The Stone Tape

It's always nice to get out of the house of course, but the number of venues willing to welcome The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour grows vanishingly small (imagine being barred from a bottle-bank). Luckily, Simon and Ken of The ExtonMoss Experiment are always ready to share their convivial hospitality, on the condition that the gin is mixed only with some archive television that'll make your teeth curl.

On offer tonight is a thorough cultural appraisal of Nigel Kneale's 1972 exploration of memorical masonry, The Stone Tape . Although naturally, a piece of seminal televisual eeriness whose cultural footprint is still felt to this day doesn't mean that Doctor Velvet and Blackout are going to take it that seriously...

When will The Science™ progress beyond middle-aged men yelling at each other and drinking in a room full of wires? When can our brave televisual analysers stop trying to tie in macabre literary references and get back to discussing The Slacks? When does the screaming stop?

Get somebody to use four rolls of paper printing out the hand-typed program used to press Play, and find out...

The ExtonMoss Experiment · Episode 166: The Stone Tape

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:

Programme: The Stone Tape
Broadcast: Tue 02 October 1973, 21:00
Production/Channel: BBC Two
Writer: Nigel Kneale
Music: Desmond Briscoe
Producer/Director: Innes Lloyd, Peter Sasdy
Starring: Michael Bryant, Jane Asher, Iain Cuthbertson, Michael Bates, Reginald Marsh, James Cosmo, Christopher Banks

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

Children Of The Stones

With the first stirrings of spring on the breeze, an archive-television reviewer's thoughts naturally turn to fresh air, greenery and neolithic menhirs. A quest for savage nature leads to this episode of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour being 33% outside broadcast, as well as seeing the return of a beloved special guest back in the studio!

Yes, ancient rituals, cutting-edge science and new age ephemera collide, as that rusty old chopper has been broken out of the shed and ridden into the depths of rural Wiltshire for sardonic scrutiny of the first episode of HTV's iconic Children Of The Stones! For once, our hosts aren't the weirdest people in the vicinity. Although that doesn't stop them trying...

When is it permissible to run over an old lady standing in the middle of the road? When is it okay to knock off your academic research for the day and knock back whisky in the pub instead? And when is someone - anyone - going to send a Going Metric: Tins Of Paint leaflet to Blackout?

The sooner you press Play, the sooner you'll find out...

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:

Programme: Children Of The Stones
Broadcast: Monday 10 January 1977, 16:45
Production/Channel: HTV, ITV Network
Writer: Jeremy Burham, Trevor Ray
Music: Sidney Sager
Producer/Director: Peter Graham Scott
Starring: Gareth Thomas, Peter Demin, Iain Cuthbertson, Veronica Strong, Katharine Levy, Ian Donnelly, Freddie Jones, Ruth Dunning

Blackout went to Avebury for this episode.
For real:

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

Supergran / George & The Dragon

It's the show that asks: the sun might always shine on TV, but what happens when that TV is showing North Tyneside? The gang at MountPeg Towers are all about respecting their elders, so the prospect of spending a double-shift in company where this will be expected leads now to some industrial level tongue-biting....

Only joking! It's business as snarky usual when The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour runs into a pair of older ladies who, quite frankly, are more than cut out to look after themselves. Our first port of call is a date with Supergran and her desaturated origin story, before later alighting in the Southern counties to see Dame Pegatha Mountbatten herself in George & The Dragon where at least the whole thing is supposed to be in black and white.

Who signed that off? (the first one) Who thought that would be an appropriate opening? (the second one) Who's watching this in the twenty first century when The Stranger Things is on? (both)

You can have a good laugh at the answer to the third of those at least, by pressing Play...

You can download a special sheet to print out then safely collate your Peggy Mount Calamity Hour Quiz answers each week, here.:

WE HAVE BEEN WATCHING:

Programme: Supergran
Broadcast: Sunday 20 January 1985, 16:30
Production/Channel: Tyne Tees, ITV
Writer: Jenny McDade
Music: Billy Connolly, Phil Coulter, Anthony Isaac
Producer/Director: Keith Richardson, Anthony Simmons
Starring: Gudrun Ure, Iain Cuthbertson, Lee Marshall, Bill Shine, Holly English, Iam Towell

Programme: George & The Dragon
Broadcast: Saturday 19 November 1966, 20:40
Production/Channel: ATV, ITV
Writer: Vince Powell, Harry Driver
Music: Tom Springfield
Producer/Director: Alan Tarrant, Shaun O'Riordan
Starring: Peggy Mount, Sid James, John Le Mesurier, Keith Marsh, Noel Davis, John Carlin

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