Departure lounge

They're dropping like flies at the moment! House favourite here at Dolores Delargo Towers, the marvellous multilingual singer, guitarist, star of 50s/60s variety shows alongside the likes of Dean Martin and Fred Astaire, and schlager legend in Germany, Miss Caterina Valente has departed for the glittering environs of Fabulon, aged 93...

Caterina Valente - Malagueña

Caterina Valente - Bongo Cha Cha Cha

...closely followed by the star of one of my favourite TV shows when I was a kid Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) - as well as Coronation Street, That Was the Week That Was and Carry On films - Kenneth Cope [above, top left]. Here's the fantabulosa theme tune:

And an old classic:

Kenneth Cope on "the twilight world of the heterosexual" [That Was the Week That Was, 1963]

RIP, both.

It's over so let it go...

On this date sixty years ago, the legendary satirical TV show That Was the Week That Was first hit our screens.

From Nostalgia Central:

It was deliberately made by the Current Affairs department and not by Light Entertainment, in case the latter played it too safe. Producer Ned Sherrin intended that it should “discuss anything that people might talk about on a Saturday night”.

They certainly talked about TW3, as it rapidly drew an audience of 10 million, way above the expected figure.

The show was fronted by the hitherto unknown David Frost, a minister's son, with resident accomplices William Rushton (famed for his impersonation of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan), Bernard Levin (famed for his acidic interview style), Lance Percival, Roy Kinnear, Kenneth Cope, John Bird, John Wells, Eleanor Bron, Al Mancini, David Kernan and Roy Hudd [and Millicent Martin!]...

...Much of the show was written by journalists rather than by scriptwriters, and among regular contributors were Dennis Potter and Kenneth Tynan.

The show covered such previously taboo comic subjects as racism, royalty and religion. Politicians of the day were also fiercely lampooned.

The series provoked an enormous public outcry, but those who made the programme would have been disappointed if it hadn’t!

Let's have a few clips, by way of a celebration of this landmark programme for the BBC:

Millicent Martin - That Was the Week That Was opening theme, 1962

David Frost - "A Consumer's Guide To Religion" [That Was the Week That Was]

Kenneth Cope on "the twilight world of the heterosexual" [That Was the Week That Was, 1963]

Love it.

Happy birthday, TW3!

More That Was the Week That Was at the marvellous Shapers of the 80s site