The first recording today starts with the end of Lizzie McGuire.
There’s a trail for “The new CBBC”.
Then, the first episode in the full series of The Sarah Jane Adventures – Revenge of the Slitheen – Part 1. And of course I’m coming across this just a day or so after the anniversary of Elisabeth Sladen’s death.
It’s Luke’s first day at school – since he was created in a cloning vat in the pilot story a short time before this one starts. Sarah kisses him goodbye, which is apparently a faux pas at school. I hate the way school does this. I stopped hugging my dad for very similar reasons when I was at school, and these days I regret that. As regular blog readers will know, it’s all about the hugs for me. I’m lucky all my children were home educated, as they all have no problem hugging. Another thing here that reminded me of my school days is the shortness of Maria’s tie. Super-short ties were a thing in my day too.
The school has acquired a flashy new technology block.
The headmaster brings one of the teachers into the block. They’re both gentlemen with fuller figures. The teacher is attacked by something with large green claws. I’m not quite sure why the programme is so cagey about the creatures, considering the Slitheen are mentioned in the episode title, but I suppose that’s similar to the old Dalek tradition of only unveiling the Dalek at the end of the first episode of a story.
Maria and Luke meet Clyde, who’s also new to the school, played by Daniel Anthony.
The Headmaster farts a lot, and his welcome speech leaves a lot to be desired. “Don’t run in the courtyard, don’t even think of wearing make-up, and study hard, because I guarantee none of you are gonna be pop stars.”
There’s strange things afoot at school. There’s a strange smell, like a lot of batteries, coming from the technology block, and the canteen food is all mouldy.
Clyde is nervous about the impression he’s making at school. “Do I have to go?” “I could take you out, teach you here. I considered it. But you, Luke Smith, you’re going to live a normal life, as normal a life as I can give you.” “What if I get it wrong again? It makes me feel…stupid.” “Remember, you saved the world the day you were born. Not many people can say that.”
She’s also curious about Coldfire Construction, who built the technology block, and have built a lot of similar buildings all over the country. I’ve no idea what this map is doing. Chesham and Amersham are not remotely that close to Ruislip and Harrow.
The Slitheen at school turn on their secret machine, and all the power goes out. Even the batteries in torches. They can’t even light candles. But the machine isn’t stable, and the power comes back after a while.
The technology teacher gets Luke to look at a diagram of their machine, to see if he can work out what’s wrong.
Luke comes up with an equation to solve the problem.
Sarah visits Coldfire Construction to ask about all their building work.
As everyone is investigating, finally the Slitheen start unzipping their skinsuits.
Clyde finds Maria running away, and wonders why she’s so worried about a teacher. Until he sees the Slitheen coming for them.
Maria and Clyde are helped by another pupil, but he turns out to be a baby Slitheen.
Media Centre Description: Children’s drama series from the makers of Doctor Who, following the adventures of investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith, a former companion to the Doctor. Sarah Jane, Maria, Luke and Clyde discover the monstrous Slitheen are hiding in a school.
Recorded from BBC ONE on Monday 24th September 2007 16:58
BBC Genome: BBC ONE Monday 24th September 2007 17:00
After this, there’s the start of Newsround leading with reports of Tornadoes in Britain.
The next recording is A Few Good Men. It’s been edited, so there’s no ad breaks. I have talked about this on a previous tape, though.
Media Centre Description: Military drama. A young and impetuous naval lieutenant and a more experienced officer are given the job of defending two marines accused of murder. As the two officers come to terms with one another, their investigation uncovers some sinister secrets and collusion at the highest level. The marines’ commanding officer certainly has no intention of making the truth public.
Recorded from ITV2 on Monday 24th September 2007 23:58
The final recording today is Comics Britannia – X-Rated: Anarchy in the UK. So expect lots of “Finally, comics aren’t just for kids any more”.
Stewart Lee talks about Viz and Johnny Fartpants. “Johnny Fartpants, as far as I know, is not a satire, an existing kind of person. It’s not like you read that and go, yeah, that stuck it to all those people that fart all the time.” Although he undermines any argument he might want to make by describing older comics as “Really terrible, rubbish DC Thompson comics”
Simon Donald: “When it came to doing his shorts, we decided that he could sort of have grey flannel shorts like a traditional British schoolboy. And we decided that they should be permanently displaying signs of being full of fart gas.”
Andrew Collins remembers Johnny Fartpants too.
Frank Skinner marvels at how Viz had things that just couldn’t be anywhere else.
Comics Historian Paul Gravett explains that Viz was possible because “Viz came out of the cluttered bedroom of Chris Donald and his brother Simon in Newcastle. On the dole, produced with very limited funds. And with no necessarily great ambitions to become the next huge success to produce stuff that was funny and wilder and freer than was tolerated in the mainstream press.
Chris Donald: “Funnily enough, it was supposed to be an anti-student magazine, but it became very popular among the students. We didn’t like students. Students were very privileged as far as we could tell. And they got all the girlfriends as well, bastards.”
Meanwhile in London, other comics were pushing against the traditions, like Action comic, edited by Pat Mills. “The premise behind action was that everything should be different and fresh, so I would have a working class secret agent, not the usual guy from Eton and Oxford. I would have a German hero and a black boxer. Now, it didn’t seem to me anything bigger deal about having a black boxer, but believe me, in 1975, 1976, that was a very unusual idea.”
Action was so controversial, that it was eventually banned. Pat Mills’ next project took a science fiction route – 2000 AD. “Everybody was after us. There was lots of media problems and so on. And I realized that if you have stories set in the future or in a science fiction world, you’re going to get a lot less problems. So really, 2000 AD was Action with a science fiction veneer.”
Artist Kevin O’Neill. “We could say these aren’t human beings blowing up, they’re cyborgs. They look like human beings. They have all kinds of bits of fleshy stuff spiralling out of them, but it’s kind of a synthy flesh. It’s not real.”
Alan Grant on Judge Dredd. “Dredd was a fascist. One of today’s fascists projected into the future and given a costume and a big gun and the ability to enforce the law whether he believed in the law or not.”
Carlos Ezquerra was the first Judge Dredd artist.
Young Andrew Collins got a picture printed in the comic, and received a letter from Tharg, the editor of the comic. Splundig Vur Thrigg!
Alan Moore talks about how V For Vendetta was inspired by Margaret Thatcher’s Britain. Strikes, riots, civil unrest, the reappearance of the far right. “This struck me as potentially a very interesting backdrop for this future world that I was going to be talking about, because as with most of the future worlds in science fiction, you’re not talking about the future. You’re talking about the present.”
David Lloyd was the artist for V For Vendetta. He talks about how the look of V was based on Guy Fawkes. “V, you know, wants to celebrate this character that the English establishment made a villain out of. So it’s a celebration of somebody who was a villain and we made into a hero.”
Charles Shaar Murray, best known as a music journalist, was also writing about comics in the 80s. I once saw him interview Alan Moore at the ICA.
In 1988, Deadline was launched, inspired by the rave culture of the late 80s. Editor Brett Ewins: “Deadline, we were trying to make it a pop comic, mass market pop comic is what we wanted, and also a bridge between journalism and comics.”
Back to Viz, and Mel Gibson (not that one) reflects on the introduction of the Fat Slags. “My reaction to the Fat Slags was actually one of enthusiasm at the time as I was at that point fairly chunky myself, and I’m from the North East. And you would have thought that I would assume it was offensive and problematic, but they were people I recognised and I was actually quite excited by them. I thought they were terrific. You can read them as terribly negative stereotypes or you can see them as women who do what they want, when they want, with whom they want, in any way they want and that everyone needs to be frightened of them. Now that’s actually quite empowering.”
Dave Gibbons talks about Watchmen. “What Alan and I wanted to do was to ask the question if these characters were real, what would they really be like? Why would you put on a costume? Why would you want to go out and fight crime? What would be the kind of motives? What would happen if you were gifted with superpowers? How would you behave? So we were actually using the plot to explore the different facets of what it meant to be a superhero.”
Dez Skinn, once editor of British Marvel, talks about the importance of the Graphic Novel. “It’s an entire medium that has come of age because of the format which allows it the distribution through bookshops and suddenly we’re seeing that graphic novels are appearing on the top sales lists of the broadsheet newspapers, both in Britain and America and they’re making an impact, they’re being discussed on the book programme. It’s great, it’s great, it’s just a shame it took so long to get here.”
Bryan Talbot talks about his graphic novel Alice in Sunderland. “The setting for the book is performance on the stage of the Sunderland Empire and that sort of underpins a whole structure of the thing. I mean I’ve even got this evening interval in the middle and a grand theatrical finale at the end and like, you know, because it’s a palace of varieties, it’s a wonderful Edwardian building. I thought I’d make it a variety of performance because it’s not one story, it’s literally dozens and dozens of stories and so I thought well I’ll tell each one, I’ll change my style according to the story I’m telling. It only actually works as one piece because lots of things happen, there’s lots of different stories and they all seem sort of disparate but as the book progresses, they all start weaving together and becoming more interlinked.”
Melinda Gebbie talks about Lost Girls, the book she drew with Alan Moore. “And, you know, I told him about how when I was a kid, my dad used to get Playboy subscriptions and my mother would bark at him as soon as it came to the door. You’ve got two weeks to look at this and then he goes out in the trash. And as a kid, I thought, well, I looked at this, it’s just pictures of pretty ladies. You know, what’s the problem here, you know? And so I grew up being very curious about adults and their attitudes about pictures and about things about the body.”
Here’s the whole programme.
Media Centre Description: Armando Iannucci presents a series which explores the history of British comics. He looks at the new characters and strips which emerged in the 1970s and 80s to appeal to an older, more adult readership of comics, from Judge Dredd and Tank Girl to Viz and Watchmen. At the forefront of this comics uprising was writer Alan Moore, who reads from his works such as V for Vendetta and talks about his latest graphic novel, the controversial Lost Girls.
Recorded from BBC FOUR on Tuesday 25th September 2007 00:28
BBC Genome: BBC FOUR Tuesday 25th September 2007 00:30
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