Teenage Kicks

2Ts, please, Ray. Quite a mess in here today. Quiet, too. So quiet, you could almost record a short scripted intro to a podcast before cracking on with the discussion. Pete! Anna, you got here before me. Shocking, isn't it? Hey, I'm here in the nick of time, so I'm technically not late this time. No, I mean the state of this place is shocking, crack everywhere. It's like the aftermath of a particularly cutthroat villageral jumbo sail. Yeah, and what's with that sign on the door? No more than two unaccompanied brats, yobs or scallywags. Ray's furious. He says it all kicked off earlier. Swatty ages came in, all caffeine buzzed up on monster. They kicked over his Kit Kat variety display stand and knocked over the old TV on the counter. No, not the Kit Katts. Never mind the bloody Kit Kat, the cathode Ray TV took a tumble. No, but Ray's cathode Ray TV is what gave us the idea of meeting here once a fortnight to compare episodes from three different British TV series over the decades with a different theme each time that would have been watched on their original broadcasts on a cathode Ray TV set just like that one. Is it okay? Yeah, I'm fairly sure it's indestructible. Oh, good. Now, have you remembered your homework? Yeah, actually, yes. I've awkwardly brought two episodes of the secret diary of Adrian Moll, age 13 and three quarters. Well, I've bumped off with a couple of episodes of Grange Hill and a pair of press gangs. Teacher's pet. Not off. Come on. Let's get our teenage kicks. What was the mistake that was? You shouldn't have done it, dummy, 'cause now I'm gonna throw you. I ain't done it off, yeah. I've never known anything like it. What is the hope for this school if this is what they came for love in the first year? So, this is an opportunity for us to discuss the way that teenagers have been portrayed on TV over the years when TV was real, obviously, when TV was the right proportions and when it was magnetic rays blasting at your eyes, then are you crystal nonsense? Basically, when you had a choice of CBBC or CITV, and that could be quite vicious because I cracked my brother's head open whilst we were arguing over the two of those. Yeah, I think that was a time when people were just a bit more civilised. Well, maybe not at your house. We were a BBC family, obviously. I watched Blue Peter. This does not surprise me. But there's one thing that made me terrified of going to the big school. It was Grange Hill. I mean, it just looked like not an age there. That was people were rude and pushed into each other in corridors. So, what's your era of Grange Hill? That's a good question that I should have prepared. Well, basically, if you're over 30 and grew up in the UK, you will definitely have been aware of Grange Hill, I think, and a good chance you saw some of it. Yeah, yeah. I mean, because it ran from 78 to 2000, the late, of course, so that covers a real range of people. I can remember being little and it being about teenagers, but it first came on. I don't think I watched it when it was brand new. I think I watched it in the early 80s and then through to probably to the mid 80s. So, yeah, there's that period of from the age of eight or nine through two early teens. So, yeah, Zamo, the whole just say no thing was at the peak of my Grange Hill watching. I know it was, it gonched the red-headed guy. It was very saturated, always coming up with schemes and things. But there was that awareness that it had been going for a few years before then, and that this wasn't the first generation by Mars, but it's still had its original theme music, which weirdly turns out to also be the theme music of Give us a clue when that first started. And here's your host, Michael Aspall. I guess you're right, Alan Hawkshow, who wrote many wonderful stock music. Oh, right. Okay. It's got pedigree. Yeah, yeah. Well, my era of Grange Hill played right at the end, but I don't remember watching a great deal of it, but I remember being aware that it'd been around for a long time. And like, first, remember watching it in my first year at secondary school. But I think like it was about a term in. So, I was already kind of been through some of the stuff that they had. So, it wasn't like a prefigure of stuff, where certainly by my time of watching TV, if I saw at high school, it tend to be American stuff, which completely different. And I had no idea. I just was like, oh, that's, that's basically what are they doing? Yeah, they're all they all drive to school. And then they go, and then they go to school parties, which they call proms. And they all drink soft drinks out of paper cups. I was watching a piece of save by the bell about 10 years after it went on. So, they had these absolutely enormous mobile phones. And I just think they were carrying around their landline phones because that was the only thing we've had with them that looked like that. So, yeah, I watched an episode of the first series of Grange Hill some years ago, and really impressed by it, and then ended up going and doing all the first 10 years were. It's, it's a really interesting series to watch as an adult. You just kind of realise there are so many aspects of school life that don't change at all. Like, it's very, it's only was, I was like, well, that's what our corridors look like. And you get so much like stock teachers and character traits. I suppose it is a bit nostalgia for me to watch it and be reminded of bits of my school days, which is something I probably never thought of had because they don't necessarily have the greatest memories of my secondary school and days. I think I've probably forgotten about some of the small little things that had actually made teenage life fun at times, even if it is just, you know, looking about with your mates. Yeah, and the sort of the gossip and the sort of scandals that goes on between written as a rumor about a teacher or a rumor about one of the other kids seems fair. I'm pretty sure that that is a universal experience. Well, we've kind of got three different shows, but Grange Hill is quite out of anyone who isn't familiar, perhaps with it and I haven't gathered by now. It is set in a school and you don't see the kids' lives outside of school that much. It's really based around that and their friends, our school friends, there's not much behind that. And I guess it's very good at telling things from the kids points of view, often even though there are adults in it of the teachers and in some cases they tend to stick around longer than the kids, because they can be there for years and years and the kids grow up and have to leave. And usually when the players of the actors are getting to exams age, they get through quite a bit. Yeah, there must be all these things you've got to cast kids who can still, it's fine if they look five years younger than they are now, but in five years time they've also got to look five years younger than they will be then and you can't be sure how the genetics are going to play out, can you? Yeah, so I picked episodes first to watch from series three and four, which covers 1980 and 1981, so it was fairly early days and we've still got the first lot of first years. You kind of tend to get introduced to a new year, basically around for a bit, you get another new sort of younger year introduced and then for a while you might have two lots and then one leaves and you get another one coming in and do sort of that. So seriously, we've still got like that sort of first year, which is probably kind of well known names like Tucker and Alan, who is quite a few years older than I think the sort of 13, 14 year old, he's meant to be playing at this point, but as kind of time goes on I think they're a bit better and a bit probably a bit more confident at casting younger actors. I do look, there's a very definitive acting hierarchy of the ones who are sort of saying what's kind of getting it about right, but then I think I mean that, the more expressive kind of acting that we'll get to later, the things we're comparing this to, is less like what teenagers are still did and they do walk across rooms unconvincingly sometimes adolescents aren't always sparkling with quips and they do put the wrong emphasis on words and sentences sometimes. So that kind of makes it all feel more real, but then I'm just thinking am I just remembering watching kids act like that on TV? Is that actually what we were like? I'm not sure. In age boys can definitely be quite awkward. Yes. Well, the episodes we've got, the first one sees some inner city kids having their horizons broadened in many ways. They go off for a day in the countryside and some of them have their first cigarettes and others have their first bras. And this is series three, episode three, not episode ten. I watched the side-watching the wrong one at first. Yes, you did. Yeah, and yeah, I love that the fifth the fifth formers are campaigning to have their own fifth form common room because the six formers have got one and it's like that kind of high our school had that kind of hierarchy that if you were doing your GCSEs as it was by then you were you had to wear a uniform but when if you stayed on to do A levels you didn't and there's a bit of that because I've noticed there's some very lack of application of uniform rules in this school. So it's a big thing in the first couple of series that they want to get rid of school uniforms right and then for the third and fourth series there's rumblings about them coming back and they do eventually bring them back because they meet an angry six former don't they who's like we're gonna have to put uniforms on again because of you um well she's she's not a sick former but she's like she's one of the older years oh right I think she's the fifth yeah made a big fuss about it but it's interesting so that's sort of the Sims 4 episode that we did and one of the big reasons they kind of argued forgetting rid of uniforms for grain chile was that not all kids can afford a school uniform and it's a point in that sort of opening episode grain chile that there's a lad who comes on and he hasn't got a school uniform because his parents can't afford one and grain chile is it's meant to be I think quite a mixed area which it's helpful because it reflects the accents of the kids which do vary considerably and we do kind of when we do get an insight sometimes into home lives they can be quite varied but yeah you'll sort of see kind of have a kind of point where you have some kids in uniform and some not especially the older years who just really didn't want the one but then there's other times as well they're quite laks about it when it does come to uniform and it's kind of like if you've got like the shirt and tie then and some trousers then it's not then whatever shoes you've got on that's it that's fine yeah yeah look at my secondary school it was very they it was um yeah my school uh with the bit that had uniforms had a different head teacher and was that was very strict about saying that it would this is about any equalizer I mean it means you're not you've just got to have one good pair of shoes you're not going to be pressurising your parents to buy trainers and things so they they really they pitched it because it was a uh a proper a compressive like just like in my own grade she'll really it was a comprehensive with you do his working class middle class a real range and as we'll see you know Adrian Mole later he goes to the same sort of school where there are girls who've got ponies but they're and then there are people whose who's got their electric cut cut off and then you sat next to each other I like oh you look back and I hated very uniform but actually we have very little like actually branded and low-goed up stuff compared to I think what seems to be becomes more and more common and certainly like it was at primary school there was uniform but it was like sort of you know there was no expectation that anything would have have a logo on most people tended to buy a school jumper especially if it could be passed on to younger siblings um over the years um so they were ready and you'd get various shades of red of them um but there were such a plenty of people who just had like dates of red school style jumper with no logos I'd like to wear a blazer with a logo on it we had blazers with secondary we were only the second year and so we were called blazing squad which dates that does they do yeah yeah I I an on patch couple of time and that was it it put like those everything else we just colors yeah did you ever walk quite slowly in the street while explaining what you were planning to do during the day because I know just quite a lot of that happens in both of these episodes there's some good corridor acting but the kids do have to concentrate on getting the plot out while they've got a pan shot going on and the camera can't move all that quickly I feel if I was wondering this slowly down the corridor on the way to lessons that have been some teacher yelling come on it was good to compare the two episodes just over a year apart because it's series four everything seems I'll put it seemed a bit stagia and I don't mean that pejoratively I just mean it really feels like it's being performed more than in series three where seriously they were they were trying to not act like they were performing they're trying to be a bit more we're just some kids at a school saying our things and there's the yum I think there's a put the sink so I can't remember which one it's in my notes aren't good with the boy who's concerned it thinks his parents might be about just split up I may just have this conversation about it or was that in the wrong episode that I might have been in the one that wasn't meant to have oh yeah it was that was in episode 10 of series three but it was just like there's these two boys having this really awkward quite flatly delivered conversation oh your parents having a row again is like yeah I don't like it and it was just really unstagy to the point where it's quite wooden but then that is probably what 13-year-old boys talking about divorce would sound like yeah there was also that the series three episode we watch is not quite a bit on stuff on location whereas they're all in the studio for series four one of course yeah yeah that that affects performances doesn't it make me much more there'll be much more naturalistic outside yeah and there's always an episode or two each series where there's a trip outward bounds they do try and get them sort of out a bit yeah that was Mr Lewis now it's through his good favor that we're allowed on this land today and he's trusting us not to do any damage nor cause any nuisance so let's not betray that trust okay okay that's it I think now fires out Mr Lewis that they should do a thing for a while of Becky Shaw inner-city kids got out in the countryside yeah and as someone who lived several miles away from school and went past numerous farms and fields to get to school every day for a good decade this was battling to me like as kid I like what why do they want to come here it's just some fields and smell of cowshirt oh yeah obligatory someone has to stand in a galpat that has to happen every time a TV show it takes children to a field yeah so they get head off in that there's there's an earlier scene where some of them are trying to speak in the first time so it's kind of planted and then they're off again um Alan's the regular smoker which is quite right because he looks good five years older than he is and he's a good actor he's one who I know I thought just was he's good at acting yeah he is older and he is he has he's one of the ones who's been in it since the first series right so he's had a few years on it and then yeah lots of surreptitious smoking and I was the only character I've encountered in that first ten years of the show who is a regular smoker among the kids which doesn't match the statistics at all for teenage smoking at high when it's something like 20% of teenagers were smoking in the eighties hence the launch of nicotine um he's anti smoking super here right that sounds like a simpsons thing is that actually real yeah it's it's probably um like um see from an style adverts in like Marvel sort of comics and posters and stuff but yeah some of the latter farm were interested I think in the glimpse of a bra I think oh and the girl I love the girl who's um who reveals that she's she's got she's been pregnant for 24 hours she's like apparently girls know that that's amazing I didn't know that it was it worked that way we should just obediently knew her clothes were all changing so that's series three series four is well it's not this first episode but it's an early episode for Norman Griffith Stepson who will go on to quite a sort of large bullying plot later but he's he's still quite a nasty sod here and basically we have perga passan because plenty of these kids don't have proper names obviously the coolest thing at school is to have a good nickname to be a kid that gets a nickname yeah most of us didn't we just always call each other by our surnames because our teachers always call us by our first names well see that's is interesting but here all the boys are called by their surname and this seems to have been more of a thing yeah yeah yeah I remember I once called one of my friends you would use your you would use your first names in front of each other's in front of your parents and each other's parents because you'd get told if you didn't but then you'd done but like I once accidentally called my friend Neil when there was no adults in the room and I got the piss taken out of me for ages about it's his name there's some just stupid glamour yeah type pogo passan is our like of this generation's year the the one on the make so I don't know the answer but there was always someone who was trying to make some money selling packets of chocolate bars can's a pop something and pogo has many schemes and his current one is people paying him to do their homework which sounds like the worst scheme ever yeah and this one seems I don't know if this episode is but the previous episode was much more of an ensemble piece Don't, don't, don't want to see. three words, this one, it's the pogo show, isn't it? He's the starter of this episode. It's and that some other stuff happens too, but all the main narrative keeps coming back to him and his and his scheme. I think that kind of tends to vary. We do get the big ensemble ones, especially when they go out on trips, but it tends to have ones where you kind of have others as peripheries, and then you can focus more on sort of a couple. Certainly in the early series, it varies so much, and there's some characters who just crop up for like an episode or two and then have never seen or heard of again. Right, so yeah, so basically they just mix it up as the plot requires. I guess I'll have good bikinis and how cooperative the parents are and scheduling them that sort of thing. Yeah, most of them were recruited by a few different stage schools, so you tend to hope that they got something going for them, but I think it's probably also the case that some are better in front of the camera than others. This is before the most famous, probably, person to join Drangel Behm, Mr. Bronson. Oh, yes. It is time that young man was brought into line. I remember him joining, and we had a teacher just like him at our school, so it was like, yeah, he's just like him, yeah. But this is McCluskey being sort of regal or just pressurized and just just, I love this a bit, which it has some children and sort of good to them. They first years, something like that. Like, are these people just mullying little Brads? Who do completely crash a room? I mean, that is, you get some good violence on Grange Hill, although in this case, well, no, they are having a fight, aren't they? But it's mostly the furniture that gets damaged. I thought the fight was quite good, actually. Oh, the trashing of the room, we see that it's quite accidental of, basically, Paul Pogo is trying to defend himself from terrifying gripper, but it's just quite clumsy about it, really, of crashing bookcase and trying to swing a cricket bath, but it's too big for him, basically, and smashing glass. Yeah, and Mrs McCluskey going, all right. Well, if you want to behave like him, but she'll be treated like him, let's go to my office. I'll deal with you there. And yeah, and they're doing that teacher thing of walking into a situation where there's clearly a victim and a perpetrator and just saying you to stop that and treating them both, as they are. Mr. Hartwood literally walks in with like gripper is on his knees, like beating the crap out of Pogo, who comes right with a bloody nose, and that hasn't been seen to do anything. So he's stopped messing about boys. But yeah, Mr. Hartwood's one of my favourite teachers is he's, because he's quite firm but fair, and like he's the one who takes the mile into the country side in series three, and you know, he wants to do nice things for them. He's clearly wants to keep non-uniform, you know, not have school uniform brought back, and when they go to the meeting to decide on it and vote for it, he doesn't go along with Mrs. McCluskey and vote for it. He doesn't vote for it. Because he's cool, and he's kind of slightly handsome in a sort of, not creepily, not too handsome to be in the future, but nevertheless, you'd see him in a knitwear catalog, kind of looks, and I imagine, and there's that thing, and this does it, and other things do it too, that will come to, if they're being like, there's always that clique of kids, usually girls, who are that bit more mature, and who are kind of in a, they're in an intermediary hierarchy. It's the misjean bro, prime of misjean Brodie, if we were bugging something at a movie into the mix, of it's all the TV series of it, which is great. There's that thing of the teacher who picks out the cream of the crop to treat them as little adults, instead of the others, the ones who've got a bit more maturity and a bit more potential. And then there's the latter who we found, giving birthday beats to an Aladdin, and nearly breaking his back. Did you call it birthday beats? It was just the bumps at my skill, but probably a bit though, but I've seen too many people to beat. I've not heard birthday beats before, yeah. But I get that's the kind of thing that different regions would have their own names, sort of. There is the one kid who does a spectacular job of, I think he's doing it deliberately, just being really annoying. Pogo's brainy friend Matt, mate Matt. And I was just like, he deserves bullying. The one who's like, "Oh, you're not doing this, do you do it for me?" Yeah, that's my soul, though, on him, he deserves bullying. Yeah, his friend Dwayne is a bit more, I feel like he gets dragged in, okay, please. Yeah, he tries to persuade Matt, he tries to outsource the essay writing to Matt, because Matt's the cleverest boy, he knows, but Matt was having none of it. Why should I help other people? Yeah, we end up like, well, Ripper's suspended until the end of term, not sure how near the end of term they are. But again, because what is it, it's just short of 20 episodes a year, isn't it? Yeah, for the, I don't think the early ones have quite so many, but certainly, yeah, the only ones go on, and even more than that, I think by, like, sort of series nine, ten of them, yeah. Poor Pogo gets the cane. Yeah, God, that's, I don't remember that being, yeah, I don't remember that ever being a thing, it didn't like the late 70s, early 80s. I know it was still allowed. Yes, but I think schools have decided the teaching profession had turned against it. It crops up in an earlier series, but it's quite kind of casual in this one, like, their reference to, whereas in that early one, it's like taking incredibly seriously, and is like the worst possible thing apart from like getting sort of suspended or chucked out, and that can happen. Whereas this, he gets it for running his home work club, basically. Yeah, feels a bit harsh, but she's clearly in, you know, unforgiving food at that point. Yeah, she's not making friends in her early years there, Ms. Mrs. McCloskey. No, no, no, she's not going to be there yet. She's not, she's not, no, push over. Yeah, with, with, with no other, people's all the staff. So shall we time jump forward a little bit, although not all that much, because we picked Rachel from the turn of the decade, and I'm only taking us up to, well, on TV, it's 85, but it's set in 81, and it's published, but the book came out in 82, and the book in question is the formative literary work of the 1980s, in my opinion, a lot of people's opinion. Whatever happens, you won't forget that I'm fond of you with you. Fond? It's just that for some women, marriage is like being in prison. Good night, Love. Marriages, nothing like being in prison. Women are let out every day to go to the shops, and quite a few go to work. I think my mother is being a bit melodramatic. I don't think it's talked about enough nowadays as how huge it was. The secret diary of Adrian Moll, age 13 and 3/4, was just a defining thing. I mean, it was published when I was nine, and I definitely read it for a long time before it came. Everyone has read it. It was a book that just everyone had read, particularly if you're from Leicester and it's written by Sue Townsend from Leicester, it's set in Leicester or come to issues about that in the episodes, we're reviewing, it's still. I had questions about your opinions on Stylian's list, yes. We're still rankle, but it was so, and it already, I mean, she'd written, I think there was a play of it first, and she'd written, it appeared on the radio in a sort of pilot sort of sense, I think it wasn't, it was called Nigel originally, and just she was Sue Townsend was writing bits and pieces, and then she wrote it into this novel, and it just, it just absolutely took off everyone had read it. I remember hearing my parents reading it. After I'd read it, my parents borrowed it, and I could hear them laughing at it in their bedroom when they were like, and I could hear them, I'm like, "Oh, look at what he's doing." And so this is, and it's all about the awkwardness of teenage life, and this boy who is on the verge of realising that other people are human too, and he hasn't quite dropped yet, and so when his parents start behaving strangely, he's kind of mystified by it, and of course, and it's that great thing, it's really good writing, where the author is putting you two steps ahead of the narrator, and eventually you get to enjoy the humour of him, not getting it, and then you get to enjoy him catching up usually. And so yeah, it was inevitable that like this biggest children's book of the 80s, sold two million copies, Sue Townsend was ever, she was on chat shows talking about it before the TV adaptation comes along, and when it does come along in 85, it comes to screen, it's starring, no one does, because it's owned a role as much as Gian Samarco, he is just, he's just perfect, he's, he's, he's also invented, the looks like he, the glasses were added whether he was his idea, but Adrian doesn't have glasses in the book, that's never mentioned, but on TV, it just gives him such a, I'll see you in the next one. slightly awkward look and his way dresses is perfect as once the scene where he comes down stairs and he's got his jumper tucked into his really tight dead-in trousers with a really high waistband and that is just so so 1981-82 because it's not quite, people aren't quite over the '70s yet. We've got an all-star cast really, we've got particularly Julie Walters as his bum who we only keep for one series and both of the episodes I've picked are from series one, I went with the first episode and then another episode three which jumps about the first episode introduces everything episode three is a more sort of regular episode but there's still lots going on in it and yet it begins with him, he starts his diary, his parents' marriage is decidedly on the rocks and we've got Beryl Reed as his grandma, you don't get it, you don't get it, you don't get it, you don't see enough of the sort of posh working class, you know, everything's disgusting if anybody that's basically her dad's phrase and Stephen Moore as his dad is also, he's in everything, he's the Hitchhiker's guide, he's Marvin, the paranoid android in Hitchhiker's guide, I mean and they're all, it's a comedy cast but it's not done as, it's done for laughs but it's not a sitcom, it's all on film, it's shot in real houses and yeah so was this the first, your first taste of the TV series? I had an episode a few years ago and it's what I've meant to get around to more, Adrian Moore's still some kind of I was very unsure of like growing up but yeah but the book and I didn't get around to it until I was an adult and I felt like I probably had like more of like your parents reaction of being so far ahead on him but also I think if I'd read this as a teenager, it probably would have been so eye-opening of the mind of a teenage boy which just there is from being so weird to feel basically but I love that he's both naive and a total snub and has no right to be whatsoever but even though like he looks down on his own parents in a way that it's just I'm better than this and I think it probably does lead into more of his personality of he has aspirations and he wants to be an intellectual and go to university and I don't think anyone in Grainchill ever was like this and certainly not even though you have probably characters who might have some things in common it's that getting into his head and the underlying sort of stuff that's running through his mind all thoughts about Pandora and those just in a teenage warriors and concerns that everyone has but he's convinced that he's the only one and yeah it's that thing you know people say oh you get that meme now with people saying that they just isn't it funny how some people don't have an internal monologue like they think that other people don't have what are his own thoughts and that's exactly where he is it it would never occur to him that anyone else is having a as a diary or and the way that it's delivered so he narrates the TV show and every episode starts with him looking in the mirror and you're hearing what he's written in his diary that night it's just a picture of his face although he does occasionally speak to the camera but it doesn't it's not really very occasionally but even then you don't really notice it it's not done like oh we're breaking the fourth of all because you're hearing his voice narrating in between each scene and then you just go into the scene that he's writing about so it's pretty clever adaptation actually it's easy to take for granted the adaptation is so smooth that you kind of don't notice that it's an adaptation and that it's quite an unusual format yeah i guess because that narration is there from the start as he sort of we open on the new year's day and he's worrying about a new spot obviously new year and that's just ruined his year he goes to wake up his hungover parents and i was saying no sorry at 13 years old i knew definitely knew better than to wake hungover parents and certainly on new year's day um but um it's it's so quotable i think i think i'll get this a bit you know he makes a joke he says something to his mum called what it is now and he says i'm not surprised she didn't laugh she's not an intellectual she hasn't lost my peaked she's not like the mother's on television yeah i thought two towns indeed have a teenage son and i'm like really hope he wasn't like that but he's really quite sexist in ways i was about like what he expects of women and it's interesting that it's not just he doesn't think she should do this because she's his mum it's stuff like when the neighbor's wife leaves him to go off look i think it's fantastic a group of lesbian's it's for a wedding tribute um it's something like he's like well he wasn't he hasn't got a woman there to do it for him anymore no and he kind of realized how early these things are sex for some people yeah and that's and possibly because yet that's that's all he's seen exactly if you do like his mum does declare that she's going to go out and get a job and it just turns around and i go right we're going to have changes around here because i clear you have had that traditional set up of don't going to work and mum doing all the housework and stuff and she reads yeah she so his mum gets a reads a the female unit by germane gear which he then reads which triggers his first erotic dream and uh uh uh and he um yeah it's like he thinks his mum's interests are cooking food and cleaning up he thinks that's what she does because she's a mum it totally blows his mind that she's being weird and doing other stuff i do remember conversation with my dad where he was like to go through the august catalogue drives the birthday present from my mum i remember him saying that the turner don't go to the kitchen section she doesn't want a new carving knife for her birthday i don't see much just what she does it's a bit funny it could be sexual frustration in the other hand it could be the boiling the bag cod in butter sauce add for tea uh the the full the characters are all some characters you don't see so much but i mean i think it works with it the opener episode is i forgot a double episode so it's 45-50 minutes most of them or orish most of them are 25 to 30 uh but the the structure is very episodic within the episode like they're you get little 10 minute stories that are clearly a chapter of the book's good very short chapters you know it's a diary obviously but you know there's a there's a beginning in the middle and an end to a 10-minute sequence and then another sequence of the episode starts and he's off somewhere else and they go well going on holiday isn't an episode it's 10 minutes of an episode and they're never by the end of it it really cracks through his year but it's it's a nice way you've kind of you building up characters while still just getting like climpses of them so like by the time we we jump ahead we jump to head to episode three at which point Pandora is Adrian's girlfriend but in the first episode he's just really become aware of her and is pining for her yeah there's there's a petition at the school gate and i think like i you might be one of one of our first sites of Pandora is like someone like she's trying to get people to sign this and then someone walks past and she shouts stab yeah yeah it's so much when we find out more about her parents they live on the road where they get the heavy papers delivered and they get their clearly guardian readers i'm sure Adrian has to deliver the newspapers to the the girl of his dreams and he's ashamed that he has such a mean your job but yeah and going back to it is that thing but she's got a pony but the pony is in a field with a broken down car in it and it's back it's so it isn't and you know she's she's got a pony but she's not going to a private school she's going to comprehensive school there's this generic sixties comprehensive which could easily be the same building as grandchild could make it's exactly the same type of school yeah yeah it's it's Neil Armstrong Comprehensive yeah which i can no no think it says on the front Neil Armstrong comprehensive 1966 which is very good foresight of them to have named it after him maybe the original name got changed very quickly yeah i'm done all the signings yet i don't think that's addressed in the in the book but that is what is called in the book and we've got little parts we've got Freddie Jones as mr. Scruton the the terrifying and slightly mad headmaster uh but who's who not doesn't do all that much in these episodes if i don't think he gets much plot but he's just there as a terrifying presence uh the second episode you know what in a way i mean could it's always hard to pick an example episodes it is a bit weird that by episode three pandora is suddenly his girlfriend and there is there is there is an incident involving a petition in episode two where he gets behind her petition and that's how they get together yeah we jump together we move through timelines fairly fast because we do just have these snippets of stuff and it means that it feels we move quite fast through like his parents' separation, which is always this kind of works well like because it's we have like them having screaming arguments a bit, but it means that it's not a show we haven't had to sit through like six months of this. No, although they'll be yelling downstairs and he'll be writing in his own that my parents are so inconsiderate, here I am trying to work and they're making so much noise and it doesn't occur to him, as far as he says, they're just making an annoying noise. Why won't they stop being so annoying? And then it doesn't occur to him and it's going. Are you got a bit more of his ground popping around in that first episode? Yeah. I just I don't love barrel reading so much. I just want more on her. There's so many moments that one which goes you may think it's amusing George to look like a communist, but I don't now go upstairs and shave. So is that a husband used to shave and shaved in the transition and we shaved him when he was dead if a corpse can shave you can shave. But also when the third episode it's the Royal Wedding, the Royal Wedding. The Royal Wedding, yeah. Which was already a nostalgia, because by the time it went out in 85, this is nostalgia for four years ago. It's funny. Well, we'd seen it the go earlier in that same episode. They've had a Hindu family move in across the road, which is fascinating for us the very casual racism. Yeah. So, certainly there must be several years at mid-70s, there's an episode of the fallen rise of regional parent where they're trying to buy a house cheaply and they managed to do this by I think sort of the they're trying to buy multiple houses and one of the plot strands of them doing this is convince people to move out because they think that there's going to be like black or like Asian neighbors moving in. Yeah. And thankfully no one's blacked up in this. It's still sort of their likes of Adrian's dad. It's all just like, they'll be, they'll be sleeping too to a room, you know. And finally it's to a room, yeah. Yeah. And I think it's handled really interestingly because I also had earlier screen periods of mirrors I out there as the as the mom long time before goodness gracious me. But the way it's handled is that when the dad sees him, he mutters some generic racist bullshit. And then we cut away and then we cut back and next scene Adrian comes, well, there's a whole thing with Adrian and Pandora are really embarrassed by this and go over the Pandora in particular. It goes over and and welcomes them to the neighborhood and reassure Pandora says, my father is a member of the anti-Nazi league. So if you have any trouble from the people on this because obviously Pandora is looking down on Adrian's daddy street and Davis and is worried that these the vulgar people on his street are going to behave as his dad is behaved. But then we cut away and then we cut back two minutes later and the agents coming home in his dad's there and they're all over and they're all having a lovely time and and they're all they've all become best friends kind of off screen. They've just become friends. Yeah, when they when they come over for the Royal Wedding and their barrel reads face. She's still full. Yeah, it's just so it is that thing of being this partial worker class. She's not going to say anything but she is like slightly horrified about it. Yeah. There's a nice little actually kind of background dialogue between the Hindu dad and Adrian's dad where Adrian's dad is like, oh, he's self-tabored and everything can happen. He's just like, oh, well, actually, I don't because of my religion. And that's it. It's just some like kind of background dialogue while there's proper action happening elsewhere. Yeah. So it sort of it just takes the line that actually it just when people get to know it is very optimistic. You know, people who get to know each other, it will burst to that kind of bubble instantly. And then everyone is friends. Yeah. Rather than it being, you know, Strange Hill was doing a racism episode, which I know it did do. Yeah. It would be, but Adrian Mold is a comedy. So it's like, yeah. So you get Mrs. Mold senior, they're dressed like the queen. What to watch, there's a home with a guy sharing it out. She's got, she's meant to be something like 11 a.m. in the morning. And then then I've got the Irish couple next to them who are stereotypically necking a load of beers. And not fans of the royals, but there to see it anyway, or the dance grumbling about it. They're there for the party afterwards. Yeah. Which Adrian turns up in a shirt and tie. Yes, no concept of trying to look cool at all. Yeah. Oh, yeah, because then because then they have a big street party, which really is is a Jubilee street party on my street. But then that's just because the age I was, I was doing three for the Jubilee. And I remember as having a big street party. And it was just exactly like the one on the Adrian, Adrian Mold street, and I'm wondering if that was what Sue Townsend was talking about tomorrow. I don't know if there were, maybe there were some royal wedding street parties. But that's where it took me back to 77 rather than 81. But still, I just thought it was a really nice resolution to the episode. You know, all these characters who you've seen them not getting on or whatever, including the couples who are getting divorced and everything. And the woman, oh, the woman who just whistfully says, good luck, Lady Diop, who works out better for you than it did for me. I'm blind. And that was how do you follow that? Oh, one link elsewhere with Grinch Hill with this is that there is so much smoking in front of the children in Adrian Mold. And it is full ash trays in every room of that. Yeah, like it's, I mean, if Adrian, what was an Adrian, he was some other child, he definitely would have been a different sort of statistic of picking up his parents' fags. Because it's just constant to the point of his dad comes into his room, and he says, gone astray in here, and Adrian said, no, I don't smoke. Yeah, at the point this out is dad. At 13-year-old has to clarify that he doesn't smoke. Yeah. You're not in trouble, are you? I mean, you've not gotten into bad company and been influenced into carrying on locker ooligan. Oh, depressed. Depressed. There was no such word as depressed in all of your age. We didn't run video machines to keep us amused. Of some things, it's just so locked into its time that, and I don't know whether it's doing it deliberately, well, some things, it's kind of like, for example, OK, Lester love here. A lot of it is for all the things where they go into town or film the Lester. I think where the actual house was down in London, the street or, you know, in the home counties that's nearer. Because it was Tim's production. But they did come up to Lester for all the scenes of him out about, and there's always Lester buses going by, with the correct delivery of the early 80s. It's sort of cream with the maroon stripe. But yeah, of the Lester city buses versus the Midland Reds, which then they came middle of Fox, which is yellow and red. More bus talk coming later. No, it's not. They knew what Lester people were going to be paying attention to. And one point and it turns on someone turns on the radio and goes, you're listening to Lester independent radio on two, three, eight. I think that was the frequency, but that wasn't the name of the channel. So Pete, let's let's talk about the accents. Lester. I'm, are there any Lester accents whatsoever in this? Adrian himself. Julian Tomaco is from Northampton, which is not near Lester, but not far. And he sounds more like someone from Lester than anyone else in the entire thing. Because they did, it's the Midlands, do a Midlands accent. What's a Midlands accent? Like everyone talks about it from Dudley. It's, yeah, Peter Barlow, as obviously I've mentioned, Chris Gascoyne, aka Peter Barlow from Corey, as Barry Kent, the, the bully, who was as formative for some people as Pandora was for others. Cause he's far too good looking. The bully's at my school whenever that good looking. He's really, really handsome guy. And, and his accent, he's got his amazing line because I hate anybody that wears Flair Trinis. In one sentence, he goes from London to Manchester and back again, but never lands anywhere in the Midlands. Whereas everyone else, Julian, Julie Walters is doing a Mrs. Overall, but Birmingham accent and everyone seems to just roll with that. I think I think she's the last one. There's a postman with a black country accent. She says, I'll tell you how, what's wrong with the GPO? They clearly decided that they needed the GPO to run with you. And it's like, okay, maybe there was some mass emigration in parts of the West Midlands to these Midlands. I mean, if Adrian's family were originally from Birmingham and it moved to the Midlands, that would sort of explain it to move to a Leicester, but, but no, just pretty much everyone, everyone's cool. Midlands underserved even when we are being served. Yeah, Midlands England is the wrong bit. It's, it's shocking. And people in Leicester were really annoyed about that and I still am. I think I've got a couple of other Adrianisms that I want to bring up, which is going to his mom and asking, what's happened with the child benefit? She's just not even entertaining this, where I spend it all on gin and fags and he's very good by rights. It should be mine. I remember asking on my take-ins. Oh my god, this is a thing. Why am I not getting this? It's pocket money. And you want to know how much your stuff costs. How much it costs to keep you. And the other one is him asking, sure, doesn't he ask his teacher? I think it is. What chief sees? Do you need to write situation comedy? And he gets a rejection letter from the BBC on his on Valentine's Day. I have my rejection letters from the BBC somewhere. I love the dad. He says that they're arguing. My parents are arguing over who gets to have custody of me. And it's clearly an argument over who does not get to have custody. So the series, they made six episodes, one of which is so seven really, because one is double length of the first book. And then they came back 18 months later and did the second series, a growing pains very normal, which is good also, but it has lost a bit of the impact. But it's still good, although they do, they recast Julie Walters is unavailable. So they each like has Lulu as his mom, who is a glass region trying to do a Birmingham accent in order to convince you that she's from last time. In it, it doesn't work. I find it really how she's not his mom. It's just weird because she's just Lulu. She's a celebrity with a celebrity. Lulu from up, you know, Lulu is being herself in our fab. That's what I really know. Think of Lulu. So it's very strange her trying to persuade me that she's a member of the Midlands. But it's still, nevertheless, it's still perfectly watchable series, too, as well. Two towns, I said, one thing she really regretted was making birth, the old man that she loves birth, but it's her favorite character in the book. She says a lot of major in. And she really regrets that she made him in his late 80s when it started, because she wanted it, because she had to kill him off. The book's come off forever, as long as the much missed Sue Townsend was able to keep writing them. So she's writing them into the, well, into the Northeast, or the early Northeast anyway. Age and Mole and the weapons of mass destruction, I think might be the last one. And it does, it gets very weird. I mean, she has to keep, like, he has multiple divorces. His parents keep marrying other people and getting divorced because the fast element has to continue. Funny things have got to keep happening. And for a while he ends up living in a converted pigsty and it's all very strange. But she, so she really, really regretted having to kill off the book, because she puts it off as long as possible. And he sees in it throughout all the TV series as the Grumpy Old Man, but who's surprising, like he's able to reveal that he can conveniently speak Hindi. Yes. And that gets all of it. I really liked birth in the books. I read the first two and I feel like I want to go much more the TV series, because we kind of, these early ones is, yeah, well, we've got him in his sort of grumpy phase. And feels like he is like a dirty old man. And that sort of meant to have been the point of like Adrian's got this helper role. I don't think it's entirely clear in the TV series, like how he got it. But I think it's something through school. It is very, very, yeah, I missed it on first watch. It's very briefly mentioned, yeah, I've, I've volunteered for this scheme, where you have to do good deeds for someone. And he said, I think he says that I hope we don't get a dirty old man. Or I hope he doesn't have a dog. Let me go straight around and get a tag, get attacked by a filthy old man's dog. But yeah, it's that thing of Adrian gradually discovering. There's more to the world than. And yeah, there's, there's a lot more to. But on the surface and you kind of find out that he's got quite an interesting life. And there's a thing, oh, I think Adrian being in his life opens up his life a little bit more. And he is, he's clearly been quite lonely. And then he, yeah, he has an extra sort of family. And he's kind of like it, you know, new granddad for. I'm for Adrian with sort of dubious life advice sometimes, I think. So that's one form of teenage comedy, the awkwardness. The, the never knowing the right thing to say, which is very early eighties. And now we're going to jump to the end of the eighties with Chris Gang. A different flavor. Yeah. Chris Gang's set in the newsroom of the junior Gazette spin off from a local paper written by the kids for the kids. I think it's actually sounds like it could have been a bit naff, but it's an incredibly good series. And I know of it for a while before I dipped into it when it popped up a few years ago on the streaming platforms. And I picked an episode from series one and then later from series four, which I haven't yet really sort of got to. The territory for me. And it's just so good. It's so I don't even know what to get. Because hard to go up like a typical episode of it, but it's almost like the opposite of green chill. Sometimes because school is not the most important part of their lives at all. And it's incredibly tiny part of their lives. And it isn't a school paper for one, which it could have done that. But it's no, this is increasingly a commercial professional thing for a lot of them. Although most of them do seem to come from the same school, which is supposed to just makes it a bit more convenient. I never got, yeah, I was confused by that. I didn't when I when I would noticed it when I was a teenager, I thought it was a bit with their school had a publisher had it's a newsroom. So yeah, it's I think the first episode shows you the the editor of the main paper had this idea. And I think he approached the teacher as at their school and said, could you suggest some people for it? And then it's Richard, oh yeah, we're going to get some other schools involved and I don't know if they ever actually do. But it's kind of banded together initially by some people who will actually be keen and enthusiastic. And basically some people are on the verge of getting kicked out of school and it's like start doing something useful and productive. So channel your energies into this. So it's led by Linda who is not really a people person in some ways is she's she's still there's often feels like she's learning how to manage people she cares about the paper above anything more than anything at all. This she meant to be how old are they all because so it's they're never really clear about it. Obviously I've seen coming up, but yeah, so the series one of the picked is called both sides of the paper, which nice to be meeting for the paper, the newspaper and their exam papers were. The all the exams are looming and Linda's struggling to keep the paper going because people are starting to drop out and the headmaster of the school is pressurising the parents of people on the paper to all them off it. But if the paper stops, then it's going to cost money to get it going again and they're not sure whether that actually possible. I think they're meant to be doing their GCSEs because the way they talk about them is a range of subjects and they kind of all seem to be doing the same ones. Yeah, but it's another sort where there's a mix of uniform and not uniform and no one on the paper seems to a uniform. No, yeah, which means we think they might be doing it, there might be a levels, but they yeah, so I see, but it is a choice to not actually specify that yeah. So come on, what's the situation? Upper Creek running out of paddles and tomorrow lunchtime I've got to go and see the headmaster again. Why? Because I asked to. So what do you want to tell him? Nothing I could repeat in front of him. In a sense of as well, we have, well, we have Tony Mirren, the phone Ranger from a little radio station who's coming round and trying to come up with some sort of story for his radio show. And he approaches Linda about a potential job as an editor on his new radio show and one of things that he. Asks is when's the earliest you can leave school, which is therefore thinking well, this has got to be sort of GCSE time, but kind of remind me as well that there's. There were years until. Just going to say failure recently, but it's probably not anywhere has been a long time since I was doing GCSEs. And you could leave school, I think. at like the east of term and knots necessarily like stick around for your exams. You turn 16. Yeah, yeah. And I think and he's kind of there implying to Linda of what your exams aren't necessarily the most important thing here. The she has a confrontation with the head teacher which is really written from a sort of teenagers fantasy of what a conversation with the head teacher might be like because they're talking to each other as if they're equals almost. They're bargaining with each other and there's like I don't know how many 17-year-olds get to talk to that teacher like that. Well, I think so why every year I thought they're probably worth sick formers because it sometimes feels like they swan in and out and do what they like. And you're actually ever in the school but I think it's just a convenience really for a TV show wise. There's other times where it kind of makes it clearer that they get free periods and they're working before and after school. There's a lot of stuff where it seems to be like their evenings that they're doing stuff in the newsroom. Yeah, yeah. But they're quite organised of they've got like a writing team, a sort of design graphics and type setting, even if they get involved with. And it's very um but it's set in a phanta. It's clearly realism. It's further down its list of objectives, the needs of the other two. It's here to be funny, to be zappy, to be zingy. Everyone's got a witty line. Julius Suwala is off to a stellar career. You watch this and you just think this woman is a lead actress of, you know, incredible talent. She's going to, she just is not a child actor in any sense or even a sitcom actor in a way that some of the others are. Some of the others have been perfectly adequate sitcom acting. But there's just something more to, you know, there's the funny one with the flop, the one with the Dar floppy hair who's calling it kind of the zander if it was Buffy. The Joker but not a complete clown. But, you know, they're all the butt of each other's jokes and quips. But there was like Linda's character. Julius Suwala's character is the whole thing. She's difficult, you know, because she wants the best. And she's so, she's very, very clever. And she finds it very frustrating that other people aren't as clever as her. Yeah, so it's written by someone called Stephen Moffett who I just don't know whatever became of him. Went on to write various sitcoms in the 90s. Yeah, something to do is show a lot of Holmes. Yeah. But yeah, a smart, bossy, dominating woman. But it was, I mean, it's all about, she's the star. It's what it's her. Well, it's not, well, it's an ensemble cast, isn't it? But I, but she seemed that I noticed these two have, did I tell you that I found deck? I can't remember before when we were floating this. You did tell me. Have you deliberately picked two Dexter Fletcher light episode? No, but I was delighted when I realized I have. I was like, I don't want this just to be, like, Pete, like, just having tried and enjoyed Dexter Fletcher. I feel so annoyed. I just, just whenever he's on screen, I want him to not be on screen. I didn't think he was. Now you've mentioned it, and now I'm kind of finding him more and more and more. He's just smug and, and, and, and I think the character is more so is and probably even more so when you're only getting glimpses on in this. You just entered a room without a string of gags about how pretty you are. I want to talk about it. Oh, it's a sad story, boss. Why are you going so big that it left me? Spike, you know how you said you wanted to start dating other women while you tried to figure out how you feel about me? What I said more accurately, Linda, was that I'd rather date any other woman in the entire universe, regardless of size, shape, age, greed, or species than you. Sure, but if none of those relationships work out, we're an item. It's kind of told that he's been like a sort of problem kid and stuff, but I find it really hard to believe because I just by, like, it cleared to just seem like a class clown more than, you know, getting properly, properly making trouble and yeah. He's a bit arrogant and loves himself. They all do to some extent and that's partly what I mean, I was a bit, so I was 17 or something when this started and I didn't see much of it. I glimpsed it occasionally. I've had him really annoying. I couldn't believe how bad his accent was and I know that I just started doing a bromy accident, but I know I've read that actually that does jokes are made about that within the stories that people say they can't understand what accent he's got or whatever. But why would you why would you shackle someone with having to having to do a voice about it? I don't know, but yeah, so there is a there is that sort of smugness to everybody that didn't appeal to me all that much at the time and stopped me vibing with it. Despite the fact that I know it's a lot of even I knew people who who swore by how good it was. I never really gave it a chance because I do prefer my teenagers to be accidentally gluing airplanes to their faces to their nose and they do more like the thing. I think the thing about it, I've realised the more I've watched, it's it's not written like a children's series, which no, it's not a grown-up sitcom. Yeah, and you can play scene where that's going. Yeah, and it's a 90s sitcom too, it's very modern that pace, you know, you know, for its time, the opening credits are almost like the theme music is almost like a spoof of a 90 of a 80s soap. Yeah, yeah. So, and it's playing with that, but yeah, it does feel ahead of its time, definitely. The paper element gives them quite a wide remit for stories of you can do ones that are more about the characters' relationships and you can do one where you can have the most like dramatic, but like they don't shy away from stuff, there's a story about abuse and child abuse and there's another one that addresses a teenage theorist and they're all done really well whilst still being appropriate for their audience, which it is just a children's slot. But then you can completely go off and you can do like the series 4 episode. Yeah, well, I mean because these episodes are both quite jolly, there's no, yeah, but yeah, but the series 1 episode 9, was it? Yes. Yeah, series 1 episode 9, and then series 4 episode 2, or expected, as in like the Quatermass experiment. This is going off into Jonathan Creek Territory, I think I get before Jonathan Creek, just the fourth wall breaks are really clever, you know, to discover that he's what's not too much of a spoiler, is it? We haven't needed to worry about spoilers too much. I'm talking about these. The plot is, one of the newsroom team Fraz has agreed to review videos of Unexpected, which is an old children's TV show about this heroic crime fighter played by, real life Michael J. Stone. And then we find out after Fraz gets knocked out and mugged, he comes around and he starts seeing this Colonel X character, except a problem is the actor who played him died in a car crash years ago. Very well then, since you were treating me as if I don't exist, I will leave now and return later this evening when I calculate events will have reached that terrible crisis. It's a very, very moffity. And Michael J. Stone is just having a whale of a time and so this is a yeah. So his characters like, he's like in a long coat, wide roomed hat, he's full of like one-liners, but he's like. Someone says, I love it, someone says, how can you deprogram this computer? He says, I have a hat pinned on some string. Yeah, he's like a mashup of loads of those like, I guess, of six to his early 70s like TV heroes. So there's a bit of him that is a bit like Steve, you know, he's a bit of, it's a bit, the show almost could seem like it could be a bit of injury because it's quite fantasy of certain plots. We get like Brian Glover playing Mad Scientist. The time any role? Yeah. And it's being watched on a video. It's kind of a visual playing where they, at first you think it's shot as if he's in the room with these people and then gradually you it's revealed to you that he's watching them on a video. And he's watching an episode of a TV show. Yeah, the direction and editing of a lot of it is quite good. And you keep guessing through the episode what's going on. We're not entirely clear where the phrase is really seeing Colonel X or whether it's the result of his concussion or whether other people can really see him. There's a bit where like I think the phrase is, after he's been mugged and we see him in conscious and then we see Colonel X standing over him. and it's like a like what is this like more of a dream or is it shot from the TV show, just the weight jumps back and forth between it, leaves you a bit unsure and just wondering for quite a long time, until Michael Sheer turns up. Looping us back to Grange Hill, even though he wasn't in the Grange Hill that we watched, but yeah, and to get people of that caliber having these type, relatively small roles, it's where I say that caliber, because we love them from all of their other appearances and all sorts of other things. I mean, we've got, we've got, what's his name? Silver from Sapphire and Steel, as the. David Collins, David Collins, head teacher, or Norbridge High. In the previous episode, so yeah, I mean, I guess it's part of the joke, with the idea that Dexter Fletcher with his strange rubbery face is telling Julia Suala that she's never going to get a date, because she's too weird, where she's the most beautiful sort of glamorous looking woman, that could be. You have to just take that with a pinch of salt. I guess that but that's maybe a little bit tongue-in-cheek. You just paint Dexter Fletcher, don't you? I do, I just love him. I feel like you've gone more with maybe Colin. Yeah, yeah, I would, yeah, but I can't, it is that thing in Moffitt's scripts. I don't think I'd like dang out with any of these people, actually, they're quite funny when they're doing clips at each other, but I would get really tired of them doing that with me very quickly, if not in real life. What have I got myself into? The usual, and it's about up to your neck. I would, although I would, I would definitely definitely hang out with Michael Jason as Professor X. I want to see the unexpected TV show. I love that we get the video, the video cover is mocked up, they mock up a TV times as well. I'm X on the cover. Yeah. So yeah, you have definitely, although I've still got some of my prejudices, I understand now why it's so popular in a way that I didn't previously, because yeah, it does zip along, and it is funny. I found myself laughing out loud. I mean, damn you Moffitt, you got me. That's such a Moffitty thing. But I can't call it a Moffitt cliche, because there's the bit where the guy says it's a policy of mine, always to expect the unexp- and it gets punched in the face before you finish the word I'd expect it. That led me laughing out loud. So yeah, I can't deny it. So it might be time to get out, race scale for each of these shows. How are we going to, what are we going to do? Yeah, how are we going to, how are we going to weigh them? So well, I brought along Green Chill, you brought along Region Mall. Yes. And I've got a lot of race scale as well. Yeah. So for Green Chill, we go from zero. I'd rather watch the test card to five. I'd spend hard earned money on a lovingly prepared box set of this. Where are you sitting with Green Chill? It's difficult, because also I'm not fact there's a lot of episodes of Green Chill. You'd get good value for money, but we're trying to factor that out. Just go for the quality rather than the quantity. And I mean, I don't spend much time watching old kids shows specifically, but yeah, I mean, it's definitely based on those two episodes. I'm wavering between a three and a four basically. Yeah. So like, no, I'm not buying the collector's edition. I'm not buying the steel book, even if it's got, this is my trust to be on it looking steely. But three feels harsh for something that is, yeah, no, it's got to be a four. It's got to be a four. What about you? I think the Green Chill, I'm probably more like on a three aspect, because I've seen so much of it now. I know that the quality varies across series, but also I am still keen for more. I am so curious of how it will develop. Are you doing the pilgrimage? You're going through the whole thing? Well, I put long pause because the DVDs are available up to, so it was 10. And then clearly, like, the nostalgia has a price and there's been no more deflecting around online. And so as long as I can find enough of them, I'll probably like to explore into the 90s. We are kind of by the latest, you know, getting on to about like the, we've got rid of the, along got rid of the first sort of cohort. We've got some remnants of sort of later ones, really kind of freshly moving on a bit more. Yeah, so Adrian Moll, how did he glamour me? I really enjoyed it. And like, the Lulu kind of slightly probably puts me off. Well, let's just go with the secret diary then, because one book is one adaptation. No, I'm going with the four. Yeah, I'm on this one. It's just, it is so funny. I am so excited. I love all of them. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, people won't be surprised from my way I've raved about it. For me, it's a five. The only release is a bog standard, very washed out network DVD with no subtitles, no special features at all. And I would kill to have it remastered. Because it's all shot on film. Please, Tim's have those film masters somewhere, because it could look amazing. Although, maybe it shouldn't. Maybe it's quite good. Yeah, actually, maybe it's meant to be a bit dreary. It's 1981, 1981 was a dreary year. But yeah, for me, this is a five out of five for me, definitely. And what about Breastgang, even like with Dexter Fletcher light? Can I skip Dexter Fletcher? So while you have showed it, I now appreciate why other people like it so much. I still just find them all a bit annoying and smug. And I can't shift that. So on that basis, I'm going to be brutal. I'm going to give it a two. I'm going to give it a two, sorry. I think this is my five. I think this is the one where I want a bit more, like, making of and I want to kind of know their discussions that we're going on behind the scenes, especially when they're putting together some of like, like the harsher plots. But also like, just the absurd, like unexpected ones as well. Yeah. I love their detail in that. Yeah. All right. I've been harsh. It's that I can't in reality give it say that it's only one step up from a test card. I'm going to give it a three. Yeah. I will give it a three because it was perfectly watchable. It made me laugh. I just and I can trust it. But just when I like buffing, which also, you know, several years later, nearly 10 years later, that's got the same sort of equipping thing, but it's done that, but I'd like the tone of it more because there's more self deprecation to it than than this is about sparring with other people more. I don't know. It's hard to depend down exactly why it doesn't quite. It's not my style, but yeah, I can't give it less than a three. It's very good at what it does and it is funny, even if I wouldn't want to be locked in a room with any of these people. Would you pick Dexter Fletcher over Griffith Stavson? Hello. Would you pick Dexter Fletcher over Grangel's Griffith Stavson? A Griffith Stavson Grangel. No, I think neither of those would be invited to my birthday party, but he's so smart. He's so smart. Get the whole thing about no one would want to go on a date with you. He's gaslighting it. He's literally gaslighting it. I'm playing up to her insecurities. Order to make her feel bad and go on a date with him. And I suppose it's a will they won't they? But I know also new girls that uni who are in love with him. I kept my power to dry. I was like, okay. No, I always was gorgeous. I almost all of these are up on YouTube. Everything we talked to episodes we talked about today, aren't they? Yeah, except episode, especially on the ITV Retro channel. Oh, yes, good point. Yeah, but because secret diary of Adrian Moll, first episode I couldn't find on YouTube, so I managed to find it on day motion, but I've got the DVD of it anyway, but I couldn't watch that in the morning. Yeah, Adrian Moll and Prashgang were both network releases. So that's good looks. Yeah, better than nothing. Yeah. Well, we're closing down for the night at Cafe Ray now. So thank you for listening to the Cafe Ray television files. You've been listening to me, Pete. And me. Hello. We hope you're joining us next time for more television shot. For now, we'll wish you goodbye. And please remember to turn off your set. Goodbye. Oh, but Ray's cathode ray TV is what gave us the idea of meeting here once a fortnight to compare episodes from three different British TV series over the decades with a different theme I should have inhaled before my life. I really fucking. And not just maybe it was a little awful.