40 years of BBC2
I watched a bit of the BBC 2 40th birthday celebrations last night, which reminded me what a lot of excellent and innovative programmes theyâve produced over the years. The snippets they showed were tantalizingly short, but some made me wish Iâd been old enough at the time to watch the documentaries they made in the 60s and 70s, like the Ascent of Man by Jacob Bronowski. The clip showed Bronowski standing in a pond made of human ashes from the gas ovens at Auschwitz and talking about how we have to âcure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and powerâ, and to touch real people. He then bent down and picked up a handful of the wet ashes from the pond. It was an extraordinarily powerful moment.
Other highlighted programmes that I did watch and enjoy at the time included:
- Red Dwarf. It went downhill a bit in the final series, but the first few were wonderful. I love the scene when we first see Cat (the result of a few million years of evolution on the kittens of Listerâs pet cat) yowling his way around the corridors like a feline James Brown, checking out his reflection in a mirror (“Howâm I lookinâ? Lookinâ goood!”) every few minutes, and spraying things with a little silver aerosol (“This is mine⦠soâs this⦔). They managed to capture exactly what you would expect a cat to evolve into: a vain, lazy, selfish and barely sapient creature.
- I, Claudius. Or âI, Clavdivsâ as it was jokingly known in our house. I was hooked on this series, and it got me interested in the Roman period. There was an awful lot of sex and violence, but that seems pretty authenticâRoman emperors never seemed to die peacefully in their sleep of natural causes. It had some really wonderful acting talent in it too: Derek Jacobi, John Hurt, and even Patrick Stewartâwith hair, if I remember rightly.
- The Goodies. Very silly and wonderfully funny. We got the DVD for Christmas, so weâre enjoying Kitten Kong and the great Yorkshire martial art of âEcky-thump all over again.
- Shooting the Past. This was a fantastic Stephen Poliakoff drama that Iâd love to watch again. It was about a huge photographic library that was threatened with closure. The somewhat eccentric employees of the library try to persuade the man charged with closing it down to preserve it by piecing together a part of his family history using only the photographs in the collection. It was a wonderfully gripping story, unfolding slowly and drawing you in to it, and it was one of those things that stays in your mind for years.
They covered the decades in chronological order, and there was a marked decline in quality when we got to the 00s; the first show they featured was âThe Weakest Linkâ. Still, I think that thereâs a lot of life left in Beeb 2 yetâLittle Britain is a brilliant comedy show (though it started on Radio 4 and then BBC 3 before moving to 2), and thereâs still some good drama on 2. Hereâs to another 40 years.
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I really enjoyed the BBC2 night as well - the (normally dismal) dead ringer short with Queen Elizabeth beating the Spanigh King at Pool didnât half make me laugh.. as for the rest; it doesnât seem like thereâs anything left to do. I find Little Britain moronoically shite, as was The Fast Show.. Iâd rather have a ground-breaking, spine-tingling documentary series----- BBC 2 and its 40thâ¦superb.
Thanks also to the BBC, especially in Essex for remembering the 40th of Radio Caroline, and showing respect to the early pioneers of Free Radio in Britain. shame they did not give more coverage to IBC and Normandie, still, you canât win them all. They did nod at the Big L on 266â¦sweet.
A lot of us old sea salts enjoyed our get-together in Mayfair, Southend was good too, and it was refreshing to come home from the Caroline festives and watch BBC 2 Late Night Line Up stylieâ¦whew..brought back the memories.
Don.
by Don Stevens @ 22/04/2004 11:05 pm • Permalink •
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sarah: You donât like Little Britain? I love it, particularly Tom Bakerâs weird pronouncements about Britain ("Britain invented the cat"). I also loved the Fast Show. Hmm. But I do agree about the documentaries.
Don Stevens: I didnât hear about thatâRadio Caroline is still going?
by bsag @ 23/04/2004 5:05 pm • Permalink •
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