Turned Out Nice Again

by Louis Barfe

  The Television Theatre was a regular venue for Jazz 625 recordings, but many editions were made as outside broadcasts at venues such as the Marquee club or the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. In 1966, the programme morphed into Jazz Goes to College, made entirely on location at seats of learning, as Henebery explains. ‘My PA on that was Jim Moir. He’d been to university himself, at Nottingham, and he loved getting on the phone to the student unions and saying “Hello, this is the BBC here. We’re thinking of recording in the Union, and bringing the Modern Jazz Quartet in.” They’d say “We can’t afford the bloody Modern Jazz Quartet.” He’d say “No, no. We pay you a facility fee.”’21

  LE made many other memorable contributions to the early BBC2 schedules, not least its comedy flagship, Not Only . . . But Also . . ., which began its first fortnightly run on 9 January 1965. The first show was recorded as a one-off showcase for the comedic and musical talents of Dudley Moore, with his Beyond the Fringe colleague Peter Cook as a guest. However, a sketch took flight in which Cook and Moore sat at a pub table, wearing cloth caps and mufflers, as they traded unlikely tales of Hollywood stars banging on their windows, demanding sexual favours:

  Bloody Greta Garbo – stark naked save for a shortie nightie. She was hanging on to the window sill, and I could see her knuckles all white . . . saying ‘Pieter, Pieter . . .’ you know how these bloody Swedes go on.22

  Michael Peacock, controller of BBC2, wanted a series, but only on the condition that Pete and Dud were to co-star.

  Although a product of the comedy department, Not Only . . . But Also . . . was recognizably a variety show. Just as stage variety had become more star-led in the post-war years, so television variety had developed a sub-genre where a major performer or act – be they comedian or singer – would host, perform in sketches and introduce guests. In the US, the model for such a comedy programme had been Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows, the breeding ground for writers like Mel Brooks and Neil Simon, while the musical template was set by the likes of The Nat King Cole Show.

  Not Only . . . But Also . . . straddled music and comedy expertly. Peter Cook was a fount of comic invention, and while he was undoubtedly the dominant force, Dudley Moore was far from being a silent partner, either in writing or performance. Frequently, it was Moore’s reaction to or summary of a Cook flight of fancy that got the biggest laugh. Moore’s unique selling point was his fluent, joyous jazz piano playing, which could be featured either in its own right with his trio, or as the backing for guest singers like Marian Montgomery and Cilla Black. Not renowned as a jazz chanteuse, our Cilla – aided by Dud, with Pete McGurk on bass and Chris Karan on drums – made a pretty good fist of Let There Be Love in the first show of the second series.

  BBC2 had been one result of the Pilkington Report. Another was the ITA’s indication that more attention would be paid to programme quality when the programme franchises came up for renewal in 1967. There were some major changes in the ITV network map, as Yorkshire and Lancashire became separate regions, to be served by seven-day contractors, rather than one large region with separate weekday and weekend companies – namely Granada and ABC. Granada opted to remain in its north-western heartland, taking Lancashire and Cheshire, while a new company, Yorkshire Television, took over east of the Pennines. The Midlands, hitherto divided between ATV and ABC, was also to become a seven-day operation.

  As well as the obvious kudos in broadcasting highbrow material, there was a sound social basis for the drive upmarket, with higher education having expanded massively during the sixties as the immediate post-war generation, the so-called ‘baby boomers’, reached school-leaving age. The old model of ITV had appealed to the lowest common denominator, which in the eyes of opinion formers in class-ridden Britain meant the working classes. However, the old divisions were becoming blurred as the whole country experienced greater affluence. The total personal income of UK citizens had grown from £10.9 million in 1954/5 to £15.1 million in 1959/60. Admittedly, this increase saw the gap between the north and the south widening slowly. In 1954/5, the London ITV area accounted for 29.1 per cent of that income, with the northern ITV region on 24.9 per cent, proportionately, far fewer northerners earned over £1,500 a year than their southern counterparts. Five years later, London’s share had grown to 30.6 per cent, but the north had fallen back to 24.3 per cent. Migration may have had some effect: between the 1951 and 1961 censuses, the London population grew by 6.7 per cent, while the northern population grew by just 2.5 per cent. In contrast, the population in the area covered by Southern Television grew by 10 per cent over the same period, while the Anglia region’s head count grew by 8.7 per cent, indicating a distinct southward bias.

  The ITA had some justification, then, in forcing the ITV franchisees to aim higher, but many, including Lew Grade of ATV and John Spencer Wills of Rediffusion’s parent company British Electric Traction, saw the ITA’s intervention as needless tokenism. Others, including David Frost and BBC1 controller Michael Peacock, saw it as an opportunity to create the ideal ITV company. When Frost approached banker David Montagu for financial advice, the money man revealed that he was already involved with a bid for the new Yorkshire franchise with Aidan Crawley – who had been an MP for both the Labour and Conservative parties. Frost persuaded them both to come in with him in forming the London Television Consortium. This alliance applied for the London weekend contract, as did ABC and the incumbent, ATV.

  With financial backing from, among others, Arnold Weinstock of electrical giant GEC and Donald Stokes of the Leyland Motor Corporation, as well as a management team including several former senior BBC executives, the London Television Consortium was a serious contender. The seriousness of its intent was obvious from its programme plans. The new applicant promised improved educational programmes and children’s shows, both of which were the sort of noises the ITA wanted to hear, having been used to grudging provisions from some of the existing companies. The Consortium also professed ‘a common belief that the quality of mass entertainment can be improved while retaining commercial viability’.23

  When the contracts were announced on 12 June 1967, the London Television Consortium had won the London weekend franchise. After flirting with the idea of calling the new broadcaster Thames Television, they settled on the name London Weekend.24 Flushed with confidence, managing director Michael Peacock restated the entertainment pledge rather more baldly: ‘The present weekend programmes are bland, featureless, and tasteless . . . You won’t have to be a moron to get something out of London Weekend Television.’25 This statement won the newcomer no friends within the ITV system, a tactical error given that London Weekend had to rely on the goodwill and expertise of the other companies when it came to scheduling.

  Frank Muir moved from his job as head of comedy at the BBC to become the new company’s first head of light entertainment. His main focus was to be comedy, while variety was handled by Tito Burns, a former jazz accordionist and ex-manager of Cliff Richard. The urbane, clever, witty Muir was much loved by his staff, the producers and the writers he shepherded, but there were tensions from above. Deputy managing director Dr Tom Margerison, whose background was scientific journalism rather than comedy or television administration, had decided that situation comedies should be forty-five minutes long. Muir demurred, suggesting that scripts would probably end up being heavily padded half hours, but Margerison prevailed. However, in the rush to get any decent programmes on air at all by August 1968, these were relatively small worries for Muir.

  London Weekend’s victory had ramifications for the London weekday operation. As well as applying for London weekends, ABC had gone for the Midlands, but been beaten by ATV. The ITA realized, however, that ABC was a distinguished contributor to the ITV network, and that a way should be found to keep it in the family. The answer was, potentially, the worst of all possible worlds. Rediffusion had reapplied for the London weekday franchise, but at the interview stage, there was a disagreement between John Spencer Wills of pare
nt company British Electric Traction and the ITA. Wills’ argument was that Rediffusion did not need to prove its worth. The ITA responded by instructing Rediffusion to join with ABC and form a new company to fulfil the contract, ABC to be the senior partners, with 51 per cent of the shares. However, out of this combination of revenge and fudging came one of the most important programme-making companies in the history of British television – Thames. The new operation settled in at the ABC studios in Teddington, with a presence in the old Rediffusion building on Kingsway, while its Euston Road headquarters were being built. In actual operational terms, Rediffusion became almost a sleeping partner in the new company, and the Thames board was ABC-dominated, with Sir Philip Warter as chairman, Howard Thomas as managing director and Brian Tesler as programme controller.

  Rediffusion’s abandoned Wembley studios became the interim home of London Weekend, while it was waiting for its state-of-the-art colour studio centre to be built on the south bank of the Thames near Waterloo station. There being no real office space at Wembley, an unprepossessing tower block in nearby Stonebridge Park was taken over for modern open-plan offices, and swiftly renamed ‘the Leaning Tower of Neasden’ by its inhabitants.

  London Weekend was to make full use of its founding father, David Frost, on screen. As well as hosting satirical comedy for the BBC in the form of The Frost Report, he had been presenting The Frost Programme for Rediffusion, a show that could go from pure light entertainment to heavyweight current affairs in the pan of a camera or the length of a commercial break. This was the show on which Frost conducted a masterful demolition of insurance fraudster Emil Savundra. Not yet 30 years old, Frost was already incredibly well-connected – a quality embodied in his famous stunt of inviting the Prime Minister and other opinion formers to breakfast at the Connaught hotel. The other members of his production team at Rediffusion were similarly on the inside track, as the show’s director William G. Stewart recalls:

  We had hugely impressive people like Tony Jay, Clive Irving, Peter Baker (who had been deputy editor of the Daily Express), and writers like John Cleese, Barry Cryer and Neil Shand. So we had a great team in all directions – entertainment and serious journalism. We sort of acknowledged that there were five people in the world that we could not get on the telephone through somebody in that room: the Queen, the President of the United States, De Gaulle, Ho Chi Minh and Krushchev. Anybody else, somebody would know somebody. I remember listening to him [Frost] on the phone one day and he was saying ‘Well ask her. We’d love to have you on the show. Ring me back as soon as you can. How soon can you get her? Ten minutes?’ I asked ‘Who was that?’ He said ‘Tony Armstrong-Jones. If he goes on television, he has to ask the Queen’s permission.’26

  While others might have cavilled at the fusion of gravitas and frivitas, Frost saw it as all part of the same business. To him, according to Stewart, ‘it’s all about communication’. Sometimes, however, the gear changes were harder to achieve, as Stewart discovered in late 1967 on a Rediffusion Frost Programme:

  We were doing a serious interview up to the commercial break, and then we’d come back with an entertainment item. In this case it was Shirley Bassey. We came to the break and I saw Shirley Bassey on all the monitors. We were live and I heard my PA say ‘Two minutes, studio, commercial break.’ So I sat back. Frost came in. He said ‘Bill, tell Shirley we’re going on with the interview after the break. Will she come back tomorrow?’ I thought ‘Oh God.’ I looked up and thought ‘She’s taken hours to get to look like that.’ I leaned forward to the microphone, quietly said to the floor manager, David Yallop, ‘Will you explain to Shirley that we’re going on with the interview after the break? I’ll explain it later. We’ll be very happy to have her back tomorrow.’ I heard a very quiet voice, I knew what it was. It was a hand over the microphone: ‘I’m not telling her.’ I said ‘David, do as you’re told. You’re the floor manager. Just go up to her, say it nicely and I’ll explain it afterwards.’

  So Geoffrey Hughes, who was the producer, sitting behind me, said ‘Bill, you go down and tell her.’ I was directing. I heard my PA say ‘One minute, studio.’ I ran out, ran down the steps, to the bottom of the gantry, walked over to Shirley Bassey and said ‘Shirley’. She looked at me and said ‘You don’t have to tell me. You don’t want me, do you?’ and she turned to walk away. I could have left it alone, but I suddenly heard myself say ‘We can’t leave a serious interview like that at the commercial break and come back to a girl singer,’ and as I said the words ‘girl singer’ she looked over her shoulder. I’d just called Shirley Bassey a girl singer. I was sick. I thought ‘What have I done?’ She was absolutely wonderful about it afterwards. She said ‘Of course I’ll come back tomorrow.’27

  At LWT, the matter was addressed by having Frost present three distinctly different shows a week. Frost on Friday was to be the serious current affairs show, or as Julian Critchley put it in The Times, ‘“actuality-Frost”; the fearless inquisitor’.28 Frost on Saturday would take the lighter end of the Frost Programme repertoire, while Frost on Sunday would be all-out comedy and variety. The launch night, on Friday 2 August 1968, was to kick off with We Have Ways Of Making You Laugh, a live comedy show hosted by Muir himself, who had taken the job reluctantly when pressed by producer Humphrey Barclay. After that, LWT’s idea of weekend entertainment differed wildly from that of its predecessor, ATV. On the station’s second night, a production of Stravinsky’s Soldier’s Tale was mounted in the Saturday Special slot, up against Match of the Day on BBC1. Tellingly, in the Midlands, ATV did not take the LWT production, instead scheduling a showing of the western Elmer Gantry, just as it had opted out of showing the first We Have Ways Of Making You Laugh, in favour of Strategic Air Command, starring James Stewart.

  As it transpired, nobody transmitted the first We Have Ways Of Making You Laugh. Ongoing industrial action over a pay and working hours settlement throughout the ITV regions meant that screens went blank after only fifteen seconds. The performers were allowed to remain oblivious and carry on, in the hope that sound and vision would be restored, but it never happened. The first Frost on Friday managed to make it on-air, complete with novelist John Braine bemoaning the erosion of freedom, and Frost on Saturday went ahead as planned, being a pre-recorded interview with Bob Hope. The first weekend’s Frost on Sunday was another matter, though, being all-live. It became clear that the studio would not be ready in time, so the show went ahead from the World of Sport studio with a crew composed entirely of management. Programme controller Cyril Bennett was acting as floor manager, while Michael Peacock was in the gallery, calling the cameras, leading Frank Muir to comment that ‘the managing director is managing to direct’.

  From the following Monday, 5 August, across the whole of the ITV network, 1,000 technicians were on strike, 800 had been dismissed and a further 1,200 had been locked out by television bosses. For the next fortnight, an emergency service with no regional variations was put into action, using recorded programmes and films, played out from the abandoned ATV London switching centre in Foley Street and the Thames studios at Teddington.29

  Unfortunately, when normal service resumed, London Weekend’s programmes failed to gain the audiences that the advertisers were used to. The doubters had predicted that high minds would result in low ratings, and so it proved. The ratings flop resulted in a sharp decline in advertising revenue for LWT, in favour of its weekday rival Thames. At one point, speculation abounded about the new company being merged with Thames or ATV, but the ITA had staked too much on the newcomer to let that happen. Fortunately it wasn’t all gloom, as, in entertainment, there had been some programming successes, most notably the situation comedies On the Buses and Please Sir, though they weren’t quite enough. Reviewing LWT’s first year on air, Julian Critchley observed that ‘London Weekend has suffered from too wide a gap between promise and performance’ and that its executives had ‘discovered only too quickly that the traditions of public service broadcasting could not survive in the
different atmosphere of commercial telly . . . the weekend is a time not for stimulation but for titillation. Sandie Shaw and not Stravinsky.’30 Just over a month later, on 18 September 1969, Michael Peacock was dismissed by the London Weekend board. The following day, six senior executives resigned in support of Peacock, among them Frank Muir. In November, Cyril Bennett followed, to be succeeded by his former Rediffusion colleague Stella Richman, who had built her reputation producing drama, before becoming one of British television’s first female senior executives. It was Richman who appointed Barry Took to be LWT’s head of light entertainment, taking up the post in February 1970.

  Like his predecessor, Took had a strong pedigree as a comedy writer – most notably on Kenneth Horne’s hit radio series Round the Horne – and a fair bit of experience as a performer before heading over to the other side of the desk. Took realized that the output had to be as populist as possible. One of his inheritances was the sitcom Doctor in the House, which he described as ‘slightly rocky’.31 His solution was simple. ‘In a phrase that I feel was full of delicacy, nuance and a deep understanding of the psyches of all concerned I said, “I don’t want a load of poofs running around a hospital, I want stories about old ladies with bladder trouble.” And that’s what I got, and the ratings soared,’ he recalled in his autobiography.32

  Stella Richman had also enticed Terry Henebery over from the BBC to be an executive producer in light entertainment, but almost instantly he wondered if he’d made the right move:

  It wasn’t the happiest place. We were told at one point that we all had to be at our desks that day because the ITA were coming round to have a look. So everybody had to be talking gobbledegook down phones, saying ‘Yes, book him, book him.’ Dead phones. As long as we appeared to be busy and industrious. Of course, they nearly lost their franchise during the time I was there. Nothing to do with me, guv, as they say.33