The Keith Harris New Year Show

It's New Year's Eve at Mountpeg Towers, with messrs Velvet, Blackout and Bognops huddled round the Peggy Mount Calamity Hour drinks trolley making vague plans for the future whilst ruminating (as usual) on the past, scrawling optimistic lists of unrealistic resolutions. "Let's never do this again" warbled Mr Hussey famously, and he wasn't even reacting to being a guest on tonight's cavalcade of unleashed Showbusiness®...

Yes it's off to BBC Television Centre we lurch, bottles in hand, to witness an iconic British entertainer with decades of experience being given his very own Prime Time Variety™ show in one of the year's most prestigious broadcast slots. A triumphant moment such as this should of course be seared into the cultural memory of a nation, which is why - we're sure - that after Big Ben has chimed to countless toasts, conversation across the land quickly turns to the very first 1982 pilot-instalment of The Keith Harris Show.

Is it cheaper if one of the acts is married to the presenter? Is it cheaper if two of the acts are operated by the presenter? Look, there was clearly some sort of production budget here and it didn't make it to the stage, where did that money go..?

Catch the Play button as you're falling off that diving board, and find out...

(If you'd like to join in the New Year countdown with The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour, start this episode on Dec 31st at 23:03:40)

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:

Programme: The Keith Harris Show
Broadcast: Friday 31st December 1982, 19:40
Production/Channel: BBC One
Writer: George Martin
Music: Art Day, Ronnie Hazlehurst
Producer/Director: Paul Ciani
Starring: Keith Harris, Bucks Fizz, Ray Dondy, Jacqui Scott, The Norman Maen Dancers

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The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional live accompaniments by Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to PeggyMountPod@gmail.com

The Box Of Delights / The Christmas Jottings of Hinge and Bracket

Ho-ho-holy snowballs, is it that time already? Yes, with the cheese and scotch advent calendars already suspiciously demolished, it's open house and time for the Peggy Mount Calamity Hour Christmas Special! Crackers will be pulled, bottles will be emptied, and two entertainment gems from the past will be lovingly dissected...

Professor Lionel Ziggy Zucho pops round for the first grinding of the festive conveyor belt with 1984's The Box Of Delights, which evoked days long gone even upon its first broadcast. Then that sepia glow is retained for a visit from Ozzy Bognops and a huddle round the radiogram for The Christmas Jottings Of Hinge and Bracket, bringing with them as they do a very special guest star.

Will young Kay Harker ever be magicked to a land where working-class people exist? Will footage ever be recovered of Patrick Moore and Deryck Guyler percussioning in the middle of an ice rink in a provincial leisure centre? And will Turkish Delight Vodka curdle the buttered-eggs?

Sift through that discarded wrapping paper for the hastily-ignored instruction leaflet on how to press the Play button, and find out...

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:

Programme: The Box Of Delights
Broadcast: Wednesday 21 November 1984, 17:00
Production/Channel: BBC One, Children's BBC
Writer: John Masefield, Alan Seymour
Music: Roger Limb
Producer/Director: Paul Stone / Renny Rye
Starring: Devin Stanfield, Patrick Troughton, Robert Stephens, John Horsley, Carol Frazer, Geoffrey Larder, Jonathan Stephens, Bill Wallis, Crispin Mair, Joanna Dukes, Heidi Burton, Flora Page, Len Edwards, Glyn Baker, Anne Dyson

Programme: The Christmas Jottings of Hinge and Bracket
Broadcast: Wednesday 24 December 1986, 22:00
Production/Channel: BBC, BBC Radio 2
Writer: Gerald Frow
Music: Gordon Langford
Producer: John Fawcett Wilson
Starring: Patrick Fyffe, George Logan, Peggy Mount, Deryck Guyler, Chris Emmet, Frances Jeater, Jean Hayward, John Carlin

Of note this week:






You can Subscribe, Like, Follow, Rate and Review on:



The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet, with additional live accompaniments by Ozzy Bognops. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to PeggyMountPod@gmail.com