Welcome to my first Favourites post and video for this year! As I had a very busy Christmas that lasted until mid-January, it made sense to combine the latter half of that month with February for this roundup.
Recent weeks have been quite relaxed compared to the festive period, as hoped and expected, but there’s still quite a variety of bits and pieces to mention. These include an audio described gallery tour, a free meal, a special scenic view of the city, an important new audio play, things I’ve been watching that have been recommended by friends, and other entertainment I’ve enjoyed. Some of these items are PR-related, as indicated when appropriate, but all opinions are my own regardless. So I hope you enjoy!
Last year marked the 40th anniversary of the classic historical sitcom Blackadder, and a new Complete Collection Blu-ray was released in December to mark the milestone. I was too busy to look through it at the time, but I finally got around to it recently, so this is my extensive review of the series and all the bonus material.
All of the series and specials are set in different historical periods, so it always feels fresh and different. Each period is represented by exquisite costumes and beautiful sets, along with enjoyable variations of Howard Goodall’s theme tune. All of the episodes were written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, except for the first series where Richard had teamed up with Rowan instead. As great as Rowan is, bringing Ben on board really gave the series the shot in the arm it needed. And John Lloyd (best known for producing QI these days) was the producer for every episode except the pilot (which sadly isn’t in this set) and the millennium special.
Thanks to the sterling efforts of Richard Latto and his colleagues – who also compiled the excellent Young Ones Blu-ray in 2022 – the episodes have been remastered for this new Blu-ray edition, alongside all the old extras ported over from the previous Ultimate Edition DVD set (even though it’s not mentioned on the packaging), and a huge treasure trove of new bonus material as well. A lot of hard work has clearly gone into this collection, it’s very impressive.
So this is my review of the four series, the specials and the bonus material in the box set, as well as the pilot and documentary that were on Gold last year to celebrate the anniversary. As usual, I’m not sponsored or affiliated with anyone involved in the show or the Blu-ray production, and these are all my own opinions, so I hope you enjoy!
His passing also means that all of the main cast members of the show are no longer with us, making it a doubly sad milestone. To this day the series is still very popular and regularly repeated, because it was so well written and performed, and was always very funny. It’s no mean feat to maintain the quality over 80 episodes across 9 TV series, along with the radio adaptations, stage show, film and other appearances they did as well, but they made it look easy.
Thankfully, as far as the TV series is concerned, we have nearly all of the episodes to remember them by. There are just 3 episodes from Series 2 and a couple of Christmas sketches that are still missing, as the original tapes were wiped and no other film recordings have since been found.
Consequently, the Gold channel produced live action remakes of the three Series 2 episodes with a new cast in 2019, which were a faithful tribute, but nobody could ever be as good as the original actors (hence I’ve never watched the 2016 film, though I know Ian Lavender and Frank Williams made cameo appearances in it, as a Brigadier and the vicar).
So last year Gold recreated the missing episodes again, along with the Christmas sketches, but this time as animations, using the TV soundtracks or radio adaptations made by the original cast, depending on what still exists. I didn’t see them when they were broadcast last November, but I bought the DVD anyway, as I wanted copies of the episodes with the proper actors, and the extras looked good. So I finally got around to watching it recently, and this is my little review of it all.
Happy New Year! I hope you had a great Christmas, and that you have a prosperous year ahead as well.
This is the second, bumper part of my festive Favourites, as the first part covered the month of November, where I had a free Christmas meal, explored a trail of snowmen sculptures and saw some of London’s displays, among other activities.
Since then, in December and early January, I’ve met friends in both London and Devon, seen four incredible theatre shows, explored a museum I hadn’t been to before, had some lovely meals in restaurants, ate far too much food at home, celebrated the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who, watched lots of comedies on TV, and enjoyed some music as well.
So once again, as with every Christmas, this is a bumper post and video. One of the meals was a free PR invite for my journalist friend Emily to review, but as usual I’m not sponsored or affiliated to write anything here, and all opinions are my own. I hope you enjoy!
This treasure trove of televised time-travelling treats came as quite the surprise when it was launched by the BBC at the beginning of November. At its heart are over 800 episodes from the series, accompanied by several spin-offs, documentaries, other programmes and accessibility features, all for free (well, with no subscription required on top of your TV licence anyway).
So there’s a lot on offer, and I hope you enjoy my trawl through the various special programmes I’ve been watching. As always, none of this is sponsored by or affiliated with the BBC or anyone else connected with Doctor Who, and all opinions are my own.
Welcome to the second part of my trilogy celebrating 60 years of Doctor Who. Having reviewed the specials and the Blu-ray steelbook, I’m now going to talk about the various radio programmes I’ve been listening to on BBC Sounds, which have been a great mixture of documentaries, interviews and music. Then next time I’ll conclude with the various TV shows I’ve been watching in the Whoniverse on iPlayer.
As usual, none of this is sponsored by or affiliated with the BBC or anyone else connected with Doctor Who, and these are just my opinions as a big fan, so I hope you enjoy!
Updated in November 2024 to include the newly released deleted scenes.
Happy 60th anniversary to Doctor Who! The BBC have quite rightly been celebrating one of their biggest, best and longest-running shows in style recently, and I’ve been very much enjoying the various ways they’ve marked the occasion.
It really is wonderful that the old team have been reunited, and that they’ve been given a bigger budget too, partly thanks to the BBC’s new global streaming deal with Disney+, so the show looks even more impressive than it already did. And there’s greater representation of diversity, in ways that are genuinely inclusive rather than just ticking boxes, which is fantastic.
So it does feel like we’re entering a fresh new era, which has been given its own section on BBC iPlayer (alongside others for the earlier Classic and Modern eras as part of the wider Whoniverse). It is rather a shame that Disney+ viewers won’t have access to older episodes – hence the numbering is being reset to Season 1 for Ncuti Gatwa’s debut, instead of confusing their users by calling it Series 14 – but hopefully these latest episodes will tempt new Whovians overseas to find ways of looking back at previous adventures.
So, much like my deep dives into the TV adventures of the 9th and 10th Doctors (in Series 1, 2, 3 & 4 and the specials), in this post I’m going to review the 60th anniversary episodes and the extras in the latest Blu-ray steelbook. Unlike my older reviews however, of episodes that I’ve seen countless times before, these are my first reactions to seeing these new adventures.
Later on there will then be additional posts to review some of the other goodies I’ve been enjoying on the BBC website, that have been generously made available for free. It really does feel like they recognise what a valuable and significant asset they have in this show, given the attention they’re lavishing upon it – which sounds obvious, but that hasn’t always been the case.
As with all of my Doctor Who reviews, this isn’t sponsored by or affiliated with the BBC or anyone else involved with the show. I’m just a keen fan who enjoys exploring the series and writing about it, and as a result there will be lots of spoilers ahead as well. So I hope you enjoy!
Seasons greetings, I hope your preparations for Christmas are going well, November always feels a little bit festive, but for me it was even more so than normal this year, because I’ve already explored a variety of London’s displays, seen a bunch of snowmen on a sculpture trail, and had a free Christmas dinner courtesy of a PR invite. On top of that I’ve also seen a couple of theatre shows, while at home I’ve been enjoying some more TV and music as always.
Consequently it makes sense to treat this as a festive Favourites post and video, and spread the joy over 2 months. It’s not too early as far as I’m concerned. So with the usual disclaimer that all opinions are my own, including for the free food, let’s crack on with it, and I hope you enjoy!
Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without The Snowman on TV. The animation, based on the book by Raymond Briggs, is such an adorable and moving story, brought to life with wonderful imagery and music, that it quickly became a perennial favourite for millions of people, and last year it celebrated its 40th anniversary.
And now you can see the iconic character in person, courtesy of a sculpture trail called Walking With The Snowman. It began in Salford in 2018, and then in every year since then (except 2020 when nobody could go anywhere) it’s been at multiple locations over the festive period. So this year the trails are taking place at Hillsborough Castle & Gardens, Knole House and the Fleet Street Quarter. And I recently explored the latter in London.
It’s been put together by Wild In Art, who were also behind Morph’s Epic Art Adventure that I enjoying looking at in the summer, and indeed 7 of the artists from that trail have contributed to this one as well, alongside a few others. So here we get a dozen snowmen, themed around the Twelve Days Of Christmas, each one painted in a beautifully distinctive and interesting way.
The sculptures will be in place until 5 January 2024, so there’s still plenty of time to see them. I went on a midweek afternoon, so it was nice and quiet, but I imagine there will be a lot of children keen to see them at weekends and during the Christmas holidays, which might make it harder to take photos of them.
There is a PDF map on the website, but it’s more about pretty design rather than accuracy, so it only gives a very rough visual sense of where each statue is. I found it a lot more reliable to use the list of statues in the bottom left corner, typing each road or place name into Google Maps to find them. And even then, there are some major roadworks going on in one particular area that added to the confusion and sent me off track slightly. But I did find them all in the end, it took me about 2 hours to do the whole trail. People with full sight would be able to do it much quicker I’m sure, but it’s very rewarding in any case, as they do look great.
So here’s a little gallery of the Snowman sculptures in central London, and you can click on the pictures to look more closely. This isn’t sponsored or affiliated by anyone involved with the project, I just enjoyed hunting them down, and I hope you enjoy looking through them!
The 60th anniversary of Doctor Who is finally upon us, with an exciting trilogy of specials about to air, and a wealth of goodies to watch in the Whoniverse and peruse in the archives on the BBC website. It’s a great time to be a Whovian, that’s for sure.
But before I delve into all of that, I just need to squeeze in one more of my extensive review posts for the modern era. In recent months I’ve written at far too much length about Series 1, 2, 3 & 4, so it’s only right to wrap up this first batch of reviews with the specials from 2008 to 2010 that concluded David Tennant’s run as the 10th Doctor and Russell T Davies’ role as showrunner. Like many people, I was very sad when David left, so it was great to see him return for the 50th anniversary later on, and I’m looking forward to seeing him again in the imminent new trilogy for the 60th.
So in these 5 episodes, David gets a big send-off, alongside some great guest stars and the return of some familiar faces. I have the Blu-ray steelbook edition of this mini-series, so that’s what I’ll be going through here, including all of the extra features. And I’ll be mentioning some related items I’ve picked out online as well, which can be seen on my Youtube playlist for these specials. So I hope you enjoy!
Well Eye Never 
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