This tape opens just as an episode of Tomorrow’s World is finishing, and I’m a bit sad I didn’t record more of those.
There’s a trailer for programmes on Sunday.
Then, David Copperfield – 15 Years of Magic. Using his then girlfriend Claudia Schiffer playing a reporter as a framing device, this is a look at some of his greatest illusions. It starts with a disappearing train car. Beautifully done, and scored with the soundtrack from Young Sherlock Holmes. As I’ve noted before, either he or his musical director is a big soundtrack fan.
Next, it’s an escape over some burning spikes, which uses Alan Silvestri’s score for The Abyss.
There’s Copperfield’s version of the classic effect Metamorphosis. Not a soundtrack this time, but Mama by Genesis. Metamorphosis is pretty famous, and Copperfield’s version is a little more elaborate than the original. I also suspect this one requires twins to work – probably not Copperfield but definitely his assistant. But it’s really slick, as you’d expect.
There’s a montage of some other illusions, to the music of Crazy by Seal.
The next illusion is one of my favourites, and I think it was featured on the last David Copperfield show we saw here. It’s the Death Saw, scored with James Horner’s score for Aliens, of course.
I love this illusion. Despite knowing, logically, how it’s done, it’s still almost impossible to believe.
Next, it’s vanishing the Statue of Liberty. This one isn’t quite as great, although the music is, not a movie this time, but Beethoven’s Great Mass in C Minor, one of my favourites.
There’s a montage of some of his sleight of hand tricks. Music: In Your Eyes by Peter Gabriel, used in Say Anything so it counts as movie music.
The next trick is introduced by James Earl Jones.
It’s an audience participation, where the audience has to do some counting, and they end up on a symbol predicted by David. It’s fairly simple to work out the maths behind this one, but it’s lovely even so.
Next, it’s the walking through the Great Wall of China. Again, not a particular favourite of mine.
Next, he escapes from an imploding building, after escaping from a safe. The music for this is Mozart’s overture to The Marriage of Figaro. This is one I’m less familiar with, but it’s a nicely done illusion, and the final appearance seems suitably mystifying.
Then it’s Flying. Possibly my very favourite of his illusions. Everything about it is beautiful. It’s so close to the way flying works in my own dreams, so it touches something quite deep in me, and Copperfield performs it all really well. The music for this is by Lee Holdridge, for East of Eden.
BBC Genome: BBC One – 8th September 1995 – 20:00
After this, a trailer for They Think It’s All Over – brand new at the time.
There’s also a trailer for Death Becomes Her.
Then, the start of the Nine O’Clock news, leading with a possible peace deal in the Balkans.
Recording switches to BBC2 a little later, with the end of Felix Dexter On TV, part of the Comic Asides series of one-offs.
There’s a trailer for The Public Eye. And a trailer for Shooting Stars.
Then, an episode of Room 101 featuring Frank Skinner who chooses Action Man, Jokes that bomb, School Food, Sophie’s Choice and Shakespeare.
BBC Genome: BBC Two – 8th September 1995 – 22:00
After this, recording switches, and there’s the end of Sneakers. I love that film.
There’s a trailer for Jennifer Eight. And for Love Bites: Go Now.
Then, an episode of Film 95 with Barry Norman taking a look at the following films:
- The Bridges of Madison County
- Blue Juice
- The Young Poisoner’s Handbook
- Chungking Express
- Higher Learning
Of interest (to me) is The Young Poisoner’s Handbook, based on real-life events that happened in various towns very close to where I live.
Tom Brook talks to Billy Crystal about Forget Paris.
BBC Genome: BBC One – 12th September 1995 – 23:30
After this, recording continues with a trailer for the Last Night of the Proms, and for Omnibus on Isabel Allende.
Then, there’s quite a bit of a film, A Walk on the Wild Side featuring Jane Fonda, but the tape ends before the film ends.
VHiStory 
I went to see The Young Poisoner’s Handbook at the pictures, it’s pretty decent. Pretty much forgotten now, though.
Bold move by Frank Skinner putting Sophie’s Choice into Room 101, how on Earth did he justify that?! And I wonder if he’d include The Bard now, given his renaissance as a man of culture?
His problem with Sophie’s Choice was that he watched it with his parents when he was young, thinking it was a nice romantic comedy. “Somebody told me it was a real weepie”. He was mortified when a character appears and ‘talks about f***ing’ all the time. He was so embarrassed he left the room and shut himself in his bedroom. Minutes later, his mother knocked on the door, and said “Can you come down? We don’t know how to turn it off.”
“I eff daytime, and I eff effing night time!”
Frank’s Room 101 is one of the very best, I think, he picks some brilliant choices and I watched it over and over again. His selection of jokes that die is brilliant, including “Marmite… hopeful pa!” which he’d seen David Frost tell on the telly and then attempted to tell to a mate in the pub, and his brilliant Rothmans joke (“I smoke Rothmans, and it says on the packet ‘By Appointment’, so I went to the newsagents and he said ‘is Tuesday alright?'”) which he told on Wogan to no response whatsoever.
The Felix Dexter show is an interesting one, it was part of the Comic Asides season of pilots and was script edited by Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson. Then a few months later he appeared on the cover of the short-lived but fondly remembered Comedy Review magazine and the feature inside suggested that a series was forthcoming, but it never was. But a few months later he wrote and starred in a one-off sitcom called Douglas, spun off one of the characters in that show, but that never went to a series either.
Felix Dexter was certainly the most prominent black comedian in the mid-nineties, I think he was the first black comedian to appear on HIGNFY which seemed a bit of a landmark at the time, as before that black comedy seemed a bit ghettoised. But despite enjoying a successful career, including working on other occasions with Whitehouse and Higson, he never quite became the star everyone thought he would be, alas.
Thanks for the explanation, Mr VHS! I’m glad it wasn’t an ideological issue…
Frank Skinner reminds me of someone in that pic. I think it’s the lead singer of Squeeze, Glenn Tillbrook. My brother used to jokingly call him Frank Skinhead and I remember when we watched his Sunday night chat show from 1995, he called him that out of anger when he started making jokes about condoms.
My chemistry teacher wanted to watch that film. Dunno if she did but I recall Empire magazine gave it a good review.