Today Isn’t Saturday

I’d had a fair bit to drink by the time that “Tiswas Reunited” started on Saturday night and, to be honest, it rendered my critical faculties somewhat impaired. I was, by 9.15, in a sufficiently catatonic state to be capable of little more than gurgling like a baby at the site of Bob Carolgees & Spit The Dog and John Gorman. This being ITV1, of course, critical analysis was always going to be thin on the ground. However, the programme made something of an attempt at recreating the atmosphere of the original show, and the list of former team members was impressive, though there were (as we shall see, a couple of notable absentees).

“Tiswas” is a prime example of that old truism about some events in human history being so momentous that even people that couldn’t possibly remember them know where they were when they happened. It’s etched into the national consciousness in a way that the truly great TV shows are, and it’s a tribute to the extent to which is shaped the face of children’s television that we can scarcely imagine what the world would have been like without it.

It started as a cheap way for the ITV Midlands company ATV to fill a couple of hours on a Saturday morning. Presenters Chris Tarrant and John Asher sat in a tiny studio at the ATV studios in Birmingham, linking cartoons and pop videos with jokes. Tarrant had been plucked from the local news show (where he had been a roving reporter) and did it for an extra £25 per week. For three years, it stayed in the Midlands only, acquiring a small studio audience of children and a reputation for anarchy that was unheard of anywhere else on British television. By 1977, the programme had been exported to Wales and The West Of England, but it took the female touch to take the programme’s appeal to the next level.

The truth of the matter is that the decision to bring Sally James in to host alongside Chris Tarrant didn’t go down terribly well when it was made. James had been hosting London Weekend’s “Saturday Scene”, and was an accomplished presenter, but Tarrant was reportedly unhappy with the changes. Jim Davidson, of all people, co-hosted a few episodes while James completed her contractual obligations, and within half a dozen appearances of her debut, it had become clear that they had made the right choice. ATV, mindful of the “bad example” that chucking around dozens of buckets of water and custard pies could set, insisted that the production team tone down the level of it all, so producer Glyn Edwards created “The Phantom Flan Flinger”, a nemesis for the team hosting the show.

By 1980, the programme had entered its golden age. In the face of competition from the BBC (“Multi-Coloured Swapshop” had launched in 1976), ATV had increased the budget substantially, enabling the production team to bring in a bigger supporting cast (including Lenny Henry and Sylvester McCoy), and to rely less on cartoons and videos and more on what was happening. For a couple of years, it was the “must-watch” children’s TV show. By contrast, “Swapshop”, hosted by a prematurely avuncular Noel Edmonds and John Craven seemed resolutely staid and polite – yesterday’s values given a sheen of child-friendly gloss. It couldn’t last. One of the curses of children’s television is that it is invariably used as a stepping stone to other things, so when a presenter becomes successful the first thing that happens is that they leave the vehicle that made them in the first place. Tarrant and most of the rest of the team jumped ship in 1981 to produce Tarrant’s now infamous “adult” show, “OTT”, whilst James and new co-hosts Den Hegarty (erstwhile of peculiar doo-wop band “Darts”) and comedian Fogwell Flax limped on with a final series through the winter of 1981.

The final nail in the show’s coffin was ITV’s franchise awards of 1981, which forced ATV into an uncomfortable merger and a name change to Central TV. Central were keen to sweep a broom through what they regarded as a somewhat dusty ATV network schedule. Only sure-fire hits such as “Family Fortunes” were guaranteed aa place in the new schedule, and the disappointing eight series of “Tiswas” was all the excuse that they needed to swing the axe. When another new ITV company, started producing a Saturday morning show called “Number 73″, Central pulled the plug for good.

As I said earlier, there wasn’t much in the way of rigorous critical analysis going on last Saturday night, of course. There was one melancholy moment, as James and Tarrant visited the now-deserted Central TV studios in Birmingham. I don’t know whether they were gagged from commenting upon it or whether it just went unsaid, but I couldn’t help but briefly lament the passing of regional ITV for a moment. There was a time when there were five of these big, regional television “centres” dotted around England – two in London, and one each in Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds. On top of these, there were smaller studios in Southampton, Cardiff, Norwich, Newcastle and Glasgow that were all capable of producing programmes too. Nowadays, everything in centralised from The South Bank Studios in London. The regional studios are little more than news rooms, and ITV has completely lost its way.

The truth of the matter is that ITV wouldn’t be capable of producing anything as radical as “Tiswas” now. With its reality programming, wall-to-wall soap operas and asinine daytime schedule, it resembles little more than a second-rate Sky One nowadays. The stream of eager, young talent like Chris Tarrant has practically dried up, and there isn’t really anyone left to replace those that have moved onto bigger things. Whereas ATV in the 1970s was prepared to risk the wrath of the IBA and take a chance on a format that had never been seen before, ITV1 now takes a scythe to its scheduling on a regular basis. Homegrown Saturday morning programming bit the dust a couple of years ago, and the BBC followed suit. Both now produce near-identical cookery programmes instead.

And they wonder why their ratings continue to fall and fall.