Recommended Television Programmes

[Bryn]

I think, with Monty Python, it was a matter of hit-and-miss with the sketches. Some were hilarious, some not, and, rather as with, let's say, jazz or 12-tone music, it was a question of which gateway offered one's potential point of entry. Getting the "wrong" one would prejudice one against further investigation.

For me, the classic Monty Python programme was The (West Country) Cycling Tour. Nice use of Gounoud's Faust and of Clodagh Rogers, too. I was possibly influenced in my enthusiasm for the programme by having taken a West Country cycling tour in my youth. I, too, came off my bike a few times, including while heading down Cheddar Gorge.

[eighthobstruction]

....my claim to fame - spent an afternoon driving a Harley- Davidson Low Rider [borrowed] up and down the Gorge....on another ocassion my Cockney Grandma's teeth fell out in the Gorge Caves Cafeteria and went skedaddling across the shiney floor - "Gor blimey"....

[richardfinegold]

I always liked John Cleese, from the first time I saw him do his 'headmaster speech' on 'The Frost Report'. I also admire him for his sociological work, e.g. training flms and his book 'Families and how to survive them'.

But I do sympathise with ff over humour. I'm a veteran of 'Take it from Here', Al Read, Harry Worth, Eric Sykes, Hancock's Half-Hour, etc. When 'Monty Python' arrived I sat eagerly expecting to enjoy it just as much. As sketch followed sketch I started to wonder' is it me, or is it them?' I found literally nothing to laugh at . I've never been able to understand the adulation in which this programme is held.

But then , humour is a very subjective thing. My father loved Buster Keaton ad Harold Lloyd, who left me cold. And I remember him shaking helplessly with laughter, tears in his eyes, at a groip of singers who used to sing the weather forecast to Anglican chant. I didn't even think it mildly amusing!

It might be generational. I was 15 or so when I first started seeing Monty Python and thought it was hilarious. I think it was their anarchic spirit that appealed to the rebellious adolescents in rebellious times

[gurnemanz]

When I was a student over 50 years ago, as far as I remember, the only time our not huge communal telly room was full was for Top of the Pops, Match of the Day and Monty Python.

[oddoneout]

When I was a student over 50 years ago, as far as I remember, the only time our not huge communal telly room was full was for Top of the Pops, Match of the Day and Monty Python.

Similar experience here in mid 70s. Having watched a couple of times I decided it wasn't for me - I didn't find it funny at all, and some things I found uncomfortable . At least with TOTP I could enjoy a sing-a-long and keep in the loop of what was happening on the pop front so I had some idea what my housemates were talking about.

[LHC]

I watched this series during lockdown, and found it absorbing. You make very interesting points about it - parallels with Breaking Bad had not occurred to me, but I take your point (although I was disappointed by the final sections of BB - possibly due to not viewing them in optimal circumstances, iirc).

One aspect of The Americans which I found particularly intriguing was how the parents had to cope with the growing awareness of their two children as the latter seasons went on.

Great TV (and generally underrated I think)

I am about 2/3rds of the way through The Americans and am also enjoying it.

Although the exploits portrayed in the series are obviously fictional, the series itself is grounded in reality. The Russians did run an illegals programme in the US for a long time with Russian spies living in the US and bringing up families just as portrayed in the TV series. After a long investigation, the FBI arrested 10 agents in 2010 including Andrei Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova (who were living under the assumed names of Donald Heathfield and Tracey Lee Ann Foley). Their children, Tim and Alex, who had been born and brought up as Canadians living in the US, had no idea that their parents were actually Russian or that they had been spying for the Russian Government. As this article in the Guardian notes:

"Not only were their parents indeed Russian spies, they were Russians. The man and woman the boys knew as Mom and Dad really were their parents, but their names were not Donald Heathfield and Tracey Foley. Those were Canadians who had died long ago, as children; their identities had been stolen and adopted by the boys’ parents.

Their real names were Andrei Bezrukov and Elena Vavilova. They were both born in the Soviet Union, had undergone training in the KGB and been dispatched abroad as part of a Soviet programme of deep-cover secret agents, known in Russia as the “illegals”. After a slow-burning career building up an ordinary North American background, the pair were now active agents for the SVR, the foreign spy agency of modern Russia and a successor to the KGB. They, along with eight other agents, had been betrayed by a Russian spy who had defected to the Americans."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/07/discovered-our-parents-were-russian-spies-tim-alex-foley

The main difference between the spies depicted in The Americans and the real-life illegals is that the real-life spies were all pretty ineffectual and had largely failed to gain the access to the centres of US power that they had intended.

As the article also notes, the people on whom the series was based (the Foley family) have watched it and the parents at least have said that the family aspects are pretty accurate (although all of the espionage, sex and violence has been rather over-glamourised).

More information on the other spies involved in the illegals programme can be found here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegals_Program

[Cockney Sparrow]

Interesting discussion - The Americans. I'm tempted to look it out, but with six series.......I'd have to negotiate with Mrs CS.

RF's comment about Philby, prompts me to mention A Spy Among Friends which I finished binge watching last night. Very atmospheric, and fine acting - of course notably from Damian Lewis . Vis-a-vis Philby lonely in his Moscow flat - a twist at the very end of the last episode.

A Spy Among Friends is a series based on the New York Times best-selling book written by Ben Macintyre. ……..stars Damian Lewis and Guy Pearce......
The six-episode series dramatises the true story of Nicholas Elliott and Kim Philby, two British spies and lifelong friends. Philby was the most notorious British defector and Soviet double agent in history. This is a story of intimate duplicity; of loyalty, trust and treachery. Philby’s deeply personal betrayal, uncovered at the height of the Cold War, resulted in the gutting of British and American Intelligence.
From the producers of Homeland, this espionage thriller dramatises the illustrious, and true story, set at the height of the Cold War, of Nicholas Elliott (Lewis) and Kim Philby (Pearce) — two spies and lifelong friends, one of whom was betraying the other all along.

http://https://www.itv.com/presscent...-among-friends

[Serial_Apologist]

Night Mail - the famous 1936 Britten/Auden proto-Rap collaboration, is showing next Wednesday (28th Dec) on Talking Pictures TV, at 7.05pm.

And it is repeated on this same channel tonight, at 6.35pm.

[gurnemanz]

Just spotted. Janet Baker (90 tomorrow) is on BBC Four tonight - in 20 mins - at 7.15

[oddoneout]

Just spotted. Janet Baker (90 tomorrow) is on BBC Four tonight - in 20 mins - at 7.15

Missed the first 10 mins or so but watched the rest. A whole other world... Straightforward presenting, no fancy camerawork/lighting/scenery, all the focus on the music.I suppose it would all seem very dull to modern eyes - no bling, just someone singing and a chamber orchestra doing its stuff.I found it so much more rewarding and less exhausting to be able to just concentrate on what matters.
The occasional glimpses of the audience included shots of a wifie in her good coat and matching headscarf near the front. Several others seemed quite well wrapped so was the hall on the cool side - to offset the heat from the lights for the filming?

[smittims]

I felt the success of tis programme was that it made the viewer feel they were there, unlike the Proms presentation which keeps whisking us away and spoiling the atmosphere.

[alywin]

Has anyone mentioned the re-run (and associated other programmes) of I, Claudius currently running on BBC4 on Wednesday nights? Obviously iPlayer-able if necessary.

[oddoneout]

Satisfying viewing on BBC4 last night. "Pubs, ponds and power", about Warkworth, and then Mary Beard looking at slum conditions and life for the lower end of society in (historic) Rome.

Ben Robinson has also done a series on villages by the sea which I enjoy/ed(they get several outings I think). Free of gimmicks, pretty low key, and if nothing else a pleasant half-hour away from the challenges of the world, but in fact I find plenty that I didn't know or hadn't fully understood. Some time ago I managed to catch an episode about Arnside, where my parents settled in retirement, which explained certain aspects of the place that I had noticed in passing but never bothered to follow up if my mother didn't know.
Elements of the Mary Beard programme have I think featured in other programmes as I recognised some parts, but the programme as a whole was new to me. Again low key, gimmick free, but plenty to take in and think about.
It's just a shame that such programmes are increasingly rare. Even where the basic facts are themselves attention grabbing everything has to be "sexed up" with gimmicks, special effects, loud (supposedly)background music blocking out the speech etc. Five minutes worth of factual content is puffed out to fill 15, and objectivity often suffers in the drive to present an "angle".

[Cockney Sparrow]

Has anyone mentioned the re-run (and associated other programmes) of I, Claudius currently running on BBC4 on Wednesday nights? Obviously iPlayer-able if necessary.

Well, I'm enjoying it greatly - wonderful acting and actors, I'm not unduly concerned if it is seen as "dated". I'm also enjoying the absence of loud music interposing at intervals, meaning I don't have to turn the sound down until the actors speak again.

[alywin]

Wonderful actors, indeed. I found myself wondering when the BBC last put on a drama populated by multiple members of the RSC and other such actors.