The Mausoleum Club Forum

Re The Daleks The great attraction of the Daleks in 1963/4 was that they ran on static - rather like dodgems with metal floors. We all bought Rollikin daleks (or diddy daleks) an made cardboard cities with tracks for them to run on. It seemed a copout when they picked up power through sort of satell...

I had vhs of the first few series and they seemed to get better each time. It might be worth having another go, but not beyond series 5! I suspect it wasnt appreciated by everyone but to anyone working in local government etc with supposedly trendy managers c1990 it was hysterical. To me, by the way...

The first three or perhaps four series seemed brilliant and horribly true to life (I knew just such a manager) but suddenly it stopped being funny at all. Different writer? Something to do with Colin's face being toned down?

I recently watched several lost Whos on reconstructions that you can find on Youtube and found them very much more enjoyable than animations. Shada is a unique case of course but I would happily pay good money for a complete Dalek's Master Plan done from stills etc, or the Macra Terror (from telesna...

I've seen a lot of wonderful things on Talking Pictures - from Ivor Novello in 1932 to some very good British B movies of the 50s and 60s. Not good quality but acceptable.

The crucial difference is that the missing soundtrack has been recorded by the original cast. That seems worthwhile.

Quatermass had a sort of charm. But I'm not sure how they would square a British rocket programme with the modern world. Never mind transplanting it to Canada. Does seem odd. British rockets normally go from Australia. The rocket in Quatermass Experiment was launched at "Tarooma base" Western Austr...

Ian's handy lists are a nice reminder of the many excellent BBC adaptations they presented, the more released the better. Very good indeed, thank you Ian. I was born in 1954 but I can remember watching the 1957 Railway Children and a lot of things from then on. A lot of us must have got to know a l...

Dombey and Son was indeed the last Sunday serial to be shown in B&W - in November and December 1969. (See Genome project) So this might explain why unedited tapes survived - but this raises a technical question. Was a different kind of tape used for colour recording? Or maybe they just decided to us...

Have the musketeers serials been released in the UK? The first one is directed by Peter Hammond, who directed the best BBC Dickens of tape days - the 1975 Our Mutual Friend and the Sunday tea time Count of Monte Cristo with Alan Badel - which is available n DVD. I would pay moderately good money for...

Fabulous DVDS from Simply Media of several BBC Sunday teatime Dickens adaptations. This is priceless archive TV. The 1967 Great Expectations must be the most accurate adaptation. Francesca Annis was born to be Estella. It even has the downbeat ending which Dickens was persuaded to change for publica...

Are these extra scenes that were shot for US versions and never shown here? The first colour series of The Avengers had extra padding shot for the US versions to make them fill a full hour - and also the intro and tag scenes. I don't think those scenes add anything - and they aren't really part of t...

Is there a way of obtaining copies of scripts from the BBC Archives? I'm thinking of a lost drama serial from 1962.

Amazing - they have very early BBC Dickens serials. I remember watching Oliver Twist in 1959 and the 1969 Dombey and Son was excellent.

I couldn't get it to work on my Ipad but it was worth it to be able to see the Loves Labours Lost with Jeremy Brett. I would pay £20 for a DVD for that.

I used to have long chats with him on boring evenings at Putney LIbrary, where I worked 1977-82. A very good actor and nice bloke!He told me then about his turning down Dr Who - and that it was why they invented regeneration, as he would have played the same character.

In Doctor Who "Remembrance of the Daleks" (1988) set in 1963 a TV shows the announcement of the first episode of a new science fiction series..." but is cut off at that moment. So was it Dr Who or a parallel universe equivalent???

Actually the Persuaders looks too closely cropped the way they are showing it wheras Avengers Series 6 looks fabulous seen on 16:9. Sadly the BluRay version won't let you sho wit 16:9. Mind you the BluRay Avengers series 6 is almost unbearably beautiful.

They are showing it widescreen - which almost works. My theory is that all film series after about 1967 (maybe a bit earlier) are shot assuming a 14:9 cinema image, as with cinema films. 16:9 cuts off a bit more it should.

That makes sense - that was one of the episodes filmed quickly under Clemens control to fill the contracted series "5B"

In which case he must have come in before Clemens was mysteriously removed - before they started work on "Series 5B", which was to be half Rigg and half Thorson - and shown in the US as such.

Does anyone know exactly when Terry Nation became script editor on the Avengers? Was it under John Bryce, in his brief period as producer, or did he come in with Brian Clemens to save the show c September 1967?

Yes, it was a colour 1968 series - not on IMDB??? This is actually from the Montreux compilation show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZM33ynvBKg

I did actually see it live. It was quite worrying. I suppose I was 7. It's on Youtube. I was very keen on Drake up to that age - especially one about a square ballcock. I never liked the ITV series. He did a very early colour BBC2 series which seemed very "European" with drawn out mime routines.I re...

Was the whole idea inspired by the fact that Moffat and Gattis, familiar with the famous dialogue about the east wind in "His Last Bow" both knew director Euros Lyn and realised what his name meant? Oddly, though, Euros is a girl in Sherlock. In retrospect the only problem with the episode was that ...

A 1972-ish way? Surely older than that. The mad villain forcing people to play deadly games is the premise of Dr Who: The Celestial Toymaker(1965) and the much more amusing Avengers "Game" (1968) amongst other things. I have rarely felt so frustrated as half way through when I wanted something diffe...

The Family Affair isn't. Odd. Could be to do with German release versions.

I'm watching Breakaway now. I didn't see it in January 1980.It's a delight as it is exactly like the earlier Durbridges - 2 stories of 6 30 minute episodes. These DVD sets are things anyone interested in 1960s BBC really needs to have!

Breakaway is in Volume 2 of the DVDs

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Francis-Durbri ... +durbridge

I've recently watched a load of Francis Durbridge thriller serials on recent DVDs. You can get everything from Desperate People (1963) onwards. They are very important bits of BBC Tv from the 60s and 70s - but more popular in Germany where some were remade. They are the archetypal mysteries with twi...