Yesterday evening, Saturday, I tried to find something interesting to watch on UK TV. The choice was dire. The same drab game shows and mindless programmes.. or I could watch for the umpteenth times episodes of Murder, She Wrote, NCIS or Geraldine McEwan as Miss Marple. Or possibly some repeated documentary on World War II.
German TV? Seeing as how I'm paying over 17 euros a month for German TV and radio. Don't make me laugh. I noticed that 'Shetland' was going to be shown - but after 11 p.m. German TV bosses think that 'Candid Camera' ('Verstehen Sie Spaß?'), a show that has been going for 40 years, is still a great idea and fantastic prime time TV viewing. I saw a couple of episodes of the UK version as a child. If I recall correctly, they were 30 minutes long. I have no idea how they can keep this going in Germany for 40 years with each episode being 180 minutes to 195 minutes long. 180 minutes - that's 3 hours!! Very cheap TV indeed. No need for scriptwriters, actors, or any film crew.
I checked out BBC Radio 4 and didn't fancy anything there either.
So.. I turned to YouTube. Good old YouTube. A veritable gold mine if you just poke around there a bit. And I found the only filmed episode of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue from 2008, the last episode chaired by jazz trumpeter Humphrey Lyttleton.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ohQt_P_wpU
'Clue', as it is fondly known by its many loyal fans, is a radio programme that has been devised to be the 'antidote to panel games' and it's been going since 1972. Unlike Verstehen Sie Spaß? it does not rely on schadenfreude to get its laughs. And you never know what the panellists will come up with. The best thing is that they have such fun together. Barry Cryer is particularly generous with his laughs at other people's jokes.
Sadly, many of the original players have passed on. Humphrey Lyttleton in 2008 - after 35 years at the helm. The wonderful Willie Rushton, whom I still miss very much, played from 1974 to his much too young death at the age of 59 in 1996. And then just a week ago, the man whom I always regarded as 'the youngster' of the gang: Tim Brooke-Taylor, who played from 1972 to 2020. Barry Cryer (who is already over 80 himself) and Graeme Garden (a mere 77) are still going. And one must mention the much maligned pianist: Colin Sell. All names that are music to my ears.
If you watch the video of the filmed episode, you can see just how large an audience this long-running radio game show (72 series so far) can attract. Tickets are free - but try getting your hands on one. Not easy.
It's a sad thing when the TV channels of the UK and Germany have nothing to offer than can beat listening to old episodes of a small group of old men larking around in a radio studio.
If you want to do the same, someone on YouTube has kindly uploaded lots of episodes from various years:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCigprW0Q1WiwB9wadUbWoag/playlists
Enjoy! I certainly am doing just that.
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You have great taste in radio.
ReplyDeleteI used to love Just a Minute, with Nicholas Parsons.
Were you also a fan of Week Ending?
ReplyDeleteYes, I'd listen to that on my battery-operated radio in bed on a Friday evening.
DeleteYou have good taste.
DeleteIf you think that UK or German TV-programmes are dull, then you should, in diesem Hinsicht, never come to Finland. Saturdays in Finnish BBC (YLE) are boooooriiiiing... End may Endeavour latest season makes something to look forward to in Saturday evenings, but there are only three episodes.
ReplyDeleteAnd the commercial channels are even worse.
The days, there is generally only one TV programme a week that I am interested in. We have just come to the end of three 2-hour episodes of a new series of Van der Valk with Marc Warren. This was on ITV on Sunday evenings. ITV is the same channel that does Vera and Endeavour. I wonder what they will have next Sunday.
DeleteI find it strange, though, that all the good crime series start in January and then there is nothing in the summer months.
Sorry for my typo, should have written "... end May..:"
ReplyDeleteI loved the 70's Van der Valk, with its catchy theme tune.
ReplyDeleteYou can barely hear a couple of references to the old Van der Valk theme in the newer, shorter and much more sinister theme tune. I don't think that is going to top the charts any day soon, unlike the old theme tune.
Delete