The Cult of The Onedin Line
Its hard to believe they are the same man; those two images of the late Peter Gilmore as either the cheeky young hospital portal eying up Nurse Barbara Windsor in the Carry On Films but also as Captain James Onedin SHOUTING his way through the seventies. THAT theme tune (Spartacus by Aram Khachaturian) was my [...]
Portillo on Thatcher: The Lady’s Not for Spurning
Or how we all learned to love Portillo. Gradually he’s become the Brian Walden of his day. Shining on the Moral Maze, on the underrated This Week and making documentaries on seemingly anything he fancies. He was also the best thing in last years celebrity trial drama-doc; The Verdict keeping Archer in check. And finally [...]
The Wigan Casino – This England
Tony Palmer’s 1977 wonderful celebration of the Northern Soul club; the Wigan Casino (part of the “This England” series of docs) for Granada TV is an incredibly bleak half hour. Obviously there’s some priceless archive from inside the club (it showed up most recently in Dance Britannia), impressive shapes being thrown all over the shop [...]
Caledonia Dreamin’
The impressive production line of music docs from BBC4 (Stiff records, Jacques Brel, and of course Pop Britannia being recent high spots) continues with a canter through 30 years of scottish pop. Given that C86 was year zero for me and I spent many a year trying to grow the perfect fringe then the pre-publicity [...]
