Bob the Brit

Archive for the ‘Entertainment’ Category

Blue Peter is a typically British institution, it’s a children’s television programme that has been running continuously since October 1958.

The format has remained pretty consistent through its fifty year history, two or three respectable young presenters demonstrate how to make things, care for pets and learn about  the world.

The programme was first broadcast in October 1958, introduced by Christopher Trace and Leila Williams. Miss Williams (a former Miss Great Britain) left the programme in 1962 and was replaced by Valerie Singleton who stayed with the programme until 1975, although she ceased to be one of the regular presenters in 1972.

It was the sixties that are often considered to be Blue Peter’s golden years.

The team of Peter Purves, Valerie Singleton and John Noakes proved to be both popular and informative, and shook off competition from ITV’s unashamed Blue Peter clone ‘Magpie’ (1968 to 1980).

There have been 34 presenters of Blue Peter at the time of writing, and many have gone on to presenting more mainstream television.

 

 

 

  

 

 

Blue Peter Pets

It was also in the sixties that the ‘Blue Peter pets’ were first introduced, with the acquisition of a puppy and a competition to name it. ‘Petra’, as the puppy was named, became a surrogate pet for millions of children, and after her death a statue was made of her and placed in the ‘Blue Peter Garden’ in the grounds of the BBC’s Television Centre. I say a statue of Petra, actually some years after the dog’s death in 1977 it was revealed that the original puppy had died a couple of days after the first broadcast and had been replaced.

Other ‘Blue Peter pets’ include ‘Shep’ a mischievous and excitable Border Collie that accompanied John Noakes, Shep’s excitability leading John Noakes to coining a popular catch-phrase “Get Down Shep!”.

Over the years Blue Peter has had nine dogs, nine cats, five tortoises and two parrots.

Blue Peter Badges

One of the first features of Blue Peter were ‘Blue Peter Badges’ – given as reward for various activities and achievements. Various grades of badge were available, from a white shield featuring the Blue Peter logo (designed, incidentally by Tony Hart) up to a gold badge for an outstanding achievement – dragging a pensioner for a burning building or similar.

 

 

 

 

 

 One I made Earlier

The phrase “Here’s one I made earlier.” was attributed to the presenter ‘Christopher Trace, and for may of my generation evokes Blue Peter’s regular features of making interesting and useful’ articles from household rubbish, including yoghurt pots, coat hangers and toilet roll tubes, connected with ‘sticky tape’ or ‘Sticky backed plastic’ – brand names are never mentioned on the BBC. 

Probably the best remembered of these were the ‘advent crown’ – first made in the early sixties from four wire coat hangers and lots of tinsel

and ‘Tracey Island’ a homemade version of the best selling ‘Thunderbirds’ tie-in.

 Scandals

The replacement of the puppy ‘Petra’ was the first of several ‘scandals’ that Blue Peter has endured in its fifty year history. In 1998 the presenter ‘Richard Bacon’ resigned after being exposed by a tabloid newspaper taking cocaine; in 2007 the programme was involved in controversy regarding fake competition winners and the naming of the cat ‘Socks’ – which was supposed to have been by a phone poll, but the public vote was over-ruled by the Blue Peter production team.  

That Blue Peter has survived with so few scandals is probably tribute to Biddy Baxter who edited the programme from 1965 to 1988, it was she, more than anybody who ensured the direction, morality and ethics of the show.

In my article on Mayors and Lord Mayors  I briefly mentioned the Lord Mayors Show.

The show was first held in 1215, when King John grated the City of London permission to elect its own mayor, but also insisted that the Lord Mayor should travel to the City of Westminster to swear loyalty to the crown. This tradition has continued uninterrupted by the Black Death, the Great Fire of London and the Blitz, it has only been cancelled once – on the occasion of the death of the Duke of Wellington.

The Lord Mayors Show was the first event ever to be broadcast live on television, a tradition that continues to this day.  

The show takes place on the second Saturday in November each year; the date and route of the parade was fixed in the 1950′s as in the past the route would travel through the new Lord Mayor’s electoral ward, which meant that each year’s parade would take a different route, causing much confusion and disruption in the City.

The procession is preceded by a flypast by the Royal Air Force, then leaves the Lord Mayor’s official residence (the Mansion House) at 11 a.m.. The procession heads west along Cheapside towards St. Paul’s Cathedral and the Royal Courts of Justice (also known as the Old Bailey) then down to Victoria Embankment before heading back to Mansion House, the last floats arriving back at around 4 p.m.

Around half a million people pile into the City of London to watch the pomp and pageantry, and around 6,000 people will take part in the three mile long procession, alongside 140 floats, carriages – including the richly gilded State Coach – marching bands, floats and other vehicles.

The parade is then followed by a fair in Paternoster Square near St. Paul’s Cathedral and a firework display on the River Thames, starting at about 5pm.

And for the record, the Mansion House is almost opposite the Bank of England, at the heart of the City, close to ‘Bank’ underground station, several hundred yards away from the underground station that bears the name ‘Mansion House’.

In 2008, when Barack Obama was elected President, an American friend commented to me that he’d seen fireworks on a news feed from Britain and was surprised that we Brits took the US Election so seriously.  

Well the tradition fireworks in the UK in early November date back much farther than the election of Obama!

‘Guy Fawkes Night’ or ‘Firework Night’ is celebrated on November 5th in the United Kingdom and some countries of the Commonwealth. It commemorates the unsuccessful ‘Gunpowder Plot’ of 1605 when a group of wealthy Catholics attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament during the state opening by  King James I. (He was King James VI of Scotland and became King James 1 of England following the death of Queen Elizabeth 1 – who died childless.)

The Catholic plotters had hoped for greater tolerance of Catholicism under James 1st, but were disappointed and decided to assassinate both the King and much of the Protestant aristocracy, and use the destruction of Parliament as an opportunity to start a rebellion and found a Catholic State in England under James’ daughter Princess Elizabeth..

The acknowledged leader of the plot was Robert Catesby, with other plotters including Thomas Winter, Christopher Wright, Robert Keyes, Thomas Percy, John Grant, Ambrose Rokewood, Sir Everard Digby, Francis Tresham and Catesby’s servant Thomas Bates . The plot is remembered, however, for the explosives expert the plotters employed – one Guido Fawkes, who had gained his experience with explosives by fighting for the Spanish against the Dutch in the Spanish Netherlands.

The plot took place over several years, with delays to the opening of Parliament allowing for revisions to the plot; originally the plotters planned to tunnel under the Houses of Parliament from a nearby house, but when Thomas Percy leased a vault (or undercroft) under the palace in early 1605 they used this to store the explosives.

Some 36 barrels of explosive had been stored by the end of May 1605, and the conspirators moved far from London to the Midlands, from where they planned to start the rebellion. The conspiracy had grown, in part because the plotters needed further investment to fund the proposed rebellion, and it is thought that one of the newcomers warned the King and Parliament. Guido (or Guy) Fawkes was caught leaving the explosive filled undercroft and promptly arrested. He was taken to the Tower of London and confessed the names of the other plotters under torture.

Several rhymes exist commemorating the plot – the most common being :

Remember, remember the Fifth of November,
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot,
I know of no reason
Why the Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

the rhyme continues :

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t’was his intent
To blow up the King and Parli’ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England’s overthrow;
By God’s mercy he was catched
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holla boys, holla boys, let the bells ring.
Holla boys, holla boys, God save the King!

When I was a child (not so very long ago) children would make effigies of Guy Fawkes and stand on the streets collecting money for fireworks with the cry “Penny for the Guy” but this has almost died out, not least because recent legislation prevents children from buying fireworks.

These days most people attend public firework displays, featuring a large bonfire, often with a ‘guy’ on the top. Refreshments often served include treacle toffee (known as bonfire toffee), jacket potatoes and gingerbread (also known as ‘parkin’).

The plot is referenced in the graphic novel (and subsequent movie) ‘V for Vendetta’ where the main protagonist wears a Guy Fawkes mask, and succeeds in blowing Parliament up.

Blackpool is a seaside holiday resort in the northwest of England, about 30 miles north of Liverpool and about 45 miles north west of Manchester.

As such it is one of Britain’s best known sea-side resorts, having become immensely popular in Victorian times when the cotton mills of Lancashire would close for a week each summer and the mill workers would take the new railways to the coast.  Rather than swamp the resorts, each mill would close for a different week allowing a steady flow of holidaymakers through the summer.

The heart of Blackpool is a stretch of promenade known as the ‘Golden Mile’. This stretches from a large funfair known as ‘the Pleasure Beach’ in the south, past three leisure piers (Blackpool is the only British resort with three) before ending at the northern end at ‘Blackpool Tower’.

 The promenade is served by electric trams which are brightly and spectacularly illuminated each autumn.

Blackpool Tower

Blackpool Tower was constructed in 1894 after the then Mayor of Blackpool returned, inspired by the Eiffel Tower, from the  Paris Exhibition in 1889 .

Blackpool’s tower rises to a height of nearly 520 feet, around two thirds the height of the Eiffel Tower. Nevertheless it can be seen for a radius of about thirty miles.

At the base of the tower is an extensive leisure complex – the ‘Winter Gardens’ that include an opera house and ballroom – which in turn is home to a massive Wurlitzer organ.

 

Blackpool Lights

Blackpool is famous for its electric illuminations which were introduced in 1879 and actually predate Edison’s patent of the light-bulb.  

The lights comprise over a million bulbs and extend for some six miles, accompanied by the illuminated trams. They are illuminated each evening for sixty six days from early September until November, thus extending the resort’s ‘season’ beyond that of most seaside resorts.

Like the Christmas lights in London’s West End the ‘turning on of the lights’ has been performed each year since 1934 with considerable fanfare by a topical celebrity.

Blackpool is increasingly turning to renewable energy to power the illuminations and there are plans for the display to be carbon neutral by 2010.

Pantomime, not to be confused with mime, is as British as things get.

It can trace its roots back to the Commedia dell’arte (Harlequin, Punchinello, Scaramouch and all that) but has been modified since its introduction in the 18th century into an unique theatrical form.

Basically, you take a traditional fairy tale or popular story and weave a series of risqué jokes, bad puns and songs around the basic story.

Popular Pantomimes include :

• Aladdin
• Babes in the Wood (which bizarrely often features Robin Hood)
• Beauty and the Beast
• Cinderella
• Dick Whittington and His Cat
• Goldilocks and the Three Bears
• Jack and the Beanstalk
• Mother Goose
• Peter Pan
• Puss in Boots
• Robinson Crusoe
• Sleeping Beauty
• Snow White

There are a series of quite strict ‘rules’ that define a pantomime, these conventions are pretty impenetrable when explained in writing, but most Brits understand them implicitly:

• Pantomime is performed at Christmas time, but the festive season is not mentioned, it just happens that way.
• The lead character (Robinson Crusoe, Aladdin, Jack (with the beanstalk)) is known as the ‘principal boy’ and is played by an attractive actress.
  
• The principal boy’s older mother/guardian is known as ‘the dame’ and is played by an actor in grotesque make up. In the case of Cinderella there are two ‘dames’ – the ‘ugly sisters’.
  
• The principal boy often has an attendant animal, such as a horse or cow, played by two actors with one playing the front legs and head or the animal, with the other actor doubled over playing the back legs.



• There’s often a good fairy, who by tradition always enters from the right of the stage, the villain always enters from the left.
• There’s usually a very messy slapstick scene, possibly the Dame having to bake a wedding cake or similar that causes a great deal of mess.
• There is considerable interaction between the audience and the cast. For example the  principal boy is usually unaware of the arrival of the villain and is alerted by the audience with cries of “He’s behind you!” this is often answered with “oh no he isn’t” and responding cries of “oh yes he is”… and so on
• Towards the end of the show a few children are often invited to sing a song with the Dame, either a traditional music hall song, or a popular song with modified lyrics.
• Everybody lives happily ever after – except the villain, unless he’s seen the error of his ways.

It’s not as complex as it seems, honest!

Most regional theatres host pantomimes, as do a number of theatres on the outskirts of London, it’s often the first (or only) encounter many children have with the theatre..

Pantomime is an important source of revenue for struggling theatres and they often feature fading pop stars, TV soap stars and so on to entice audiences.

In recent years a number of American actors have been enticed over to Britain to perform,  including Henry Winkler who performs a mean Captain Hook in Peter Pan.