VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 162 - TX NOVEMBER 12 2023

11/12/23 • 59 min

GRAHAM WARD ON RICHARD CARPENTER

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on November 12th 2023

This week, we welcome GRAHAM WARD, yet another new voice to the ever expanding list of contributors to the VISION ON SOUND pool of talent, and, whilst we do start off today with my usual introductory interrogation about his own fascinating earliest television memories and so forth, we very swiftly move onto the topic that he primarily wanted to talk very fondly about, which is the television screenwriting career of RICHARD CARPENTER, who, after a brief career as a jobbing actor in the 1960s, is possibly best known to the general public these days for his work on HTVs stunning ROBIN OF SHERWOOD.

That particularly high profile 1980s hit still appears regularly on the daytime ITV channels, but, of course, fans of his work will also remember such delights as CATWEAZLE, THE GHOSTS OF MOTLEY HALL, THE ADVENTURES OF DICK TURPIN, a large contribution to THE ADVENTURES OF BLACK BEAUTY, and THE FAMOUS FIVE, and the swashbuckling adventures of SMUGGLER and ADVENTURER, and he could very much stake a claim for having reimagined the children’s historical adventure series, most often on the ITV channels, for more than one generation.

RICHARD CARPENTER sadly passed away in 2012, but leaves behind him a huge legacy of television work which, whilst remaining much loved by generations of Archive TV fans like the people who listen to this show, is still being discovered by new generations of fans even today.

PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.

GRAHAM WARD ON RICHARD CARPENTER

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on November 12th 2023

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VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 161 - TX NOVEMBER 5 2023

Another 1970s USTV Quartet with THE SHY YETI

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on November 5th 2023

This week, PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI is back for another in his series of trawls through what YOUTUBE has to offer in the way of classic American TV, and this time he’s reached the mid-to-late-1970s, and his quartet of choices are DIANA, a 1973 American sitcom built around the considerable talents of DIANA RIGG; THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN featuring NICHOLAS HAMMOND in a short-lived action series from 1977 featuring everybody’s friendly neighbourhood web-slinger; RHODA, a 1974 sitcom featuring VALERIE HARPER in a highly successful spinoff from THE MARY TYLER MOORE SHOW that lasted five seasons; and MRS COLUMBO, a perhaps misguided attempt at a COLUMBO spinoff featuring KATE MULGREW which, despite being retitled KATE LOVES A MYSTERY in order to divorce it from the original show, sank without trace after thirteen shows but may have been the spark that inspired MURDER, SHE WROTE.

At the end of the hour, PAUL also introduces me to one far more successful show, the long-running daytime mystery drama known as THE EDGE OF NIGHT that qualifies as being in this 1970s selection simply because it ran from way, way before it in 1956 until deep into the 1980s.

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VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 163 - TX NOVEMBER 19 2023

STEVE HATCHER ON DOCTOR WHO

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on November 19th 2023

There’s a lot of anniversary celebrations going on at the moment to commemorate the sixtieth birthday of one of those television perennials that crosses the void between archive and modern TV, DOCTOR WHO, and as here on VISION ON SOUND we rarely avoid any archive TV bandwagons, we thought we might have a bit of a chat this week about this old favourite.

With that in mind, this week I’ve invited back STEVE HATCHER to talk about the show and the part it has played in his life as an S-F fan who came to active DOCTOR WHO fandom comparatively late in life, but who then embraced it to the point where he has become something of a leading light of fandom, certainly as far as the DERBYSHIRE WHOOVERS are concerned anyway.

I think you’re really going to enjoy what I hope you’ll find a slightly different, slightly contemplative, and occasionally reflective hour, as we have a bit of a natter about STEVE’s life in relation to this remarkable and seemingly indestructible children’s television science-fiction series that adults still seem to enjoy and follow in a manner that few other shows seem to quite manage.