Sapphire and Steel - Top Ten TV

"No spaceships, no ray guns, no men in silver suits.  It was about atmosphere, fear and creaky stairs." - P.J. Hammond

Below is a short - very short - discussion about Sapphire and Steel from a show called 'Top Ten TV'.  Presented by Nick Frost it includes contributions from writer PJ Hammond and lead actor David McCallum alongside the usual vaguely irritating types that populate these sort of shows.  It's an innocuous but fun little watch and it uses 'Bela Lugosi's Dead' by Bauhaus as background music which always adds to the proceedings.

If this has wet your appetite you can find a much longer documentary here:
Sapphire and Steel: Counting Out Time

Watch the series here:
Sapphire and Steel

Or you can buy the box set here:
Sapphire and Steel: The Complete Series (Repackaged) [2008] [DVD]



..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Ace of Wands

Devotees of British supernatural TV of the 60s and 70s have become grudgingly used to the idea that many of the shows of the time are lost to us due to the cost cutting practise of 'wiping' and the lack of a system for safely archiving.  Amongst those lost to time are some 90 odd episodes of Doctor Who, much of the first series of Quatermass and the entire first two series of early 70s supernatural detective series 'Ace of Wands'.

Created in 1970 by Trevor Preston and Pamela Lonsdale, Ace of Wands told of the escapades of stage magician and detective 'Tarot' (Michael Mackenzie), his pet owl Ozymandias and various assistants including antiquarian bookseller Mr Sweet (Donald Layne-Smith) and, in the third series, a brother and sister duo by the name of Chas (Roy Holder) and Mikki (Petra Markham).  Originally envisioned as kid friendly show about a flamboyant detective, over the three series, the show becomes progressively more concerned with the supernatural especially with the arrival in series two of writer P.J. Hammond.

Following on from his contributions to AoW Hammond would, of course, go on to create and write Sapphire and Steel but it is here that he first took his cop show chops (earned on shows such as Dixon of Dock Green and Z-Cars) and married it with a love of the odd.  His third series storylines - 'The Meddlers',  'Peacock Pie' & 'Beautiful People' - show hints of what was to come but truthfully with storylines that include people being turned into dolls the whole thing has a similar vibe to what Hammond would later create in S&S.  Ace of Wands walked a fine line between the ostentatious spy-fi, detective fiction of the ITC shows and the Earth bound sci-fi of Pertwee era Doctor Who whilst also tapping into the zeitgeist and embracing the supernatural shenanigans that would characterise much of the 1970s TV we love so much here at Wyrd Britain such as 'The Stone Tape' and 'The Children of the Stones' all the while managing to just about keep things kid friendly and rocking a killer theme tune by Andy Bown.



It is an absolute shame that so much of this series is lost to us but as the recent(ish) Doctor Who finds (of episodes from 'The Web of Fear' and 'The Enemy of the World') show there's always a chance that some of the earlier episodes will resurface but for now we have only the third series and that's certainly no bad thing.

The first episode of season three is below and the rest are in the playlist here.

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.

And Now For My Next Trick

'And Now For My Next Trick' is an episode of the children's supernatural TV series 'Shadows' first screened in October 1978 and written by the creator of Sapphire & Steel, P.J. Hammond.

It stars British television staple Clive Swift as Mr. Devine, a down on his luck magician reduced to playing to rooms full of the bored children of formidable parents such as Jacqueline Pearce (Servalan from Blake's 7), who suddenly finds himself in possession of three magical eggs.  Blind to the consequences of his new found luck he embarks on an attempt to relaunch his flagging career.

As you might expect from a writer like Hammond this is a nifty little tale although perhaps a little moralising with an ending that's particularly brutal for a children's show.

Buy it here - Shadows - The Complete Third Series [DVD] - or watch it below



..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Dark Towers

In the 1970s there was relatively little actual television available to watch in the UK.  Only 3 channels that all shut down over night and which occasionally went off air throughout the day displaying only a test card accompanied by some stock music of varying degrees of grooviness.  In the spirit of television (and the BBC in particular) as a medium required to “inform, educate and entertain” it also dedicated a proportion of each day's broadcasting to showing programmes intended for use in schools and colleges.  In my school  watching these shows involved trooping into the hall where the television was kept inside a padlocked wooden box on top of a metal stand and sitting cross legged on the hardwood floor craning our necks to watch the shows while the teachers took turns to nip into the staff room at the far end for a opportunistic cigarette break.  Whether or not we ever actually did any of the work you were meant to do in conjunction with the shows I don't remember - probably not - but I do remember the shows themselves and in particular 'Look and Read'.

'Look and Read' as you can probably guess (or remember even) was a show intended to improve children's literacy skills through tasks, songs (created by Paddy Kingsland, Roger Limb and Peter Howell of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and mostly sung by Derek Griffiths) and tuition based around a serial drama occasionally interrupted by a squeaky voiced flying...thing.  They produced quite a few of these dramas, most of which have disappeared into well deserved obscurity but a couple have found their way into Wyrd Britain folklore, sci fi adventure 'The Boy from Space' being one of them (not currently available for streaming but you can buy it here - The Boy From Space [2 - Disc DVD Set]) and the ghost story 'Dark Towers' being another.

Written by Andrew Davies, 'Dark Towers' tells the story of Tracy Brown (Juliet Waley) and her new friend Lord Edward Dark (Gary Russell - now more known as the author of several Doctor Who novels) and their race to find the hidden treasure of Dark Towers before it's stolen by the nefarious trio of Miss Hawk, Benger and Bunce (Juliet Hammond-Hills, Christopher Biggins and Harry Jones).  In this they are aided by Edward's father and The Friendly Ghost (dual roles for David Collings - beloved by us here at Wyrd Britain as Silver in Sapphire and Steel), Tracy's dog Towser and The Tall Knight (Peter Mayhew - who had previously achieved worldwide fame playing Chewbacca in a heart wrenching family drama called 'Star Wars Holiday Special'.

I'm not sure when I first saw this show, in 1981 when it first aired I had moved on to the comp so the days of TV in the school hall were over, but nevertheless it's a show that I have very fond memories of, the music (by Roger Limb) in particular.

The episodes in the playlist below come complete with all the mid show breaks - where Wordy the floating thingamabob would try to teach you something - so you'll also have the opportunity to learn about apostrophes or magic 'e'.

Enjoy.

Look and Read: Dark Towers (YouTube playlist)

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Sapphire & Steel: Counting Out Time

In the pantheon of Wyrd Britain TV there are a couple of shows that sit above them all; Sapphire and Steel is most assuredly one of them.  From the perfect casting of the two leads,  Joanna Lumley's icily, beautiful 'Sapphire' and the cool, unbreakable, inflexiblity of David McCallum's 'Steel' to Peter J. Hammond's gloriously inventive scripts and the isolated, claustrophobia of the settings.

We've discussed the show on Wyrd Britain before - here - so today I'd like to show you a short retrospective from the recent box set featuring the two leads, the writer and producer Shaun O'Riordan reminiscing about their time on the show.

Buy it here - Sapphire and Steel: The Complete Series (Repackaged) [2008] [DVD] - or watch it below.

Enjoy.

Wyrd Britain Mix 1

Uploaded today is the first in a very irregular series of mixes featuring some of the music that soundtracks my days here at Wyrd Britain towers.

I have pretty eclectic music tastes ranging from the dark and noisy to the perky and twee and this first mix, I think, reflects this.

Hope you enjoy.

Tracklist (with start times)
Sapphire and Steel - theme [00:00]
Coil - Going Up [00:50]
Paddy Kingsland - Tamariu [09:11]
Matt Berry - Gather Up [11:44]
White Noise - Firebird [14:04]
Trees - The Garden of Jane Delawney [16:57]
The Barbara Moore Singers - Singing Low [20:58]
Current 93 - The Magical Bird in the Magical Woods [23:26]
Jim Williams, Martin Pavey, Blanck Mass - Baloo My Boy (feat Richard Glover) [32:04]
Lindisfarne - Winter Song [34:43]

Wyrd Britain 1 by Quiet World on Mixcloud

Sapphire & Steel (novelisation)

Peter J. Hammond
Star Books

When a rip appears in the fabric of Time, the stability of the entire Universe is threatened. Two strange 'experts' appear out of nowhere and take control of the situation. No one knows who they are. A beautiful, remote woman and a terse, efficient man - real, yet with an air of unreality about them. Coolly combating the negative forces of Time out-of-control, endowed with incredible powers beyond human comprehension, they are unnerving but fascinating. They are SAPPHIRE AND STEEL.

I've been hunting down a copy of this novelisation of the first Sapphire and Steel assignment for years; I know I could have easily bought it from eBay but where's the fun in that.

This is one of only two Sapphire and Steel books that were published.  The other was an 'annual' (more on that one soon) whilst this is simply the first story redone as text.

Peter J. Hammond

In those pre video recorder days when missing a TV show meant that you didn't get to see it, the novelisation was a very popular way of catching or reliving a TV show.  Indeed, the BBC provided novelisations of almost every Doctor Who storyline via Target Books often written by the original scriptwriters. Although commissioned for a different channel and issued by a different publisher this practise is this books ace in the hole as Hammond, as series creator and principal scriptwriter (he wrote every assignment except the fifth which he co-wrote), is perfectly placed to ensure that the characters as presented here are absolutely accurate.  Indeed there is a passage early in the book that describes the pair (from the perspective of the 12 year old boy, Rob) and you can see exactly how these descriptions were carried over into the series.

'Rob stared at them.  The woman was the most beautiful person that he had ever seen.  She had long, fair hair and she was wearing a dress that seemed to shimmer and shift and flow upon her slim figure.  She turned to close the door and, to Rob, it seemed as if there was an aura of blueness about her presence, there in the hallway.  In later years, whenever he remembered her, which was often, his first thought was always the colour blue.
The man had moved to the foot of the first flight of stairs and was looking up at the landing above. He, too, had fair hair. But, as the woman expressed blueness, so the man suggested the colour grey.  His smart suit, shirt and tie were somehow neutral. His whole appearance and manner seemed cold, almost metallic.'

The pair investigate the disappearance of two adults from a house full of clocks where Time and it's entities are breaking through.  They are odd, intense, aloof, professional and enigmatic. Little is explained and nothing is given away.

I've always thought this first assignment had the weakest of endings and it isn't much improved in print.  The rest of the book though is nicely written and maintains just the right side of strange.  Like Rob we are left confused and pulled along by forces we do not understand although truthfully I think it's a lot more fun for us.

As far as I know this was Hammond's only novel and that's a real shame as I'd have loved to have read more. 

Sapphire and Steel

It's July 1979 and I'm 9 years old and on holiday with my mother and brother in a caravan pitched up on a campsite wrongly called Happy Valley near the town of Porthcawl on the South Wales coast. It was without a doubt the most boring holiday I had been on up to that point.  The place had nothing going for it.  The beach was next to the river estuary so all manner of unsavoury things would bob past you as you swam and the caravan site itself had two types of entertainment for the kids; some swings and a port-a-cabin with a small black and white television in it.  It was there, having wandered in out of desperation, that I first saw an episode of Sapphire and Steel, the first episode of the second series (the one on the railways station), and I was gobsmacked!  I walked around whistling 'Pack up your troubles' for the rest of the holiday. When we got back from holiday slightly stricter viewing restrictions were reinforced so it was years before I saw how that particular assignment ended - and wow what an ending.

2 years later though I was considered old and weird enough to watch more scary TV (prompted in no small part I suspect by my mothers love of Horror films and her knowing her weirdo eldest son was someone she could enjoy them with) and so (I've just looked this up) on the day after my 11th birthday I sat down to watch my second episode of S&S and the first episode of series 4 (the photography one).  Over the next 4 episodes I proceeded to have the living daylights scared out of me and develop not a fear exactly but a sort of nervous dislike of having my photograph taken that remains with me to this day.

I was hooked!

Sapphire (Joanna Lumley) and Steel (David McCallum) are the creation of TV scriptwriter P. J. Hammond (who'd previously worked on Ace of Wands) and over the course of 6 series - more commonly known as 'Assignments' -  between July 1979 and August 1982 fought the evils that exist within the corridors of Time which were determined to break through into our world.

Who and indeed what Sapphire and Steel are is never clearly explained but they are certainly not human and are 2 of 127 agents of some sort of higher power all of whom have 'elemental' code names.  Some of these are listed in the iconic opening credits but we only meet two others during the series, the jovial man mountain Lead (Val Pringle) and the 'specialist', Silver (David Collings - who, trivia fans, had previously been the dubbed voice of Monkey).

A very dapper David Collings

Sapphire is insightful and charming, Steel is cold and focused.  They both display incredible powers and for the most part seem unconcerned with explanations or, in some instances, those around them instead simply proceeding to deal with the issues at hand as quickly and as efficiently as possible.

The six assignments - each dealing with a single storyline - are beautifully made, unremittingly creepy, downright odd and bloody wonderful.   There has never been another TV show like this and there probably never will be. You will obviously have your own favourites from amongst them but for me it's assignments 2 & 4 that are the stand outs and will always be at the top of my list.  Having said that though I'm quite partial to assignments 1 & 6 and 3 & 5 are alright too.

"Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, 

            smile,

                        smile."

..........................................................................................

If you enjoy what we do here on Wyrd Britain and would like to help us continue then we would very much welcome a donation towards keeping the blog going - paypal.me/wyrdbritain

Affiliate links are provided for your convenience and to help mitigate running costs.