:: Editorial

Now the clocks have gone back the evenings are now really drawing in, so what better to do on those dark and cold evenings than switch ont he log effect fire, snuggle down into your comfy chair (no, not the comfy chair) and bung a DVD on or grab a book. With Christmas not that far away now, the potential number one books on the shelves, and DVD releases coming out thick and fast, there is plenty of choice. This is made all the better by the economic climate as there are plenty of bargains to be had well before the sales. Here's the normal round up...

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:: On The Buses – The Complete Omnibus Edition

I can just see the marketing people sniggering over the prospect of finally releasing the “omnibus edition” of this series, with its ultimate pun.

This series is hugely popular, and ran for 7 series and spawned three feature films and a spin-off series with Blakey on the Costa Del Sol! For the first time ever, Network DVD have brought the series and films together in one mega set.

From those I have spoken to about this there have been two reactions – the ‘oh, wow, I loved that show’ and the ‘FFS, that was s***!’ – there doesn’t appear to be an in-between, and both camps are dug in for the duration.

I have to admit that I did have fond memories from childhood – this and Please Sir! seemed to be on perpetually of a weekend and I only remember laughter accompanying them both. The problem with the memory is it plays tricks and like other series I remembered enjoying at the time (Are You Being Served? is the perfect example) they often don’t stand up to scrutiny.

On The Buses sort of falls into this category. If you approach it as hack comedy – by that I mean a show that was written by opening up a joke book at a particular topic and seeing how many of them you could shoe-horn into a half hour. All the gaps in-between are then filled with whatever stereotypes can get a laugh and topped up with catchphrases. Intelligent comedy (like Steptoe and Son) this is not, an easy watching gag-fest that requires little thinking, this is.

I did approach rewatching with caution, working my way slowly through the first two series, and then sampling later series, and it paid off. Yes, there are some rather dubious moments of ‘bird ogling’, racial jokes, and the Olive and Arthur double act, and little actual structure to the episodes, and seldom is there anything memorable, but in small doses it can be rather fun.

Film spin-offs of TV series never really hit the mark for me, whether it was Steptoe, Are You Being Served, or On The Buses. The bigger (?) budgets, location shooting, and the general move from the cosy studio environment where the shows were nurtured all served to lose the soul of the shows. If I didn’t like them as a kid, when I thought the TV series was hilarious, then I would hate to think what I would make of them now. Suffice to say I haven’t subjected myself to that task.

Likewise I haven’t quite had the time, nor plucked up enough courage to get to Don’t Drink The Water. After seven series Blakey finally decided to warm up his retirement years by relocating to Spain and this series charted a whole new chapter of misfortune. Also starring Pat Coombs as Blakey’s long suffering sister, Dorothy, this along with archive news footage and The Best Pair of Legs In The Business, a comedy film set in a holiday camp starring Reg Varney, completes the mega-set.

I have to be grateful for the series as it supplied Kenneth Williams with the inspiration for practically all the voices for Willo The Wisp, and I have to say it wasn’t anywhere near as good, or bad, as the two trenchant camps would have me believe. I can certainly understand why it has proved to be one of the most popular and endearing sitcoms from commercial TV, but can also understand why shows like Dad’s Army and Steptoe and Son are regularly dusted off for prime-time repeats, this is relegated to the specialist digital channels.

Priced at just under £100 this is a serious investment (despite it being a 15 disc set!), so make sure you really like the show before plumping for it.

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:: Frost on Friday

We've already had Frost On Saturday and the Best of Frost On Sunday, so Frost on Friday completes the weekend. This legendary current affairs series is available from all good retailers on 7th November 2011, RRP £24.99. Love him or hate him as an interviewer, you have to admire the sheer energy and enthusiasm he puts into his shows, and the range of interviewees he was able to get.

The 3-disc set features interviews with high profile, public figures, such as James Callaghan, Cardinal Heenan, Enoch Powell, Christian Barnard and Muhammed Ali.

The series was made at a time when Frost was hosting a chat show in the US and then jetting back to the UK to do three shows over the weekend, Frost On Friday concentrates this energy into forty minutes worth of incisive and insightful commentary on current affairs. A number of editions of FROST ON FRIDAY no longer exist- this set includes ten shows, one of them being a truly outstanding debate on hanging from October 1968.

This was a show that made tomorrow’s headlines, as well as reported on them and was one of the Frost programmes that dominated ITV weekends in the late 1960s and early '70s.

With and RRP of £24.99, the three disc set had a total running time of just short of 400 minutes.

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:: Sunday Night At The London Palladiaum - Volume 2

Making its debut on ITV’s opening weekend in 1955, Sunday Night at the London Palladium swiftly established itself as one of the weekly televisual highlights for the British viewing public. Gaining average viewing figures of 14 million and Top Ten placings almost every week, it is undoubtedly one of the main shows that helped establish commercial television in the UK.

This was a weekly television event that appealed to all classes, denominations and age groups - an unquestionable success which still provides a high benchmark that today’s variety shows can only aspire to. This DVD set contains some of the best of what remains in the archives (in its guise as The New London Palladium Show) for the original 1960s run, including one edition from 1966 in full colour. These editions include Bruce Forsyth, Jimmy Tarbuck. Cliff Richard and the Shadows, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, The Searchers, Frankie Howerd, The Hollies, Arthur Haynes, Des O’Connor, Spike Milligan, Cleo Laine, The Johnny Dankworth Seven and many more.

This is the second volume to be released by Network, and each are available separately or as a set.

Special Features for volume 2 include: 10 December 1961 – “Programme as Broadcast” reel for the first part of this show, including never-before-seen footage of sound and vision set-ups and the warm-up man working the audience, and extensive image galleries featuring pictures of performers from shows that no longer exist – these include Jimmy Tarbuck, Roy Orbison, Bob Hope, Eartha Kitt, Liza Minelli and more.

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:: Kaleidoscope Publishing - eGuides

Anyone with more than a passing interest in archive telly will know about Kaleidoscope and the excellent work they do in preservation, research, and promotion. Four events a year in Stourbridge, their stomping ground, with the last the weekend just gone, provide rare opportunities to see shows from yesteryear that otherwise would sit on dusty shelves, as well as interviews with those involved both sides of the camera.

the research side of things are presented as weighty tomes that will grace any reinforced bookshelves, and provide hours of reading matter. Of course, part of their success also contributes to their downfall - they are HUGE, so unless the family pile covers half of England and your wallet is deep, they are often an indulgence too far. Bring on electronic publishing.

Whilst I am the first to admit that books look handsome on the shelf there is no doubt that digital publishing has its place, and this is it. Thousands of pages of information can now be downloaded at the click of a button (and a sensible wait depending on your internet connection) for a fraction of the price that the 'made from trees' version would cost. OK, so the back-up copy burnt to CD doesn't look as nice on the shelf, but you could always print out a poster of the spines and blu-tack it to the wall, and you can live in the knowledge that you are doing your bit for the planet, even if that means putting a printer out of work.

Currently there are three titles available: BRITISH TELEVISION COMEDY RESEARCH GUIDE 1936-2011, BBC TELEVISION DRAMA GUIDE 1936-2011, and BRITISH INDEPENDENT TELEVISION DRAMA GUIDE 1955-2010, each priced at £29.99, and I expect more to come as editions are updated.

Owning these really does set apart the men from the boys when it comes to commitment to archive telly, and you too can impress friends and family by dropping titles of long forgotten programmes into conversation (just before the men in white suits drag you away kicking and screaming). Seriously though, these are far cheaper than full sets of Radio and TV Times, with all the leg work done for you, and are damn useful to anyone interested in the subject.