John Cole - making political reporting palatable

There have been so many memorable TV reporters/journalists over the years, it’s extremely difficult singling out one as a ‘Treasure’. Before I developed a personal interest in economics or politics, it was the war correspondents who first made an impression on me. What young boy would not have been left boggle-eyed at Julian Pettifer in Vietnam or Martin Bell in Belfast or Beirut cowering in flak jackets beside crumbling masonry with bullets and shells fizzing around their ears, all for our information and entertainment? It was dramatic stuff. 

Later there was a stony-faced Brian Hanrahan in the South Atlantic counting out warplanes from a carrier and counting them all back, Jeremy Bowen bravely telling it as it is in the Middle East, a youthful Rageh Omaar in Iraq, John Simpson liberating Kabul in a burkah and Kate Adie risking her life reporting from Libya, Yugoslavia, Tiananmen Square, and just about everywhere else where it was all kicking off. 

There’s nothing like a good crisis to make the name of a TV correspondent as they appear every night, these days often live, to explain the issues. Mark Tully was for years the face and voice of the BBC in India, with all its political and natural disasters and Martin Sixsmith our trusted man in Moscow during the Soviet Union’s collapse. In recent years, the bright-eyed Katya Adler has been brilliant at capturing the intricacies and idiocies of Brexit from Brussels and of course now we have David Shukman (Science), Fergus Walsh (Medical) and the wonderfully calm and measured tones of Hugh Pym relating how the Coronavirus impacts on our health. 

We researchers used to moan constantly at journalists’ tendency to misuse and abuse statistics but I still make an exception of the Beeb’s Home Affairs editor, Mark Easton, who also seems unfazed when interacting with ‘real’ people, and not just politicians or police chiefs. My estimation for Washington’s Jon Sopel also rose several notches when a newly-elected Trump laid into him at press conferences, presumably because he didn’t fawn at his feet and take his blatant lies at face value. Other memorable specialists include Reg Turnill who, back in the 1960s/70s, would frequently appear on news bulletins with models of Concorde, space rockets and landing modules, and Professor Branestawm lookalike Will Gompertz on the Arts. 

I also had a soft spot for Evan Davis who, provided you ignored his odd-shaped facial features, had a rare gift for explaining economics and business to the layman and woman. On the same subject, Robert Peston was temporarily a breath of fresh air before becoming a parody of himself, a Spitting Image puppet in human form. I also enjoyed the jovial Declan Curry’s business bulletins on BBC Breakfast News in the Noughties and the modern down-to-earth, sleeves-rolled-up reporting style of current Business correspondent Simon Jack. 

The more old-school, long-form filmed features by Fergal Keane are always thoughtful and incisive, and I vividly recall George Alagiah’s heartrending reports from Sri Lanka as it reeled from the devastating tsunami in 2004. I totally appreciate the value of the TV journo as neutral observer, but sometimes a personal angle draws you into a story more deeply, as exemplified by the aforementioned duo and more recently Clive Myrie’s informed pieces on institutional racism in the USA. 

However, when it comes to recurring appearances on our nightly bulletins, the political correspondents are TV royalty. The Beeb’s current political editor Laura Kuenssberg has been blessed with umpteen elections and parliamentary crises on her watch. While she’s undoubtedly sharp as a whole box of tacks, I find her hard to warm to. Nick Robinson was a rare recruit from ITN but made for a likeable and well-informed broadcaster, as was Andrew Marr who, despite his 2013 stroke, remains an interviewing force to be reckoned with on his Sunday morning show. Marr came to TV from the newspaper industry, as did the redoubtable John Cole. 

For eleven long years, his over-sized glasses and steel-grey curls dominated BBC news bulletins. In particular, Cole’s broad Belfast accent contrasted with the Oxbridge voices I’d become accustomed to hearing on the telly, but the rest of Britain managed to tune in and came to love his personality and articulacy when talking about Thatcher-era politics. 

Apparently he hated the accompanying celebrity, including his incomprehensible ‘Spitting Image’, but he was one of the rare breed of journalists who transferred from the Print medium late in his career (already in his fifties) to great acclaim. Whether he was commenting on the Labour party’s troubles, Thatcher’s rise and fall or the 1982 Falklands War debates, his broadcasts live from Westminster always demanded my attention. It’s a shame that it was a live piece to camera by his deputy John Sergeant that was suddenly interrupted by the PM to announce her resignation but you can’t win ‘em all. 

With such wide political divisions in the UK throughout the Eighties, it speaks volumes for John Cole that he retained the respect of most politicians on all parts of the spectrum. With his Northern Ireland heritage, he also managed to tread the fine line between the sectarian extremists during the Troubles. News broadcasting has progressed in the last thirty years but I reckon John Cole would fit in as perfectly now as he did back then: a true TV great.

Arise Sir Lenworth of Dudley!

Lots of comedians have ‘larger than life’ personalities.  It’s nothing new. But when you’re 6 foot 3 or thereabouts, Lenny Henry was always going to be noticed. And still he would wear over-sized suits, just to rub it in. Then, of course, he’s black. It’s been ages since I’ve thought of Lenny as ‘black’; he’s just Lenny Henry. But on Seventies television, black faces were rare. I recall Charlie Williams taking over from Bob Monkhouse on The Golden Shot, a brave move. 

And yet a sixteen year-old from Dudley, son of Jamaican immigrants, could do impressions of Frank Spencer and actually win talent show New Faces. He must have been special. Now, we didn’t watch much ITV in our house so I didn’t witness this phenomenon for myself. Nor did I see his role in the first all-black sitcom The Fosters, nor even the anarchic Saturday morning kids’ show Tiswas. However, by the time I was leaving university he had already honed some of his most famous impressions and comedy characters, which would appear periodically like old friends for years to come. His David Bellamy and ‘Trevor McDoughnut’ were legendary. 

Fortunately for me, his first real break as a primetime light entertainment star came on the Beeb, alongside Tracey Ullman and David Copperfield (no, not the magician) in Three of a Kind. Through the lens of a twenty-first-century telescope, it all seems rather tame but at the time it seemed quite fresh and new. There were some amusing sketches and spoofs of big shows of the time but some of the best material manifested itself in the music parodies. Sorry, Len, but this was Tracey’s playground. Whether ‘doing’ Toyah or all of Bananarama, she was the bee’s knees. However, Lenny Henry always seemed to possess a love of music and this was evident from his subsequent TV career, especially in the Eighties. 

For all his daft pastiches of Michael Jackson, Prince and Stevie Wonder, Lenny possessed a passable soul voice which for a while he seemed to demonstrate at every opportunity. Channel 4’s Saturday Live was renowned as a vehicle for new ‘alternative comedy’, hosted by sparkly-suited Ben Elton and featuring the Comic Strip crew, Harry Enfield, Julian Clary et al. However, as a comedian, Lenny has never been ‘alternative’. Even his edginess seemed to have rounded corners. However, Ben Elton couldn’t sing so it was down to Lenny to give the songs of Sam Cooke and others a good go on live TV. In 1988 and 1990 he was the principal host of huge Wembley concerts celebrating Nelson Mandela, the first as political prisoner, the second as recently freed man. I’m not so naïve as to disregard his ethnicity as a factor in his getting the gig but Henry’s love of R’n’B and ability to entertain with vim and vigour were also irrefutable. On a less global scale, he has presented a few live Top of the Pops editions in his career, making a refreshing change from the likes of Bates, Brookes and Campbell. I can’t imagine Peter Powell or Mark Goodier introducing an act in the guise of Delbert Wilkins… 

I think the aforementioned fictional Brixton pirate radio DJ was Lenny Henry’s first foray into a sitcom whose success rested entirely in the comedian’s sizeable hands, although it was still called The Lenny Henry Show. At the time – it was the mid-Eighties – only Lenny could have pulled it off without accusations of racism or making fun of the growing urban sub-culture. Delbert Wilkins was a character you could laugh both at and with, and offered a diverting if not hilarious half-hour. One of Delbert’s favourite words, “Crucial”, gave its name to Henry’s Nineties production company which, amongst other things made three series of Chef. Lenny’s lead character Gareth was less sympathetic than Delbert had been which, in my eyes, made it a better watch. 

At Christmas 1993, Lenny Henry played an unconventional panto character brought to life in ITV’s Bernard and the Genie but by this time he was stretching himself in more serious dramas. Back in ’87, he was back in soul music mode for an enjoyable BBC2 thriller caper, Coast to Coast, portraying an unemployed mobile disco DJ, then four years later he was a drug dealer and addict in the more hard-hitting Screen Two, Alive and Kicking, alongside Robbie Coltrane. 

However, the first series which demonstrated to me that Lenny had genuine thespian credentials was Hope and Glory. Written by Lucy Gannon, he played a ‘super-head’ drafted in to save a failing inner-city school, using his maverick personality to win over staff, pupils and governors to achieve the goal. OK, so maybe the star was outshone in the acting stakes by Richard Griffiths, Clive Russell and Amanda Redman but I thought he was credible and held his own in such exalted company. 

More recently he was just as believable as one of many suspects in the third and final series of the brilliant Broadchurch and as the slightly bewildered Godfrey, who has Asperger’s, in Kay Mellor’s The Syndicate. Obviously this is a serious mental health condition but it lent itself to some light-hearted scenes for which Lenny was admirably well suited. Then earlier this year a strikingly svelte Mr H appeared as an evil billionaire in none other than Doctor Who. This was something of a transformation given his portrayal of a black Doctor (when the Time Lord played by anything other than a white male was unthinkable!) 35 years earlier. 

Lenny’s sketch shows have occasionally been revived over the years with limited success. I remember seeing his live tour at the Cliffs Pavilion, Westcliff in ’93, which also reminded me what an engaging ‘stand-up’ he could be, and in 2000 he was back on BBC1 in Lenny Henry In Pieces, introducing a few memorable characters more appropriate to the more mature comedian. I was also delighted this year to learn that his blend of new and familiar voices were back at the Beeb - on Radio 4.

I’ve enjoyed watching him in other guises, too, whether hosting The Magicians in 2011 or flogging Premier Inn on assorted ads but even now I cannot disassociate him from Comic Relief. Forget Ross, Rhys Jones, Whitehall, McCall, McGuinness, French or Saunders: Red Nose Day is Lenny Henry! Whether he’s enthusiastically drumming up donations, doing a serious film report from Africa or performing hilarious rehearsed sketches, he has helmed the Beeb’s biennial fundraiser for well over thirty years making us feel good about getting involved, be it texting a tenner or baking cherry-topped biscuits for sale in the High Street.

One of his most popular characters is Theophilus P Wildebeest, In part homage to sexy-voiced soul legend Teddy Pendergrass, this guise was guaranteed to embarrass some unsuspecting female in the audience. And not only on Comic Relief, as my sister can attest!                                                          

Now deservedly a KBE, Sir Lenworth, undoubtedly paved the way for a host of black British comedians on our screens. He may never be quite as edgy or cool as Felix Dexter, Richard Blackwood, Gina Yashere or Mo Gilligan, but the tall dude from Dudley has become part of our mainstream media culture. His status has enabled him to speak out on political race issues close to his heart, and understandably so, but it’s the Lenny with that ear-to-ear grin and smart suit which I’ll treasure the most.

Eve Myles - no longer Wales' best-known secret

When it comes to Welsh female cultural icons, not many immediately spring to mind. Shirley Bassey’s an obvious one, Ruth Jones, Ruth Madoc and Cerys Matthews, possibly. Charlotte Church, at a pinch. But for those in the know – more precisely, Welsh TV viewers – Eve Myles has over the past decade or so definitely entered the pantheon, and this adopted Welshman would wholeheartedly agree.

With her gap-toothed grin and boggly eyes, Eve might struggle to capture major roles in Hollywood but she has carved a very popular niche in UK television, with offshoots in the US sci-fi sector. I arrived in Cardiff too late to see her in the long-running BBC Wales Noughties drama series Belonging but by the end of the decade she was a regular on network TV. 

I never watched her servant girl performance in ITV’s Victoria, but did dip more than a toe into the waters of a star-studded 2008 production of Little Dorrit, in which Myles played Maggie. Three years earlier, I was most definitely tuned to BBC1 when, in another nineteenth-century maid’s outfit, Myles opened the door to Charles Dickens himself (as you do) in a spooky 2005 Doctor Who story, The Unquiet Dead, set in Cardiff. Her character– like that of many Doctor Who supporting actors - proved heroic, if doomed, but she won over showrunner Russell T Davies to the extent that he wrote her a major part in the spin-off Torchwood. She would never look back. 

While John Barrowman’s lead character Captain Jack was a tad cartoonish, Eve Myles’ Gwen provided the key everyday human heartbeat to the series, and crucially she was indubitably and unapologetically Welsh! We followed her transition from humble cop to kick-ass, alien-catching, conspiracy-battling heroine, but behind it all was her emotional dilemma of risking life and limb as a field agent whilst trying to maintain her relationship with an uncomprehending Rhys and, towards the end, her baby. Trouble had a nasty habit of stalking her domestic bliss in their coastal cottage and Torchwood didn’t shy away from some genuinely powerful scenes. It all ended with a big-budget US-UK co-production in 2011 and Eve Myles now had the attention of viewers and casting agents alike. 

She was the main draw in the BBC’s Baker Boys about a village coming together to save their local bakery, but for all the life-affirming storylines, it was a little bit boring for me. More appealing was 2013’s Frankie, which transferred Eve Myles across the Severn to Bristol to play the eponymous lead. She seemed to revel in the part as a brow-beaten but dedicated district nurse with a quirky, music-loving streak out of the uniform, and I’d hoped for a second series. Sadly, Lucy Gannon didn’t write another. 

Fortunately Eve wasn’t off the screen for long. When ITV’s Broadchurch returned for its much-anticipated second run, I was delighted to discover that she had an important role supporting those of established stars David Tennant and Olivia Colman, fleshing out Hardy’s (Tennant) back story. OK, so it was the weakest of the series’ three runs, but that wasn’t Eve Myles’ fault. 

More recently she has popped up in Cold Feet, sadly no longer a must-see in this household, and was briefly the unlikely lover of Norman Scott in A Very English Scandal, the Beeb’s dramatisation of the Jeremy Thorpe controversy which hit the headlines in the Seventies. I suppose it was inevitable she got the part given it was Russell T Davies providing the screenplay – and a delightfully tongue-in-cheek screenplay it was, too. 

However Eve has once again proved she can successfully front a series, in BBC Wales’ Keeping Faith. Part crime drama, part romance, part ode to the Carmarthenshire countryside, the star filled the screen in almost every scene. The camera would frequently linger lovingly on teary eyes and quivering lips, all to a dreamy soundtrack from Amy Wadge. To be honest, this became a bit tiresome but was mercifully reduced for the second series last year. I suppose the lengthy dialogue-free sequences were necessary given that Keeping Faith was also made in the Welsh language, thus keeping repeat scenes to a minimum. It would also have cut Eve’s workload given she had to learn Welsh specially. Still, it was a surprise hit across the UK in either language, garnering millions of viewers and online streams, and also made a famous co-star of her yellow mac! 

Given our own West Wales associations, we have it on good authority that Eve and her Faith co-star and real-life hubby Bradley Freegard are genuinely nice people, but that, unlike Angie, even Eve doesn’t provide Welsh cakes for those working on her house. I suppose nobody’s perfect….

Yeeeees, Jeremy Paxman.....

For someone whose main bodies of work I’ve tended to neglect, Jeremy Paxman must have summoned a Herculean effort to join my TV treasures. Alternatively it’s my realisation that the UK media world would be an infinitely poorer place without him. From his time as a nodding rectangular head to an independent silvery beard with licence to grill, Paxo has, considering his usual place on the outer reaches of the schedules, punched above his weight to occupy my affections. 

I probably first encountered his on-screen persona in the early 1980s when he was an occasional reporter on BBC1’s Panorama. The current affairs series was never a must-see but I have a feeling a certain anti-Thatcher peace-loving Exeter undergraduate may have watched this 1980 period piece presented by Paxman. 

Several years later I may occasionally have returned early enough from work to see him host the Six o’Clock News although in the mornings we as a family traditionally preferred to have breakfast and scurry around the house to Radio 4’s Today programme rather than tuning in to the Beeb’s Breakfast Time, where in 1988 Jeremy would be spotted in appropriately shiny light attire. 

A year later he moved to BBC2’s late-evening programme Newsnight, with which he would quickly become synonymous. I remember as a youngish number-cruncher/analyst at the Beeb’s Broadcasting Research Department being involved in a joint research project on the show, and the first presentation I ever gave was to the scarily earnest editor Tim Gardam in the Newsnight offices. Wow! There was the presenter himself looking busy striding between the desks. Thank God he wasn’t in my audience interrogating me on my summary of the programme’s audience figures. Mind you, he’s not always that hot on statistics!  Still that project turned out to be a good gig because my work with colleague Moira Bovill was selected for a European research conference in Madrid the following January. Such travel treats were rare! 

Later in 1990 he was on hand to host the edition following Thatcher’s sudden resignation which I may in part have watched, so tumultuous was the event. However, it was for his abrasive but incisive interviewing style that he became famous, not least for his persistent repeating the same question of the Home Secretary Michael Howard in 1997. Yet even Paxo failed to secure an honest answer from the ever-oily Tory minister. Most politicians dreaded facing him on Newsnight, knowing that being unceremoniously skewered, albeit in front of only a million viewers, could be curtains for a parliamentary career, as in this amusing 2009 episode of BBC comedy The Thick of It. A few, like Peter Mandelson, actually relished the challenge and Anne Widdecombe’s survival strategy was, as she put it, “I simply stared at his tie”. 

Amongst his many interviewees were UK and world leaders of all kinds. Inevitably Tony Blair was accorded longer-form sessions with Jeremy and, even though I may not have seen them on Newsnight they would usually make it to the main news headlines the following day, as in 2001 before the Blair bubble finally burst. Paxman was also the go-to interviewer on the live BBC Election Night coverage, filling in the gaps between incoming results. What I liked about him was his readiness to banter with guests and treat the more pompous oafs with the condescension they so richly deserved. That includes you, Mayor Boris Johnson! 

However, that doesn’t mean I approved of all his snide comments. During the 2005 General Election broadcast I remember watching in disgust as he was downright rude to a victorious George Galloway just because he had defeated the black woman Labour incumbent Oona King. For me, and many others, he crossed the line, and I was no fan of Galloway! He lived up to his old sneering Spitting Image puppet that night: “Yeee-eeeess” indeed. 

Fortunately there is more to Jeremy Paxman than poking politicians and would-be social commentators with a sharp stick. Channel-hopping has led me to dip into the world of college clever-clogs that is University Challenge. I find his exchanges with the students as equals quite endearing but recoil in horror when he comes over all superior. I can’t believe he’s been hosting the show since 1994! 

Away from the rarified world of current affairs, Paxman has proved an adept writer and presenter of history-themed documentaries such as Empire. In 2006, he also became the subject of a surprisingly moving Who Do You Think You Are?, showing a reassuringly emotional side when shedding a tear on learning of a Victorian ancestor’s struggle with poverty. The great Jeremy Paxman was human after all.

Sally Phillips - always worth 'bearing with'....

Until the 1980s the words ‘woman’ and ‘comedy’ rarely seemed to appear in the same sentence. I recall as a child British TV being awash with American female sitcom stars like Lucille Ball and Mary Tyler Moore, none of whom I ever found remotely amusing. Of course Britain boasted some wonderful actresses, such as Hattie Jacques, Beryl Reid and Thora Hird, who excelled at comedy but I’d hesitate to call them ‘comediennes’. Sketch comedy was also the preserve of men who dressed as women.

In the 1980s French and Saunders, Victoria Wood and others led the assault on the age-old credo maintained by (mostly) male entertainment executives that women simply weren’t funny enough to stand up with a microphone or lead a television cast and make audiences laugh. Perish the thought, dear boy. Now I’m not saying that even in the 2020s TV comedy is a level playing field, gender-wise, but that sexist nonsense is thankfully less prevalent than it was. 

I remember two decades ago when Channel 4 introduced Smack the Pony. It was seized upon as a ‘female’ sketch comedy series, and was seen as quite daring in its day. At the time I felt that Doon McKichan and Fiona Allen received most of the plaudits and Sally Alexander the tabloid ‘Phwoar!’ headlines. But for me it was Sally Phillips who was – hands down – the funniest of them all, and when it comes to stealing scenes still nobody does it better. 

While her name would not have meant very much to me in the mid-Nineties, I would have caught Sally’s performances in Smith and Jones and the Richard Herring/Stewart Lee vehicle, Fist Of Fun. Like The Mary Whitehouse Experience, Fist of Fun graduated from Radio 1 to BBC2 and enjoyed a small but enthusiastic audience, of which I was a part. Even then, Sally Phillips possessed the gift for comedy, whether by smiling sweetly in embarrassment or laughing like a drain. 

A few years later, Sally Phillips had a small but regular role in I’m Alan Partridge as a young receptionist at the motel where the now ex-TV host and current local radio presenter Partridge found himself as semi-permanent resident. Now I’m a huge fan of Steve Coogan’s comedy creation but, armed only with a few cutting comments, Phillips’ Sophie deftly pricked the Partridge pomposity, leaving her ‘guest’ powerless and in the acting stakes her pixie-like features and faux-innocent smile giving Coogan a run for his money. 

Around this time Phillips joined a formidable cast of comedy actors, from the established John Bird, Rik Mayall and Richard Wilson to the up-and-coming Reece Shearsmith and Rebecca Front, in an enjoyable BBC comedy-thriller In The Red. However, her promotion to the lead in 2002’s series Rescue Me was less successful. I gave it a chance but even Sally couldn’t rescue this romantic comedy about a women’s magazine editor. 

In the mid-Noughties she was back in fine supporting form in French and Saunders then Jennifer Saunders’ WI-themed sitcom Jam and Jerusalem but it took the surprise hit Miranda to propel Ms Phillips back into the prime-time big time. It was all rather jolly, a tad old-fashioned, but I confess Miranda Hart’s misadventures in love and retail often made me smile. Sally’s wasn’t a major role but her irritating upper-class Tilly even scooped her own enduring catchphrase, “Bear with….” Only last year I was delighted, albeit surprised, to see her slumming it on BBC Wales’ semi-improvised mockumentary series Tourist Trap. It’s not exactly high-ratings stuff, but the (English) director of Wales’ fictional tourist office was surely made for Sally Phillips. 

Inevitably she has featured in all the best comedy quiz/panel games such as QI, Room 101 and Would I Lie to You, in which she thoroughly convinced while relating a brilliant fib about Trevor MacDonald. The latest decade has also offered opportunities for her voice to be heard narrating various TV-related documentaries and series such as Channel 4’s Undateables, and she played the eponymous Clare in the Community on Radio 4 for fifteen years. 

I suspect that when her death is announced on future media, Sally Philips will doubtless be described as ‘Bridget Jones actress’ but that would do her an almighty injustice. She has contributed to so many popular BBC and Channel 4 comedies over the years and as a middle-class scatterbrain or ditsy youngster, she has few equals.