James Burke - Or is it?!

Science. Where would we be without it? Let’s face it, still languishing in the Stone Age. It has had a bum rap in the broadcast media for ages. While wildlife and the arts lauded it on the primary channels, anything vaguely scientific has been largely shunted off to the sidings, tucked away in the BBC2 Horizon strand, or to the slots labelled “Presented by anyone off Top Gear” while the ladies are cooing over Downton Abbey or Countryfile.

Even Brian Cox’s fascinating recent blockbuster series The Planets was relegated to BBC2 on Tuesday evenings.

If I’m honest, I’m part of the problem. Despite my Bachelor of Science degree, even I find much of science goes over my head. There is probably much of interest to me on Radio 4, BBC4 and Channel 4 every week but, when it comes to picking something online to fill a half-hour, I usually play safe and click on a vintage Top of the Pops instead.

It wasn’t always so, and much of the credit went to James Burke. He didn’t invent the Tomorrow’s World series but, while Raymond Baxter was perched on his stool like some military prototype of Westlife, he was involved in many of the most engaging demonstrations or filmed reports. There’s a fair chance I watched many of them on a Thursday evening whilst waiting for TOTP to start and even my nine year-old self would have enjoyed this humorous yet interesting four-minute film on executive toys. There were probably around ten million other people viewing, too.

He wasn’t the only lucid and congenial presenter on the show, but by the early Seventies he had become synonymous with science on the box. Much of that can be traced back to the hours of live broadcasting the BBC devoted to the wonders of space, in particular the Apollo space missions in the late Sixties and early Seventies. 

I was by no means precocious enough to revel in all the complexities of the technology and I don’t recall insisting on staying up all night aged eight to witness Neil Armstrong’s giant leap for mankind in July 1969. Most of the programming for the Apollo 11 and subsequent flights to the moon was blokes sitting in a studio listening to Mission Control jabberings and trying to make sense of them to the viewing audience. There were so many elements of sci-fi drama being played out – would the craft crash into a crater? Would aliens pierce the spacesuits? How could the module survive re-entry to the Earth’s atmosphere? - but this was real. it was just so long and drawn out, especially for a young boy who also wanted to play football or watch Blue Peter. This is where James Burke came in.

Watching an Apollo 11 retrospective in July, fifty years after the historic moon landing, I was delighted to see a still sprightly, if somewhat grumpy, Mr Burke being interviewed about those heady days. He also explained that he fell into science programming out of the blue. He’d been an English lecturer in Italy of all places when he was lured to the BBC arts department. An executive was smart enough to recognise that Burke’s skills as a non-science teacher would be perfect for helping the layman (and woman) understand science on the basis of his being a layman himself. It was a masterstroke, especially as I never guessed this ‘deception’ for five decades.

He ticked all the boxes for a boffin: receding hair, clipped but clear speaking voice and of course those glasses. The likes of Cliff Michelmore may have been the lead presenter and Patrick Moore the ever-present expert on all matters astronomic but it was the combination of James Burke and the haunting yet thrilling bursts of Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra which symbolise the years when science could almost monopolise the airwaves in a way that only the 2012 Olympics have done since. He was our conduit to the eggheads of NASA but in the end he was just like us, on the edge of his seat as the crew of the beleaguered Apollo 13 splashed into the South Pacific on 17^th April 1970.

Burke continued to grace the schedules of BBC1 throughout the decade. I was intrigued by his primetime series The Burke Special, which ran for five series between 1972 and 1976. With a different theme each week our radio mic’d host wandered amongst a small studio audience like a modern professor in his theatre. But they weren’t lectures. Like all the best teachers, he didn’t merely impart knowledge, reciting facts and figures; he made you think. He may not have been a science professional like contemporaries Magnus Pyke (ITV’s eccentric human windmill), Heinz Wolff or Carl Sagan (whose US series Cosmos blew me away in the early ‘80s) but he had a broadcaster’s gift of addressing his audience like adults with a thirst to learn.

In Autumn 1978, the Beeb screened his big budget series Connections. In my diary I dared to criticise him for being too simplistic and “full of generalisations” but once more I was hooked by Burke’s storytelling, as in this opening sequence. By this time he had competition. After years living off scraps, for a few months we were feasting on a banquet of landmark science programmes. BBC2 showed Jonathan Miller’s fascinating The Body In Question while ITV scheduled bushy-bearded David Bellamy’s Botanic Man on the same night as Connections, requiring some hasty channel-switching. There was even a biology-heavy drama series, The Voyage of Charles Darwin. Aaaargh! Science overload! When asked what I wanted for Christmas, I hedged my bets by saying that any of the accompanying books would be fine. I received Botanic Man but what I really wanted was Connections….

There were two further series of Connections in the Nineties but I remember neither. The same is true of the mid-Eighties ten-parter The Day the Universe Changed, which focussed on the more philosophical aspects of science in Western culture. According to my 1985 diary, I did watch but perhaps by then my poor work-addled brain found such material too rich to retain. In 1980, I was still in academic mode, albeit perhaps looking for distractions from vector fields or linear algebra. My diary recorded my viewing of The Real Thing, concerning our sensory perception of reality and how it can mislead. I described it as “all good mind-boggling stuff!” Mr B never majored in platitudes. He even earned the distinction of being gently sent up by Mel Smith and Griff Rhys-Jones on Not the Nine o’Clock News. Or did he….?

Since then, of course, science has nurtured incredible technological change transforming our lives. From the iPhone to social media, manufacturing processes to advances in medicine, so much has changed for the better. Yet perhaps the legacy of James Burke and his ilk has been to infuse us with the ability to challenge and question the apparently inexorable march of science; witness the recognition of the urgent need for sustainability to counter the threat to the living planet posed by our reliance on plastics.

Fashions and technology have changed but has there been a better broadcaster at explaining science in an intelligent yet accessible way than James Burke? I don’t think so.

Brian Cant - Wound up and ready to play

Any tribute to my TV heroes and heroines simply has to begin with Brian Cant. Even more than Junior Choice radio presenter Ed Stewart, his kind, reassuring and perennially cheery voice provided the definitive soundtrack to my early years. I would imagine my introduction to Brian came in May 1964 when he first presented Play School.

The BBC targeted the daily show, broadcast on weekdays at 11am, at pre-school children, but I’m sure I remained with it beyond the age of five, if only on sick days or outside term-time, probably using Catherine as an excuse.

Each morning I’d be ready to knock and turn the lock, entranced by the simple songs, games and film clips, wondering through which shaped window they would appear. The French bicycling onion seller was a recurring favourite, I recall, and the avuncular Ted Moult taught me a lot about farms. Play School must have guaranteed Mum twenty-odd minutes to get on with stuff around the house knowing the show was distracting me from any form of mischief-making.

Brian – I find it impossible to refer to him as merely ‘Cant’ – wasn’t the only presenter of the show. I can just about remember the lugubrious face of Gordon Rollings, as well as Brian’s frequent co-host Julie Stevens and the Canadian Rick Jones. I think the musician Wally Whyton also appeared, his voice familiar from an EP of children’s songs we played constantly on our trusty record player. BBC2 didn’t broadcast in colour until my sixth birthday but I doubt I ever watched Brian Cant in anything other than black-and-white, hence my shock at finding the above photo of him, in the company of Humpty (brown and purple! Who knew?). 

He was only slightly older than Mum so, despite being in his early thirties, he wouldn’t have seemed out of place talking or singing to me, not that I’d have pondered such issues at the time. Brian was too good an entertainer to be restricted to under-fives and in 1971 he and several other Play School regulars upgraded to the afternoon show Play Away (right, with Julie Stevens and, yes, that is Jeremy Irons).

By then, I was ten but certainly no longer immune to the Cant charm, nor that of his fellow presenters like the elastic-limbed Derek Griffiths, Carol Chell, the guitar-wielding Lionel Morton and Johnny Ball. By the mid-Seventies, even I deemed myself too far beyond the target audience’s upper age limit so missed most of Brian’s performances on both these children’s classics. There must have been hundreds of them. But of course he has lived on in other ways.

I don’t suppose many of his monochrome on-screen appearances have survived in the BBC archives or YouTube library. However, Brian Cant’s voice will live on forever as narrator of the Bura-Hardwick-Murray animation series Camberwick Green, Trumpton and Chigley. The latter came too late for me to watch them with mother but the 26 episodes of the first two were essential viewing. Whether introducing the musical box (“wound up and ready to play”), uttering Captain Flack’s fire station roll-call (“Pugh, Pugh, Barney McGrew,….”) or merely inhabiting the characters of Chippy Minton or Doctor Mopp, Brian always struck the right degree of mateyness and enthusiasm without going over the top.

He may not have been the greatest technical singer but, if asked to name the most influential musician of my infant school period, I wouldn’t say The Beatles, the Stones, nor even The Monkees. No, it would have to be Brian and the acoustic guitar of Freddie Phillips. Five decades on, effortlessly reciting the lyrics of Windy Miller or “Driving along in a baker’s van/farmer’s truck/army truck” (delete as applicable) I am mentally channelling my inner Cant, his lilt and diction leaping unbidden into my head.

Of course, Brian Cant was an actor: living proof that acting training isn’t just for Shakespeare or Emmerdale. He did have a few other TV parts beyond wearing flowery shirts and colourful hats. I would certainly have seen him in a couple of Doctor Who series, although I have no recollection of either. Mind you, in each case he was killed off. Terry Nation even had the temerity of making him an episode one victim of the Daleks. The only dramatic role I can recall happened more recently, in a 2005 edition of Casualty, although at first I didn’t recognise the balding bloke in his seventies. I don’t know if his character was exterminated in this, too, but in real life he lasted a further twelve years before he was sadly beaten by Parkinson’s Disease.

When I heard the news, it felt as if a small part of me had died with him. However, to a whole generation of viewers, Brian Cant is immortal. Whether in the company of Big Ted, Little Ted and Hamble or in the persona of Farmer Bell or Mrs Honeyman, he will live on long after I am dead and buried.

What's It All About? (Don't tell him, Pike....)

TV, my lifelong companion. From Camberwick Green to Blue Peter, The Fast Show to The One Show, Doctor Who to Doctor Foster, Minder to Spender, there have been so many highlights, so much to remember and so much to forget.

My earliest monochrome memories are associated with the family’s old 405-lines TV set, located in the corner of the living room, just along from the fireplace and adjacent to the settee. I’m told I watched the very first Play School, at eleven o’clock one April morning in 1964 on the fledgling BBC2 channel. After dinner (it was never ‘lunch’) I would literally Watch With Mother, the legendary strand which featured the likes of Trumpton, Pogles Wood and Andy Pandy. Songs and characters from these shows feel as fresh in my mind now as they did as a child.

I was introduced quite early on to programmes such as Doctor Who and Top of the Pops, which of course went on to run for decades. I vividly remember William Hartnell ‘regenerating’ into Patrick Troughton in 1966, so it must have left my five year-old self awestruck at the special effects. TOTP in the Sixties also created many of my most enduring musical memories dating back to the same year although I must have been allowed to stay up late, well after my normal bedtime to watch at 7.30 on a Thursday night.

My TV diet would have been more varied than that, but I can pinpoint mental fragments of, say, Wimbledon, the Olympics and FA Cup Finals only to 1967-68. I would probably have watched The Monkees from around the same period and been exposed to a few BBC comedies like Dad’s Army and family-friendly Saturday night stalwarts like Dick Emery or Rolf Harris.

Many of the small-screen personalities have left an indelible mark on my heart and possibly very soul over the near-six decades of viewing. Some have grown up like me, still popping up now and again on nostalgia shows or in a hospital bed on Casualty, prompting me to open my eyes wide and exclaim something like “Isn’t that – er- whatshisname?. Used to be on – thingy. You know, yonks ago!” Occasionally I’d settle for the security of the closing credits but often my mind will be so obsessed with recalling the name I’ll completely lose the thread of the programme. Ah but it would be worth it to have recognised, say, an octogenarian Roy Hudd or a ginger-wigged Ruth Madoc. Every British actor still alive seems to have been in Game of Thrones but I haven’t seen them thanks to an ongoing antipathy to fantasy nonsense. Sorry.

So who have been the faces and voices who have played the most important roles in my TV life? They could be actors whose appearances have spanned decades or have starred in specific landmark dramas or sitcoms. They could include presenters whose faces and voices have contributed to my education or entertainment. There are also the less famous names, the ephemeral supporting cast members who nonetheless live on despite their names always appearing way down the list of credits in Radio Times yet who raised a knowing smile whenever they showed up on the screen. Their internet entries may be short, or even non-existent, but they will always be stars in my book.

This is my tribute to people who, via the evolving technology of television, have in some way touched my life more than the thousands of others. As ever, the hardest element is deciding who to leave out. Some undoubted ‘national treasures’ have been excluded. It’s not that I dislike or disrespect people of the stature of David Attenborough or Julie Walters; just that they haven’t quite gained entry to my small but perfectly formed personal box of treasures.

Other individuals haven’t been selected because they contributed to a programme which was greater than the sum of its parts. How can I single out one member of an ensemble cast such as The Goodies or Dad’s Army?. How could I pick John Noakes and not Val Singleton, Peppa and not Daddy Pig? The same goes for double-acts. It’s impossible to split up, for instance, Laurel and Hardy, Eric and Ernie. Yes, I know that in each case I could include both partners but that would be too greedy and unfair on the massed ranks of additional near-misses like John Thaw, Patrick Troughton, Sarah Parish or Phil Cool. 

There have been actors who have made a big impression on me, only to take the lucrative route to the movies or other LA studios and overshadow what I loved about their TV personas with subsequent movie roles. I’m talking about you, Helen Mirren, Judi Dench, Brenda Blethyn and Bob Hoskins! To those others who may have returned to tread the boards or specialise in radio work I salute you, but this has a TV theme, so nerrr.

It was a sign of the times that my childhood coincided with a dearth of big-name UK female and/or or minority ethnic media personalities. Fortunately the situation has changed considerably. In particular there is an entire genre of brilliant actresses who are hitting their small-screen stride. In ten years’ time, maybe Sarah Lancashire, Siobhan Finneran, Jessica Raine, Jenna Coleman and Anna Friel could be on my list….  but that’s for a different memoir. It would also be so wrong to include contemporary ‘crushes’ like Lesley-Anne Down, Louise Lombard or Gillian Kearney!

Over the years I have been fortunate to catch absorbing documentary series hosted by nigh-on perfect presenters. As specialists in their respective fields, bolstered by the essential ingredients of a captivating voice and a twinkle in the eye, who could not be won over by the likes of David Bellamy, Sister Wendy, Chris Packham, Bettany Hughes, Brian Cox or that aristocratic son of Venice, Francesco da Mosto? However, their specialisms can render their appeal too narrow or of a certain time to reach my top tier. I have little time for actors as factual presenters. I just can’t take Ross Kemp or his polar opposite, Joanna Lumley seriously as they pop up amidst Russian drug gangs or the gorgeous Himalayan foothills. Maybe if they swapped places? Ah, there’s a thought!

News and current affairs broadcasters are another difficult breed to consider. Almost by default they are shorn of individual personalities. Quirks and humour which would earn plaudits in the world of entertainment must be subservient to a talent for political neutrality and a gift for reporting the truth. Only when they appear on Have I Got News For You? or Strictly Come Dancing can they ever so slightly let their hair down. Richard Baker, Sue Lawley, Moira Stuart, Jeremy Paxman, Rageh Omaar and John Humphrys all hammered on my door but none quite made the cut.

Entertainers and pretenders to the ‘Mr (or Mrs) Saturday Night’ throne rarely appeal to me. As a child, I could never either wholly engage with the Seventies/Eighties kings and queens of variety such as Cliff, Cilla, Des O’Connor or The Two Ronnies. Bruce Forsyth, Michael Barrymore and Bob Monkhouse often seemed to think themselves funnier than they were, while most of the current crop of comedians seem to try too hard, unable to display the attributes which make them so brilliant at stand-up. Dermot O’Leary, Philip Schofield, Ant and Dec are genuinely funny but I can’t stand any of the programmes they present. Speaking of whom, like Remainer Tory MPs or Olympic drug cheats, anybody so desperate enough to plunge into I’m a Celebrity’s jungle is automatically excluded from consideration. No exceptions.

Overseas celebs are conspicuous by their limited presence, too. I was brought up on Seventies American cop shows like A Man Called Ironside, Kojak, Starsky and Hutch and The Rockford Files, but the current craze for big acclaimed dramas on Channel 4 or Netflix has largely passed me by. I’ve never watched binge-viewing classics like The Wire, Breaking Bad, Lost, West Wing or The Sopranos and have dipped only a few frostbitten toes into international thrillers like Fortitude or Scandi-noir like Wallander or The Killing. I’ve seen the redoubtable Elisabeth Moss in a few series, notably The Handmaid’s Tale, but not yet enough to reach iconic status.

But that’s enough of those who have not been picked. This will be a nostalgic roll-call of those who consistently hit the mark; whose names alone are a virtual guarantee of quality, however small the contribution. Sometimes their X factor is indefinable; like music, it’s a matter of personal taste. It’s not a trawl through the broadcasting history books, of those whose lives are recalled through their obituaries. It’s true that many are no longer with us, and others by dint of their age are no longer on our screens. However, my selection includes a number who remain in their prime, who have plenty more years to consolidate their position in my hall of TV fame.

Like many exercises in nostalgia, this is less a review of performers and their performances than a re-discovery of my younger self. The most telling facet is revisiting programmes through the eyes and ears of me as, say, a nine, nineteen or twenty-nine year-old. In some cases they may only hinge on scraps of memory, a fragmentary image of a scene, a song or a sketch representing a skewed angle of someone’s entire career. It’s not Wikipedia – although the website can help fill the gaps – nor any other impartial appraisal but it’s a personal perspective. These are my TV treasures but I hope some, if only for different reasons, may be yours, too.