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PEBBLE MILL AT ONE Friday 16/05/86, BBC1 reviewed by Chris Hughes |
December
2001
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In formation, a phalanx of helicopters advances overhead, to the iconic strains of The Ride of the Valkyries. But this isn't Vietnam 1968. Welcome to Birmingham 1986. Precisely why the production team decided to stage their own Apocalypse Now Redux in the West Midlands skies to mark the final edition of Pebble Mill at One remains unclear. But watching again the Mill's valediction 15 years on, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that the whole series was a bit of an enigma. Everyone remembers Pebble Mill at One. It's richly evocative of dashing home from school for dinner or being curled up on the sofa with chickenpox and Lucozade. It was the kind of 45 minutes where, as Danny Baker once noted, you could be transported from callisthenics to Camelot, admittedly usually via a link along the lines of "Well, I wonder if King Arthur had ye olde keepy-fitty?" But just how does the Mill measure up to our memories? Time to peer through the double glazing one more time. Kenny, gimme some joke music ... Bob Langley opens proceedings promisingly, decked in a lemon blouson, standing outside the Mill itself, before being interrupted by the Alistair McGowan du jour, Phil Cool, doing an weak impression of Eamonn Andrews. Cue titles - the '70s titles! To the groovy Mill theme, multiple groovy images flash before our eyes. People on rollerskates! Guys and Dolls! Spike Milligan being zany! Marian Foster looking thoughtful! And repeated, stop motion zooms into the Mill itself, accompanied by the show's name in swirly lettering, akin to the BBC's gorgeous '70s "COLOUR" typeface. Mmm. The team disembark from their helicopters - Magnus Magnusson, Marian Foster, Josephine Buchan and Paul Coia, who invites us to take "a final look at the Pebble Mill building" in the company of Five Star, who, he reveals, didn't have a recording contract when they first shipped up here. It's an unintentionally hilarious sequence, as the Pearson family perform around the building - in the garden, in the corridors, in engineering and best of all, in the office, as a scattering of researchers do their best to ignore Doris and company, as if it was an everyday occurence. Back to Paul, to utter the dread words, "it's not just the stars who've made the programme, it's you the viewers". Don't try and blame us, mate. Marian tells us we're about to see some of the projects Pebble Mill supported through the years, but bizarrely this just consists of a bunch of kids running round and round the studio wearing Sport Aid t-shirts, and we rather thought that was Bob Geldof's idea. Inside once more with Langley and guests. Fake corpsing all the way, Michael Bentine, normally blessed with a brilliantly fertile imagination, recalls the time he brought in a smoke machine. And the time he brought in a foam machine. Meanwhile the insufferable Su Pollard, in yellow jokeshop wig and odd socks because "it's a fun day", bores us with tedious anecdotes about how - you'll never guess - she once turned up late for the show, and the time she danced with the Mill's late Donny McLeod ("Are you up there, Donny?"), before she and Bentine lapse into a jaw-dropping "comedy Asian" routine, replete with excusing-me-please wobbly heads. Pollard says the end of the show "is a sad loss", playing to the gallery as she says "they're the people that matter!" Langley responds with a clearly pre-planned edict that "there will be programmes from Pebble Mill in the autumn, I can't stress that highly enough." Outside, the team are on a walkabout with the mourners. Coia insanely accosts a three-year-old and asking if she knew it was the last Pebble Mill, before the publicity conscious editor of the Birmingham Evening Mail pops up to hand over a funeral wreath. Best of all is a wacky student whom Coia gormlessly picks out of the crowd before realising his t-shirt reads "Get Your Tits Out Marian". Inside again, where Magnus pompously reclines in a wicker chair "in more sedentary and decorous fashion with a gaggle of former presenters", including David Freeman ("who now speaks on Radio Oxford"), Jan Leeming and Marjorie Lofthouse, who drone their way through some dull stories of shared dressing rooms and failed VT, in the company of Peter Seabrook, keeper of the spectacularly dull Pebble Mill garden. Back to Bob, for a brief history lesson. "It was a man called Phil Sidey who had taken over as head of network programmes here at Pebble Mill." He wasn't particularly taken by the Mill's studios, so he decided instead to use the foyer. It was, it has to be said, an inspired move, giving the show a real identity, as the ever perceptive Roland Rat notes in a clip ("it's a marvellous utilisation of space - old Al, the DG, told me he'd have axed it years ago but it doesn't cost a penny!") Bob cues in some clips of Donny McLeod trying on some stetsons and Marian visiting some mudhuts in Africa. Bob Hall unveils the Harrier jump jet, a show direct from HMS Dreadnought, assorted parachute jumps and more helicopters. They liked their military spectaculars at the Mill, clearly. McLeod in Siberia. Langley in the Arctic. Eric Morecambe larking pricelessly about outside the windows. Music! Nana Mouskouri! Jack Jones! Ted Heath! Andy Williams! Bucks Fizz ("it's a close encounter of the sexual kind!") But no Acker Bilk? Where are Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen? It's nearly the end and the champagne starts to flow. "No less than 1000 glasses," enthuses Josephine. "No fewer," corrects the charmless Magnus, before Josephine retorts, "Oh, you're such a pedant, Magnus." Clearly the end can't come too soon for some people. Bob thanks the viewers, including a bunch of Liverpool fans he ran into the Strand who were allegedly upset by the Mill's demise. And that's it, save for a RAF band rendition of Superman and Auld Lang Syne. Farewell shows are always ragged affairs. There's always far too much standing around, clutching at champagne glasses, too many dull former presenters recounting boring in-jokes and a few clip reels pulled desultorily from the library to remind us of the good old days. Pebble Mill fell square into this trap. And besides, when we now see footage of Bob Langley solemnly intoning "man will always push himself in Lakeland, that's because danger is what attracts him here," it's impossible not to be reminded of - yes - Alan Partridge's history tour of Norwich. But irony aside, like the rest of us, Pebble Mill at One should be remembered for its life and not its (disastrous) epitaph, despite its faults (we're looking at you, Magnus Magnusson). Because let's face it, these days, daytime telly is too much callisthenics and not enough Camelot. WITH THANKS TO MARTIN FENTON |
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