Shows that people forget or get lost in time

Dappledown Farm were repeats from TV-am originally, before they made some new ones.

On Saturdays, The Mag and the sports magazine Turnstyle both came from Meridian in Southampton, I remember them going into each others' studios, BT Sport-style. The Jack Docherty Show was a co-production between Absolutely and United, ie Anglia again, and indeed So Graham Norton was a United production when that began, utilising many of the same production team.

The Australian comedians Roy and HG, who were doing a few bits and pieces in Britain at the time - they were regulars on The Ben Elton Show, and I always hear their names in his voice - had a short-lived series on Anglia which was then repeated the following evening on Channel 5.



Its presence on C5 also had something to do with the fact that Nick Wilson, its Head of Children's Programmes, had previously held the same job at TV-am.

And of course the channel came from Pearson's building in Stephen Street, again a lot of those involved were ex Thames people, some who'd been there since it went off air and others who came back.


I can't remember if I've mentioned this before but I was in the C5 TX suite the first time they tested it by running a practice schedule. Of course they had no C5 programmes so they used what they had to hand, so the first programme was an old Thames one complete with mirror ident on the beginning, which elicited a little cheer from everyone in the room

And the show was produced by Nick Wilson's Clear Idea TV, which was the TV-am kids TV department spun off.

Dappledown Farm (the C5 version) was produced in Southampton as a co-production between Clear Idea and Meridian.

Havakazoo, it appears, travelled around a bit, being made at Southampton, Norwich and eventually ending up at HTV's Bristol studios.

I remember a detailed discussion on here previously where we traced the company responsible for the playout at Stephen St back to an old Thames engineering outfit based at Teddington.

For a while in the early 00s in the short gap between Pearson being phased out and before TalkbackTHAMES was adopted, the playout company was called Thames Television Services. That company is now Encompass, still based at Stephen St.

Indeed, Thames Engineering was what was left of their engineering department after they went off air. They played out a number of channels from Teddington. It got renamed Pearson Television Broadcasting and moved to Stephen Street around the time Teddington was sold and Channel 5 launched. At the same time they gained a few more playout contracts.


That became the London Playout Centre and is now Encompass, although all the big channels from the Pearson days have gradually gone elsewhere - UK Gold, Living, Challenge, Discovery, Disney etc... and more recently Channel 5. Though the channel stayed there long after the link between company in the rest of the building lost it's ownership of C5

I remember watching at Saturday tea time in 2003 a show called "You Can Do Magic" presented by Stephen Mulhern which I remember for the theme tune for that seemed to be "Just like heaven" by The Cure, which was at the same time I got first exposure to that band coinciding by hearing "Inbetween Days" on a Fiat advert thus getting me hooked to the band since.

If anyone could find the title sequence or any coverage that would be grateful? - I will put this out on requests as well as the CBBC xmas promo from 2006 (the last under the green blob era) which seemed to have the same song by the Cure

One from what only seems a couple of years ago, but may be longer, was “ Kitchen “ on BBC Two, which was fly on the wall type filming in different families’ kitchens ( strangely enough ).

I was thinking about a few of these BBC strands recently

Chronicle - popular archaeology programme comissioned by David Attenborough in 1966, acheived their highest ratings in 1982 with the raising of the Mary Rose, but ended in 1991.

Omnibus - BBC One arts strand from 1967 to 2001. Strangely moved to BBC Two in 2001 (considering it was supposed to be the popular arts strand alternative to BBC Two's Arena) and then ultimately cancelled in 2003.

Food and Drink - BBC Two food magazine, a bit like Watchdog but for the food industry. 1982-2002. Unrelated to the recent show of similar name which was just another cooking programme.

The Clothes Show - BBC One programme about fashion, 1986-2000. So successful it spun off into an annual live event, The Clothes Show Live, which continues to outlive the TV programme.

Not necessarily forgotten but it struck me how many long-running BBC strands/programmes there are which seem to suddenly stop after going for so long.

And while I'm here, Two Fat Ladies which was an instant success after it started in 1996, but only ran for a few years as Jennifer Paterson died in 1999. It doesn't seem to be repeated anymore so it feels sort of forgotten in the public consciousness. Apparently they were mobbed in Australia such was their fame at the time: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/178703.stm

You say unrelated but I distinctly remember Michel Roux stating "Food & Drink is back" so the production team/BBC certainly seemed to be treating it as a revival/reboot.

Arena is another famous BBC documentary strand, and continues on BBC Four apparently. The title sequence with Brian Eno’s music is particularly notable.

That's excepts for viewers of the UKTV Good Food Channel...

Where random series of that programme regularly gets unspooled for an airing. Most recently in late August, including a Caribbean Christmas Special. Great to watch when it was 26c outside.