#thames tv

... just found this gem on tenor.com ✨️

KENNETH WILLIAMS deals with ladies' underwear 🤭 ... this definitely made my day! 😂😂

This cutout is obviously from Ken's appearance on Thames TV show 'Looks Familiar', recorded 03/06/1984. Unfortunately, there's only a short excerpt of the show available on YouTube.

A little over 40 years after the Abdication Crisis that had peaked in December of 1936, Thames Television, holder of the weekday independent TV franchise for London and the Home Counties, commissioned a dramatisation based on the exhaustive, Wolfson History Prize winning biography of Edward VIII by Frances Donaldson.

Read a little bit more about the real abdication here;

https://georgefairbrother.tumblr.com/post/669685662223613952/the-abdication-crisis-december-1936

In terms of casting, production design, location filming that included Fort Belvedere where many of the real events unfolded, soundtrack, costume and performance, Edward and Mrs Simpson seemed to be as close as you could possibly get to 1930s culture, fashion and upper-class society without a time machine. Written for television by Simon Raven and directed by pioneering British-Asian director Waris Hussein, the series was justly rewarded with an Emmy and multiple BAFTAs.

In retrospect, it appears to be as historically accurate as a drama can be, including verbatim conversations. Edward VIII, formerly the Prince of Wales known as David, then finally the Duke of Windsor, was played about perfectly by Edward Fox, and Wallis Simpson by Cynthia Harris. Other key castings included Nigel Hawthorne, yet to find stardom as Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes Minister / Prime Minister, as the King's friend and advisor Walter Monckton, David Waller as a totally convincing Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin (He reprised this role in 1988 for another adaptation, The Woman He Loved, starring Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour and Olivia de Havilland), Peggy Ashcroft as Queen Mary, Marius Goring as King George V, and Wensley Pithey as Winston Churchill.

Other notable parts, amongst many, were Jessie Matthews (Aunt Bessie), former silent film star Bessie Love (Lady Cunard), Patricia Hodge as Lady Diana Cooper, and British-Australian actor Ed Deveraux as Lord Beaverbrook.

The Duke of Windsor died in 1972, but the Duchess of Windsor, formerly Mrs Simpson, was still alive when the programme was conceived and broadcast. (She died in 1986). She was not best pleased, citing invasion of privacy, and lobbied to have the production stopped. Her opposition was reported in The Sun, and perhaps might have been more newsworthy if not for another significant event in August 1977.

The series ended with the marriage of the Duke and now Duchess of Windsor, some months after the Abdication.

The BFI Screen-Online review stated;

"...The series also carefully juxtaposes Edward's frequent, and popular, visits to depressed areas with his opulent and carefree private life, and doesn't shy from showing his admiration for Mussolini in a pair of brief but pointed exchanges with Anthony Eden...Edward Fox gives a fine and charismatic performance as the King, ably suggesting the contradictory impulses that ruled the man. Wallis Simpson, however, is presented rather less sympathetically. In an occasionally heavy-handed performance, Cynthia Harris plays her as a cool and conniving gold-digger, albeit a sometimes naïve and even disarmingly foolish one..."

The portrayal of Edward VIII was a little more sympathetic than in some later productions, including Bertie and Elizabeth (2002). Edward and Mrs Simpson did tend to gloss over the King's fascist sympathies, although it was at least alluded to as mentioned in the BFI review. Perhaps, in fairness, these along with some alleged international shady financial dealings, meddling in Britain's foreign policy and the cosy relationship with Hitler didn't really become apparent until the period after the series ended. Wensley Pithey's Winston Churchill was accurately shown as a strong and sincere personal friend and advocate for the King and Wallis Simpson, in public and private, to the annoyance of the Baldwin government, but this relationship later soured when Churchill was wartime Prime Minister, over the Duke of Windsor's behaviour.

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor (top) - Edward Fox and Cynthia Harris (bottom)

👨‍🍳 W A T C H I N G 🍽

I bought the Bluray about year ago, and finally got my region free Bluray Player out to finally watch it with my mom.

We like Vincent Price, and my mom is a 125% Food Network addict.

Is it a bird?

Thames TV’s Drive In discusses ‘the rise of foreign cars’ at Silverstone Car Test Day in 1974.

But what’s thát (near 6:10) in the background behind Frank Page ?

Welcome to the first of two episodes in which host George Fairbrother is joined by highly accomplished filmmaker, author and podcaster, Oliver Crocker. With around 220 000 listens as of November 2021, Oliver's ongoing project, The Bill Podcast, is loved not only by fans of the iconic ITV police show (2500 episodes, 1983-2010), but also by the artists and crew behind it.

He has written a very well-received companion book, Witness Statements - Making The Bill Series 1-3, with another on the way, and has also applied his forensic research and outstanding interviewing skills to another legendary British television classic, with All Memories Great and Small.

In this episode Oliver talks about his passion for The Bill and those who brought it to us, and shares some fascinating behind-the-scenes insights into the making of the series, the researching and writing of Witness Statements, the art of the interview, and lots more.

The Bill Podcast is also on Soundcloud. Oliver's books are available from the usual places, and also Devonfire.