Thread: TW3 Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by would love to belong (# 16747) on :
 
The death of David Frost brought back distant memories of watching That Was The Week That Was as a primary school age child and loving it. I remember Michael Bentine, Millicent Martin and Willie Rushton (among others). But I have a memory of an older Scotsman with a beard and a gravelly voice (which I can still hear in my head). Does anyone know who this was? I think he also did tongue-in-cheek reports on the Tonight show with Cliff Mitchellmore (spelling).

[ 02. September 2013, 21:26: Message edited by: would love to belong ]
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
I think that might be Fyffe Robinson. (Not sure about the spelling.)
 
Posted by would love to belong (# 16747) on :
 
Thanks Penny, that was the name I couldn't recall [Smile]
 
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on :
 
Fyfe Robertson. Oddly I've just been reading about an article of his for Picture Post in the 1950s that was spiked because the proprietor didn't want to upset Liverpool City Council (it was about slum conditions).
 
Posted by would love to belong (# 16747) on :
 
I think he did that famous BBC skit about the fields of spaghetti growing in East Anglia broadcast on April 1.
 
Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :
 
No: that was Richard Dimbleby on "Panorama" - see this. And the spaghetti fields were in Switzerland. The BBC was inundated by complaints, but one person who sae the joke allegedly rang up and said, "You've got it all wrong, everyone knows that spaghetti grows HORIZONTALLY"!

Fyfe Robertson did do a brilliant piece for "Tonight" about a village with the most illogical house-numbering ever! Sadly I can't find a clip.
 
Posted by would love to belong (# 16747) on :
 
Thanks for the clip. If only the younger Dimblebys could develop a sense of humour like their dad.
 
Posted by basso (# 4228) on :
 
TW3 was on here after my bedtime, but I can still remember lying in bed listening to the laughter and wanting really badly to be able to see the show.
 
Posted by Carex (# 9643) on :
 
Basso, I suspect that we had a different version of TW3 in the States than was shown in Britain. I only got to watch it occasionally, but I believe that was where Tom Lehrer got his start, and several of his songs (such as Alma, The Vatican Rag, and Wernher Von Braun were written based on the week's news.
 
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
Can't say I remember Michael Bentine on TW3 - wasn't he It's a Square World? Nor yet Fyfe Robinson outside of Tonight. Besides Frost and Rushton, I recall Lance Percival, Kenneth Cope, the cartoonist Timothy Birdsall (who died sadly young) and latterly Bernard Levin.

It was also, I think, the first programme that showed you that it was happening in a TV studio (previous instances of cameras or booms coming into shot tended to be mistakes).
 
Posted by would love to belong (# 16747) on :
 
Talking of US satire, Rowan and Martin's Laugh In was very popular with my classmates. Not sure we quite got the humour but it was a Monday night highlight here in UK circa 1968.
 
Posted by would love to belong (# 16747) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Can't say I remember Michael Bentine on TW3 - wasn't he It's a Square World? Nor yet Fyfe Robinson outside of Tonight. Besides Frost and Rushton, I recall Lance Percival, Kenneth Cope, the cartoonist Timothy Birdsall (who died sadly young) and latterly Bernard Levin.

It was also, I think, the first programme that showed you that it was happening in a TV studio (previous instances of cameras or booms coming into shot tended to be mistakes).
Yes, I'm mistaken, I dont think Bentine was a regular on TW3, maybe guested. And I may be remembering FYfe Robertson from Tonight. Funny how back then the divide between current affairs and comedy was more fluid than today. Remember Nationwide with Bob Wellings (?name) doing amusing stuff. Same prog on which Maggie Thatcher was taken to task on the Belgrano.

[ 03. September 2013, 06:19: Message edited by: would love to belong ]
 
Posted by Moo (# 107) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Carex:
...I believe that was where Tom Lehrer got his start, and several of his songs (such as Alma, The Vatican Rag, and Wernher Von Braun were written based on the week's news.
Tom Lehrer got his start long before that, while he was a teaching assistant at Harvard in the early 1950s. I had a record of his that was made in 1953.

Moo
 
Posted by basso (# 4228) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Carex:
Basso, I suspect that we had a different version of TW3 in the States than was shown in Britain.
You could be right. I don't know for sure because I NEVER GOT TO SEE THE SHOW!

(resentful? me?)
 
Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
My two most vivid memories of TW3 are Kenneth Tynan using the word Fuck on TV, possibly the first time broadcast by the BBC [the look of shock on the face of Norman St John Stevas was wondrous] and somebody in the audience standing up and thumping Bernard Levin - something to do with Musique Concrete but I can't remember what - I was only about 14 at the time.

I also remember Malcolm Muggeridge in his pre-Christian phase railing against the stupidity of religion.
 
Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
somebody in the audience standing up and thumping Bernard Levin - something to do with Musique Concrete but I can't remember what
Levin got that once or twice. He was rather inclined to parade his "intellectualism" and hector people who he thought weren't up to his brainy standard. Sad that he chose to humiliate working people on more than on occasion: most were pretty forbearing but once or twice he stepped over the mark in talking about "the working classes" and got a smacking.

Pity it wasn't hard enough to stop him IIRC - he was a thoroughly nasty individual having a pop at people who couldn't defend themselves.
 
Posted by would love to belong (# 16747) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
quote:
Originally posted by Welease Woderwick:
somebody in the audience standing up and thumping Bernard Levin - something to do with Musique Concrete but I can't remember what
Levin got that once or twice. He was rather inclined to parade his "intellectualism" and hector people who he thought weren't up to his brainy standard. Sad that he chose to humiliate working people on more than on occasion: most were pretty forbearing but once or twice he stepped over the mark in talking about "the working classes" and got a smacking.

Pity it wasn't hard enough to stop him IIRC - he was a thoroughly nasty individual having a pop at people who couldn't defend themselves.
He was very good on Face the Music though.
 
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
Don't forget it was Bernard Levin who brought Arianna Stassinopoulos (now Huffington) to prominence. He met her in Cambridge (she was President of the Cambridge Union) and, I think, she was on Face the Music with him once or twice. Levin of FtM was good except for his conviction that all music was second to Wagner.

One of Levin's greatest quotes:
One of the greatest sadnesses for the Church of England is that the word "vicars" rhymes with "knickers" and that could be why we don't regard our spiritual leaders with awe and reverence.
 
Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Don't forget it was Bernard Levin who brought Arianna Stassinopoulos (now Huffington) to prominence. He met her in Cambridge (she was President of the Cambridge Union) and, I think, she was on Face the Music with him once or twice. Levin of FtM was good except for his conviction that all music was second to Wagner.

One of Levin's greatest quotes:
One of the greatest sadnesses for the Church of England is that the word "vicars" rhymes with "knickers" and that could be why we don't regard our spiritual leaders with awe and reverence.
They were an item but that doesn't make him a nice man
 
Posted by would love to belong (# 16747) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Don't forget it was Bernard Levin who brought Arianna Stassinopoulos (now Huffington) to prominence. He met her in Cambridge (she was President of the Cambridge Union) and, I think, she was on Face the Music with him once or twice. Levin of FtM was good except for his conviction that all music was second to Wagner.

One of Levin's greatest quotes:
One of the greatest sadnesses for the Church of England is that the word "vicars" rhymes with "knickers" and that could be why we don't regard our spiritual leaders with awe and reverence.
My recollection is that Arianna became a regular on Face the Music but I could be wrong.
 
Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Don't forget it was Bernard Levin who brought Arianna Stassinopoulos (now Huffington) to prominence. He met her in Cambridge (she was President of the Cambridge Union) and, I think, she was on Face the Music with him once or twice. Levin of FtM was good except for his conviction that all music was second to Wagner.

One of Levin's greatest quotes:
One of the greatest sadnesses for the Church of England is that the word "vicars" rhymes with "knickers" and that could be why we don't regard our spiritual leaders with awe and reverence.
They were an item but that doesn't make him a nice man
 
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Levin of FtM was good except for his conviction that all music was second to Wagner.

Which places Wagner outside the realm of music rather neatly.
 
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
EM : I didn't say his dalliance with Arianna Huffington made him a nice man - I don't think he was a nice man.
 
Posted by would love to belong (# 16747) on :
 
The other regulars on FtM were Robin Ray (son of Ted Ray) and Joyce Grenfell and Joseph Cooper asking the questions. All dead, sadly. Robin Ray was the cheery "young man" against Levin's older and grumpier persona, but I was shocked to discover that Robin died as long ago as 1998. He was, I think, married to Susan Stranks, older readers will recall her as the lady on Magpie, ITV's answer to Blue Peter.
 
Posted by Metapelagius (# 9453) on :
 
Another regular, as I recall, who later became very 'respectable' was the now (with less hair) Rt Hon Sir Gerald Kaufman, MP, PC.

Bernard Levin is even now something of a love him/loathe him figure. His tour de force of an essay in The Times - a single sentence of 1500 words - would put even the opening sentence of Eusebius's History in the shade ... Who was it who punched him on the nose on screen because he (Levin) had written an unfavourable review of his (the assailant's) wife's performance in some play?
 
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
I actually saw the incident live.

Another memorable Levin appearance was in a cat costume in the TW3 Christmas panto - Dick Whittington and His Fascist Hyena.
 
Posted by Timothy the Obscure (# 292) on :
 
Alas, all I know of TW3 is Tom Lehrer's album of songs from it ("That Was The Year That Was"), which needs footnotes now--indeed, it took me several years to figure out what some of the songs were about, given that I was 11 years old and living in a country where TV was a scarce commodity at the time. I loved the album anyway, and when I finally learned about Alma I felt an enormous sense of satisfaction....

(Edited to fix link)

[ 04. September 2013, 06:15: Message edited by: Firenze ]
 
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
OTOH, some still work today -

Oh, I'm learning Chinese, says Wernher von Braun
 
Posted by Carex (# 9643) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
OTOH, some still work today -

Oh, I'm learning Chinese, says Wernher von Braun
That particular line IIRC precipitated a defamation of character lawsuit, which Lehrer successfully defended on the basis of fact: von Braun had, indeed, taken a class in Chinese.
 
Posted by Sir Kevin (# 3492) on :
 
I watched TW3 when I were a lad, but it was on a bit late here and I can remember little more than that it was funny.
 
Posted by Sparrow (# 2458) on :
 
I was only 10 but I remember the edition they did after the Kennedy assassination, with a very affecting song sung by Millicent Martin.
 


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