Farmhouse Kitchen / Bullseye 1987 Christmas Celebrity Special

Well the halls are decked, the porches have been lamped and the back passage is well and truly stuffed, which can mean only one thing: it's time once again for The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour Christmas Special! Yuletide is a time for extravagance of course, when year-end budgets are well and truly blown in the name of celebration and merriment. So naturally, our hosts have found two exceptions.

First up on the roster is a look at what we're all going to be eating on the big day, as Dorothy Sleightholme and Stella Boldy show us round Yorkshire Television's innuendo-laden Farmhouse Kitchen, then it's round to Jim Bowen's for a game of the old arrers with some big names in 1987's Bullseye Christmas Celebrity Special. And if a tea-urn full of warm lager isn't quite your thing, some salted almonds are sure to help the drinks go round...

How contained is Bowen's umbrage at having to actually learn lines for a fully scripted show? How restrained is Sleightholme's fury at having to share her studio with a co-presenter? And how ingrained is the urge of three podcast hosts to scour online marketplaces for every single piece of vintage tie-in merchandise that was ever flogged on-screen?

Press the Play button before someone at Central Television realises nobody is keeping a score, and find out...

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:

Programme: Farmhouse Kitchen: Preparing For Christmas
Broadcast: Friday 20 October 1978, 13:30
Production/Channel: Yorkshire Television, ITV
Music: Reg Wale
Producer/Director: Mary Watts, Andy Gullen
Starring: Dorothy Sleightholme, Stella Boldy

Programme: Bullseye 1987 Christmas Celebrity Special
Broadcast: Sunday 27 December 1987, 14:45
Production/Channel: Central Television / Chatsworth Television, ITV
Writer: Kate Herbert, W&R Chambers
Music: John Patrick
Producer/Director: Bob Cousins, Richard Bradley
Starring: Jim Bowen, Jan Leeming, Bob Carolgees, Duggie Brown, Geoff Capes, Rusty Lee, Steve Nallon, Jockey Wilson, Eric Bristow, Cliff Lazarenko

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

Chas & Dave's Christmas Knees-Up

Christmas comes but once a year, yet thrice it 'casts into your ear(s)! Yes, with the dinner eaten and the games over, the party is in full swing as The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour's festive delving culminates its way to the yuletide jamboree! Approaching an advanced state of refreshment, Doctor Velvet, Blackout and Ozzy Bognops are in the mood for some salt-of-the-earth tinkling of The Old Joann-oh™, and so it's naturally to The Light Channel they turn.

And boogey-woogeying its way down to a studio-approximation of the East End is 1982's incomparable Chas & Dave's Christmas Knees-Up (YouTube edit / ITVx version), where the cockney duo rattle out a handful of their own hits while playing host to Jimmy Cricket, Lennie Peters, Cosmotheka, Albert Lee and Eric Clapton. Variety shows are bread and butter pudding to this podcast of course, and live musical acts come under particular scrutiny - so it's anyone's guess as to how far the goodwill of this particular season will stretch...

Are Chas and Dave starting to regret phoning up their most famous mates for a jam? Has Lennie Peters come down to sort out some right muppet who's bin bad-maafing his mannah? And is Alyn Ainsworth hiding in the Rancor pit?

Put your beer in the sideboard here, let mother press Play and find out...

[Bonus points and/or an extra jellied eel will be awarded to listeners who can sing along AND do The Thirds]

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:

Programme: Chas & Dave's Christmas Knees-Up
Broadcast: Sat 25 December 1982, 21:30
Production/Channel: London Weekend Television, ITV
Music: Alyn Ainsworth, Trevor Brown
Producer/Director: David Bell, Alasdair Macmillan
Starring: Chas Hodges, Dave Peacock, Mick Burt, Jimmy Cricket, Cosmotheka, Albert Lee, Eric Clapton

And for your attention, a story in three acts:

This drink-stability liability:

And of course these absolute legends:

So rub-a-dub-pub
and Merry Christmas
from
@PeggyMountPod!
x X x

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

Give Us A Clue at Christmas

No, you're not seeing double - this is the second of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour Christmas Specials! Although given that trouble co-ordinating and an inability to communicate clearly are the order of the day with this festive viewing, blurred vision just feels par for the course frankly.

To get them in the mood for games, our hosts revisit ITV's 1979 Christmas-edition of Give Us A Clue, a show whose very title suggests that things are supposed to get clearer as they progress. In actuality the exact reverse seems to have been true that day in Thames Television, but with an assemblage of light entertainment royalty such as this, who's keeping score? Certainly not Michael Aspel, that's for sure...

Who proposed stripping the catering budget down to Netto egg sandwiches for the preceding eleven months to allow the off-licence run for this show to take place? Who was responsible for retooling the on-screen countdown clock, but then decided to blow that money on another bottle of port instead? And who's going to break it to the orphans that Dickie Davies has opened all their presents?

Rely on a production-runner to press Play thirty seconds sooner than they usually would, and find out...

[Bonus points and/or an extra Cadbury's Rose (just the one) will be awarded to listeners who know what a Spelk™ is]

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:

Programme: Give Us A Clue
Broadcast: Mon 24 December 1979, 19:00
Production/Channel: Thames Television, ITV
Writer: Vince Powell, Juliet Grimm
Music: Alan Hawkshaw
Producer/Director: Juliet Grimm, Ian Bolt
Starring: Michael Aspel, Una Stubbs, Lionel Blair, Paula Wilcox, Nyree Dawn Porter, Clodagh Rogers, Beryl Reid, Kenneth Williams, Spike Milligan, Russ Abbot, Dickie Davies

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

Christmas With The Larkins

"And hark", proclaimed Producer Ken, "before the clock strikes Christmas Day, you will be visited by three podcasts!". 'Oh here we go' thought Scrooge, just wanting to get on. "You must learn from the pod of telly past, the pod of telly past and then the pod of telly past." Well, he'd expected repeats at this time of year, but Scrooge didn't argue because he'd looked through the Radio Times and hadn't even taken the top off his red marker...

Yes it's the first of the festive specials from The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour, and to set the scene the boys need to go right back to ITV's Christmas With The Larkins. Blazing a trail through the fledgling sitcom-market, Dame Peggy herself berates and bellows her way to a yuletide family gathering with all the farcical trimmings and mishaps we've come to expect over the intervening decades. What can go wrong? Oh, everything.

How many trombone wah-s are acceptable as the comedown to a punchline? How many household appliances can be used to defrost a turkey? And how many instances of imminent or actual violence need to be in a script before Peggs will greenlight it?

Look, you're not pressing Play right - let Peggy take over and find out...

[Bonus points and/or an extra Quality Street will be awarded to listeners who pick up on the Stewart Lee reference secreted in this episode]

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:

Programme: Christmas With The Larkins
Broadcast: Fri 26 December 1958, 22:15
Production/Channel: Associated Television, ITV
Writer: Fred Robinson
Music: Jackie Brown
Producer/Director: Bill Ward
Starring: Peggy Mount, David Kossoff, Ronan O'Casey, Ruth Trouncer, Hilary Bamberger, Shaun O'Riordan, Barbara Mitchell John Barrard, Charles Lloyd Pack, Norman Mitchell

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

All Star Comedy Carnival, Christmas 1972

Twas the night before Christmas and through MountPeg Towers, bottles of port, red wine and brown ale had been strategically placed into a series of time-lock-release safes to ensure an even spread of gradual inebriation throughout the twenty-fifth thereby ensuring it's not all gone after two hours.

Yes, the day is almost upon us and The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour's festive celebrations peak once more with the god-tier array of light entertainment name-dropping that is ITV's 1972 showcase, All Star Comedy Carnival (that's right, the one from every fifth-or-so Steps Up The Mountain). With Blair, Grayson, Tarby, Wogan, Rod Hull, Moira Anderson AND PEGGY MOUNT, everything you have ever wanted waits in here...

How slowly can time pass while you're waiting for a four-minute On The Buses Christmas Sketch to end? How quickly does a programme have to oscillate between low-brow autopilot sitcom and high-precision performance art to give viewers the televisual bends? And how on earth is your favourite* vintage TV podcast going to top this?

Unwrap. Press Play. Be as disappointed as every year.

*go on, admit it.

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:

Programme: All Star Comedy Carnival

Broadcast: Monday 25 Decemver 1972, 17:45

Production/Channel: ATV, Granada, Thames, LWT, Yorkshire Television / ITV

Writers: Brad Ashton, Bryan Blackburn, Roy Bottomley, Tom Brennand, Brian Cooke, Mike Craig, Eric Davidson, Harry Driver, Peter Dulay, John Esmonde, Bob Grant, Tony Hawes, Lawrie Kinsley, Bob Larbey, Stephen Lewis, Ron McDonnell, Johnnie Mortimer, Vince Powell, Maurice Sellar, Roy Tuvey

Music: Ronnie Aldrich, Russell Burgess, Syd Lawrence, Johnny Patrick

Producers: Stuart Allen, Philip Casson, Les Chatfield, Peter Dulay, Terry Henebery, Bill Hitchcock, Bryan Izzard, Philip Jones, Mike Lloyd, Bill Podmore, William G. Stewart, Mark Stuart

Directors: Terry Henebery, Stuart Allen, Les Chatfield, Bryan Izzard, Mike Lloyd, David Mallet, Bill Podmore, William G. Stewart

Starring: Jimmy Tarbuck, Peggy Mount, Moira Anderson, Anne Aston, Hylda Baker, Lynda Bellingham, Lionel Blair, Judy Buxton, Patrick Cargill, Leslie Crowther, Les Dawson, Ann George, Noele Gordon, Bob Grant, Larry Grayson, Doris Hare, Rod Hull, Tony Jacklin, Jimmy Jewell, Anna Karen, Penny Lane, Stephen Lewis, Hugh Lloyd, Larry Martyn, David Nixon, Sylvia Syms, Bob Todd, Rudolph Walker, Mona Washbourne, Carl Wayne, Terry Wogan, Harry Worth

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

Christmas Fresh Fields 1985

Few things yell CHRISTMAS like that feeling of being locked in a room with a braying mob of party-game-obsessed family members who all seem to be merrily intoxicated past the point of caring, whilst you yourself are wondering how long you can politely leave it before REALLY getting stuck into the booze like a seasoned professional.

And so for the second instalment of this year's Peggy Mount Calamity Hour Christmas Specials, Thames Television have kindly brought that enforced bonhomie for us all to enjoy wherever, as the podcast hosts peruse the Fresh Fields Festive Effulgence from 1985. There's tidings, there's tinsel, and there are other words beginning with T which won't go into the show description because of adverse SEO reasons...

How many mince pies is too many for Christmas day, and does the joke become funny at that point? How long should a straight, domestic-sitcom be left doing its thing before safely devolving into chaotic, drunken ad-libbing for optimum, refreshing effect? And how long can Blackout keep up this Scrooge-like, grumpy demeanour when faced with some of the cosiest Christmas television ever created?

Drag everyone into a circle in the living room, press Play and find out...

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:

Programme: Fresh Fields
Broadcast: Wednesday 25 December 1985, 18:45
Production/Channel: Thames Television, ITV
Writer: John T. Chapman
Music: Harry Stoneham
Producer/Director: Peter Frazer-Jones
Starring: Julia McKenzie, Anton Rodgers, Ann Beach, Fanny Rowe, Ballard Berkeley, Daphne Oxenford, John Arthur, Zulema Dene, Debby Cumming

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

Christmas Record Breakers 1972

It's the most wonderful time of the year! By which we mean that time when normal, fusty TV scheduling goes out the window and all theme tunes are legally obliged to have a layer of sleigh-bells over the top. Yes, The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour gears up once again for another round of Christmas Specials, circling things in the Radio Times and going round all the supermarkets to look for the best offers on port...

And so, breaking the seal on the selection box in a traditionally early manner, our hosts peruse a particularly festive episode of BBC One's Record Breakers from the heady days of 1972, with Messrs Castle, McWhirter and McWhirter poised and ready to note down any and all achievements worthy of acclaim. And also act like they haven't just been wasting your time if and when there are none.

What grade of hallucinogen was Kubrick on when he came up with the idea for the McWhirter twins? What level of liability insurance is required for this intensity of hairstyling product under those studio lights? And what is the maximum sentence handed down for inadvertently killing a studio audience?

Get the tree out of the garage, pour yourself a small sherry, press Play and find out...

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:

Programme: Record Breakers
Broadcast: Friday 22 December 1972, 17:15
Production/Channel: BBC One
Producer: Alan Russell
Starring: Roy Castle, Norris McWhirter, Ross McWhirter, Rex Williams, Tom Barrett, Tommy O'Regan, Bill Duddy

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

T.Bag's Christmas Turkey / Cilla Black's Christmas

As dear Laird McMullington of Kintyre once slaved 'pon his bureau to note: "The moon is right; the dander's up; we're watching channel three tonight; there's absolute hell on". And as cumbersome as those lyrics may appear in their written form, it's worth noting that his same ditty goes on to employ the carefully chosen libretto "ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, ding ooh ooooh". So y'know, you take your cultural insight where you can find it...

Back on terra iracundia however, messrs Velvet, Bognops and Blackout inflict upon themselves a duology of televisual flagellation from the light channel in the form of T.Bag's Christmas Turkey and Cilla Black's Christmas - two vintage yuletide offerings which evidently did their very utmost to fly the flag for Scrooge-like militant atheism in the living rooms of children and adults alike. So at least everyone's catered for. Which is the meaning of Christmas, we suppose.

Did our Lady Of Perpetual Outrage Dame Pegatha Mountbatten have an inadvertent hand in Thames Television's resounding lack of franchise-renewal? Is a heart-melting sense of festive poignancy overdone by depicting Baroness Cillosis Blackjack as some old lady who sits around the house waiting for guests who never turn up and talking at the television? And is it just true that no good terrestrial Christmas programming has ever been broadcast on a channel which has adverts?

You'd certainly be forgiven for thinking so...

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:

Programme: T.Bag's Christmas Turkey
Broadcast: Thu 26 December 1991, 09:50
Channel/Production: Thames, ITV
Writer: Lee Pressman, Grant Cathro
Director/Producer: Glyn Edwards, Charles Warren
Starring: Georgina Hale, Peggy Mount, John Hasler, Laurence Bouvard

Programme: Cilla Black's Christmas
Broadcast: Sat 24 December 1983, 19:45
Channel/Production: London Weekend Television, ITV
Writer: Vince Powell
Director/Producer: Noel D. Greene, David Bell
Starring: Cilla Black, Frankie Howerd, Julio Iglesias, The Bee Gees, George Benson

Subscribe/Like/Follow 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. 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

Watch:The Nativity / To The Manor Born

Christmas may only come once a year, but The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour presents an unholy trinity of seasonal specials to keep you warm during the darkest month. Doctor Velvet and Blackout invite Ozzy Bognops round for yuletide reminiscence, irreverent chat and lashings of booze as they delve into the televisual archive and summon the ghosts of Christmas past...

Selecting from the festive kids' menu our trio draw the curtains, flip out the screen-glare shields and brace for a dead leg and an all-expenses-paid trip to Bethlehem in Watch. Then it's back in good old blighty where everything is refined, restrained and furiously beige as tradition meets aspiration in To The Manor Born.

Will there really be Peace On Earth when a TV presenter ends up stranded in Television Centre alone with a pair of scissors, two cameras and four hundred empty shoeboxes? Will there be goodwill toward men when a sitcom prime-time Christmas Special is commissioned seemingly in the second week of December and with the budget of a clip-show? AND WILL THERE BE ANY PORT LEFT?

Crack open the eggnog and hit Play to find out...

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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. 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

Christmas Eve With Val Doonican (1986)

They said it couldn’t be done, but here we are at last - the twelfth day of Pegmas and the final seasonal serving of treasured, televisual treats. As was staunch tradition once upon a telly time, December 24th bestowed upon us the gentlest of light-entertainment repasts in the form of BBC One’s Christmas Eve with Val Doonican from 1986. Messrs Velvet, Blackout and Bognops pull on festive knitwear, a well-pressed slack and get seated ‘pon rocking chairs ready for the musical festivities.

Does every rented luxury property in Maidenhead come with a horse-drawn carriage as the de rigour form of commute? Where can I buy reproduction garments so that I may cos-play Val Doonican? Do we wish you, our devoted listener, the very merriest of Christmases?

Yes, we most certainly do.

Enjoy this final episode of the series (ish) and in particular have a chuckle at the end; it’s crackers.



To note:

Valorous Doonican's Pre-Crinkly Bottom:


The Mustard Gang...


ValDoon is here and he's going to fuck. shit. up...


Subscribe/Like/Follow 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. 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