Ludwig / Christmas Night With The Stars

Splash the halls with pints of sherry, fa-la-la-la-laaa etc, it's the joyous culmination of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour's Yuletide Extravaganza! The final baubles are placed on branches which have already begun shedding into the carpet, the last odd-tasting chocolate is snaffled from behind a cardboard door and washed down with booze it's socially acceptable to drink before 10am, and the well-thumbed double issue of the Radio Times lies open with more biro circles than a spirograph test sheet. Yes, the true meaning of Christmas is celebrated here: watching the telly with a drink in your hand...

Messrs Velvet, Bognops and Blackout retire from a day's important wassailing to observe a mechanical egg making a festive forest look all tacky and low-rent in Ludwig, and then witness the BBC's 1972 light entertainment budget get well and truly rinsed with the stellar (if unrehearsed) line-up of the final Christmas Night With The Stars.

Is a Christmas episode of a programme still a Christmas episode of a programme if it's titled Christmas but no one in it says the word Christmas? Is a Christmas episode of a programme still a Christmas episode of a programme if it's filmed in August and the only seasonal set decorations get added via blue-screen in early December? And why does this podcast keep watching things with Cilla Black in them, when that's clearly only going to go one way?

Unwrap the Play button to find out...

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:

Programme: Ludwig (Christmas)
Broadcast: July 1977, 17:35(?)
Channel/Production: BBC One
Writer: Jane Tann / Susan Kodicek
Director/Producer: Mirek Lang / Peter Lang
Starring: Job Glover

Programme: Christmas Night With The Stars
Broadcast: Mon 25 December 1972, 18:55
Channel/Production: BBC One
Writer: Garry Chambers, Barry Cryer, Ronnie King, Wally Malston, David McKellar, Spike Mullins, David Nobbs, Michael Palin & Terry Jones, Neil Shand & Joe Steeples, Peter Vincent, Dick Vosburgh
Director/Producer: Michael Hurl / Terry Hughes
Starring: Ronnie Barker, Ronnie Corbett, Cilla Black, Lulu, The Young Generation, Arthur Lowe, John Le Mesurier, Clive Dunn, John Laurie, James Beck, Arnold Ridley, ian Lavender, Mike Yarwood, Adrienne Posta, Polly James, Nerys Hughes, Mollie Sugden, Sheila Fay, Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie, Nosher Powell, Sally James.

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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

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

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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

The Summertime Special Summertime Special

Because we are nothing if not the guests you cannot get shot of at the end of a party, ten episodes was never going to be enough tomfoolery and so we are proud to present the first of this year's seasonal shenanigans in the bumper Peggy Mount Calamity Hour Summertime Special Summertime Special...

First up we're off to deepest darkest Poole in to watch Peter Powell and Cilla Black master their ring in the BBC's big top for 1979's Seaside Special. Then as we salve our sunburn with ice lollies and saltwater, there's just time to take the land-train round to Bournemouth's BIC where Michael Barrymore is pleased as punch to present his 1987 Summertime Special.

How much of a programme's content can you feasibly compile from VT footage, given that you've already dragged nine hundred people into a specially erected tent to watch a handful of the only acts who were all available on the same night? How much of a programme's content can you realistcally film when the cast, crew and audience of a 10,000 seat theatre are all ankle-deep in sequins? And how much of a programme's content will ever make the hosts of this podcast content?

Pour one more sangria while the sun's still shining and find out...

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