The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour

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...

We reconvene with our couple of contumelious and cogent cajolers at the embarkation of a week of Samhain celebrations, to dust the sprawling cobwebs from a solid-oak planchette and summon ghostly intimations from televisual spectres long since departed. The first calling heralds the manifestation of a triumvirate of American film studio derivatives in the form of 1980’s Drak Pack; the animated adventures following the descendants of Hollywood’s horror-stars of a Silver cinematic Age. Their potentially-monochromatic appearance drives our two Hallowe’en hoodlums onward down a clue-ridden pathway to a paucity of prizes, courtesy of Yorkshire Television’s 321, in a 1982 episode entitled Spine-chillers.

Is it possible for a doorway to have deep-rooted psychological connotations? Just how proud can one man be, of the position he fills in a nine-to-five job? Does Henry McGee actually have teeth? Creep into the crypt and you may just find out...

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 [email protected]

In this euphonious and mellifluous episode, Doctor Velvet and Blackout are joined once again by the estimable Oswald Bognops to partake of repartee a la television vintage. Rural yet congenial hospitality is the order of the day as our ‘wholly' trinity of annotators sample the delights of country living, courtesy of Bod and his mates, who’ve decided to open a rooming house of sorts ‘pon arable farmland. To follow, entertainment is prolific at the local music hall where The Good Old Days ensures a munificent and magnanimous musical meandering through the multitude of moldings made for the variety stage of yesteryear.

Just what is Aunt Flo doing? Are the bucolic yet polemical outdoor activities of Bod’s posse as wanton as semi-inebriated, under-graduate humour would infer? Did Maggie Henderson only work Saturdays? Does Ozzy Bognops drag his pianoforte to every social occasion? Could this be the last show in the current series? And once again...just what is Aunt Flo doing? The answers are all in this specially-extended bumper issue!

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 [email protected]

In these sober times one can often get too hung up on heavyweight televisual analysis, and the episode has come for The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour to let its hair down. Right down, in fact. Oh yes, we are talking "shoulder length"...
This week it's 1985 and it's all going on! All the very coolest aspects (and pop music stars) of the decade as you remember it finally kick in right here, as we eschew the slightly cosy Saturday morning offerings of Auntie Beeb and head down Maidstone way to drop into No 73, before hopping quietly back over the fence for some bitingly accessible social satire (do you remember cakes?) from flexuous-physiognomied funnyman Phil in Cool It!
Have TVS finally perfected the 'chaotic' TV format by having an eclectic running schedule combined with not a single person in front of the camera knowing what anyone else is supposed to be doing? Is the prestige of their guest-list really worth the hole in the ozone layer above Maidstone because of all the hairspray which has to be used? And is there a statute of limitations covering the amount of time Blackout is allowed to still be unashamedly snobby about observational standup routines?
The answer to at least one of those is a firm 'yes'...
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 [email protected]

What a ride it's been, you lovely lot, as The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour has stopped off at each year of the 1980s to sample memory-stirring merriments and televisual treats. And there's one more riddling foray to be had before we pull the curtain and hope the theatre doesn't inexplicably catch fire...
This week it's 1989 and THE FUTURETM of immersive gaming is in its absolute prime as we don a horned helmet and stumble around an empty room while our friends enjoy themselves in Knightmare. Any danger is all virtual of course, so safe in that knowledge we relax to put the kettle on and watch a bit of telly. And it's getting a bit stuffy in here, so we'll see if we can make it as far as opening the window before suffering A Case Of Spontaneous Human Combustion.
Is Gavin Gillespie's brand of bawdy, working-class rhetoric really suitable for Friday afternoon sword-and-sorcery broadcasting when there are children watching? How many scientists arguing over the possibility of involuntary auto-incineration would it have taken to assuage the permanently-on flammability fears of three youngsters in the 1980s? And for the last ruddy time, does anybody want an apple?