THE GHOSTS OF CHRISTMAS TELLY PAST (part twenty two)

An “angelic” choirboy stares out from the cover of 1989’s rather battered copy of the Christmas and New Year Double Issue of the Radio Times. I wonder whatever became of him because he’s probably in his mid-to-late thirties by now. Mind you, he may very well be running the country these days, so I’d better be careful what I say, put down my pen and not draw that comedy moustache on his picture like so many others may have done as the 1980s slipped into the 1990s.

Opposite to the first page of the Christmas Eve TV listings for BBC1 and BBC2 is a full page advert for “British Satellite Broadcasting” showing us that the future was already kicking in the front door. Meanwhile, back on the ground, the biggest daytime event on BBC1 seems to have been “Joy to the World”, a “spectacular celebration” of Christmas and the 70th year of the Save the Children Fund at the Royal Albert Hall and featuring, oh, everyone really. This followed “The Driving Force Snow Special” and “The Return of the Pink Panther” whilst all of the children’s programmes including “Maid Marion and Her Merry Men” had migrated to “Children’s BBC Two” before it delved into music, literature and documentaries for the afternoon up until the “It’s Garry Shandling’s Christmas Show” at 5.05. Meanwhile, back on BBC1 “EastEnders” and the strangely simultaneously wonderful and awful movie “Labyrinth” were the main ingredients of the afternoon, leading up to the climax of “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader” in the BBC’s own adaptation of “The Chronicles of Narnia”. After some “Songs of Praise”, the “Telly Addicts” ensured that we didn’t get a Noel-Free Christmas and a feature length “Ever Decreasing Circles” found Martin considering moving house, before a brace of movies (“Legal Eagles” and “Love Story”) separated by a “Midnight Mass of the Nativity” finished the evening, whilst BBC2 devoted much of its late night schedule to an Ayckbourn play (“Relatively Speaking”) and Sergio Leone by way of a documentary and “Once upon a Time in the West”.

Christmas Day found the children’s TV jumping back to the main channel leaving BBC2 free for an episode of “Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe” (Episode 2: “Freezing Torture”), the “Berlin Freedom Concert” because that damned wall was still up and “The Prince and the Pauper”. BBC1 continued with Roy Castle presenting the “Christmas Celebration” and, oh, him again “Noel’s Christmas Presents” (or should that be “presence?”). There then followed a triple bill of classic comedy repeats that followers of these pages over the past few weeks might recognise from their first appearances, “Porridge”, “Dad’s Army” and “Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em”, until Jakki Brambles, Bruno Brookes and Gary Davies presented the “Top of the Pops Christmas Show”. The Queen was followed by “Bread”, “Only Fools and Horses”, the News and “The Russ Abbot Christmas Show” before “Crocodile Dundee”, a new Miss Marple tale, “A Caribbean Mystery”, “In Sickness and in Health” and “Clockwise” guided the nation through the mince pies towards the “Christmas Epilogue” and the sublime “Key Largo”. BBC2, on the other side, retained its cultural roots with “The Pagnol Trilogy: Marius”, “Aida from the Met”, “Babette’s Feast”, a documentary about P.G. Wodehouse and more Sergio Leone, “My Name is Nobody”.

Boxing Day started with the children’s TV staying put until 9.45 when the “Smash Hits Poll Winners’ Party” took over. After that it played fairly safe with “Scrooge” starring Albert Finney, a programme about the Red Arrows called, rather unsurprisingly, “The Red Arrows” and “A Bridge Too Far”. BBC2 loosened its collar a tad to give us (amongst others) Fred and Ginger in “Swing Time”, “Boop-Oop-a-Doop!”, a documentary about Betty Boop and “The Pagnol Trilogy: Fanny”.

BBC1 returned to familiar territory in the evening with “The Paul Daniels Magic Show”, “EastEnders” presumably having “The Best Boxing Day Walford’s Ever Had” and “Bergerac” before “Birds of a Feather” and a repeat of “Blackadder’s Christmas Carol” led into the first British television showing of  “The Name of the Rose”. Meanwhile BBC2 told a music memoir of “Wodehouse on Broadway”, and showed one of its “Films for the Family”, “The Black Stallion” before heading to the Opera for “The Love for Three Oranges” and, after a quick look at “Monsieur Eiffel’s Tower” and some “Yes Minister” Party Games, headed west for Leone’s “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”.

New Year’s Eve brought another showing of Dirk Bogarde in “Doctor in the House” and a first showing for “Krull” and after some still familiar shows like  “Antiques Roadshow” and “A Question of Sport” and some long gone like “The Clothes Show”, and an already ancient repeat of “Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em”, showed the movie “A Hazard of Hearts” before handing over to “Clive James on the 80s”, a “Happy New Year” from Dr Robert Runcie and greeted the 1990s with “The Ipcress File”. BBC2, however, finished off the 1980s by bidding farewell the Chris Evert, as well as showing “Legend” (fantasy films seeming to have been a big part of that year’s Christmas schedule), and “The Purple Rose of Cairo” before spending the evening with Sviatoslav Richter, and Rab C Nesbitt before handing over to the Rock Gods with “Eighties”, a Rock Review of  the decade and “Heavy Metal Heaven” featured an “Arena” special.

New Year’s Day was more down to earth, featuring “Curry on Ice”, before “My Fair Lady”, “Grease 2”, “Out of Africa” and “In the Heat of the Night” featured in a film heavy schedule, whilst BBC2 concentrated on the music with “Def II”, “Nigel Kennedy’s Four Seasons”, “Songs of Armenia”, “Hansel and Gretel” and more “Heavy Metal Heaven” peppered between cheery tales of “The Last Gulag” and “Cane Toads – A Natural History”. Thankfully, “Hannah and Her Sisters” turned up to cheer us all up a little.