illustration by Peter Brookes. This, however was a vintage era when “Multi-Coloured Swap Shop dominated Saturday mornings on the BBC and Basil Brush eased you into your Saturday evenings.

Christmas Eve that year, however, was on a Monday  and after the youngsters had been entertained all day by the likes of Orson Welles on “Treasure Island” and Blue Peter announcing the results of their Great Bring and Buy Sale Auction, Rolf Harris and the children of Wilton Middle School kicked off the evening’s family viewing in traditional style before Bernard Cribbins narrated a year in the life of the robin. After that, chaos ensued with “It’s a Christmas Knockout” with Stu-ha-ha-art Ha-ha-ha-hall and Claudio Lippi presenting an international special edition from Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy. Things then calmed down a little on the main channel with “Val’s Christmas Music Show” (Val Doonican, natch…) before upping the ante again with the feature film “The Go-Between” and an evening of mood swings (content-wise at least) ended with “Music for Christmas” and a “Midnight Mass”.

For BBC2, however, it was music all the way throughout the evening. From “The Sounds of Christmas” at 4.55 and the Beatles in “Yellow Submarine”, through the musical nativity “Follow the Star” (featuring the splendidly named Christopher Lillicrap) and onwards with Itzhak Perlman playing Bach, a live programme of Christmas music from eight nations called “Star Over Bethlehem”, an Alan Price concert and finishing the evening with “Singin’ in the Rain” this was a musical marathon that would give BBC4 a run for its money nowadays and shows how much television has changed in the intervening 32 years.

Christmas Day on BBC1 featured such old favourites from the schedules of yesteryear like “The Spinners at Christmas” and John Curry presenting his performance of creative ice skating. The Queen served as an aperatif for the madcap antics of “Larry Grayson’s Generation Game” before (some of) the nation got to slump down in front of “The Gnome-Mobile” until Terry Wogan hosted “Blankety Blank” and a brand new series of “All Creatures Great and Small” (or was that “Grunt and Smell”…?) began. Yes, a new series of a drama programme starting on Christmas Day… Now that sort of thing really doesn’t seem to happen any more. More “family favourites” followed with “The Mike Yarwood Christmas Show” (because he was HUGE back then) and “To the Manor Born” before BBC1 handed its evening over to “The Sting” and Michael Parkinson.

BBC2 remained steadfastly musical once it had got Dickens out of the way in the early evening with Donald Swann “Baboushka” and Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti in Recital taking up much of the night. This was followed by the musical quiz “Face the Music” (and you thought all of these panel games were a recent phenomenon, didn’t you…?) and Liza Minnelli in “Cabaret” finishing the night. To be fair, there was an hour spent celebrating the English garden with Candida Lycett Green earlier on, but we were probably all too busy watching Mike Yarwood to notice.

After Victoria Principal has portrayed one of “The Greatest Heroes of the Bible”, on Boxing Day the BBC became dominated by sport with Football Focus and Rugby League being followed by Racing, with BBC2 picking up the baton once that was over with the tale of “Griffiths the Cue” and International Gymnastics from Forth Worth, Texas. BBC1’s early evening was then the familiar round of kid’s stuff from “Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree” through to “Jim’ll Fix It” via the songs and comedy of Max Boyce and Disney Time. The “grown-up” telly begins with “Are You Being Served?” featuring a life-sized Punch and Judy show and then the bonkers brilliance of “Where Eagles Dare” takes over most of the rest of the evening before handing over to “Dave Allen at Large” and “Boxing Night at the Mill” with Bob Langley and the ubiquitous Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen. BBC2 retained its generally musical theme that year with the movie “Let It Be” being followed by a “Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet Double Bill”, “Sing Christmas” with The King’s Singers, “Oklahoma!” and “Music at Night” only being broken up by a TV adaptation of Willy Russell’s “Our Day Out”.

BBC1 saw us safely into the 1980s with “Larry Grayson’s Generation Game” and Hercule Poirot solving a “Murder on the Orient Express” before there is a “fond” look back at 1970s TV in “The 70s Stop Here!” and a Scottish welcome to the New Year starring Reginald Bosanquet in “A Toast to the 1980s”. BBC2 on the other hand went with Blondie on “The Old Grey Whistle Test” and “Sunset Boulevard”.

The 1980s proper started off with the second part of a compilation repeat of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” in the afternoon, “Elvis – That’s the Way It Is”, “Hi-De-Hi”, “The Little and Large Show” and “The Odessa File” before Barry Norman reviewed the “Films of the Year” just gone. BBC2 however was a mixed bag of Cricket highlights, Dave Brubeck, a Concert from Vienna and the French film “La Grande Illusion” starring Erich von Stroheim, and with that out of the way, the years of big hair and shoulder pads could truly begin.