Anton van Beek, Allan Bryce and Roger Crow take a look at some of the latest sci-fi and fantasy movie and home video releases…

ABC NIGHTS IN: “DON’T GO AWAY, I COULD DO WITH A BIT OF CHEER RIGHT NOW” DVD.

Out Now. Network. Cert: 12.

★★★★

ABC was the ITV channel that served the Midlands and the North from 1956 to 1958 delivering a broad mix of drama, comedy, game shows and variety, and Network have released five discs presenting an evening of ABC entertainment from those vintage days, with each show punctuated by the kind of adverts that many of us will remember well. Another nice touch is the DVD inlay which is set out like a TV Times listing, showing the running order of the programmes on the disc. ‘Diddy’ David Hamilton is your narrator host, and if you know who he is then this could be right up your street. I might look at the other four discs in future issues but ooer missus let’s start with the one with Frankie Howerd on the cover. No, don’t laugh, titter ye not, well, just not yet at least.

We begin our viewing at 6.30 PM with a ten minute edition of Here’s David Nixon from 1963. Virtually unknown these days, Nixon was the only magician in town back in the day, an engaging and charismatic fellow who didn’t need a comb. First he baffles two prematurely middle-aged members of his audience with some close-up card tricks, and then moves to the dart board for more sleight-of-hand fun. I loved this guy back in the day, a shame he died so young - sixty ciggies a day did him in at 58.

Next up at 6.40 is an episode of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe from 1967, clocking in at around 20 minutes. I don’t recall this but it was adapted by Trevor Preston of all people, a writer more at home on The Sweeney. Nice animal costumes, but apparently only two of the ten episodes made remain in the archives so you’ll have to read the book. We get an ad for ‘Rice Krispies’ in this one, snap, crackle and pop! Reminds me of our school joke about illegitimate ‘Rice Krispies’ - snap, crackle and no pop.

Just time for a cuppa, and up at 7PM is Never Mind the Quality Feel The Width. This was also aired in 1967 and is a sit-com about a pair of East End tailors, one Jewish the other Irish. The expected racial stereotyping gags are all there in an amusing tale of how the Irish guy’s attempts to win a trouser-making cup are thwarted by a slip of the scissors by his partner. Michael Robbins from On The Buses makes a guest appearance in this, the only surviving episode from the ABC series.

At 7.25: Dial 999 is a cop show from 1959 starring Robert Beatty as a Canadian plod posted to Scotland Yard. In this episode he’s on the trail of a gang of counterfeiters and goes undercover to expose their operation. Only 25 minutes long it has some good London location footage and finishes up in a chase through Battersea funfair.

Disc 1 concludes at 7.50 with Big Night Out, a variety show hosted by Mike and Bernie Winters, two of the un-funniest comedians ever, surely? Guests include David Nixon, dancer Lionel Blair, Lenny the Lion and Terry Hall, and Pearl Carr and Teddy Johnson. Aired in 1963 as a would-be rival to Sunday Night at the London Palladium it attracted some great guests, including The Beatles, Cliff Richard and Matt Monro, but Pearl and Teddy let the side down a bit, unless you happen to be a big fan of their 1959 Eurovision entry, “Sing, Little Birdie.”

Disc 2 begins at 8.30 with an episode of The Frankie Howerd Show from 1967. I was always a bit of a fan of Frankie’s titter ye not type of comedy, confiding secrets to the audience like an old washerwoman, but a little Frankie goes a long way and almost an hour of him may be too much. No? Oh well, please yourselves. This is your typical old fashioned variety special which begins with Frankie in his dressing room complaining about stuff as usual, and joking about the difference between being at a meeting at the BBC and attending the same at ABC. Apparently the BBC just offered him a cup of tea while ABC gave him a girl in his lap. I fear they may have misjudged that as an incentive.

Anyway, Frankie starts talking about an ancient relative who was an entertainer in the gold rush days of the Klondike and the scene shifts to a ramshackle performance by said ancestor, Frankie again of course, in a saloon bar run by Hattie Jacques. Sandie Shaw and Scott Walker do a few songs and join in some amateur dramatics, Hattie and Frankie play an amusing game of poker, Patrick Wymark puts in an appearance as a one-eyed varmint and some banjo players turn up to remind modern day viewers how good that theme from Deliverance was by comparison. Eric Sykes wrote the script and it’s a bit short on laughs. Frankie just about carries it nevertheless, and in between we get two ad breaks, one for ‘Nimble’ bread, yep, they still can’t let Maggie go, and another for ‘Radiant’ washing powder.