Michael Rodd - Legend of Yesterday's World

He may not have been the Beeb’s biggest name in science-based features but for youngsters like me, Michael Rodd was definitely one of the most popular presenters during the 1970s. I’m not sure when I first saw him on the box. His two main programmes ran concurrently pretty much throughout the Seventies. However, it was probably his role as a non-science children’s TV host which first caught my attention. Particularly in the first half of that decade I was a regular viewer of the BBC’s weekday children’s output, although onerous secondary school homework assignments would intervene with increasing frequency.

From Blue Peter to drama serials, Newsround to Rentaghost, Catherine and I would lap it up. Presenters like Johnny Morris (Animal Magic), Tony Hart (Vision On), Roy Castle (Record Breakers) and Johnny Ball (Cabbages and Kings) were always welcome guests in our living room. I’ve mentioned previously that we were entertained by Bernard Cribbins’ acting game show Star Turn but for sheer longevity our fave quiz was undoubtedly Screen Test.

I’ve no idea whether or not I was present for the inaugural edition in 1970 but once I began noting my viewing in a diary from 1973, Screen Test was clearly a regular. It was an inter-town rather than schools competition, although that may have amounted to the same thing. I don’t remember Billericay being represented. Certainly nobody asked me! It wasn’t even a quiz. You didn’t need to be an expert on TV or films, just adept at observation and memory. Participants were questioned on clips from TV programmes or, as far as I can recall, Children’s Film Foundation shorts so any of us could at least join in at home. I was pretty rubbish but enjoyed the show nonetheless. Michael Rodd was a very affable, chirpy host, a million miles from the more staid Geoffrey Wheeler or Robert Robinson, and we loved him for it.

Rodd brought the same personality to his other broadcasting gig, Tomorrow’s World. He would have overlapped with my other science-focussed TV Treasure James Burke but for me it was the years with Rodd and Judith Hann I remember most fondly. Children like me could hardly engage with Fifties throwback Raymond Baxter who would introduce programmes up to 1977 while perched on a stool like some prototype member of Geriatric Westlife. However, Rodd was a master of the filmed report (like the above amusing look at a brilliant new driver’s companion – cassnav?) as well as the live studio demonstration of the latest gadgets which would surely rule our lives in the future. Some did, many didn’t, but it didn’t really matter at the time.

Back then I was unaware of Michael’s credentials as a musician. Indeed it was how he first became noticed on regional news. It explains why he didn’t flinch from any feature involving music, be it singing, playing guitar - or both. It was also Mr Rodd who brought our attention to a prototype mobile phone in 1979 and the ill-fated laser disc a year later. Whereas it had once been caught only by turning on early for Top of the Pops, Rodd-era Tomorrow’s World had become well worth watching in its entirety and on its own merit.

Michael Rodd was also on hand to present the TW spin-off The Risk Business. In the late ‘70s my A level Economics course had inspired me to read around the subject, prompting me to watch some of these late evening programmes, each of which focussed on a single topic, such as toy manufacturing or closing the skills gap. The only edition I definitely remember was the one in 1979 featuring then British Rail chairman Sir Peter Parker but then the subject was close to my heart, Still didn’t achieve an ‘A’…..

It was while at university that NASA launched its inaugural Space Shuttle flight in April 1981. With the Apollo missions a distant memory, this was a noteworthy event. However, instead of the old guard of James Burke and Patrick Moore, the Beeb’s live coverage was led in the studio by Michael Rodd, with fellow TW host Kieran Prendiville out in the States. I don’t remember seeing the rocket take off but the landing two days later was unmissable and unforgettable. Seeing that aircraft emerge from space unscathed was a genuinely moving moment for viewers like me, and it was good old Michael in charge of the coverage.

Only a few years later, Michael Rodd disappeared from national TV to focus on running his own independent production company which I believe was very successful in the field. He’s missed on screen, though. But what about his voice? Apparently Steve Coogan based the delivery and intonation of Alan Partridge on Michael, which I find hard to believe. The latter always sounded far more bright and bouncy than the over-earnest egotistical fictional creation. Don’t get me wrong; Partridge is a work of comedy genius but Michael Rodd was the real deal.