Foreign Countries #10: Drama Playhouse: The Incredible Robert Baldick: Never Come Night (1972)

Posted on by Jon Dear

Question: what do Steptoe and Son (1962-74), Porridge (1974-77) and The Onedin Line (1971-80) all have in common? If you answered "they all featured work from Production Designer David Chandler" then congratulations on being Andrew Pixley. If however you answered "they all started life as a one-off in an anthology series" then you might have … Continue reading Foreign Countries #10: Drama Playhouse: The Incredible Robert Baldick: Never Come Night (1972)

Foreign Countries #9: Hardwicke House (1987)

Posted on by Jon Dear

It's my first guest post, from my frequent collaborator and occasional mentor Howard Ingham, who runs the excellent Room 207 Press blog, although despite my best efforts he still refuses to call it Howard's Way. His loss. Below, Howard's looking at ITV car crash and non-thinking-person's-Please Sir, Hardwicke House, which hopefully you won't remember. Howard … Continue reading Foreign Countries #9: Hardwicke House (1987)

Foreign Countries #8: ITV Sunday Night Theatre: A.D.A.M. (1973)

Posted on by Jon Dear

As previously discussed, the 70s saw the white heat of technological optimism replaced by something rather darker as the world grew into a less secure place and people's respect for authority deteriorated. While a number of films around this time took in the sweeping, epic scale of an imagined dystopia, television had its own, occasionally … Continue reading Foreign Countries #8: ITV Sunday Night Theatre: A.D.A.M. (1973)

Foreign Countries #7: The Corridor People (1966)

Posted on by Jon Dear

"Talent borrows, genius steals" said Oscar Wilde ("and Doctor Who writers get it wholesale off the back of a lorry, no questions asked" added Doctor Who writer Ben Aaronovitch, but I digress). Great TV and film make their mark, they change the landscape that future productions operate in. Most obviously nothing was the same for … Continue reading Foreign Countries #7: The Corridor People (1966)

Foreign Countries #6: Music Scene: Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance (1976)

Posted on by Jon Dear

Many people with an interest in such matters will have no doubt purchased Stephen Brotherstone and Dave Lawrence's recently published Scarred For Life Volume One, examining just how dark and macabre pop culture could be in the 1970s. And that includes a hell of a lot of kid's stuff. If you ever saw Building Sites … Continue reading Foreign Countries #6: Music Scene: Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance (1976)

Foreign Countries #5: Shades of Darkness: Afterward (1983)

Posted on by Jon Dear

Ghosts don't exist, Brian Cox said so. Well he said the Large Hadron Collider said so anyway. As ghosts aren't made of matter they must be made be made of energy and would therefore dissipate as they succumbed to the second law of thermodynamics. So you don't all stop reading at this point, here's a … Continue reading Foreign Countries #5: Shades of Darkness: Afterward (1983)

Foreign Countries #4: Unnatural Causes: Ladies Night (1986)

Posted on by Jon Dear

Last week I considered in passing how Brexit engenders a sense of belonging for certain people. This community feeling is often portrayed in a negative light, defined as much by those whom it excludes as much as those who are within. Being British means that a lot of this feeling is underpinned by class, and … Continue reading Foreign Countries #4: Unnatural Causes: Ladies Night (1986)