THE GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS TELLY PAST (part fifteen)

The TV Times of Christmas 1982 was its very first year as a listings magazine when it could tell you about the content of more than one channel because, on the second of November that very year, the young upstart that was known as Channel 4 had begun broadcasting. As a bit of a “fan” of what we used to call “television”, I even remember dashing home from my foundation course in order to catch this momentous moment as it happened, something I would be unlikely to do nowadays in our multi-channel era when a new one seems to pop up every day, especially as most of them don’t broadcast out here in Lesser Blogfordshire unless you strap a dustbin lid belonging to the evil empire to your house and, as I’m really less of a  “fan” of what I call “modern television” nowadays, I’m not likely to be doing that any time soon.

I can’t really remember whether I was hugely disappointed by the content of this brave new channel, but I do recall that very quickly, pretty much the only thing I would watch was, like many people of my age, “The Tube”. Even such things as “The Comic Strip presents…” seemed to become less than daring very quickly and Channel 4 itself had to very quickly change its identity due to struggling to find an early audience for its more challenging and experimental content.

That Christmas was, then, early days for the fledgling channel which filled its Christmas Eve with Buster Keaton in “Cops”, “The Tube”, “The Friday Alternative” (for it was a Friday), a documentary about gospel singers called “In the Spirit”, a documentary series about “The Sixties” narrated by James Bolam, “The Curious Case of Santa Claus” starring James Coco and Jon Pertwee, and “Norman Gunston at Christmas”. The main ITV channel, meanwhile included “The Goodies Christmas Special: Snow White 2” at 5.15 in the afternoon after their much trumpeted switchover to “the other side”, “A Christmas Lantern” featuring Cliff Richard and Wayne Sleep in a tale about never aging (Hmmm…), a Christmas episode of the undertakers comedy “In Loving Memory”, “The Stanley Baxter Hour” and an operatic retelling of “A Christmas Carol” with Frederick Burchinal as Ebenezer Scrooge.

Channel 4 on Christmas Day included the movies “Captain Stirrick” and “Caesar and Cleopatra” with Vivien Leigh and Claude Rains, as well as a repeat showing of “Upstairs, Downstairs” and Olivier’s “Richard III”. There was also an episode of “Brookside” and whilst this line up of extraordinary movies appeals to me right now, I can’t think that it would have had much appeal back then, especially as ITV had such popular delights as “The Parent Trap” and “The Black Hole” to tempt the whole family. (“We’ve got a great big Black Hole in our schedules today” as one continuity announcer probably briefly considered saying…). Mind you, if you did want to escape from “Andy Williams’ Christmas Special”, “3-2-1”, “Game for a Laugh”, “Bruce Forsyth’s Play Your Cards Right” and “Chas and Dave’s Christmas Knees-up” there were worse places to go.

Boxing Day on 4 (after skipping over the unusual phenomenon of “Christmas Sunday”) meant more classic cinema including “Hans Christian Andersen” but most of the evening was given over to an evening of television from the 1950s all under the umbrella title of “Fifties to the Fore” which included “The Arthur Haynes Show”, “Dragnet”, “Oh Boy!”, “The Larkins” and the “Armchair Theatre” presentation of John Slater in “Hot Summer Night”. This had to compete with “Coronation Street” in the middle of its “Ken, Deirdre and Mike” storyline, the James Bond Film “Moonraker” and “The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show” now shunted from its previously unassailable traditional Christmas Day slot by those nurturing schedulers at ITV. No contest. No wonder Channel 4 struggled.

New Year’s Eve on Channel 4 consisted of “The Munsters”, “The Tube”, “The Friday Alternative” (for it was a Friday), another in its documentary series about “The Sixties” narrated by James Bolam, “The Paul Hogan Show”, “Scotch Myths”, “David Frost’s End of the Year Show” and “The House on Haunted Hill”. ITV countered all this with “Family Fortunes”, the dubious delights of “Russ Abbot’s Hogmanay Madhouse” and “The Patricia Neal Story” before giving its regards to Broadway and heading over to Glasgow for “The Hogmanay Show” with Peter Morrison and not the slightest sign of Russ Abbot.

Channel 4 then started its first full year of broadcasting with the Barron Knights and George Duffus on either side of the ballet “The Rake’s Progress”, more old ITV repeats and a programme about “An explosion of totally gay elements on television” called “One in Five”. I can still imagine how the editorial team of the “Daily Express”  bristled at that back then.

Over on ITV, David Frost also featured, after his evening appearance on 4 the night before, presenting “The Guinness Book of Records” with Randi Oakes before Brucie played more card games and the movie “Stunts” took the audience through to “Whicker’s World Aboard the Orient Express”, football with Elton Welsby and, without a hint of irony, “A Touch of Class”.