Introduced by actor Joe Melia, this ambitious and eclectic late-night Saturday arts programme from BBC2 presented a live mixed bag of music, plays, poetry, prose, comedy films and the visual arts, taped in front of a studio audience.
The premier episode (on 14 October 1972) featured a group of drummers and dancers from Ghana; Edwin Brock reading a selection of his verse; David Hockney reviewing the romantic paintings of Caspar David Friedrich; a performance from Humble Pie; and a performance of ‘The Punishment’ – a play by E.A. Whitehead about a student’s relationship with his teachers (starring Ronald Hines as the headmaster and David Troughton as the boy), followed by a Q&A session with the author.
It was all topped off with American mezzo-soprano Cathy Berberian singing songs by Saint-Saens, Kurt Weill and The Beatles!
A typical evening’s viewing may include Spike Milligan reading some of his poetry; jazz from The Cannonball Adderley Quintet; Ram Narayan playing the “Sarangi” (an instrument whose nearest western relative would be the cello); Australian painter Sidney Nolan; an impromptu ballet routine; a Tom Stoppard play; classical guitar from John Williams; a dialogue called After Liverpool by James Saunders; or Korean violinist Kyung Wha Chung.
It was a bold venture that sometimes took off but often didn’t. Melia received occasional assistance from Henry Woolf, John Bird, and Monty Python‘s Eric Idle and Michael Palin.
