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DEBUTS
JANUARY ...
Peter Curran presented media news in Wired
World ... The Decision followed people facing ethical dilemmas
... Valerie Singleton presented the teatime quiz Backdate ... and
The Girlie Show filled the former Word slot.
FEBRUARY ...
The staff of a holiday centre in Scarborough
were the subject of Seasiders ... Ardent Productions were behind
the topical political comedy-drama Annie's Bar ... while The
Mark Thomas Comedy Product and TFI Friday first appeared on
Friday nights.
MARCH ...
Motor Mania celebrated the centenary
of the car ... Mersey Television produced the '60s-set drama And The
Beat Goes On ... The Greatest attempted to find Britain's number
one sportsperson, a survey won by Daley Thompson who coincidentally was
a consultant on the show ... and Tony Parsons reviewed the cultural scene
in Big Mouth.
APRIL ...
The Gaby Roslin Show started its run
on Saturday nights ... An Inspector Calls took a wry look at those
who enforce the rules ... Flava showcased the lastest black music
... the development of the personal computer was traced in Triumph
of the Nerds ... while Dennis Potter's Karaoke was premiered
on BBC1 and repeated on C4 the following evening.
MAY ...
Zig and Zag's Dirty Deeds saw the Big
Breakfast stars graduate to their own sitcom ... the life of a single
mother got the sitcom treatment in Life After Birth ... Dee and
Hardy starred in Jack and Jeremy's Real Lives, which began at 10.30pm
and ended six weeks later at 1.20am ... and Dennis Potter's Cold Lazarus
was premiered on C4 and repeated on BBC1 the following evening.
JUNE ...
Astronauts was the first ever look behind
the scenes at NASA's training scheme ... another rarely-filmed institution
came under the spotlight in Foreign Legion ... 40 people from Leeds
discussed topical issues in Beyond the Pale ... while American
Gothic premiered.
JULY ...
Jenny Eclair and Germaine Greer outlined what
would happen If I Were Prime Minister ... and Susan Tully's Genderquake
discussed how the opposite sexes were swapping roles in the workplace.
SEPTEMBER ...
New directors got their first break in Talentspotting
... Moving People saw John Peel introduce video diaries of those
relocating ... Ian Hislop examined the history of the Church of England
in Canterbury Tales ... Nothing But the Truth debated topical
issues in a courtroom setting with Paul Boateng MP as "judge"
... Caroline in the City debuted on Friday nights ... while Jane
Horrocks got her own one-off comedy special, Never Mind the Horrocks.
OCTOBER ...
Richard Littlejohn presented the first series
of Wanted
... daytime saw the launch of cookery show Here's One I Made Earlier
... and Desire examined the fashion industry.
NOVEMBER ...
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall visited members
of the public as they cooked TV Dinners ... Nigel Hawthorne starred
in drama The Fragile Heart ... while Black Box found out
how air crashes occurred.
DECEMBER ...
Adult cartoon Pond Life began in the
inconvenient timeslot of 5.45pm daily ... and The Adam & Joe Show
made its debut in a post-midnight slot.
FINALES
THE WHITE ROOM
Since the ending of The Tube in 1987,
C4 never really had a live music show of similar stature, most efforts
either concentrating on one particular genre or mixing the bands with
comedy or features (like The Word). By 1995, though, Britpop was
in the ascendancy and it was felt the channel needed something to combat
BBC2's Later with Jools Holland. The White Room was more-or-less
staffed by former Tube personnel, including executive producer
Malcolm Gerrie, director Geoff Wonfor and producer Chris Cowey. The
White Room of the title was the plain set that bands would perform
in - the idea being that the music could speak for itself, without the
distraction of chat or features, and as such presenter Mark Radcliffe
simply introduced the bands as briefly as possible. Despite attracting
many big names, it never really made it into the public's affection, as
could be seen from the scheduling - series one was at 10pm on Saturday
nights, series two at 11pm, and series three at 11.35pm on Fridays in
the middle of summer. Ironically former Tube frontman Jools Holland
was the bigger draw, and eventually C4 dropped the show, arguing that
TFI Friday was their platform for live music. Chris Cowey moved
to produce Top of the
Pops a year later.
MISC ...
Stanley Baxter is Back and Stanley Baxter
in Reel Terms saw the veteran comedian relive some of his classic
sketches with guests Rory Bremner and Dawn French ... Scott of the
Arms Antics was a two-hour programme on Saturday night examining government
sleaze, presented by Sheena McDonald, Rory Bremner and Paul Foot ... seven
weeks of programmes on the police were presented in the cleverly-titled
Blue Light Zone ... as part of Without Walls, William G Stewart
presented a Fifteen-to-One special on the Elgin Marbles ... from
July, Countdown was broadcast all year round ... Fame Factor
was a series of programmes on celebrity, including memorable documentaries
on Lynne Perrie, Brian Connolly and Blue Tulip Rose Read ... Sharron Davies
and Rick Adams were the new Big Breakfast team ... and the Doctors
and Nurses season included a day of live transmissions from Birmingham
City Hospital on New Year's Eve.
ON SCREEN
GABY ROSLIN
1996 should have been a triumphant year for
the golden girl of breakfast television, but it didn't all go to plan.
Roslin left The Big Breakfast in January, but signed a new exclusive
deal with Channel 4, who were pleased with her success fronting The
Real Holiday Show. The first fruits of this new contract was The
Gaby Roslin Show, a series that took its cue from Parkinson
to provide in-depth celebrity conversation on a Saturday night, and was
co-produced by her own Black And Blonde production company. However despite
the hype the programme proved to be a huge disaster, with Roslin appearing
woefully out of her depth and a procession of dull, uninteresting guests
for her to interview. Most weeks Gaby was left chewing the fat with a
D-list American actor or little-known comedian. The programme also seemed
hugely out of place on Channel 4, with Gaby coming over as a complete
innocent who was too nervous to ask any pressing questions. After 10 weeks
the series was axed, and Gaby returned to The Real Holiday Show
(and spin-offs The Real Wedding Show and The Real Christmas
Show) before moving over to the BBC in 1997 and her more natural home
fronting light entertainment.
FATHER TED
Father Ted started in 1995 with little
publicity and an unpromising premise: the adventures of three priests
exiled on a deserted island off the coast of Ireland. However those who
discovered it were soon won over by the sheer invention of Graham Linehan
and Arthur Mathews' witty script, and the great comic performances of
Dermot Morgan, Ardal O'Hanlon and Frank Kelly - all of whom were virtual
unknowns in the UK before the series began. The programme actually started
life as an unsolicited script that the writers sent to Hat Trick Productions,
one of the few shows to make it to the screen from this route. The first
series was rerun in January 1996 after picking up a number of awards,
but it was the second series in March that really saw the programme reach
critical mass. Extended from six to 10 episodes, word of mouth soon spread
that here was one of the freshest new comedy series of the decade, and
after more success (at the BAFTA awards amongst others) it was rewarded
with an almost immediate repeat in August. A 70-minute festive special
on Christmas Eve picked up its highest audience yet and proved that it
was now reaching "national treasure" status. Only one more series
followed in 1998 - an artistic decision to stop it getting stale. Dermot
Morgan's death immediately after filming was completed ensured that every
episode of Father Ted will be treasured for years to come.
OFF SCREEN
• After 14 years, C4 finally changed its logo
in November. The multi-coloured four became plain white, and was used
as part of a scheme that included four circles, each said to represent
a different aspect of the channel.
• Brass Eye was scheduled to run on Tuesday nights from 19
November, but was postponed shortly before transmission due to worries
over some of its content.
• The channel was forced to apologise when an edition of The Big
Breakfast was proceeded with a C4 ident showing Mark Little firing
a gun at the camera - less than 24 hours after the Dunblane massacre.
• TFI Friday had to abandon live transmissions after Shaun
Ryder said "fuck" 13 times while singing The Sex Pistols' Pretty
Vacant.
FOUR-WORDS
"After spending a year of our lives,
and £1 million, we are very keen that this thing be shown."
- Peter Fincham, Executive Producer, Brass Eye
"Part of the problem is that Mark Little
considers himself the star of the show."
- The Sun on The Big Breakfast
"One of the strongest features of Eurotrash
is its celebration of a polymorphous sexuality. It's never been a laddish
breast-fest."
- David Stevenson, C4 Commissioning Editor for Entertainment and Youth
MY FAVOURITE CHANNEL 4 MOMENT ...
AS IT HAPPENED: THE KILLING OF KENNEDY (1993)
Transmitted on the occasion of the 30th anniversary
of President Kennedy's assassination, As It Happened: The Killing of
Kennedy was Channel 4 documentary making at its very best. The basic
premise, a minute-by-minute account of the events of 22 November 1963,
was rooted not in any bombastic narration or half-hearted reconstructions
but the eloquent testimonies of scores of eyewitnesses. What made their
stories and memories all the more affecting, however, was the way they
were left to speak for themselves, sometimes at length and in their own
time, articulating their emotions while very visibly coming to terms with
the legacy of the tragedy 30 years earlier.
The featured interviewees ranged from the
lowliest of passers-by to high-ranking military and authority figures,
yet all came across equally sincere and heart-felt. The cumulative impact
was to leave you almost overwhelmed not only by the poignancy but also
the nobility on display. Archive photographs, news reports and press cuttings
sketched out a context within which the speakers' words took on a greater
resonance. But maybe the programme's greatest achievement was avoiding
mawkish sentimentality. This was no mystery story, we all knew how the
day in question ended, but the restrained tone of both the contributors
and the overall production turned what could've been a grisly melodramatic
diagnosis into an unforgettable evocative anthology of personal grief
and remembrance. Here was a human dignity rarely captured on film.
- Ian Jones
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