BBC1: 27th September 1990

Autumn always arrives sooner than you expect, even though it’s actually always at the same time. In 1990, for instance, it was September 21st, and it will be again this year. Here we are on the 27th, a week into Autumn, looking at the BBC1 schedule. With thanks to Stuart Ashen for supplying the material.

The transmitters go on at six and essentially spend half an hour rubbing the sleep dirt from their eyes with Pages from Ceefax before the day starts proper with the Breakfast News. Two and a half hours of Nicholas Witchell sternly lecturing you on world events down the lens, occasionally replaced with Laurie Meyer doing the same thing but with a faintly sad demeanour instead of a serious and disapproving one. Presumably someone - probably politicians and diplomats and the like - actually watched this from start to finish, because it lasted until the turn of the century, when it was cross-pollinated with GMTV to become BBC Breakfast, which endures to this day. Almost everyone else watched TV-am instead. Except the eight people who went with the Channel Four Daily.

That’s then followed by the most redundant news update you can possibly imagine before depositing us into daytime television. BBC1 Daytime is in something of a holding pattern right now, with various formats having been tried and another one on the horizon in Daytime UK: an assortment of gameshows and chat formats linked from Pebble Mill by Alan Tichmarsh and Judi Spiers which didn’t really catch on. That doesn’t launch until mid-October, though - possibly the BBC wanted to get Party Conference season out of the way first - and their daytime lineup currently consists of whatever they had enough of to fill the six weeks between the end of the holidays and the launch of the new format.

Like The Odd Couple - the sitcom spinoff with Tony Randall and Jack Klugman, naturally. Today’s episode: Felix ruins dinner with his ex-wife with his severe undiagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder.

That’s followed by the quintessential filler of Best of British, a compilation series of great moments from British Cinema. A BFI version of Disney Time, basically, without the links from a popular light entertainer running around a theme park. Actually, that’s unfair, it was an exhaustive chronology of British filmmaking that took five series over eight years, but it was still largely told in film clips and relatively generalised narration from John Mills. Today’s episode looks at Alexander Korda’s London Films, who were behind some of the greatest films ever made - Michael Powell’s The Thief of Bagdad, Laurence Olivier’s Richard III, The Third Man for Christ’s sake.

Best of British was only 25 minutes a go, the better to sell to American syndication, so next is some even more quintessential filler: The Historyman (not spelled as one word onscreen, but billing it like that kept Malcolm Bradbury happy). If you were ever ill away from school in

the 90s, blearily gawping at the screen during schools programmes, you might very well be familiar. Made in 1989, these funsize history lectures kept cropping up in five minute gaps like conceptual Polyfilla for years, usually during schools programmes to keep the teacher’s schedules ticking along. It was last billed in 1998, as far as I can tell, but I’m sure I remember it still showing up at random well into the oughties. It wasn’t just an alternative to a blank screen and a low hum, mind: bearded, heavyset Scouse historian Bryan McNerney wandered around old castles and battlefields explaining what happened there in a likeably informal manner and then wandered off into the undergrowth.

That’s followed by what amounts to nearly an hour of children’s programming. Admittedly the Pink Panther isn’t being shown under the Children’s BBC banner, but there’s no doubt as to his main appeal. The actual slot, however, is highly cognisant of the fact that school’s back on, because it’s pre-school fun all the way, starting with the hastily renamed Playdays. It’s Thursday, and that means it’s the Patch Stop! By the time it ended it seemed like the stops had all blurred into one, with Peggy Patch, the Why Bird and latecomer Poppy the Cat all involved every day and the original format basically discarded, but as an actual tiny kid - and I was just about still in its catchment area when it started in earnest in 1989 - I liked how it was a different stop every day of the week, with different feels, teaching different ideas. Maybe the rigid structure appealed to my burgeoning OCD, but it worked.

Anyway, that’s followed with more five minute filler in the shape of a completely gratuitous repeat of Crystal Tits and Allistair. I’m sorry, I’ll read that again - Crystal Tipps and Alistair. Bubbly, wordless, faintly surreal animation from the people who brought you Charley the Cat, returning to the BBC after a brief stint in repeats on Children’s ITV for some reason thanks to Central.

At five to eleven, Five to Eleven. Essentially a sort of conceptual television adaptation of chintz, this was pleasant enough in theory but cloying in practice. Basically a cosy BBC celebrity - today it’s Peter Egan - reading a poem down the lens while surrounded by dense foliage of potted succulents and backing music a la the likes of Manuel and His Music of the Mountains, but cheaper. With occasional cutaways to pictures of flowers. Coming as it did after Children’s BBC, and representing a vast contrast to it, it was understandably despised by a whole generation of schoolchildren, but I still think it’s a nice enough notion to fill five minutes with someone reading a poem at you. Bit of culcha and that. The trouble is the presentation - it’s exactly like being trapped in your gran’s house choking on thick “spring fresh” Febreeze fumes and listening to the clock tick on the wall.

After the news, Go Birding with Tony Soper, in which he meets some people building entire restaurants for their garden birds because the boredom of retirement has finally driven them around the bend. And at half past eleven, Eating Out Tovey. I’m sorry, I’ll read that again - Eating Out With Tovey. Today he’s making “no knead bread”, which sounds like glue to me but what do I know. Also Marjorie Lofthouse goes for a walk in the Lake District in what seems to be completely unrelated footage.

More news! And then at noon, a repeat of Starsky and Hutch! Why? Because it’s there and it fills up an hour. This is an episode from season two, which surprises me a little as I thought the deliberately watered-down third and fourth would suit the timeslot better - ten years earlier the whole show was considered strictly post-watershed material - but against that it’s called Tap Dancing Her Way Right Back Into Your Hearts and the premise is Paul Michael Glaser going undercover as a dance instructor, so whatever.

That takes us to the One O’Clock News From the BBC (they liked to announce it that way in those days) with Philip Hayton surrounded by crisp, businesslike white and blue graphics. After that it’s time for Neighbours! Around the peak of its popularity at this point, if not the beginning of the parabola’s gradual descent. In today’s episode, Spitting Image puppet of Michael Lynagh Des Clarke and then-adorable Jane Harris sort out a disagreement, which I assume prefigures the latter’s (initial) departure from the show. Des followed a year later. Or weeks later in Australia; we were about a year behind.

That takes us to ten to two and daytime gameshow fun with the usually unseen Jon Sachs and Four Square. A combination of general knowledge and unnecessarily complicated grid systems that lasted for four years, of which this is the third.

I just spent ten minutes trying to think of something else to say, which suggests to me that there isn’t anything so let’s move on to the big afternoon matinee, Susan Slept Here. A classic 1950s romantic comedy that I don’t think gets shown very much these days, given that the pairing is Dick Powell (50 by the time the thing came out; character’s stated age: 35) and Debbie Reynolds (20 at the time; character’s stated age: 17). Yes, therefore a minor. To be fair, it’s an issue in the film as well - albeit mitigated because she has “written consent from her mother” - but it ends with Powell and Reynolds together and heading for the bedroom, even as Powell ponders the age gap. It’s well made, funny and (in spite of everything) even charming, though. You just might want a bath afterwards.

After that it’s time for Children’s BBC! Andy Crane just left and Andi Peters is about to take over, so Simon Parkin - who should have just taken over from Crane, really - is keeping the seat warm. We start with The Brollys, the barely animated and faintly haunting story of a boy who has various meteorologically themed adventures surrounding a weather clock that comes to life. Mostly notable for its prog-rock theme tune and eerie title sequence.

Next is Clockwise, in which impressionist, comedian and absolute aching cock of a man Darren Day hosts a slightly runaroundy quiz show, with added gunge because it’s 1990. Mostly harmless.

That’s followed by loud cartoon action with Fantastic Max, about a baby with a red mohican who has space adventures! I remember enjoying it well enough, but then I was seven and therefore an idiot. A co-production between Hanna-Barbera and S4C, which explains the Superted undertones - particularly the robot babysitter’s resemblance to Spotty in both design and plot function.

The Children’s BBC audience tended to age up as the slot went on, so by the last hour we’re aiming at kids who can read and do relatively hard sums. So here’s Bad Boyes, a comedy drama from the insanely prolific Jim Eldridge. Actually made in 1987 and 88 and being repeated here, possibly as a desperate last-ditch attempt to convince DG Michael Checkland to recommission it. A third series and Christmas special were cancelled because Checkland was concerned it was bad for the kids to watch the antics of a mischievous boy who doesn’t get punished at the end of each and every episode. Both series were repeated, but no more were forthcoming.

That takes us to five o’clock and therefore Newsound, which just launched its insanely exciting “flying satellite” aesthetic, followed by Blue Peter with a report on synchronised swimmers and how they hold their breath for so long.

After Neighbours again, the Six O’Clock News From the BBC, and “Regional News Magazines” (they only bothered to list the specific regional news programme on Mondays to save resources; for the record this issue is from Look North), it’s Top of the Pops! It’s Thursday, after all. We’re almost a year away from the Year Zero revamp which replaced experienced Radio 1 DJs with Tony Dortie and Mark Franklin and forced all the acts to sing live whether they wanted to or not, so appreciate it while you can. Today’s host is a young Anthea Turner, recently recovered from exploding live on Saturday morning television and number one is Maria McKee with Show Me Heaven.

As it’s Thursday, after that it’s EastEnders! The Fowlers ponder the mystery of Mark’s return and why he’s suddenly Todd Carty now. Actually, that mystery has a sad explanation (his original actor David Scarboro was driven to suicide by the Sun and News of the World) so they don’t dwell.

That’s followed by Tomorrow’s World. This week, Judith Hann investigates Erno Rubik, who was now a multi-millionaire because of his little coloured box, and invested the cash into helping other Hungarian inventors by heading the Hungarian Engineering Academy and founding multiple institutes funding STEM students and promoting the sciences. Good for him.

At 8, Birds of a Feather. Series two, and Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran have already basically abandoned it to the wolves. Alright, no - they just took a more American sitcom approach. They created the scenario and characters, wrote every episode of series one, and then left it to the writer’s room and various freelancers (including Peter Tilbury, George Costigan and the bloke out of Modern Romance), only returning intermittently, usually for season finales and plot-relevant episodes (like the husbands getting out of jail). It’s a perfectly valid approach, and it’s probably why there were so many episodes (at its height, seasons of Birds of a Feather were more than twice as long as usual for British television) but the quality suffered. Marks and Gran are good writers. So is Peter Tilbury. The bloke out of Modern Romance, not so much, and although Lo and Mo were still involved and had oversight, the long term effect is that Birds of a Feather - which was sometimes quite good - is remembered as worse than it was. They did the same thing to Goodnight, Sweetheart. Notably, Granada didn’t let them do it with The New Statesman - perhaps they didn’t have a writer’s room like the BBC’s.

Watershed time begins with a Partly Political Broadcast from the Liberal Democrats, apropos of nothing in particular as far as I can tell - maybe the second Bootle by-election, but it’s not billed as a Partly Election Broadcast, so who knows. Maybe it’s just a reminder of their existence, after the continuing SDP’s disintegration after the first Bootle hustings. Then the usual half an hour of news, which once seemed immutable but now really

does seem like a weird thing to do with the epicentre of prime-time. Everything’s five minutes late now, but never mind. Enjoy Clive James’ Postcard from Los Angeles. With Alan Whicker on the brink of retirement - he went to Hong Kong that year, but two years later he was back on ITV for two more series before hanging up his glasses - the BBC was turning to similarly dry and unflappable journalists to pack off around the world to look at stuff. Clive James was one of the BBC’s biggest names at the time and he had the exact deadpan demeanour they thought would make a perfect quasi-successor to Whicker. He’d already done a few for LWT before moving to the Corporation, so it wasn’t a stretch, and he ended up doing 13 of these for the BBC between 1989 and 1995, plus a further six back on ITV until 1999.

Then at 10.25, enjoy some hardcore frowning with Peter Sissons and Question Time. This week the focus appears to be on foreign policy: we’ve got Shadow Foreign Secretary Gerald Kaufman, Liberal Democrat Foreign Secretary Equivalent (and former leader) David Steel, Henry sodding Kissinger for Christ’s sake (hopefully they turned his microphone up a bit) and, for variety, Alan Walters, “until recently” economic advisor to the Prime Minister, but she was losing it at this point and a lot of people were “until recently” close to her.

The day rounds off with a late night film: Elaine May’s The Heartbreak Kid, a Neil Simon rom-com that’s darker than most (probably because it’s based on a short story by BruceJay Friedman) as Charles Grodin ditches his wife after five days because Cybill Shepherd comes along, and everyone basically ends up miserable. Neil Simon and Elaine May actually make this scenario funny, so more power to them. Later remade by the Farrellys, of all people, who did not. That takes us to ten past one and, after five minutes of weather, bedtime.

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