Allen Dace

Skeleton voiced by Deryck Guyler (1914-1999) seen here with Ringo in A Hard Day’s Night.

YouTube video by VHS Bits Scotch - "Re-record, not fade away"

youtu.be/AL3mpzAvHFA?...

The Tanner Sisters including Stella, later of Q6.

She would be the biggest snob on British television in the nineties.

If you like Beatles and you listen to podcasts then this should be a Beatles podcast you never miss.

Surely a conspiracy theory?

Bysshe Basshe Bosshe.

That’s a charity like.

Good place for a fish dance.

Yup. He literally had a criminal record.

I did the tour sometime in the 90s but on Thursday 4 October 2007 I visited the Museum of Science and Industry next door for the Doctor Who exhibition. Then I went upstairs where I saw filming on the set taking place through the windows.

The place your video ends put me in mind of this …

Maybe closer to reality …

It’s all so tired. The idea of a slapstick crime fighter is fine in itself - Rowan Atkinson pulled it off as Johnny English fairly recently but he was creating a new character playing to his own strengths.

Similarly Anne Reid between The Benny Hill Show (1957) and Inside No.9 (2024). Still active on stage at 90 this year.

Siân Phillips is another with a long screen career that may yet continue (it does on stage). She was acting on TV between Television Playwright in 1958 and Doctor Who in 2024.

I so want him to qualify for my Facebook group. You know the one.

Melvyn Hayes has been on TV since the early 1950s and his latest credits (including Not Going Out) are in 2023, so pretty close.

Currie (far left) next to Idle.

Back in 2021 Eric Idle was discussing this film on Twitter and I made a comment about the veteran character actor Finlay Currie, who played the Dodo. He then responded to my delight.

Incidentally Currie (a genuine Victorian) also turned up in The Prisoner.

Speaking of Alison Leggatt, Eric Sykes, and Peggy Mount - Miller had not long before appeared with them in the 1964 film of One Way Pendulum. Seems like he had them all in mind for his own film off the back of this.

Lovely stuff, chaps! A few tangents …

I’m in Guildford where Lewis Carroll visited his sisters and sadly died after a bout of flu. He’s buried in a quiet leafy cemetery on The Mount high above the town, a 21 minute walk from Guildford Registry Office where Peter Sellers married Britt Ekland.

There was a lot of experimentation in the 60s.

I hope this is not going the way of the coffee enema.💉

His career took a bit of a dip in the early 1990s. I think he said in an interview (and I’m reporting this from memory) “It seemed like a good idea at the time”.

I see original author Len Deighton is still with us, now aged 96!
And of course Michael Caine (and Ipcress File director Sidney J Furie) is 92. I wonder what their secret for longevity is?

The first two are the best but Billion Dollar Brain (the third) still has merit. The 90s ones are like cheap TV movies and not in the same league but it is always good to see Michael Caine

The screen test.

Even at that age I loved it and knew it was something very special. I wasn’t the only one since it was a massive U.K. hit with 9 weeks at number 1 from November until January. Like Hey Jude it is easy to take it for granted through familiarity but listening again properly they are both masterpieces.