Tantalizing Trailer For Bob’s Full House Event

Kaleidoscope has made a trailer packed with tantalizing clips from missing shows in advance of its forthcoming event dedicated to consummate performer Bob Monkhouse.

The classic TV organisation is in charge of the Bob Monkhouse archive – a huge collection of 35mm and 16mm film, videos, audio reels and cassettes – gathered together by the late comedian, who died of prostate cancer in 2003.

Much of that material is officially missing from the archives and a full list of finds will be published to coincide with Kaleidoscope’s “Bob’s Full House” event, being held on Saturday, October 24, at BAFTA in London.

To whet people’s appetitie for the event, a specially-compiled trailer featuring brief clips from a number of Bob’s shows including My Pal Bob, Mad Movies and Celebrity Squares has been put online and can be found here, along with details on how to obtain tickets.

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Amateur Animation Takes TARDIS Crew Back To The Moon

If you judge aesthetically, it’s pretty shoddy, but regardless of the quality, one YouTuber’s admirable attempt to animate a whole missing episode of Doctor Who is worthy in two respects.

Firstly, Martin Scotchmore’s amateur recreation of “The Moonbase” episode one (tx 11/2/67)  is highly watchable in its own right.

OK, Martin’s “borrowed” heavily from Cosgrove Hall’s superlative animations of episodes one and four of 1969’s “The Invasion” – released on DVD by 2|entertain in 2006 – with the amusing consequence that a lot of characters share faces (such as all the women looking like TARDIS companion Zoe).

But never-the-less, it’s still an A* for effort, considering that 2|entertain have yet to commission any more animations despite their being a considerable demand for them among the Who community.

That brings me to the second point concerning it’s value: Ropey as it is, it still enjoys the distinction of being the ONLY fully animated fan-produced episode to date.

So thanks Martin for doing this, and I hope we get to see missing episode three some time soon.

and secondly, it has the distinction of being the only fully animated fan-produced episode to date.

Heads Up For Hancock Release!

The first of two CD releases featuring the soundtracks to missing TV episodes of Hancock’s Half Hour comes out at the start of July.

The season four episodes – “The Flight of the Red Shadow” (tx 23/01/1959) and “The Wrong Man” (tx 06/03/1959) – are released by BBC Audiobooks as a two-CD set on July 2, 2009，and are currently available for pre-order on Amazon.

In “The Flight of the Red Shadow” (aka “Desert Song”), Hancock is on the run from disgruntled members of the East Cheam Repertory Company. In order to escape, Hancock is forced to masquerade as the Maharaja of Renjipur, with disastrous consequences.

“The Wrong Man” sees Hancock and Sid called in to take part in a police identity parade. However, when a witness picks Hancock out for the burglary of a high street tobacconist, he has only days to clear his name.

In addition to series regulars Tony Hancock and Sid James, “The Flight of the Red Shadow” features Rolf Harris and small walk-ons for series creators/writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. Simpson also appears briefly in “The Wrong Man”.

In total, 26 episodes of the TV version of Hancock’s Half Hour (1956 – 61) are missing, all from the first four seasons.

Before season five, HHH went out live and, sadly, the majority were never telerecorded.

Thankfully, some forward-thinking fans made off-air home recordings at the time.

Those soundtracks were returned by the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society to the BBC in late 2008 and consisted of the recordings featured on the forthcoming CD alongside further season four episodes: “Underpaid! Or, Grandad’s SOS” (tx 02/01/59); “The Horror Serial” (tx 30/01/59); “Matrimony Almost” (tx 13/02/59); and “The Beauty Contest” (tx 20/02/59).

A follow-up CD, featuring “The Horror Serial” and “The Beauty Contest”, is scheduled for November, and is also available for pre-order from Amazon here.

Both CDs will include explained sleeve notes explaining how the episodes came to be released.

Unfortunately though, according to comedy website Chortle the remaining two soundtracks may be too poor quality to ever get issued commercially.

Forgotten But Not Goon – Hoard Of Lost British Comedy Films Discovered

A hoard of lost films featuring the earliest cinematic appearances of some of the UK’s most famous comedians has been discovered after gathering dust in a garage for over 50 years.

The incredible collection – which comprises of more than 30 movies dating from the early 1950s – stars the likes of Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Sid James, Ronnie Corbett, Thora Hird and Prunella Scales.

Unearthed films include The Goons’ stars Sellers, Milligan and Harry Secombe in their first big screen production, Penny Points to Paradise, released in 1951 – the same year in which their famously anarchic BBC radio show began. Another Sellers and Milligan film, Let’s Go Crazy, was also in the cache.

The movies were all either made or distributed by Adelphi, a family-run company set up in 1939 by Arthur Dent, a one time British representative of Hollywood mogul Sam Goldwyn.

His company ceased producing films after 1956 but Dent stored negatives and prints in his garage in Highgate, north London, where they were forgotten about until his granddaughter, Kate Lees, recently stumbled upon them.

The treasure trove – which also includes The Great Game, a football-themed comedy featuring Thora Hird and Diana Dors; boy’s boarding school farce Fun At St Fanny’s, starring Ronnie Corbett; and What Every Woman Wants, a drama with Brian Rix and Joan Hickson – has been described as “a snapshot of a particularly prolific period of British film-making,” by Lees, speaking to The Sunday Times.

She has now handed over to the British Film Institute (BFI) for restoration.

Penny Points to Paradise and Let’s Go Crazy are set to be screened at the BFI’s cinema on London’s South Bank in July, before being released on DVD, with more releases expected to follow, funds-permitting.

You can read more about this exciting story by visiting UK comedy website Chortle here, The Sunday Times here, and the BFI website here.

Wiped hopes to bring you more information soon.

New Discovery Spurs Campaign For Director’s Cut Of Nightbreed

Twenty five minutes of material cut from 1990 horror film Nightbreed and long-thought lost by writer/director Clive Barker has been located thanks to the efforts of an assiduous fan.

Intended as the “Star Wars of monster movies”, Nightbreed sadly failed to live up to Barker’s expectations with its theatrical release. Though he often expressed a wish to produce a director’s cut of the film, this seemed impossible as the excised footage was believed lost.

The closest fans of the movie could ever get to seeing the missing material was in some behind-the-scenes footage unearthed a few years ago.

But Barker may yet get to revisit his film after the revelation that the footage, said to contain “a song, some violence, some structure”, still exists – in the vaults of a film studio.

The discovery, announced on Clive Barker’s Revelations website,  is thanks to dedicated fan Mark Miller, who, as he is quoted on the site, “set out in search of the truth, armed only with a few phone numbers and the power of a name.”

Unfortunately, for now the studio (which isn’t named in the article) seems uninterested in assembling an extended cut of Nightbreed, believing the cost would far outweigh the sales returns.

Despite the bad news, the team behind the Revelations site still still hopes to change the studio’s mind and has started a campaign to get a director’s cut released. You can find out more about the story, and add your voice to the petition, by clicking here.

“Bob’s Full House” – Tickets Now Available for Kaleidoscope Event

Classic TV organisation Kaleidoscope has revealed further details about its October event dedicated to comedian’s comedian Bob Monkhouse, including information on how to obtain tickets.

Entitled ‘Bob’s Full House‘, the hotly-anticipated event will be a retrospective of the life and work of the hugely-talented comic, writer and avid TV, film and radio collector, who died of prostate cancer in 2003.

Of particular interest to missing episodes enthusiasts will by Kaleidoscope’s announcement of all the lost TV and radio shows they have discovered while sorting through the vast Bob Monkhouse Archive.

Posting on both the Missing Episodes and Mausoleum Club forums, Kaleidoscope’s Chris Perry gave the following information about “Bob’s Full House”:

“Join Kaleidoscope and the Monkhouse family on Saturday 24th October 2009

The David Lean Room, BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly, London, W1J 9LN

12:00 – 7:00 pm

The Bob Monkhouse Archive is stored and managed by Kaleidoscope on behalf of the Monkhouse family. Originally given to the BFI, but now stored solely with us, the collection includes 35mm and 16mm film, a range of obsolete VCR formats and a huge library of modern cassettes. There are thousands of radio items, scripts and pieces of memorabilia.

Bob’s former home, ‘Claridges’, clearly was a very full house indeed.

However, the collection is far more than just the works of Bob himself. It contains rare and unique material from many comedy greats including Denis Goodwin, Tony Hancock, Tommy Cooper, Lenny Henry, Frankie Howerd and Jasper Carrott.

To raise funds for the Prostate Cancer Research Fund, enter a fabulous world of comedy on Saturday 24th October and enjoy the hidden classics found in Bob’s full house.

Guests:

Denis Norden, William G. Stewart

Colin Edmonds, Alan Nixon

Paul Stewart Laing

with contributions from John Fisher,

Gail Renard, Dick Fiddy and Steve Bryant.

Our M.C. is Liz Barker

More guests being confirmed daily!

Entry is strictly by free ticket only, because BAFTA

is a private club. Please send an SAE to:

93 Old Park Road, Dudley, DY1 3NE

Spaces are limited to 150 people only.

“Bob’s Full House” – a comprehensive guide to the material within the collection will be published on the day. This paperback book will list the hundreds of missing programmes found by Kaleidoscope’s digital restorers. Price: TBC.”

• For more information on the Bob Monkhouse Collection and “Bob’s Full House”, see an earlier Wiped news story here.

New Zealand Censor Clips Discovery

Over 10 minutes worth of clips from various missing 1960s BBC and ITV shows have been recovered from New Zealand thanks to the assistance of classic TV organisation, Kaleidoscope.

The unique 16mm material was returned earlier this year, with the aid of Kaleidoscope’s Chris Perry and the BBC’s Andrew Martin, after being discovered by Wellington Doctor Who fan Graham Howard on a reel of censor clips that forms part of a film enthusiast’s private collection.

A “censor clip” is footage deemed “unacceptable” by television censors and cut from a programme before broadcast, in this case by NZBC (New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation). The censors’ reasons for excising material can include deeming it to be of an unacceptably violent, horrific or sexual nature.

It is not the first time censor clips from otherwise missing programmes have come to light, and from the same collection. Back in 2002, Graham was responsible for locating and returning to the BBC precious seconds of Doctor Who footage from missing episodes two, four and five of  “The Web of Fear” and episode five of “The Wheel in Space”, found on two large reels of censor cuts, labelled “Television extracts”.

The material from the recently located third reel has yielded clips from the following missing shows:

• The First Lady, BBC 1968 – 9. Starring Thora Hird as a “crusading local councillor” in a gritty northern town, The First Lady was a highly regarded drama series that ran for two series. Out of 39 50-minute b & w episodes made, only one survives in the archives – season one’s “A Time of Fear” (tx 25/7/68). The censor clips, running to approximately five minutes, come from “The Battle of Waterloo Street” (tx 24/4/69), “Mrs Whatever” (tx 26/5/68) and “Blow Hot, Blow Cold” (17/4/69). Of particular note is a continuous three-and-a-quarter minute segment removed from season two’s “The Battle of Waterloo Street” featuring character Tom Danby, son to Hird’s Sarah Danby, confronting a knife-wielding youth.
• The Four Seasons of Rosie Carr, BBC 1964. All four episodes of this period drama were wiped but the censor clips feature three sequences from episode one, “Spring At The Winged Horse” (tx 4/7/64).
• Emergency Ward 10, ATV.
• Drama 62: “The Teeth Of Treason”, ATV (tx 29/7/62). Written by Jacques Gillies.
• The Gamblers: “You’ve Got A Lucky Face”, A-R (tx 11/7/68).

All the clips were screened at Kaleidoscope’s last event, held on June 6th, 2009, along with censor clips from existing shows: Fraud Squad: “Run For Your Money”, ATV (tx 11/7/68); The Gold Robbers: “Rough Trade”, LTV (tx 11/7/69); and The Flaxton Boys, YTV 1969.

You can read Wiped’s review of June’s Kaleidoscope event here.

Loose Cannon Recon Feature Up Now

I’ve just added a feature looking at the brilliant work of Loose Cannon Productions, which makes highly-regarded reconstructions of missing 1960s Doctor Who stories. Their latest release, “The Evil of the Daleks”, is available now and is definitely worth checking out: It’s the closest you’ll ever get to seeing the story as originally broadcast.

Click here to go to the article, with links to the LC website.