He had a dream: Martin Luther King and that speech
Freedom of speech: Martin Luther King Jr. hails attendees of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28 1963, at which he delivered his extraordinary, unforgettable speech
Had he lived, three days ago, January 15 2011 would have been US civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.’s 82nd birthday – and, thus, in America today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Over the years since his death in 1968 at the hands of a gunman, King has become one of the most respected figures of the Twentieth Century – if not of all-time. And rightly so. And rightly, too, he’s specifically as well recalled for his ‘I have a dream speech’ as he is for his tragic assassination.
King was a baptist preacher from Atlanta, Georgia, who rose to become a prominent leader of his country’s civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. He led a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955, opposing the city’s public transport policy of racial segregation and later, in March 1963, led a march of non-violent protest (in part inspired by the protest methods employed by Mahatma Ghandi) in Birmingham, Alabama.
Arrested and imprisoned for his efforts here, he gained national recognition and on August 28 that year, a similar march on the nation’s capital, Washington D.C., took place. The march started at the Washington Memorial, went down the Washington Mall and concluded at the Lincoln Memorial, where the thousands of attendees congregated to hear songs performed by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and to listen to civil rights leaders, including King. The latter’s speech came last and was brodcast live on television across the United States.
Eloquent, beautiful, powerful and iconic, the speech he made that day – now known simply as the ‘I have a dream’ speech – is surely the world’s most famous and perhaps its best loved. Excerpts of it are etched on the memories of people throughout the world, whether they were alive when it was delivered or were yet to be born. Unquestionably, its words and delivery had an enormous, immediate effect throughout America and – to an extent that is probably impossible to measure, but is undeniable – helped pave the way to the civil rights bill that was passed by the US Congress just two months later and the rolling snowball this set in motion for improved racial tolerance, freedoms and relations in that country and throughout – at least – the Western world.
Here then, folks, to mark Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday is the speech’s text in full and, below that, a video of him delivering it. Do read and view away… 
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I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.
We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.
Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”
And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!
Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!
Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!
But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!
Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!
Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
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So much more than just an (un)pretty face: Pete Postlethwaite (1946-2011)/ Susannah York (1939-2011)
The craggy one and the classy one: Pete Postlethwaite, a peerless actor loved by his peers and the people (l); Susannah York, a Swinging Sixties beauty blessed too with beautiful talent (r)
He was one of the greatest actors of his generation; she was a seriously underrated actress and one of the faces of the Swinging Sixties. As widely reported across the world media, the great Pete Postlethwaite died on January 2 aged just 64. Now tributes too will doubtless pour in for the unforgettable Susannah York, who died yesterday, also too young, at the age of 72.
Both were instantly recognisable – Postlethwaite for his extraordinary looks (skull-like head and piercing eyes); York for her glorious looks (almost aristocratic beauty, big blue expressive eyes and delectably wide mouth) – and they both started out in UK theatre (the former regionally; the latter at RADA), but then their careers went in diametrically different directions. Postlethwaite was a slow-burner, building up a brilliant reputation before hitting it big in later life; York became a household name almost immediately, moving into intriguing theatre-based roles in later years.
Pete Postlethwaite earned his stripes in the early 1970s at Liverpool’s experimental and exciting Everyman Theatre – in fact, at the same time, impressively but importantly, as major talents such as Bill Nighy, Anthony Sher, Jonathan Pryce and Julie Walters (with whom, as a young man, he had a relationship).
He was born into a Roman Catholic family in Warrington (then in Lancashire, now part of Greater Manchester) and worked as a teacher before training as an actor at Bristol’s Old Vic theatre. The radical atmosphere at the Everyman Theatre, however, proved critical in his development, as he quickly established himself as a star turn among the exciting talent around him, which often found itself getting stuck into brand new work from the then young (now legendary) Liverpool dramatists Willy Russell and Alan Bleasdale.
In 1981, he was cast in the BBC TV ‘Play for the Day’ The Muscle Market, a black comedy written by Bleasdale, playing the hapless protagonist getting caught up in Liverpool’s criminal underworld. Despite attracting rave reviews for his performance, it didn’t prove his major screen breakthrough. Regardless, Postlethwaite focused on theatre work again for much of the ’80s, joining the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at Stratford-upon-Avon, where he took on supporting – yet universally praised – roles opposite the likes of old friend Anthony Sher and the young Kenneth Branagh.
A master at work: a young Pete Postlethwaite in a version of Coriolanus at the Liverpool Everyman Theatre (l) and, an older but no less passionate, powerful, exciting and risk-taking actor, in The Usual Suspects (r) – as an enigma with a Japanese name and a Pakistani accent
Then, come 1988 – admittedly following one or two other bits on TV including an appearance on soap Coronation Street and a well received role in the British comedy film A Private Function (1984) – he finally achieved serious on-screen notice for his performance as a domineering, sometimes brutal working-class father in Terence Davis’s 1940s-set working class family drama Distant Voices, Sill Lives (1988). From then on his face became instantly recognisable to British TV audiences in a truly wide variety of character roles, most notably including an army sergeant in the Sean Bean-starring Napoleonic drama Sharpe and as Montague Tigg in a 1994 BBC dramatisation of Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit, for which he received a BAFTA nomination. And his talents soon went global as he was cast in Jim Sheridan’s mesmering film based on the wrongly imprisoned ‘Guildford Four’, In The Name Of The Father (1993) – see video below (warning: the clip features gratuitous swearing).
As Guiseppe Conlon, father of the film’s central character Gerry Conlon played by Daniel Day-Lewis, Postlethwaite delivered perhaps the best performance of his screen career and was rightly awarded an Oscar nomination for his troubles. Subtle, disciplined, dignified and highly affecting, his take on the character has since been claimed by the real Gerry Conlon to be so close to his father that it brought tears to his eyes and, for the same reason, that Guiseppe Conlon’s widow simply embraced Postlethwaite on meeting him at the movie’s premiere.
Now the floodgates opened, as Postlethwaite finally found himself under seige with major offers from Hollywood. He excelled in roles in everything from The Usual Suspects (1995) and Spielberg’s Jurassic Park: The Lost World (1997) to Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Brassed Off (1996), in which he delivered a much-loved turn as a 1980s Yorkshire colliery band conductor. At the turn of the millennium he was considered one of the globe’s pre-eminent character actors, both by his peers and – it’s pretty safe to say – by the public too (Spielberg referred to him as the ‘greatest actor in the world’). And, having finally reached this stage, he decided to, well, go back to the stage, being wonderfully received (now as a middle-aged, mature actor) as Prospero in The Tempest and as King Lear, the latter being a production put on both for him and the 40th anniversary of Liverpool’s Everyman Theatre.
In 2009 he nailed his colours to the mast, quite literally, by starring in The Age Of Stupid, a ‘drama-documentary-animation hybrid’ promoting wider awareness of climate change issues, and stating at its release to the UK Government’s then Environment Secretary Ed Milliband that he would return his OBE, awarded in 2004, if the plan to open a new coal-powered power station in Kent saw fruition. A Labour Party supporter all his life, and deeply political, he threw into the mix a threat to leave the party too. The result? Just a month later the plan was scrapped.
No doubt the UK Government’s U-Turn on the power station had more behind it than Postlethwaite’s very public standing, yet to think it had nothing to do with it too is surely to underestimate just how big a name and how deeply regarded and loved an actor Pete Postlethwaite had become in Britain and across the globe.
By contrast, Susannah York’s life and career – especially its beginnings – have always seemed glamorous. She was born into a middle-class background in Chelsea, London, in 1939 – real name: Susannah Yolande Fletcher. Her father was a stockbroker and, following her parents’ divorce, she was predominantly brought up in Scotland. Returning to England and, looking to launch a career as an actress, she studied at RADA in the late ’50s, winning its Ronson award for most promising student.
She didn’t have to wait long for her first film role, coming as it did in the 1960 movie Tunes Of Glory, opposite Alec Guinness and John Mills. The following year she landed her first leading role as a teenage girl on the verge of womanhood in the coming-of-age drama The Greengage Summer, co-starring Kenneth More, Danielle Darrieux and Jane Asher. In spite of the film’s dark tone, in his 1978 autobiography, More referred to it as one of the happiest he had ever made and that the 21-year-old Susannah York was ‘a delightful creature’.
Soon cinema audiences across the globe were in agreement with him, thanks to her appearing as Albert Finney’s love interest in Tom Jones (1963), the multi-Oscar-winning period comedy based on the classic novel by Henry Fielding. York’s film career was now off and away and as the decade progressed she starred in such varied fare as the – again multi-Oscar-winning – A Man For All Seasons (1966) about Henry VIII’s legendary relationship with his Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas More, lesbian-themed offbeat drama The Killing Of Sister George (1968), World War One musical satire Oh! What A Lovely War (1969) and the ever popular, starry wartime adventure Battle Of Britain (1969).
It was with an American film, though the Depression-era comedy drama They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1969), co-starring Jane Fonda, that she scored her biggest critical success. For her role as a delusional ‘platinum blonde’, she won a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actress and was nominated for both an Oscar and Golden Globe in the same category. At the time, she strangely cited anger at being nominated for the Oscar without first being asked; stranger still, she then attended the ceremony.
All mod cons: Susannah York, star of the Swinging Sixties, caught out looking cheeky both by photographer Philip Townshend (left) and in a scene from Battle Of Britain (right)
Susannah York, however, will perhaps be most fondly recalled as an undeniable figure of London’s Swinging Sixties period in the mid-’60s, when film, theatre, art and the zeitgeist of the time seemed literally to revolve around the centre of Britain’s capital, with both the upper- and middle-class movers and shakers of the cultural firmament (The Queen’s cousin, photographer Lord Lichfield, say) rubbing shoulders with working-class upstarts (for example, Michael Caine and The Beatles). Into this mix whirled the young, attractive, talented girls of the moment, such as Twiggy, Jean Shrimpton, Marianne Faithful and Julie Christie (whom York somewhat resembled). York herself too then, was undeniably one of these girls – seemingly photographed by trendy phtographers like Philip Townshend, and thus being part of the moment, as much as she was starring in the movies of the time.
That sort of profile can only last so long, mind, and come the ’70s, hers began to fade. There were one or two high-profile films, though – the South Africa-set mine adventure Gold (1974) co-starring James Bond himself Roger Moore, as well as a cameo opposite Marlon Brando in Superman (1978) as the comic book hero’s mother (and, yes, she certainly did still look good in ’78). In fact, she also won the 1972 Best Actress award at Cannes Film Festival for her role in Robert Altman’s psychological thriller Images, in which a children’s fantasy novel she’d written In Search Of Unicorns (1973) was actually excerpted – she would go on to write another, Lark’s Castle (1976).
From the end of the ’70s onwards, York really focused on theatre. Her work in ’60s cinema had seen her in a collection of high-quality, interesting roles and her forays on-stage would be no different. In 1978 she starred on the London stage in The Singular Life of Alfred Nobbs, then the following year she appeared in Paris, acting in French in the Henry James-penned Appearances. In the ’90s she made headlines by starring in RSC productions of Hamlet and The Merry Wives Of Windsor. Earlier, in the ’80s, she revealed the rebellious spirit of the ’60s hadn’t left her when she became an anti-nuclear campaigner in dramatic fashion, calling for the release of Israeli dissident Mordechai Vanunu, who had been jailed for revealing to the world his country’s nuclear weapons programme.
In recent years her face has remained in the public eye thanks to a role in the high-profile TV drama series Holby City and Casualty, while in 2007 she appeared in a UK national tour of Wuthering Heights and just last year received critical acclaim for her acting all over again in a triple bill of Tennessee Williams plays in London.
In the end, though, despite being an icon of the Swinging Sixties and to some extent representative of its feminine freedoms (she divorced her husband of 16 years in 1976 and took a number of acting jobs merely to pay the bills as she brought up her children), she liked to describe herself as rather a home-body and lover of family. She was survived by her two children and her two grandchildren, whom by all accounts – like the world did her, especially its male half – she loved dearly. 
Jenny Agutter: English Rose
Talent…
… These are the lovely ladies and gorgeous girls of eras gone by whose beauty, ability, electricity and all-round x-appeal deserve celebration and – ahem – salivation here at George’s Journal…
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Ah, January… a cold, dark and forbidding month, yes? Well, let’s warm things up a tad by adding to the delectable and esteemed collection of Talent the lovely actress Jenny Agutter. Yes, a sex symbol ever since she first appeared on the big screen, she’s the epitome of upper-crust English sexiness; slightly demure, always well-mannered, low and measured of voice and utterly gorgeous (as well as over the years, er, rather liberal in disrobing in her different roles). Why, she’s even described herself as ‘perfect fantasy fodder’ – and there’s simply no arguing with that.
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Profile
Name: Jennifer Ann Agutter
Nationality: English
Profession: Actress
Born: December 20 1952 in Taunton, Somerset, England
Height: 5ft 7in
Known for: Roles in the films The Railway Children (1970), Walkabout (1971), Logan’s Run (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Equus (1977), An American Werewolf In London (1981) and Glorious 39 (2009), as well appearing on TV in the 2000 version of The Railway Children and the spy drama Spooks (2002-03).
Strange but true: In spite of her dulcet, oh-so-English tones she moved about in her childhood owing to her father’s – a former British army officer – job as an entertainment organiser; indeed, for a time she lived in both Dhekelia, Cyprus, and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Peak of fitness: Opinions will vary greatly here, of course, but for me it has to be as über-sexy and yet wonderfully down-to-earth nurse Alex Price in An American Werewolf In London – she’d make a lovely bandage for any patient.
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Giant-killers!: a quartet of classic FA Cup Third Round shocks
Giddy heights: Ronnie Radford and friends feel as high as a steeple as the Hereford United midfielder (wearing number 11) scores against Newcastle and triggers a pitch invasion
Ah, the FA Cup Third Round. That post-Crimbo-and-New-Year slither of glimmering golden light that offers footall fans something different, nay something a little exotic, amid the early January blues. For this is the round of the ‘greatest Cup competition in football’ when the top division’s big boys join the party and, thus, on occasions meet genuinely lowly opposition. And, sometimes of course, the big boys don’t manage to crash the party, instead the little guys crash them. Sometimes? All right, very rarely, but it certainly has happened.
So, with the Third Round upon us tomorrow, here’s George’s Journal tribute to the great David-and-Goliath meetings of years past, four FA Cup fixtures that have most assuredly helped secure the contest’s place in history – and in our hearts. Is that the ref’s whistle? Here we go then, folks…
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Hereford United 2 -1 Newcastle United (replay), 1972
So, let’s kick-off at the, well, obvious starting point, with the most iconic FA Cup Third Round shock ever. And rightly so too. This one really did have everything. Non-league no-hopers up against First Division stalwarts. A quagmire of a muddy pitch. Two pitch invasions of parka-clad supporters. Other fans watching the action in trees and on pylons. Three momentous goals. And, of course, an outcome that’s forever etched in the memory. Quite frankly, this match is surely one of the greatest moments in ’70s football.
What happened is quite simple. The tie was, yes, tied at 0-0 until eight minutes from ordinary time when Newcastle’s superstar forward Malcolm ‘Super Mac’ MacDonald headed in a cross and put the heavy favourites one-up. Yet, just a minute later, Hereford somehow managed to come up with a sensational equaliser. The home team’s right-back had been playing the majority of the match with a broken leg – yes, honestly he had been (don’t forget this match did have it all) – and was replaced with Ricky George. Having been seemingly sparked into life by this, Hereford now conjured up a smart midfield move, as Ronnie Radford executed a cute one-two and, with the mud fatefully holding the ball up in front of him, then unleashed a 30-yard rasper into the top corner. And so one of the FA Cup’s most wonderful goals was scored. Into extra-time the tie went and now it was anybody’s – Hereford were just as stong and inventive as Newcastle, if not more so. Then, with one minute of the first period left, Ricky George pounced on a loose ball in the penalty area and coolly slotted it home. With their opponents not being able to find a way back, no-hopers Hereford had done it – they’d knocked out the mighty Newcastle.
Mind you, what’s often forgotten about this tie is what preceded it. It was a replay and, in actual fact, the first match up at St. James’s Park had seen an already near-remarkable effort on Hereford’s part. Amazingly, the latter club had taken the lead after just 17 seconds, only for the Magpies to equalise and then go 2 -1 up. Yet, a long-range strike from player-manager Colin Addison wonderfully set up the now far more well remembered reply.
And, let’s not forget too, that the iconic replay was also the making of an undeniable football legend. It was the very first time John Motson – then just 26 years old – had seen the match he’d commentated on played first on Saturday night’s Match Of The Day. The rest then, as they indeed say, is history…
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Bournemouth 2 – 0 Manchester United, 1984
In recalling this particular Cup upset, it’s only fair to bear in mind that the ’80s version of Manchester United was nothing like the über-football force it is today, yet it was still one of the best and most glamorous of clubs in English football. And, perhaps most importantly of all, in 1984 Man United were the Cup holders. Bournemouth, by contrast, were nowhere – a Third Division outfit managed by a young upstart, former West Ham midfielder Harry Redknapp (yes, indeed, that Harry Redknapp – if only the Red Devils had known then what they know about him now).
Mind you, the first half of this match was utterly forgettable; Bournemouth were useless and Man United were little better. But then, come the second half, and something rather wonderful happened, the home team took the tie by the scruff of the neck and gave their grand opponents hell. Their forwards were proving an absolute handful – Man U’s defence seemingly couldn’t handle them – and at the other end, the fantastically named Everald La Ronde was having the game of his life for Bournemouth, defending like a horde of Mexican bandits all on his own. Then, on the hour, a fumble by United keeper Gary Bailey allowed Milton Graham to pounce and he hooked in a goal – 1-0 to the Cherries. And it got better. Following an uncharacteristic mistake from ‘Captain Fantastic’ Bryan Robson, Bournemouth striker Ian Thompson added a second.
Unsportingly, there then followed a pitch invasion – not from the home fans, mind, from their visitors’, desperately hoping somehow to help out their team. It was to no avail though, the police restored order, Man United couldn’t manage a comeback and the South Coast outfit had done it. Alas, there’s been few days to rival that one’s glory and greatness for Bournemouth, but, of course, for Old ‘Arry much more was to come – and then some.
~~~
Sutton United 2 – 1 Coventry City, 1989
Tragically, 1989’s FA Cup will always be remembered for the Hillsborough disaster when Liverpool met Nottingham Forest in the April semi-final, yet back in January one of English football’s loveliest moments certainly gave that year’s competition more than a sheen of positivity. In fact, lowly South London’s Sutton from the Vauxhall Conference pulling off the upset-and-a-half of defeating Coventry was the last time a non-league side has managed to beat a First Division (or now Premier League) club.
Moreover, like Manchester United back in ’84, Coventry were far from a bad side. Featuring the legends that were striker Cyrille Regis and goalkeeper Steve Orizovic, at the time they were lying resplendent in sixth place in the league and had won the Cup itself just 18 months before – memorably pulling off an upset of their own in defeating Tottenham in the ’87 final. Yet, when they met Sutton, that magically was all for nought. In truth, the team from the Midlands were dire and their lowly opponents inspired – full of energy, enterprise and danger throughout. And, just before half-time, they broke the deadlock as captain and left-back Tony Rains headed in a flick-on from a corner. The Sky Blues, rather expectedly, hit back in the 52nd minute though, when Welsh international David Phillips completed a good move to make it 1-1. All square then.
Just seven minutes later, however, came the match’s defining moment. From another Sutton corner, this time a short, decoy one, the ball was delivered right into the heart of the penalty area and, the Coventry defence all at sea, midfielder Matthew Hanlan tapped in from yards out to put the home team deservedly back in front. Now followed a couple of efforts on goal from the First Division side, which saw a shot from Regis fly just inches wide following a glance off the keeper’s legs and Steve Sedgley hitting both post and bar from point-blank range instead of putting it between the sticks. Yet, aside from that, Sutton were well worth their win and at full-time a memorable pitch invasion saw hero Hanlan mix in with the crowd chanting and celebrating the terrific victory.
There was a sour note, though. In the next round Sutton went to Norwich City – and were stuffed 8-0. Ah well, at least they had one ‘Sky Blue day’, eh?
~~~
Wrexham 2 – 1 Arsenal, 1992
As if to remind us all that English football is open to Welsh clubs too, in 1992 Clwb Pêl-droed Wrecsam delivered one of the greatest – and for this list, at least, the last – of FA Cup upsets. The visitors to the Racecourse Ground that dark, drab and cold winter’s Saturday were Arsenal. Now, so long has the Franco-robo-professor that is Arsene Wenger presided over the latter club, it’s perhaps worth pointing out that this was a Gunners side from the George Graham era, boasting the likes of Tony Adams, Nigel Winterburn and Lee Dixon in defence, Paul Merson and Anders Limpar (whatever happened to him?) in midfield and Alan Smith and Ian Wright in attack. A good side then, nonetheless? Oh yes, they’d won the First Division the season before and were lying second in it at the time. And what of Wrexham? Ah, they’d finished bottom of the Football League the previous year and had only avoided dropping down to the Conference because the ground of its winner wasn’t big enough to go up.
However, in the marvellous tradition of the ‘magic of the Cup’ none of that mattered, of course. Unsurprisingly, it was the Gunners who struck first, with Alan Smith scoring, and at half-time looked very good for their lead. Wrexham were spirited though and didn’t fall further behind, getting better as the second half progressed, as they did. Then, eight minutes from time, the pivotal moment came. Arsenal defender David O’Leary brought down a Wrexham player just outside his penalty area (apparently, to this day O’Leary claims it wasn’t a foul) and up popped veteran midfielder Mickey Thomas to take the resultant free-kick. With a strike reminiscent of Ronnie Radford’s rocket all of 20 years before, Thomas slammed the ball into the top corner and, gloriously, Wrexham were level. And the Red Dragons, of course, were to breathe fire again, as just two minutes later Steve Watkin placed an almost slo-mo shot past David Seaman and amazingly put them 2-1 up.
There still was time for Arsenal to grab an equaliser, not much of it admittedly, but enough, yet on 90 minutes the high-flying Londoners were brought crashing down to earth – they’d been dumped out of the Cup by perhaps the lowliest opponents possible. A Cup shock-and-a-half all right. Arsenal, as they always seem to, recovered though; they would go on to win both the FA and League Cups two years later with much the same team. And, happily, although in the next round that season they narrowly went in a replay out to West Ham, over the years to come Wrexham would develop a reputation as giant-killer experts, knocking out Middlesbrough, Ipswich and – eventually – West Ham.
In his wisdom, defender for Wrexham that day Brian Carey recently opined that “it will never happen again, which is sad – I cannot see any of the elite teams losing to sides in the bottom division. Not any more.” Well, he may well be right. And yet, this is the FA Cup we’re talking about, a more magical, inclusive and extreme football competition than any other the world has ever known. If giant-killing of the nature of those achieved by Hereford, Bournemouth, Sutton and Wrexham is to happen again, it will, unquestionably, come in the FA Cup. It’s a tournament of dreams – and surely the vast majority of us dream every first (or second) weekend in January a wonderful upset will occur. Who knows maybe it’ll happen again tomorrow? Well, yes, we can dream, at least, can’t we…?
Playlist: Listen, my friends! ~ January
In the words of Moby Grape… listen, my friends! Yes, it’s the (hopefully) monthly playlist presented by George’s Journal just for you good people.
There may be one or two classics to be found here dotted in among different tunes you’re unfamiliar with or never heard before – or, of course, you may’ve heard them all before. All the same, why not sit back, listen away and welcome in 2011 – happy New Year, peeps…!
CLICK on the song titles to hear them
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Elvis Presley ~ Auld Langs Syne
Love ~ Alone Again Or
Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave ~ What Do The Simple Folk Do?
Billy Joe Royal ~ Hush
Zager And Evans ~ In The Year 2525
The Scaffold ~ Lily The Pink
The New Seekers ~ You Won’t Find Another Fool Like Me
Humble Pie ~ I Can’t Stand The Rain
10cc ~ I’m Not In Love
Bob Seger And The Silver Bullet Band ~ Hollywood Nights
Fleetwood Mac ~ Tusk
Mark Knopfler ~ Going Home
U2 ~ New Year’s Day
Retro Crimbo: Christmas TV crackers
Walking in the air… flying into a nation’s hearts: the genius animated version of Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman children’s book became the unforgettable TV event of Christmas 1982
Apparently, it was Christmas Day 1989, around 9pm, and for the next hour or so, famed writer Richard Curtis (scribe of the comedy Blackadder and one of the founders of the biennial Comic Relief) sat down with his family and watched on BBC1 a thoroughly depressing Agatha Christie drama full of rather visceral murder and drug-use. Not exactly perfect telly fare for Christmas evening, he thought.
In which case, being a television writer, he decided to do something about it. And two years later to the day (or just two days before, if memory serves me correctly), was broadcast the fruit of Curtis’s labours, the made-for-TV comedy film Bernard And The Genie. It starred a young Alan Cumming as an incredibly unlucky chap named Bernard and a terrific Lenny Henry as an über-exuberant genie that emerges from the lamp he owns – and I thought it was hilarious stuff. Now, amidst the stuff Curtis was to go on to create – Four Weddings And A Funeral (1994) etc – Bernard And The Genie has become somewhat forgotten, something of a curate’s egg. You might say that may be sad, given the high regard I obviously hold it in. Well, not really; I loved it and, for me, that’s enough. It’s one of the fondest festive TV memories of my youth and I’ll always cherish the time I first watched it.
And, my merry mates, that’s exactly what this latest post – and the last on this very blog before Crimbo – is all about. Those televisual delights of years gone by that were specially made for and transmitted at Christmastime just for us, the turkey-stuffed and TV-addicted public. Christmas telly specials often hold a treasured place in our hearts – the best of ’em, that is – and, at least in the UK, traditionally achieve enormous viewing figures owing to the captive audience (families all congregated together in the living room) ready to lap them up. Mind you, let’s not forget, there have been a smattering of real duffers over the years as well – and, don’t worry, for the sake of it we’ll be taking a look at one or two of them too.
Bessie and the Genie: recording The Queen’s first TV Christmas message (left) and Alan Cumming, Lenny Henry and Rowan Atkinson in the raucous Bernard And The Genie (right)
But let’s start at the start, shall we, with perhaps the very first, longest-running and truly most traditional of Christmas specials in the world of television… yes, I speak, of course, of The Queen’s Christmas Message. Like so many of TV’s greatest traditions, its origins lie in radio. The practice of the UK’s monarch delivering a speech directly into the homes of the nation began with the present Queen Elizabeth II’s grandfather, George V, having a speech broadcast by the BBC on Christmas Day 1932. Bypassing his first son Edward VIII (who wasn’t on the throne long enough to celebrate a Christmas as monarch), the convention moved on to his second son and next monarch, George VI, and then to the latter’s daughter, good old Liz.
In 1957, as the nation (and to a far lesser extent the rest of the Commonwealth, for whom the event is also produced) began to switch over to TV, the speech went out on the gogglebox for the first time; thereafter, that would be its primary means of broadcast. And, very quickly, it established itself as not just a central part of families’ televisual Christmas Day, but also their entire Christmas Day. The slot of 3pm on the BBC, then on both BBC1 and ITV (and repeated later in the evening on both BBC2 and Channel 4 when they came on the scene) became untouchable – it was The Queen’s and, like Til Death Us Do Part‘s Alf Garnett, grandparents and parents up and down the nation would stand up and salute as God Save The Queen struck up and the speech came on. One or two probably still do.
The only time since 1957 that Her Maj hasn’t appeared on our TV sets after we’ve polished off our turkey and stuffing was at Christmas 1969 when, following Prince Charles’s investiture and a major Royal documentary on the box, she apparently didn’t want to overdo her TV profile. Public dissatisfaction ensured that she was back as normal the next December 25 – and, as noted, every following one up until today.
As the decades have progressed though, Liz’s role as the big Christmas Day TV event has been challenged and – eventually – usurped. Perhaps most noticeably by the use of the slot immediately following hers (3.05pm or 3.10pm, say) for the terrestrial premiere or re-showing of a publicly adored movie. Going back, The Sound Of Music (1965) was a staple, if you will, Queen-follower and, no doubt, that other UK festive telly favourite The Great Escape (1960) was broadcast then as well – apparently, though, the latter was shown far fewer times actually on Christmas Day than collective memory would have it.
Mind you, perhaps my most fondly recalled immediate-post-Queen’s-speech-broadcast came in 1990 when E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) premiered on BBC1, not least because ITV showed the Marmite-like love-it-or-hate-it Moonraker (1979) at exactly the same time. What can I say, I love me some Bond even in the face of Spielberg’s greatest ever flick. Which of the two to watch and which to record was a decision not taken lightly by the 10-year-old me, I can tell you.
Long before then, though, the entertainment highlight on Christmas Day tended to be the recorded performance of a major touring circus or a made-for-TV pantomime featuring big variety stars of the day. Both were firm festive fixtures of the ’50s and ’60s. For instance, on December 25 1956 the Beeb showed a version of the panto Dick Whittington, written by the great Eric Sykes and starring the legendary Frankie Howerd, Spike Milligan, Hattie Jacques and even David Attenborough. Indeed, the tradition carried on for the next decade or so with household names Terry Scott, Jimmy Tarbuck and Reg Varney becoming regulars and, once the ’70s kicked in, a smattering of more youth-oriented talent such as Cilla Black and Roy Castle.
Seasonal Seventies: Bruce Forsyth and Andrea Redfern hosting 1973’s Christmas Generation Game (left); Mike Yarwood on 1978’s Christmas and New Year bumper issue Radio Times cover (middle) and Ronnie Barker and Richard Beckinsale full of the festive spirit in Porridge (right)
Aside from a couple of pantomime specials of the BBC’s hugely popular chaos-driven kids show Crackerjack in ’74 and ’75, the TV panto went into decline for the rest of the decade. Both the Beeb and ITV resurrected the thing in the mid-’80s though, the former putting on Aladdin in ’84 with the delectable Sarah Greene as principal boy and feauring Kenneth Williams; the latter doing Cinderella in ’86 with a post-Bucks Fizz but pre-Record Breakers Cheryl Baker. Plus, at the end of the ’90s and into the Millennium, ITV had a go at pantos again with – well, obviously – modern performers. Mind, given most of these were made up of the not exactly suited used-to-be-alternative-comedy-crowd and, frankly, just crap soap stars, maybe the least said about them the better.
Nostalgia almost demands that we look on the 1970s as a glorious television decade – after all, in many ways there’s no reason why we shouldn’t – and, no question, it’s this decade that set the template for the TV Christmas. And that’s probably because it was in the ’70s that the UK version of the ‘Christmas special’ – usually a festive edition of a popular sitcom or variety programme with an extended running-time – was born. It’s a formula that was to become so successful that, aside from the inevitable movie premieres and festive flicks, our screens are still filled with ’em every Crimbo to this day.
Of course, the specific Christmas special that gripped the nation during this decade was that delivered by the late, the great, Morecambe and Wise every December 25 – and, of course, I’ve covered that and them in my previous post to be found here. Eric and Ernie’s show played a large role in defining modern light-entertainment – the old saying that people up and down the country measured how good their Christmas had been owing to how good The Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show had been probably wasn’t very far from the truth.
More seasonal Seventies: Steptoe and Son deck the halls in their 1974 Christmas episode (left), Noddy Holder performs with Slade on the 1973 Top Of The Pops Christmas Show (middle) and Ronnie Barker and Ronnie Corbett as The Two Ronnies dress up in familiar festive garb (right)
At just one yuletide during their ’69- ’77 reign at the Beeb did the duo not serve up a festive special for the expectant public and their final show managed to achieve an astronomical audience of 28.5 million. However, amazingly (and flying in the face of popular belief), it actually wasn’t the most viewed programme that Christmas Day. That honour went to The Mike Yarwood Christmas Show, which achieved a fractionally higher figure, ensuring that, to this day, it holds the record for the most watched light-entertainment broadcast in UK television history.
Yarwood was a master impressionist, of course, his best and most popular characters being his recreations of 1970s Prime Ministers Harold Wilson and Ted Heath, one-time Chancellor of the Exchequer Dennis Healey (Yarwood actually came up with Healey’s catchphrase ‘silly billy’ before the latter used it himself) and future Phantom Of The Opera star Michael Crawford as the unforgettable Frank Spencer. Speaking of Frank Spencer, his sitcom Some Mother’s Do ‘Ave ‘Em – a slapstick archetype of the ’70s – enjoyed two or three high-profile seasonal episodes, but perhaps more memorable Christmas specials came from other sitcoms. And many of them, like Morecambe and Wise, are still shown on the box today.
Dad’s Army, which charted the antics of a hapless South Coast Home Guard platoon during World War Two, enjoyed a particularly good, and unusually non-formulaic, extended episode on Boxing Day 1976. Entitled My Brother And I, it saw arrogant and prudish central character Captain Mainwaring (the outstanding Arthur Lowe) suffer the indignity of a visit from his boozy and diametrically opposite younger brother (also played, to a tee, by Lowe).
The utterly brilliant, light yet substance-filled Porridge, set in HM Slade prison and centering around the experiences of the perpetually incarcerated Norman Stanley ‘Fletch’ Fletcher (Ronnie Barker), enjoyed two Christmas specials. The first No Way Out, broadcast Christmas Eve 1975, was an utter classic and involved an attempted tunnel escape (covered up by prisoners singing just four carols for hours each day) interfering with Fletch trying to spend a cosy Christmas in the infirmary. The second The Desperate Hours, broadcast Christmas Eve 1976, saw Fletch, his cellmate Godber, kindly prison guard Barraclough and the governor’s secretary held hostage by a rather useless prisoner.
And, last but not least, that most ’70s of sitcoms (and one of my all-time favourites) The Good Life enjoyed an utterly stonking Christmas special at the end of its fourth and final series in 1977 (see video above). The plot to Silly, But It’s Fun saw Surbiton-based self-sufficiency couple Tom and Barbara Good (Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal) invite their good-living neighbours and best friends Margot and Jerry Leadbetter (Penelope Keith and Paul Eddington) around theirs for a makeshift Crimbo when Margot discovers ‘Christmas has been cancelled’ owing to her entire festive order of food, drink and decorations not arriving. Highlights include both couples getting drunk and the wrong partners flirting with each other, as well as Tom’s crackers that require the pullers to say ‘bang’ – indeed, Margot complains that her newspaper-derived hat from said crackers comes from The Daily Mirror, so she swaps with Tom because his comes from The Daily Telegraph.
At this juncture, though, methinks we might take a breather from all this British jollity and have a punt across the pond. Now, no doubt about it, our American cousins love to celebrate Christmas almost as much as we do in the Old Country (let’s be fair, they do miss out on Boxing Day, though) and over the years US TV has thrown up its fair share of memorable festive broadcasts. Tantamount among these must be the animated classic A Charlie Brown Christmas. First broadcast in 1965, it was the original cartoon version of Charles M Schulz’s Snoopy-featuring Peanuts comic. Its main theme is to point out the importance of remembering the true meaning of Christmas in the face of the festival’s modern commercialisation (a message that can only have more relevance each year its been repeated, surely). And it’s been repeated, all right – the CBS network aired it until losing the rights to NBC in 2000, doing so often that its broadcasts by that network even out-strips showings of The Wizard Of Oz (1939).
Yank yuletide: Michael J Fox is scrooged in the 1983 Family Ties Christmas episode (left), Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer, the classic 1964 Rankin/ Bass animation (middle) and David Bowie and Bing Crosby wow the world as they duet on the latter’s 1977 seasonal special (right)
Rather more like the variety specials familiar to UK audiences, Bing Crosby’s Christmas television specials were a staple part of the American yuletide. His first was broadcast in 1961 and was actually filmed in the UK, while his first in colour came the following year and featured Broadway musical star Mary Martin. Surely his most well recalled, though, was his final effort from 1977, Bing Crosby’s Merrie Olde Christmas, which included the famed and rather surreal duet with David Bowie of Peace On Earth/ Little Drummer Boy – all hokey banter introducing it, of course. Bowie apparently appeared on the special because he knew his mum liked Crosby. Sadly, Bing died just a month after the show’s recording, but more happily, three years later, the song was released as a single and, of course, went on to become an all-time festive favourite.
Another, well, frankly bizarre and infamous American television event came at Christmas 1978 with the broadcast of, yes, The Star Wars Holiday Special. Its story involved Han Solo and Chewbacca having a difficult time reaching Chewie’s family for Light Day (a sort of Star Wars stand-in for Christmas). The thing’s probably most notable for the original introduction of the Boba Fett character in an animated middle section, for Carrie Fisher singing a song at the end to the tune of John Williams’ Star Wars theme and for Chewie’s son being called Lumpawarrump. Oh and, naturally, for the whole thing being rubbish.
Back in Blighty and as the ’70s gave way to the ’80s – in spite of the TV variety tradition being maintained admirably with specials from ageing but brilliant comic duo The Two Ronnies (check out the incomparably clever-funny Messers Barker and Corbett’s take on Alice in Wonderland in the video below) – Crimbo entertainment on the box at began to take on the tone of the times more. The most popular Christmas specials were no longer cosy variety or family sitcom fare, but instead often something that tended to turn up at the corners.
Take, for instance, the emergence of Only Fools And Horses as a Christmas ratings king. Although seen as very comfortable viewing today, relatively speaking, this sitcom about mis-matched, wheeler-dealer brothers on a Peckham council estate has always had a bit of edge and none more so than in its early to mid-’80s formative years. Yet, that idn’t stop it from establishing itself as a fixture in BBC1’s Christmas Day schedules as earlyas 1983, just two years after the series began. In total, a gobsmacking 15 Christmas specials of the sitcom were made between ’81 and 2003, including the much loved and truly excellent trilogy of episodes for Christmas 1996, during the first of which Del Boy and Rodney (David Jason and Nicholas Lyndhurst) dress up as Batman and Robin and turn into genuine caped crusaders against crime and at the end of which they finally become millionaires. Indeed, that third episode was watched by a staggering 24.3 million people when first aired.
If Only Fools And Horses introduced edge to the Christmas schedules, then EastEnders managed to inject into them a taste as bitter as a triple whisky on top of six turkey sandwiches. With modern TV upstart Michael Grade (famed for oddly saving ITV’s breakfast-time TV-am with Roland Rat) taking the reins at BBC1 in the mid-’80s, the channel’s Christmas Day evening in 1986 saw a double-bill of its eponymous, yet very young soap opra EastEnders masquerading as the highlight – its characters even adorned the cover of the Radio Times listings magazine that yuletide.
However, the naysayers were proved wrong (at least from a ratings perspective) when the accumulated average for the two episodes – at the end of which pub landlord Den Watts issued his wife Angie with divorce papers – turned out to be a truly staggering 30.15 million viewers. Since that success, it’s fair to say that Christmas television in Britain has never been quite the same – the comedy specials have endured for sure, but cramping their style have always more than enough soaps, as BBC1 and ITV1 have turned Christmas Day especially into a pitched ratings battle (even if, in truth, the former has beaten the latter hands down for the last 10 or so years).
Eighties festivities: Rowan Atkinson and Tony Robinson in 1988’s Blackadder’s Chistmas Carol (left); Del Boy, Rodders and Uncle Albert spread seasonal cheer in Only Fools And Horses (middle) and Blue Peter’s Janet Ellis, Simon Groome and Peter Duncan go panto in 1985
And yet, despite the changes (some certainly not for the better) that the ’80s brought to Christmas TV viewing, it also brought us one, golden, shining moment of festive televisual delight. It was first broadcast on Christmas Eve 1982 and it was… The Snowman. A stunningly beautiful and moving 30-minute pastel and crayon animation based on a storybook drawn by artist Raymond Briggs, it’s probably my favourite Christmas TV highlight, telling the tale, as it does, of a young boy who makes a snowman and, that night, discovers the latter magically comes to life, whisking him away on an unforgettable journey.
It was an immediate success with the public too, even though it was originally (and has only ever been) broadcast in the UK on the alternative terrestrial Channel 4 – and in that channel’s opening year too. The affecting song Walking In The Air (performed on film by choirboy Peter Auty, see video below; forever afterwards associated with child star turned media star Aled Jones who had a hit with it later in the decade) has now become a firm festive standard across the world. The Snowman possesses a magical but quiet (aside from the song it’s wordless) grandeur and grace; it’s something very special indeed. Quite frankly, as far as I’m concerned, the Americans can keep Charlie Brown and his Christmas, because we’ve got Raymond Briggs’ Snowman – and that’s more than all right with me.
So then, looking back down through the decades at the best – and some of the not so great – offerings that television has served up for us this time of year to digest along with our plum puddings, there’s much to put modern offerings to shame, it has to be said. And yet, for all that, if Christmas is about anything, then it’s surely about goodwill and forgiveness. So why don’t we forgive our modern telly programme makers for their lack of creative merry magic nowadays (after all, as we’ve seen, they’ve a tough act to follow) and, instead, with the season’s spirit of goodwill why don’t we revel – over a rum truffle or two – in the repeats from great TV Christmases past? I know I’ll be doing exactly that between now and New Year – will you…?
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Telly highlights this Christmas and New Year (UK only)
The Snowman ~ Christmas Eve, 1.20pm, Channel 4
Only Fools And Horses ~ Christmas Eve, 1.35pm, BBC1 ‘Time On Our Hands’ The 1996 Christmas trilogy conclusion
The Santa Files with John Sergeant ~ Christmas Eve, 5.55pm, ITV1 Documentary on Old Saint Nick
Greatest Christmas TV Moments ~ Christmas Eve, 9pm, Five Countdown of retro Crimbo telly
Elf (film) ~ Christmas Eve, 7.15pm, Film4 Seasonal family comedy starring Will Ferrell and Zooey Deschanel
The Muppet Christmas Carol (film) ~ Christmas Day, 8.50am Channel 4 Cracking puppet retelling of Dickens’ classic
Singin’ In The Rain (film) ~ Christmas Day, 11.15am, BBC2 The greatest ever movie musical?
Lawrence Of Arabia (film) ~ Christmas Day, 12.50pm, Fiver Peter O’Toole plays the eponymous TE Lawrence in David Lean’s (in Steven Spielberg’s words) ‘miracle of a movie’
The Man Who Would Be King (film) ~ Christmas Day, 12.55pm, BBC2 John Huston’s outstanding adventure starring Michael Caine, Sean Connery and Christopher Plummer
Casablanca (film) ~ Christmas Day, 2.40pm/ New Year’s Eve, 4.50pm, Film4 The all-time Hollywood classic
The Remains Of The Day (film) ~ Christmas Day, 4.25pm, Five Excellent adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s acclaimed novel, starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson
Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid (film) ~ Christmas Day, 4.55pm, Film4 Revisionist western comedy drama starring Paul Newman, Robert Redford and Katharine Ross
The One Ronnie ~ Christmas Day, 5.10pm, BBC1 Sketch-based special featuring Ronnie Corbett to celebrate his 80th birthday
Doctor Who ~ Christmas Day, 6pm, BBC1/ Boxing Day, 7pm, BBC3/ New Year Holiday Monday, 4.10pm, BBC1 The 2010 Christmas special
Stranger Than Fiction (film) ~ Christmas Day, 6.55pm, BBC1 Smart, offbeat comedy starring Will Ferrell, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman and Emma Thompson
Die Hard (film) ~ Christmas Day, 9pm, Film4 Hard-hitting and yet seasonal action adventure starring Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (film) ~ Boxing Day, 9.45am, BBC1 Excellent live-action/ animated adventure starring Bob Hoskins
High Society (film) ~ Boxing Day, 3pm, Five Sparkling musical starring Bing Crosby, Grace Kelly and Frank Sinatra
Top Of The Pops 1985 Christmas Special ~ Boxing Day, 6.40pm, Five Featuring, er, Shakin’ Stevens
100 Greatest Toys With Jonathan Ross ~ Boxing Day, 6.55pm, Channel 4 Children’s playthings countdown
Whatever Happened To The Likely Lads? ~ Boxing Day, 9pm, Five 1974 Christmas special of the classic sitcom
When Harvey Met Bob ~ Boxing Day, 9.15pm, BBC2 Drama depicting the staging of Live Aid
Live Aid ~ Boxing Day, 10.45pm, BBC2 Documentary on the legendary event
A Matter Of Life And Death (film) ~ Holiday Monday, 4.55pm/ Sunday January 2, 3pm, Film4 Powell and Pressburger’s wonderful fantasy wartime drama starring David Niven
Big (film) ~ Holiday Monday, 7pm/ New Year’s Day, 4.35pm, Film4 The classic ’80s body-swap comedy starring Tom Hanks
Porridge (film) ~ Holiday Monday, 7.15pm, Channel 4 Big-screen outing for Fletch and co.
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (film) ~ Holiday Tuesday, 2.40pm, ITV1 Steven Spielberg’s family film favourite
Time Bandits (film) ~ Holiday Tuesday, 3.05pm, Film4 Terry Gilliam’s evergreen fantasy adventure starring Sean Connery, John Cleese, Ian Holm and Ralph Richardson
The Good Life Night ~ Holiday Tuesday, Begins 8pm, BBC2 Including ‘Silly, But It’s Fun’ at 8.30pm
Doctor Zhivago (film) ~ Wednesday December 29, 2.25pm, Five David Lean’s snowy, romantic epic starring Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin and Alec Guinness
Mary Poppins (film) ~ Wednesday December 29, 4.05pm, BBC1 Disney’s unavoidable, irresistible classic starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke
Paul McCartney And Wings: Band On The Run ~ Wednesday December 29, 9pm, ITV4 Documentary on the making of the classic album
Butterflies ~ Thursday December 30, 9pm, Five 1979 Christmas special of the fine sitcom starring Wendy Craig and Geoffrey Palmer
Terry And June ~ Thursday December 30, 9.45pm, Five Festive edition of the sitcom starring Terry Scott and June Whitfield
100 Years Of The London Palladium ~ New Year’s Eve, 9pm, BBC2 Documentary marking the world-famous theatre’s centenary
Morecambe And Wise Night ~ New Year’s Day, Begins 7.55pm, BBC2 Including the 1976 Christmas special (7.55pm); Eric And Ernie (9pm) drama about the duo’s beginnings; Eric And Ernie: Behind The Scenes (10.30pm) documentary on their formative years
The Morecambe And Wise Christmas Show ~ Sunday January 2, 6.50pm, BBC2 The ratings-busting 1977 Christmas special
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And all that leaves me to do… is to wish
you all a very merry Christmas from…
… stay cool and stay retro, peeps – and see you in 2011!
Retro Crimbo: George’s top 10 festive flicks
Pulling no strings: Kermit and Gizmo are deservedly on the list – but where do they come?
If you’re anything like me, then in addition to eating, drinking and being merry, there’ll be little you enjoy more at Christmas than catching up on a movie or two – and maybe an entertaining, deliberately merry one at that. Yes, I’m talking about Christmas flicks, but not the likes of The Sound Of Music (1965) or The Wizard Of Oz (1939) that always seem to be faves this time of year; nopes, I mean the proper, fully fledged made-for-Crimbo Christmas flicks.
Now, I’ll be honest, I’ve a soft spot for Santa Claus: The Movie (1985) – hey, dubious-to-execrable it may be, but my first viewing of it remains a treasured telly memory of my youth. However, I’m well aware it’s more pudding than plum, so fear not, it doesn’t find itself on this list. What do, though, are my dectet of top yultide movies, chosen both for their quality and, well, because of how much I like ’em – do click on each of their titles for a little extra treat, won’t you?
So, let’s get down to it – yep, the countdown to which flick should follow The Queen’s Speech (er, according to me) kicks-off with…
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10. Joyeux Noël (Merry Christmas) (2005)
Truly a rare gem to start off with, for this recent slice of European cinema is a fine little flick. Albeit set on the Western Front during World War One, so despite its title not necessarily offering the most joyous Noël, it is nonetheless a piece of real quality. And in spite of its setting – but in many ways because of it – Joyeux Noël also provides a subtle, understated and thought-provoking affirmation of what Christmas is supposed to be all about: goodwill and togetherness. Why? Because it’s the story of the German, French and Scottish troops who crossed into No Man’s Land and greeted each other at Christmas 1914 – yes, that’s right, the ocassion of that famous football match. It’s a bit of a Crimbo weepie, but a real good ‘un.
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9. Elf (2003)
By rights, mention of a Will Ferrell movie shouldn’t belong on a retro blog – well apart from Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy (2004) perhaps, utterly ’70s-set as that is – but this wacky comedy, while being thoroughly modern, bursts with festive fun. All right, while it’s certainly uneven in places, some of the jokes do miss and James Caan is mis-cast as the doubting Thomas character (plus, yes, it probably wouldn’t even be on my list if it didn’t feature the lovely Zooey Deschanel), Ferrell is certainly funny, its intentions to entertain never let up, it has more edge than the average family flick and is unashamedly Christmassy. In fact, it’s worth seeing alone for the shower room-set duet of Baby, It’s Cold Outside. Trust me.
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8. Die Hard (1988)
On the surface, there’s very little that’s festive about Die Hard – a no-holds-barred actioner-cum-disaster movie, in which gruff charmer Bruce Willis battles against a terrorist group holding his wife hostage in an LA skycraper. It has far more in common with a typical Arnie flick and The Towering Inferno (1974) than with, say, A Christmas Story (1984). However, being set on Christmas Eve as well as being a classic white-knuckle-ride entertainer, it makes for fine alternative Crimbo cinema, resplendent with nice ironic asides to the yuletide setting, as it is. Indeed, somehow the use of Dean Martin’s version of Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow over the end credits seems perfect – and it never snows in LA.
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7. Trading Places (1983)
Eddie Murphy was, of course, the king of comedy in the ’80s, and he was made king in this unforgettable seasonal-set flick. Rude, raucous, a wee bit satirical and featuring many a twisted, evil-minded character, John Landis’s perfect probe into the vicious heart of the American brokers’ markets is blackly comic stuff. Yet, with its star turn from Murphy and finely balanced performances from Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis and especially the late, great Denholm Elliott, it’s also chock-full of charm and winning appeal. Plus, in advancing years though they were, Don Ameche and Ray Bellamy threaten to steal the entire film with their enjoyably wicked, love-to-hate-’em Scrooge-esque villains. One to throw on after the kids have left a mince pie for Santa and finally shuffled off to bed.
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6. The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
Yup, I can’t deny it, there were a few quality movie versions of A Christmas Carol I could have chosen as opposed to this one, so why did I go with it? Well, while, I’ll admit, I have a very big soft spot for The Muppets (and, frankly, who hasn’t?), it certainly isn’t just because it features Kermit & Co. Genuinely, The Muppet Christmas Carol is among the very best cinematic adaptations of Dickens’ work of genius. If you’re unsure about that – or are yet to see it – really, give this film a viewing this Crimbo; you may be surprised. The story’s faithfully all here (yes, all the dark bits too) and told with energy, verve and invention – even the songs swing. Plus, Michael Caine is spot on in the main, and only human, role; he could have coasted as Scrooge, instead he’s extra eager as Ebeneezer. And in the end, let’s face it, this is The Muppets and at Christmas – you can’t say fairer than that, surely?
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5. Gremlins (1984)
So into the top five then and it’s the third and final ‘anti-Crimbo’ flick on the list… yes, it’s Gremlins. Many have fond memories of this classic ’80s flick, and why not? With the unfeasibly cute Gizmo and the unfeasibly cute Phoebe Cates, it’s one that’s very hard not to look back on affectionately. Yet, for all that, while Gremlins is definitely high on hilarity and very much a spoof-horror, the shocks, terror and gruesome moments are far more ‘horror’ than, say, Carry On Screaming (1965). For instance, lead villain Stripe the Gremlin is a truly evil, little b*stard, certainly not one for the kiddies. Indeed, the movie’s also a fine subversion of the small-town American Christmas resplendent in cinema and on TV so much this time of year – a great antidote then to the faux goodwill of Noel Edmonds handing out presents to randoms or Cliff Richard’s latest assault on the Christmas charts. Plus, it’s got that scene with the Gremlins singing along to Heigh-Ho in the flickatorium. And Phoebe Cates, if I hadn’t mentioned that already.
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4. The Lion In Winter (1968)
All right, I lied – so pelt me with a snowball – because this one is the actual last ‘anti-Crimbo’ movie on the list. Wait a tick, this acclaimed-to-the-skies, dialogue-heavy, Katharine-Hepburn-Oscar-winning monster historical drama from the late ’60s is actually a festive film? Yep, that’s right, folks. Set at the yuletide of 1183, it tells the tale of legendary, ageing English monarch Henry II – an outrageously good Peter O’Toole – gathering his wife and three sons together to hammer out an agreement over who will succeed him. So out of that what do you get? Only the most emotionally charged, dark and angry Christmas imaginable – but also a very cerebral, articulate and witty one. Think your family’s dysfunctional and doesn’t get on at Crimbo? Trust me, you ain’t seen nothing until you’ve seen this. No question, The Lion In Winter is imperious intellectual entertainment (it looks, sounds and just is brilliant), so makes for a fine antitidote to The Santa Claus 3 (2006) or Ernest Saves Christmas (1988). A word of warning, though, after all that turkey and plum pudding, it may also give you indigestion – as Hepburn’s magnificent Queen Eleanor of Aquitaine says, ‘every family has its ups and downs’, but not like this.
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3. White Christmas (1954)
Ah yes, now be honest, can you think of a film that’s more Christmassy than White Christmas? Known as much for the second biggest selling single of all-time that features in its finale (that’d be White Christmas the song then), as it is as a film in its own right, this is a permanent fixture of the festive telly schedules the world over, and rightly so. The tale of two WWII army buddies – and a pair of singing sisters they meet along the way – helping their old general keep his Vermont hotel going by holding a stompin’ variety show one Crimbo, it’s an old-style Hollywood musical that, merely one viewing of which, turns your nostalgia-o-meter up to 11. Yes, they really don’t make ’em like this any more. From the era of Singin’ In The Rain (1952) and High Society (1955) – and featuring a star of the latter, namely Bing The Crosby – it happily sits alongside those two in the quality stakes too. Featuring some top tunes, in addition to the title number, and nice turns from the evergreen Danny Kaye, the sassy Rosemary Clooney (George’s aunt) and the game Vera-Ellen, it’s a picture as smooth, lavish and delicious as brandy sauce atop a Christmas pudding that easily warms the cockles of the heart long before the unforgettable finish.
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2. On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969)
So, if White Christmas could only make the Number 3 slot, what on earth is Number 2? Well, forgive me, but being the big Bond fan I am, I just couldn’t resist this indulgence (well, it is Crimbo after all). Yup, its the sixth in the official film series based on the novels of Ian Fleming’s British super spy – wait a minute, that one that nobody watches because it’s got the Australian feller George Lazenby in it? Yes, that’s the one. But, peeps, forget all you’ve heard, because this may just be the best Bond film of them all. Seriously. More a romantic story furnished with action and adventure than an action-adventure with romantic trimmings like so many of its Eon siblings, OHMSS has genuine depth, as well as some brilliant fisticuffs, car chases, ski chases, an outrageously good score, a pair of top tunes, beautiful cinematography, two (count ’em – two!) climaxes and some terrific acting support from Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas and Gabriele Ferzetti. And the Crimbo element? Much of the story takes place in the Alps at Christmas time (the villain’s lair is decorated with tinsel and an angel-topping tree, while 007 even says ‘Merry Christmas’ at one point). Oh, and it’s easily the swinging-est Bond film of the ’60s. If that’s not fantastic fare for a retro Crimbo, then I really don’t know what is.
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1. It’s A Wonderful Life (1946)
It had to be… yes, It’s A Wonderful Life is my wonderful Number 1, my top festive flick. Why? Well, like White Christmas, this movie is rightly synomynous with the yuletide and, like Joyeux Noël, it’s overarching aim is to underline the importance of togetherness and goodwill at this time of year – and, indeed, at all times. It’s also, for me, hands down the best movie on this list – in fact, in my eyes, it’s probably one the best movies ever made. Brilliantly plotted, beautifully played and expertly directed, Frank Capra’s masterpiece is a finely paced, thoroughly engaging and always entertaining human drama about little people in a little town, most of whom (unlike in, say, Trading Places) are entirely likeable, as it follows them over the years through times both good and bad – and even through one nightmarish fantasy episode (thanks to C. Dickens esq for the idea, but in turn Back To The Future Part II has to thank director Capra for it too). However, it’s perhaps to James Stewart as ‘Ordinary Joe’ George Bailey that this film owes so much of its winning charm and irresistible heart – he’s one of Hollywood’s all-time heroes. So, just like the character of George himself, It’s A Wonderful Life is the epitome of ‘good’ in the movies – it’s a damn good flick and it’s full of goodness. In short, it’s the simply perfect flick for Christmas.
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Crimbo’s 10 super shorts
Carol For Another Christmas (1964) ~ starring Peter Sellers and Britt Ekland
A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) ~ animation
Yogi’s First Christmas (1980) ~ animation
The Snowman (1982) ~ animation
The Christmas Toy (1986) ~ non-Muppets puppetry directed by Jim Henson
Blackadder’s Christmas Carol (1988) ~ starring Rowan Atkinson and Tony Robinson
Bernard And The Genie (1991) ~ starring Lenny Henry, Alan Cumming and Rowan Atkinson
Father Christmas (1991) ~ animation
The Bear (1998) ~ animation
Robbie The Reindeer In Hooves Of Fire (1999)~ stop-motion animation
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George’s top five New Year flicks
5. Forrest Gump (1994) ~ Forrest and Lt. Dan memorably celebrate New Year 1972 in New York City
4. The Poseidon Adventure (1972) ~ Gene Hackman’s preacher leads survivors to safety after the SS Poseidon capsizes on January 1
3. The Godfather: Part II (1974) ~ Michael Corleone reveals his brother Fredo’s fate with a kiss, while at a New Year’s Eve party in Havana as rebels storm the city
2. When Harry Met Sally (1989) ~ Reluctantly, Harry spends New Year’s Eve alone at home, while Sally goes out – but, regardless, the fate of their relationship is unexpectedly decided
1. The Apartment (1960) ~ The story of Jack Lemon and Shirley MacClaine’s Baxter and Fran culminates on December 31 – via a game of gin rummy
Retro Crimbo/ Legends: Morecambe and Wise ~ the sunshine bringers
Antler antics: Beloved for all-time they may be, but Eric and Ern were Britain’s antidote to the ill-wind that blew through the ’70s – and never more so than at the most wonderful time of year
Let’s be honest, more than 30 years after its prime, still nothing says Crimbo on the goggle box like The Morecambe And Wise Christmas Show. Yes, Eric and Ernie’s endearingly naff-looking, ’70s designed and costumed antics – sometimes slapstick, other times witty wordplay – are still embraced and enjoyed by millions up and down the British Isles this time of year. And all in repeat, of course.
But why do so many of us at the yuletide wallow in an hour of these two funnymen from years gone by in spite of – or maybe even instead of – the festive-themed TV specials of today? The answer’s simple. Because Morecambe and Wise were the best at what they did – and they’re still the best at what they did. I mean, they were Morecambe and Wise.
From dancing with Angela Rippon to amending Shirley Bassey’s footwear, by way of their notorious Singin’ In The Rain pastiche and their glorious breakfast sketch, they’re arguably the UK’s ultimate comedy double act. Many comic duos preceded them and many have succeeded them, but none have equalled their immense popularity, enduring appeal or ability to instantly entertain. Morecambe and Wise then are hugely deserved the latests subjects in the ‘Legends‘ corner here at George’s Journal – and not least at Christmas.
Making a song and dance about it: Morecambe and Wise on the up in an image from 1954 – the year of their ill-received first foray into television, with Running Wild at the BBC
John Eric Bartholomew hailed from Morecambe, Lancashire; Ernest Wiseman from Bramley, Leeds. They were born just five months apart; the former in 1926, the latter in 1925. Both were exposed to showbusiness early. As a boy, Bartholomew had dance lessons that he far from enjoyed, but were paid for by his mother Sadie working extra hours (she was determined to make a success of him). Meanwhile, as a child, Wiseman appeared with his raliway lampman father in a music hall act and, as a teenager, went on to appear in famous comic Arthur Askey’s radio show Band Waggon; he was billed at the time as ‘Britain’s Mickey Rooney’.
As a regular winner of talent contests, one day Bartholomew found himself auditioning for band leader and impresario Jack Hylton; at the audition, fatefully, he met Wiseman. The two met again at Hylton’s revue Youth Takes A Bow at the Nottingham Playhouse, where they hit it off and performed together, impressing Hylton and audiences.
However, despite mum Sadie encouraging her son to form a double act with Wiseman, events got in the way, namely military service. It was now the 1940s and World War Two was raging. Wiseman was packed off into the Merchant Navy and Bartholomew became a ‘Bevin Boy’; he didn’t leave Britain and didn’t have to fight – instead he was sent down the coal mines, although he only lasted 11 months owing to a newly discovered heart defect.
‘Definition of the week: TV set – the box in which they buried Morecambe and Wise’ ~ from a newspaper review of Eric and Ernie’s first TV show Running Wild, a cutting of which Eric apparently carried around with him for the rest of his life
Come the end of the war, however, the two reunited in London (by chance) and, following Sadie’s renewed insistence, teamed up. Adopting stage names for their act – Bartholomew dropped his first name and took that of his hometown for his surname to become ‘Eric Morecambe’; Wiseman shortened his surname to become ‘Ernie Wise’ – they quickly established themselves on stage and radio. By 1954, Morecambe and Wise had managed to secure a contract with the BBC to appear on television – a very new form of media only beginning to find its home in the homes of the British public – in their own show, Running Wild.
Unfortunately, this proved to be the duo’s first setback. It’s fair to say that neither audiences nor critics went wild for Running Wild and soon its stars were running away from the box and back to radio and, especially, the stage to lick their wounds and improve. As the ’50s progressed, they knuckled down and worked the variety circuit hard, re-established their reputation and honed their act. And, as the decade came to a close, appearances on the variety-based television shows Double Six and the era-defining Sunday Night At The Palladium raised their profiles – and popularity – even more.
Enter the 1960s and ITV came knocking. Launched in 1955 and the nation’s first advertising channel, ITV was immediately challenging the BBC in the entertainment stakes. The decision by Lord Lew Grade, legendary chief of ATV (one of ITV’s subsidiaries), to seek out Morecambe and Wise for their own prime-time show was a big deal then and showed they genuinely were back. By now, of course, they were better and weren’t about to mess up on TV again.
However, commencing in 1961, Two Of A Kind ran into trouble almost immediately. Ratings were far from terrific and the material the duo were getting from their writers – successful ’60s comedy scribes Sid Green and Dick Hills – was ill-suited; it forced the former pair to act as if they were the latter two’s mouth-pieces rather than smoothly appear as performers in their own right.
Understandably, Eric and Ern weren’t happy and confronted Green and Hills, only for an Equity strike to bring things to a head. The writing pair assumed the double act would have to abandon their show, but as the latter belonged to a separate union (the Variety Artists’ Federation), their show was able to continue airing and, perhaps chastened, the writers produced far better suited material – and even went on to appear in some of the sketches themselves as stooges.
As the decade rolled on, Two Of A Kind went from strength to strength and Morecambe and Wise eventually became what they’d always threatened they would – TV stars. Perhaps the most well recalled moment in the show’s history was when none other than The Beatles guested (see video above). In a nice sketch, Morecambe playfully insulted the guests (in keeping with his comic style), which owing to The Fabs’ – and especially John Lennon’s – quick wit, turned into a trading of light insults. Eric went on to refer to Ringo Starr as ‘Bongo’ (mis-naming guests was also a major trait of his and Wise’s routine) and eventually dressed up in ‘moptop’ pastiche attire to perform with the foursome, as well as Ernie, the old variety standard On Moonlight Bay. In black-and-white and not quite as rip-roaringly funny as their later moments with top guests, it nonetheless stands up on its own and makes for something of a forerunner of those such hugely audience-friendly skits that were to follow in later years.
Silver screen and script machine: Eric and Ern on a poster for 1966 film That Riviera Touch (left) and with their chief writer at the BBC in the 1970s, their third muskateer, Eddie Braben (right)
Two Of A Kind‘s sixth series, broadcast in 1967, was not only in colour, but also went out in the US and Canada as well as Britain. As such, it featured mostly North American guest stars. Given that, at the same time, Eric and Ern themselves guested on the legendary Ed Sullivan Show (like The Beatles famously had), it was a conscious effort by the duo to break America and showed just how far their ambition was now taking them. However, unlike The Beatles, they weren’t a hit in America – although viewing figures of their show in Canada weren’t bad. No doubt disappointed, their reaction was to up their pay demands, something that Lew Grade and ATV couldn’t meet, which resulted in another ambitious move – in 1968, Morecambe and Wise returned to the BBC.
Eric and Ern will be forever associated with the decade that followed, of course, but they were certainly no slouches in the ’60s either – indeed, it’s perhaps because of that fact that they really did become as popular as they did. Indeed, throughout the ’50s and ’60s their media work was just one – if the largest – form of income for them, as they worked the variety circuit for as long as they could. Moreover, it’s not well recalled nowadays, but they even headlined a trio of crime-cum-spy capers The Intelligence Men (1965), That Riviera Touch (1966) and The Magnificent Two (1967). Admittedly, none of these flicks exactly lit the world alight. Things came to head, though, in November 1968 when Morecambe suffered a heart attack.
The result of his lifestyle – he smoked 60 cigarettes a day and enjoyed more than the odd tipple – as well as overwork, the heart attack was a wake-up call and made it clear that he and Wise would have to cut back on their live shows up and down the country. Instead, for the most part, their focus would now be their new TV show with the Beeb. It also meant that, in place of ciggies, Eric adopted a pipe – which was to become as much a visual motif as his glasses, askew or not.
‘Tell him that those six or seven people made all the difference‘ ~ Eric’s reaction on hearing that Des O’Connor had asked his audience to pray for Morecambe the night of his first heart attack
Unquestionably, the ’70s were Morecambe and Wise’s glory years. Their (second) move to the BBC was an unmitigated success, even Eric’s heart attack coming, as it did, after just their first series with the Beeb, didn’t knock them back. The result of twenty odd years of development on stage, radio and screen, The Morecambe and Wise Show was the duo in their prime and at the peak of their powers. Ostensibly, it was a sketch show mixed with a sitcom; however, sections in which the duo simply appeared in front of a stage curtain (emblazoned with a capital ‘M’ atop a capital ‘W’) were common to practically every episode.
Other regular inclusions were historical play pastiches that served as climaxes to shows (they would legendarily become known as Ern’s ‘plays what I wrote’); a rather large woman – Janet Webb – inexplicably coming on at the very end of proceedings thanking the audience for coming to see her show; guest Peter Cushing appearing and complaining he hadn’t been paid (this went on for over a decade); singer Frankie Vaughn getting mocked, only to be replaced as an insult target, when it actually ticked him off, by Morecambe’s more than eager and good friend Des O’Connor (‘If you want me to be a goner, get me an LP by Des O’Connor’); and, last but very definitely not least, sketches in which Eric and Ernie lived together, sharing a lounge and even – like a genuinely married, yet entirely heterosexual couple – a bed.
The latter, classic facet of their shows was, at first, an unsure one – at least for Morecambe. After his heart attack, writers Green and Hills (who’d followed the two stars to the Beeb, but probably still enjoyed a less than brilliant relationship with them) decided Eric would likely never be the performer he had been and moved on. In came Eddie Braben, who had written for Ken Dodd, and one of his first suggestions was the bedroom set-up for domestic sketches.
Strange bedfellows: Eric and Ern sharing a bed – eyebrows weren’t raised, many a laugh was
Because the idea came to Braben thanks to comedy giants Laurel and Hardy memorably sharing a bed in several scenes – if it was good enough for them, it must be good enough for Morecambe and Wise – and because it went down a storm with viewers, Eric gave it the thumbs-up and it went on to become one of the double act’s most fondly recalled and best sketch set-ups. A personal favourite of mine is when both of them are reading in bed: Ern exclaims ‘I can’t believe it!’, owing to him reading from his broadsheet about drops in the stock market; Eric responds, ‘I know, Desperate Dan’s eaten four cowpies and he’s still hungry’, commenting on the story from The Dandy comic he’s reading.
Indeed, through the ’70s Braben’s hand in the development of the act – and its ever increasing popularity – extended even into its dynamic. Traditionally, Morecambe and Wise had been a fairly standard act: buffoonish clown (Eric) and straight man (Ern). But thanks to Braben’s writing, this subtly morphed into something different – in essence, they both became clowns. Granted, Wise would take on the straight man role if a joke demanded it, but often both would appear to be buffoons, especially in the presence of guests and during the pathetic but highly amusing plays supposedly written by Wise. Mind, Morecambe remained the stupider, yet wittier, harder-edged and essentially funnier of the two. Long after the end of the act, in fact, Ern was adamant he wasn’t the straight man, preferring to describe himself as ‘the song-and-dance-man’.
Which is perhaps a moot point. For, nowadays, it’s easy to look on the duo as a comedy act, plain and simple. And yet, very much born out of the high variety era, they had always been more than that, having necessarily weaved song and dance into their performances. And even when they were TV stars and their shows called for less of the singing and stomping, it didn’t disappear from their repertoire. The best example, of course, is their signature number Bring Me Sunshine, which would often close their shows, as well as the dance that would accompany it – skipping away from the camera and to the back of the stage, while raising alternate hands behind their heads. It was a dance, to paraphrase the late, great Sir Bobby Robson, as daft as a brush – frankly, and delightedly, like much of their act.
The choreographer behind this notorious dance was John Ammonds, a light entertainment producer. However, in the ’70s his place with the duo was soon replaced by another, whom – like Eddie Braben – became utterly identified with their success. Ernest Maxin was a TV producer as well, and succeeded Ammonds in 1974; he would remain with Eric and Ern for as long as they were with the Beeb. Among his crucial contributions were the choreography of the excellent Singin’ In The Rain pastiche (in which Wise repeated Gene Kelly’s exact steps from the original scene, while Morecambe got covered in water every few seconds) and of the golden, hilarious ‘breakfast sketch’ (performed expertly to the tune of David Rose’s instrumental The Stripper – see bottom video). Maxin also won a BAFTA for producing the pair’s 1977 Christmas show.
Ah, the Christmas show… The Morecambe And Wise Christmas Show. It was, without doubt, the crowning glory of Eric and Ern’s career. Hugely popular events – whether serious or merely of the zeitgeist – tend to become surrounded by an air of myth and, famously, it’s been said many times that the British people of the ’70s tended to measure how good their Christmas had been based on how good Eric and Ern’s seasonal offering had been. Yet, there’s always a slice of truth behind a myth, and when it came to the importance of The Morecambe And Wise Christmas Show to the UK public, methinks it’s something to take seriously.
This was a nation that during an oftentimes dark, depressing and always confusing decade, full of the divisions exacerbated by economic problems, strikes, immigration, social liberation and, yes, punk, inevitably came together as families – both young and old – at Christmas and was a genuine captive audience for the universally appealing antics of Eric and Ernie. The Morecambe And Wise Christmas Show then did matter and, more often than not, was brilliant. And that’s why to this day, to some extent, it still defines the yuletide on these shores.
Shoe loss lore and Rippon up the dancefloor: Shirley Bassey about to have a footwear malfunction (left) and newscaster Angela Rippon shows off her legs – shock horror! (right)
Between 1969 and 1977, there were eight Christmas shows – 1974 instead saw Parkinson Takes A Christmas Look At Morecambe And Wise, in which the eponymous chat show host interviewed the now slowing-down pair and showed clips of previous Christmas shows. Arguably the duo’s greatest moments derive from their festive specials (some years they didn’t even make series to focus on the end-of-the-year extravaganzas), among them the Singin’ In The Rain sketch; attractive TV newcaster Angela Rippon showing off her pins and high-kicking here, there and everywhere as she danced with the duo (newcasters’ legs were never seen on the box until this point, so it was a revelatory moment, much to the public’s amusement); and, of course, many of ‘Ern’s plays’ featuring mostly serious and celebrated actresses such as Glenda Jackson, Vanessa Redgrave and Diana Rigg.
Perhaps the classic Christmas show was the one served up in 1971, which featured Shirley Bassey’s performance of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes while the pair dressed as flat-capped dogsbodies try to salvage her footwear, as well as the world-famous André Previn conducting Eric’s ‘version’ of Greig’s Piano Concerto ‘by Greig’. The latter, to my mind, is probably the greatest Morecambe and Wise sketch of all. The lines (‘I’m playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right order’), the timing, the development – or dissolution into inevitable chaos – and terrific support from Previn (or ‘Andrew Preview’) are all oustanding. And, yes, it’s very, very funny. For me, it’s the epitome of telly entertainment.
After achieving an extraordinary TV audience of 28.5 million for their ’77 Christmas show (the biggest and boldest show they ever staged), Eric and Ernie transferred from the Beeb back to ITV – or, to be specific, to Thames Television, ITV’s week-based South East subsidiary. By making the switch they were paid a higher salary, but the real appeal for them was the opportunity to star in another film, which would be made through Thames’s Euston Films division – it turned out to be the poorly received murder-mystery spoof Night Train To Murder, released in 1983.
‘All men are fools. And what makes them so is having beauty like what I have got’ ~ Glenda Jackson as Cleopatra in one of Ernie’s unforgettable, (un)sophisticated plays
Although successful with the public still, the duo’s second spell with ITV never hit the dizzying heights of their BBC years. This was due in part perhaps because it featured a lot of recycled material, in spite of Eddie Braben joining them from 1980 onwards. And there was another reason too – Morecambe’s health.
After one series and one Christmas special, in January 1979 Eric suffered another heart attack and underwent heart bypass surgery. From this point on he would never be the performer, full of nervous energyand terrific timing, he once was. As the early ’80s progressed, more series and more Christmas specials were made, but Morecambe and Wise’s star was fading – from ’81 onwards, the seasonal shows were no longer broadcast on Christmas Day itself, a sure sign they weren’t the draw of yesteryear.
Indeed, in private, Eric was less keen on performing and was really concentrating on writing; he published three novels, Mr Lonely (1981), The Reluctant Vampire (1982) and The Vampire’s Revenge (1983). Following his and Ern’s final show – ’83’s Christmas special – he told his wife Joan that any more Morecambe and Wise would give him another heart attack and, inevitably, kill him. In the event, he hadn’t long to go.
Larger than life: the suitably more-than-life-size statue of Eric in his home town of Morecambe
Eric Morecambe died on May 28 1984, aged 58, the result of a third and final heart attack having just come off stage in Tewkesbury, following a sixth curtain-call at a friend’s show. The media went into mourning and rightly so. For his part, Ernie carried on in showbusiness, appearing regularly as a panellist on What’s My Line? and as a ‘dictionary corner’ guest on Countdown; he even went on to hold the distinction of making the very first mobile phone call, on January 1 1985. Eventually, he retired on his 70th birthday and, following heart bypass surgery too, died on March 21 1999, aged 73. Although, in terms of talent never spoken of in the same breath as is Morecambe, his contribution to the double act simply cannot be underestimated. Like Eric, he too was terrific. Plus, he was their manager.
Mind you, the thing with Morecambe and Wise is that it feels like they haven’t actually gone, such is their aforementioned enduring popularity and presence – especially at this time of year. And that’s a blessed thing indeed. With their sense of Northern fun, childish eagerness, on-screen shtick as failing performers and Goon-esque irreverence, there’s never been a double act quite like them. And, quite simply, there’s never been one as good. There probably never will be. ‘What do you think of it so far?/ Rubbish!’ Quite the opposite, in fact, Eric. Long may the repeats continue, long may the plaudits ring in our ears and long may the memories linger. Because Morecambe and Wise are such utter legends, there’s no danger they won’t – and I say that with an utterly straight face… well, all right, maybe also with my glasses askew.
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Ten of the best
A dectet of classic Eric catchphrases and gags:
- ‘(He’s got) short, fat, hairy legs’ ~ said of Ern
- Bullying Ern or a guest by grabbing their lapels and pulling them to his face (memorably done to André Previn)
- ‘This boy’s a fool’ ~ after totally confounding Ern or a guest
- Looking away and grimacing if he considers Ern or a guest has suddenly become challenging
- ‘Be honest’ ~ to the audience after a particularly good joke/ routine
- Losing focus and mock-realising a camera’s on him and grinning at it like a child, only to be joined by Ern
- ‘Keep going, you fool!’ ~ in reference to his heart, following his first heart attack
- Unnecessarily performing the flicking-the-paper-bag-trick, as if an invisible coin has fallen into it
- ‘You can’t see the join’ ~ said of Ern’s (supposed) wig
- Fighting his way out from behind the curtain and finally appearing ruffled and, often, with his glasses askew
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The man who made ’em all laugh: Blake Edwards (1922-2010)
The odd couple: director Blake Edwards and his wife – musical star and, in his words, ‘beautiful English broad’ – Julie Andrews on the set of Victor Victoria; helmed by him, starring her
‘I couldn’t resist those moments when we jelled. And if you ask me who contributed most to those things, it couldn’t have happened unless both of us were involved, even though it wasn’t always happy.’ ~ Blake Edwards on directing Peter Sellers in The Pink Panther films
Stormy marriage: Peter Sellers and Blake Edwards may not have always got on, but their five Pink Panther outings together made box-office tills ring and audiences howl the world over
‘Make ’em redecorate your office. That’s primary, to let them know where you stand. Then, when you’re shooting interior sequences, use your own interior decorator and set dresser. That way everything on the set will fit your house when you’re finished.’ ~ Blake Edwards
Huckleberry friends: Blake Edwards (middle with back to camera) directs Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard on the Manhattan set of classic romantic comedy Breakfast At Tiffany’s
‘I wish I could say that it was that different, but it wasn’t. When we were working, she was a leading lady that I would go home and sleep with. We didn’t have any arguments professionally that I can recall. It was always very pleasant.’ ~ Blake Edwards on directing his wife, Julie Andrews
That’s the way to do it: Blake Edwards demonstrates how a custard pie should be thrown – that old slapstick standard – at star Natalie Wood on the set of car caper The Great Race
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Blake Edwards
(Real name: William Blake Crump)
Born: July 26 1922, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Died: December 5 2010, Santa Monica, California
Selective filmography
All as director; variously as screenwriter
Breakfast At Tiffany’s (1961); Days Of Wine And Roses (1962); The Pink Panther (1964); A Shot In The Dark (1964); The Great Race (1965); The Return Of The Pink Panther (1975); The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976); Revenge Of The Pink Panther (1978); 10 (1979); S.O.B. (1981); Victor Victoria (1982); Micki + Maude (1984); Blind Date (1987)
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Retro Crimbo: Bob’s fantastic festive folly ~ Band Aid 1984
Merry minstrels: the great and the good (and, yes, the bad) of British music together as Band Aid, determined to apply something of a plaster to Ethiopia’s starving for Christmas 1984
Christmas and giving. The two go together like the holly and the ivy; like plum pudding and custard; like mistletoe and naughty smooches at the office Crimbo party. But, traditionally, Christmas and giving to charity don’t go together so much – for right or wrong, the age-old practice this time of year is to give to those we know, rather than to truly needy souls we don’t. However, in 1984 all that changed.
In this, the second offering of the Retro Crimbo season here at George’s Journal, we’re taking a look at the event that kick-started modern-day music fundraising as we know it. Yes, following on from my article in the summer that focused on 1985’s Live Aid (you may remember it and, maybe, you may remember my piece on it), this one – something of a prequel, if you like – takes a look at the one, the only, Band Aid.
Of course, how Band Aid came about is a story that’s gone down in the annals of rock and pop legend. One night, October 25 1984 to be precise, lead singer of post-punk band The Boomtown Rats, Irishman Bob Geldof, was watching the BBC’s Nine O’ Clock News and witnessed a report. It was delivered by journalist Michael Buerk from Ethiopia and was about the famine that was devastating its people.
Trip of the unbountiful: BBC reporter Michael Buerk and cameraman Mohamed Amin in Korem
Stunned and profoundly moved, like the millions of Britons who had also seen the report, Geldof decided he would try and do something about it. As someone with something of a public profile and a chap who had many musical mates, he came up with the notion of producing a celebrity record for Christmas that would raise the issue’s profile and, hopefully, raise some dosh to help out the famine-stricken Ethiopians.
Now, while the origins of Band Aid are well recalled, the origins of the famine itself are not. An east African country, Ethiopia saw record low rainfall in 1984 and then into 1985, which affected the people of a large proportion of its northern provinces (including the area that is modern-day Eritrea). The impact of the drought was exacerbated by the lack of government preparation, partly but not entirely due to a lack of funds owing to their allocation instead to fighting insurgencies – successionist wars were taking place in Eritrea and Tigre. Indeed, at this time Ethiopia possessed the largest standing army in sub-Saharan Africa, thanks to the government spending 46 percent of GDP – yes, 46 percent – on the military, with just 5 percent or perhaps less on health.
By autumn ’84, the famine was so bad that Michael Buerk journeyed to Ethiopia for the second time that year (he’d previously been there in June), specifically visiting the town of Korem, where 40,000 refugees had converged in the hope of receiving food and medical aid. Buerk’s October 25 report made for a seven-minute blitzkrieg on the eyes, ears and emotions, as the sight of starving and dying, skeletal adults and children was accompanied by his assertion that this was a ‘biblical famine in the 20th Century’ and that aid workers on the ground (who, while totally committed, were completely overwhelmed) described the scene to him as ‘the closest thing to hell on Earth’. It’s estimated that 8 million Ehiopians became famine victims and up to 1 million died (yet that figure, to this day, is hotly disputed).
It’s perhaps also important to note that immediately following the report’s broadcast, UK aid organisations piped up on how little the rest of the world was doing to help the Ethiopian people, appealing for more to be done. However, their speaking out was sadly not going to bring about the change it should have done; ambitiously, in this regard, Geldof then was looking to do what they couldn’t.
A somewhat scruffy and unimpressive figure, Geldof had in fact been public school-educated in his native Ireland and had worked as a music journalist in Vancouver, Canada, prior to forming The Boomtown Rats. He was also opinionated and had more than a brusque manner about him when he wanted (an outburst on Irish TV some years before criticising politicians and the Catholic Church for Ireland’s problems had ensured his band could no longer actually play in that country). In which case, it’s no surprise that in plunging himself headfirst into securing the services of British pop’s top performers – all for free – for his Band Aid project, he was sure he’d succeed. He simply wouldn’t take no for an answer and, given his tactics in running the following year’s Live Aid are well known, he no doubt simply bullied many of his contemporaries into participating.
And participate they did. Exactly one month to the day after Buerk’s news report – and exactly one month to Christmas – on the morning of Sunday November 25, Geldof rolled up at dawn at SARM Studios in London’s Notting Hill. Alongside him was frontman of the successful synth-tastic band Ultravox, Midge Ure, who had written a melody to the lyrics Geldof had supplied him for Band Aid’s song. In actual fact, Ure had already recorded some basic tracks (the song’s keyboard melody, essentially) at his home studio the previous day.
Fashion faux-pas: but Bob Geldof doesn’t miss a publicity trick as he and the similarly sartorially challenged Midge Ure arrive at the SARM Studios to create the Band Aid single
This was to prove a smart move, for Geldof and Ure’s recording window was very narrow – they had been allotted no more than 24 hours by the studio to get the thing recorded and mixed. It was going to be a tough schedule, but, hey, the studio space was being given up for free (hence why it was taking place on a Sunday rather than during the week). First and foremost, though, Bob and Midge’s biggest concern was whether any of the performers who’d pledged to take part would actually turn up. Sure, they’d all agreed they would, but the proof would be in the pudding of them arriving on the day. And there was the very real possibility that Geldof would be left with egg on his face, as he’d announced live on BBC’s Radio 1 that the event was to take place, so the world’s media was ready and waiting at the studio for everyone to arrive, as well as video director Nigel Dick who was to capture footage from the day and create from it the single’s video.
Geldof needn’t have worried, though. One by one, the UK’s biggest chart acts rolled up – Duran Duran, Sting, George Michael, Spandau Ballet, Paul Weller (formerly of The Jam and now frontman of The Style Council), Bono and Adam Clayton of U2 and, last but not certainly not least, Sara Dallin, Siobhan Fahey and Keren Woodward, otherwise known as Bananarama (usually styled, the female trio rather wonderfully emerged dressed-down out of a runaround owned by one of their mums). Even Kool & The Gang’s James ‘J.T.’ Taylor and Shalamar’s Jody Watley (the only Americans on the record) were in attendance, as well as Status Quo’s Francis Rossi and Rick Parfitt and New Romantic oddity Marilyn, who hadn’t even been invited.
At 11am the work started. The coterie of pop and rock contemporaries all gathered in the studio, with Ure in the producer’s booth calling the shots. First of all, to get everybody into it, Geldof and Ure gathered them all together in a big group and had them sing the song’s repeated ‘Feed the world, let them know it’s Christmas’ crescendo. This also ensured they could capture the all-important group photo (above top) as early as possible.
Dodgy hair and hair of the dog: Paul Young and members of Banarama, Heaven 17 and Duran Duran warble their lines (left), while Boy George, wobbling, makes it through his (right)
It had been Geldof’s desire to get the biggest chart acts of the day to lend the thing the biggest possible exposure (hence why, even though this was a charity initiative to aid black Africans, there were few black performers involved). So, given the combined record-selling stature standing together in the room (there was perhaps even more ego than hairspray in attendance), now unsurprisingly followed a bit of a stand-off over who would sing first – and potentially cock it up with everyone watching. In the end, it was Spandau Ballet crooner Tony Hadley who took the plunge and gave it a bash – singing the whole thing through all in one go (although, in actuality, both Sting and Duran Duran’s frontman Simon Le Bon had already recorded lyrics at Ure’s house the day before, so the latter could have a lyrical guide). The ice now broken, all the other artists who’d been assigned to sing went right the way through the tune as well – allowing Ure to decide which parts to allocate to which singers. Even Le Bon and Sting re-recorded their lyrics; the former to be part of the moment, the latter to provide necessary harmonies.
Solo artist Paul Young was chosen to deliver the song’s two opening lines, ‘It’s Christmas time, there’s no need to be afraid/ At Christmas time we let in light and we banish shade’. These lines and the others he delivered (he ended up singing the most of any artist) had been intended for David Bowie, who hadn’t been able to make it. Young was aware of this, but happily filled the rock/ pop god’s shoes. Bowie did make it on to the single, however, having recorded a spoken message and posting it to Geldof in time for recording day, so it could be utilised on the single’s B-side (a repeat of the song on the A-side, but with several such messages playing over the top). Indeed, Paul McCartney had done the same thing.
The song’s next two lines had been intended for Boy George, colourful frontman of white reggae band Culture Club and favourite of grandmas up and down the country. However, there was a bit a problem when it came to this – he wasn’t there. Geldof had been worried he might not turn up, as Culture Club were slap-bang in the middle of a US tour at the time, so, in the previous few days, had phoned George several times to secure his services. George had assured him he would be there, on time at 9am on the Sunday morning just like everyone else, especially when Geldof had last phoned him late the previous night.
‘Once Status Quo produced their bag of cocaine and the booze started to flow – I brought six bottles of wine from my flat, which disappeared in a minute – it became a party’ ~ the Band Aid recording, according to journalist Robin Eggar
The absence of the singer – who was a big draw for the project given his perfectly suited soulful voice and high recognition factor – made Bob angry; not a very wise move on George’s part. So Geldof immediately phoned George’s hotel in New York, waking him in the middle of the night over there and discovering he’d been partying into the wee hours. This merely angered Geldof more and, effing and blinding (what else?), he told the singer he’d book him on the next flight to London and he’d better make sure he was on it. Indeed, it was just as well Bob called back half-an-hour later to chivvy George along – the latter had fallen back asleep. Eventually, however George did make the flight, which was on Concorde, and made it to the studio for 6pm, by which time most people had drifted off home. He recorded his lines, getting through the ordeal with cheap booze that someone had had to purloin from a local off-licence owing to his monster hangover.
Other notable contributions on the single came from U2’s Bono (a minor name at the time, as his band was yet to make the really big time), who sang the ‘Well, tonight thank God it’s them instead of you’ line, made truly memorable by his characteristic delivery. And, actually, so proud of it was Bono to become that twenty years later he fought to have his version of the line included on the Band Aid 20 single in place of The Darkness’s Justin Hawkins’ attempt. Elsewhere, Phil Collins was brought in for drumming duties. Wearing an oh-so natty paisley patterned sleeveless pullover, Collins did his bit and his drumming provided the song’s percussion, in addition to an African-style rhythm that kicked-off the song – sampled from Tears For Fears’ debut album The Hurting, in fact.
When the music stopped: Geldof challenges Thatcher (l); Ure begins the delivery challenge (r)
The recording finally finished, Ure and Geldof set to mixing and then polishing the production. They completed the single, entitled Do They Know It’s Christmas?, after an epic – and yet impressively short – 21 hours, leaving SARM Studios at 8am the following morning. Now Monday, the single was immediately sent off to the pressing plant which had promised, free of charge, to have the thing pressed the following day. The video was completed in short time too, just 48 hours after the song, by Nigel Dick and a small team, ready to be sent off to the BBC.
Indeed, BBC 1 controller Michael Grade watched the video and immediately ordered for all programmes on the station that day to run five minutes early so it could be accommodated on that evening’s edition of the legendary Top Of The Pops – breaking with tradition in the process too, for Do They Know It’s Christmas? became the first song ever to be featured on the chart show prior to release. David Bowie, having flown in specially, recorded a message for the start of the transmission.
However, the record-buying public had already been stirred into something of a frenzy for the song thanks to Geldof appearing on DJ Mike Read’s Radio 1 Breakfast Show on the Monday morning to promote it, in addition to it making the pages of every tabloid paper that day too, of course. Radio 1 played its part and more, as its DJ that Monday played the tune every hour, ensuring it received maximum exposure (at that time, yet to be released singles usually recieved seven or eight plays a day on the station).
The following week, Do They Know It’s Christmas? was finally released – on December 3, to be exact. In this week alone, it moved more units than all the other the songs on the chart combined – a total of around one million – ensuring it became the UK’s fastest ever selling single. Inevitably, it went straight in at #1 and stayed there for five weeks, becoming that year’s coveted Christmas #1 in the process. And it was coveted too, considering the hugely popular pop duo/ foursome Wham! (featuring George Michael, no less) released their now legendary seasonal ditty Last Christmas at the same time. In any other year, Last Christmas would surely have made the top spot that Crimbo, but not this year; Band Aid’s effort ensured it only got as high as #2. Yet, that did mean that Michael featured on both the top two festive hits that year. Charitably, Wham! waivered all profits they made from their single and donated them to Band Aid’s cause.
Cover story: the original Band Aid artwork by Peter Blake (left); the 1989 sequel (middle) and 2004’s effort – apparently a replacement for a ‘too dark’ creation from Damien Hirst
And, by the New Year, it was obvious that it had become a cause too. Overall, three million copies of Do They Know It’s Christmas? were sold, as well as another million in the US where its video was constantly played on MTV; when re-released in the UK the following Christmas, the single even reached #3. Apparently, it raised a grand total of £8 million – truly staggering for just one song. The question now for Bob and Midge was just what exactly to do with the money. They’d created an instant monster and so did the only thing they could – create an actual charity and run it, The Band Aid Charitable Trust. A month or two later, they travelled out to Ethiopia and helped dish out the food, water and other aid the money had been spent on. And, prior to this, Geldof publicly and very memorably had faced off with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher over the Government waiving VAT on the single so that 100 percent of its profits went to charity – he had promised the public it would when he had originally publicised the song on Radio 1 the morning after its recording. With the mood of the nation against it, the Government reluctantly caved and Bob achieved another triumph.
And yet another triumph, of course, was on the horizon in the shape of Live Aid, when he and Ure realised that more could – and should – be done for the famine-struck of Ethiopia. The Wembley mega-concert raised a staggering £150 million for the cause; going a step further in redefining what was achievable through the combination of popular music and charity. However, that wasn’t the end of the story when it came to Band Aid itself. Five years after the release of the song’s original version, Geldof and Ure reunited along with a host of other, admittedly rather lesser, stars (and Bananarama again) to raise dosh once more for the Tigre region of Ethiopia as its harvest failed again. Then, twenty years after the original, Coldplay’s Chris Martin led the drive for a Christmas charity single for famine relief in Darfur and Sudan and, with Bob and Midge quickly getting involved, Band Aid 20 came together – this time, of course, featuring a whole new generation of popsters and rockers. Both new versions of Do They Know It’s Christmas?, while critically panned, proved hugely popular with the public, topping the charts at Crimbo and raising millions.
Quite frankly, and this isn’t exactly news to anyone, it’s not very fashionable to like Do They Know It’s Christmas?. In fact, Geldof has recently stated that he’s responsible for creating the worst Christmas song ever recorded. Well, I can’t say I see it that way. Its lyrics and sentiment could be seen as overblown, insipid or even illogical, but methinks that misses the point. The thing possesses a great, infectious melody and its synthy-ness is pure mid-’80s pop. Plus, while its easy to poke fun at or dismiss Band Aid’s cause (especially in these cynical and sardonic times of today), it’s perhaps harder to genuinely embrace what, at its best, it stands for… quite simply, what Christmas is all about: thoughtfulness, goodwill and giving. And dodgy mullets on New Romantics and unsubtle chicanery from Status Quo, of course. So, here’s to you, raise a glass for everyone – even those Band Aid detractors out there; I mean, come on, do they know it’s Christmas time at all?
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Band Aid 1984 participants (in sleeve order)
- Adam Clayton (U2)
- Phil Collins ~ played drums on the recording
- Bob Geldof (The Boomtown Rats)
- Steve Norman (Spandau Ballet)
- Chris Williams (Iron Static Overdrive)
- Chris Cross (Ultravox)
- John Taylor (Duran Duran) ~ played bass on the recording
- Paul Young
- Tony Hadley (Spandau Ballet)
- Glenn Gregory (Heaven 17)
- Simon Le Bon (Duran Duran)
- Simon Crowe (The Boomtown Rats)
- Marilyn
- Keren Woodward (Bananarama)
- Martin Kemp (Spandau Ballet)
- Jody Watley (Shalamar)
- Bono (U2)
- Paul Weller (The Style Council)
- James ‘J.T.’ Taylor (Kool & The Gang)
- George Michael (Wham!)
- Midge Ure (Ultravox) ~ played keyboards on the recording
- Martyn Ware (Heaven 17)
- John Keeble (Spandau Ballet)
- Gary Kemp (Spandau Ballet) ~ played guitar on the recording
- Roger Taylor (Duran Duran)
- Sara Dalin (Bananarama)
- Siobhan Fahey (Bananarama)
- Sting
- Pete Briquette (The Boomtown Rats)
- Francis Rossi (Status Quo)
- Robert ‘Kool’ Bell (Kool & the Gang)
- Dennis Thomas (Kool & The Gang)
- Andy Taylor (Duran Duran)
- Jon Moss (Culture Club)
- Rick Parfitt (Status Quo)
- Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran)
- Johnny Fingers (The Boomtown Rats)
- David Bowie ~ contributed via a recording mailed to Geldof, then dubbed on to the single
- Clare Grogan (Altered Images)
- Boy George (Culture Club)
- Holly Johnson (Frankie Goes to Hollywood)
- Sonny Garner (The Lamplighters)
- Paul McCartney ~ contributed via a recording mailed to Geldof and then dubbed on to the single
- Stuart Adamson (Big Country)
- Bruce Watson (Big Country)
- Tony Butler (Big Country)
- Mark Brzezicki (Big Country)
- Jools Holland (Squeeze)
~~~
Lyrics/ singers
| ‘It’s Christmas time, there’s no need to be afraid’/ | Paul Young | ||
| ‘At Christmas time, we let in light and we banish shade’/ | Paul Young | ||
| ‘And in our world of plenty, we can spread a smile of joy’/ | Boy George | ||
| ‘Throw your arms around the world, at Christmas time’/ | Boy George | ||
| ‘But say a prayer; Pray for the other ones’/ | George Michael | ||
| ‘At Christmas time it’s hard, but when you’re having fun’/ | George Michael/ Simon Le Bon | ||
| ‘There’s a world outside your window, and it’s a world of dread and fear’/ | Simon Le Bon/ Sting | ||
| ‘Where the only water flowing is the bitter sting of tears’/ | Tony Hadley/ Sting | ||
| ‘And the Christmas bells that ring there, are the clanging chimes of doom’/ | Sting/ Bono | ||
| ‘Well, tonight, thank God it’s them, instead of you’/ | Bono | ||
| ‘And there won’t be snow in Africa, this Christmas time’/ | Boy George/ Paul Weller/ Paul Young | ||
| ‘The greatest gift they’ll get this year is life’/ | Bono/ George Michael/ Boy George | ||
| ‘Where nothing ever grows’/ | Paul Young | ||
| ‘No rain nor rivers flow’/ | Glenn Gregory | ||
| ‘Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?’/ | All | ||
| ‘Here’s to you’/ | Marilyn/ Glenn Gregory/ Rick Parfitt/ Francis Rossi | ||
| ‘Raise a glass for everyone’/ | Paul Young | ||
| ‘Here’s to them’/ | Marilyn/ Glenn/Rick Parfitt/ Francis Rossi | ||
| ‘Underneath that burning sun’/ | Paul Young | ||
| ‘Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?’/ | Paul Young | ||
| ‘Feed the World’ (repeat)/ | All | ||
| ‘Feed the World, Let them know it’s Christmas time again’ (repeat)/ | All | ||
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