Stories of the Choir from Hell

Out of Tune was a Children's BBC sitcom about a village choir that ran for three series between 1996 and 1998. To be blunt, in spite of featuring a distinctive title sequence and theme tune, a regular role for Nick Maloney as the vicar, and the screen debut of James Corden, plus early appearances for the likes of Charlie Brooks and Jane Danson, it does not appear to have left a huge cultural footprint; its IMDb listings are clearly incomplete, little else about it can be found on the internet, and less than a third of its episodes -- nearly all from the first series -- are available on YouTube. A bit of a shame for a show with the ambition to end its first series with the visual of a car precariously balanced on a church steeple on a children's television budget.

What does survive in full, though, are the programme's original billings in the Radio Times, courtesy of BBC Genome. So let's have a look at the ones for the first series, shall we?

1. TX 14/02/96: First in a seven-part children's comedy about a village choir. A new arrival threatens to shatter the harmony of the Little Wickton Choir.

2. TX 21/02/96: Second in a seven-part children's comedy about a village choir. Problems arise when the piano disappears.

3. TX 28/02/96: Third in a seven-part children's comedy. Street is deperate to impress Chas.

4. TX 06/03/96: Fourth in a seven-part children's comedy. The choir decides to go on a 24-hour fast for charity.

5. TX 13/03/96: Fifth in the seven-part children's comedy about a group of young teenagers who join their village choir. Street is suffering from toothache.

6. TX 20/03/96: Sixth in the seven-part children's comedy series. The choir prepares for an important conker match.

7. TX 27/03/96: Children's comedy series. The parish magazine hires a mysterious new agony aunt. Written by Rory Clark and Robert Taylor. Next episode next Tuesday.

Uh. Haven't you been pretty clear this is a seven-part children's comedy series, Radio Times? Why are you billing another episode next week on the listing for episode seven?

8. TX 02/04/96: Continuing the comedy series. Chas's driving test is looming, but will the choir from hell help her?

Because there was indeed another episode the week after, on a different day (with Rugrats taking up the Wednesday slot). A minor mistake, perhaps... if they had only been wrong by one episode. But it appears they weren't. They were out by ten.

Talk to the Hand

The Children's BBC adaptation of The Demon Headmaster ran for three series between 1996 and 1998. It's an interesting adaptation in many ways; after the first series adapted the first two books, they ran out of usable material -- there was a third book but it was impossible to realise on a film budget, let alone for children's television. Author Gillian Cross thus came up with a detailed plot outline for a new story, she went away and turned it into a book, whilst adapter Helen Cresswell wrote a television series using the same story. Those latter two series are hence broadly the same stories as the books, which were released around the same time as the shows went out, but sometimes the two authors have a slightly different take on the same idea, dialogue frequently changes (there is a noticeable change in the show's diction once it's no longer adapting Cross' dialogue verbatim), and the Headmaster is generally more involved in the TV versions, whereas the books tend to keep him as an off-stage presence a lot of the time. A full comparison can wait for another day, however, because I want to look at a few shots from the third series, The Demon Headmaster Takes Over, specifically the fourth episode. Starting with this one:

Timeframes

If you go into enough charity shops (thrift stores or opportunity shops to my non-British audience), then sooner or later you will find a box of old children's humour comics. They'll generally range in date from the 70s to the 90s, and mostly be old Beanos and Dandys, those being by some distance the longest-lived titles, with the occasional wildcard -- a Beezer, a Topper, maybe a Fleetway title such as Whizzer and Chips or Buster. It's just the way of the world.

Whilst I am always grateful for what I can find in these boxes, I do find more of interest when the comics are from the early nineties, give or take a few years each way. These are issues I was a bit too young (or a bit too not born yet) to have read at the time, but they're very similar to the ones I did read as a child, with many of the same characters and much the same tone. These are also the earliest issues to feature adverts, which makes them of even greater value as a look into the past.

Here, then, is what I got from the above stack of a dozen more-or-less consecutive Dandys from 1991 I picked up a few weeks ago.

Dwarfmatis Personae

In the first episode of Red Dwarf, David Lister awakens from three million years in suspended animation to discover he is now the last human being in existence. But he is not alone.

Exactly how alone he, the hologrammatic simulation of his dead bunkmate, the creature who evolved from the descendants of his pet cat, the ship's computer and latterly the android they found tending to a bunch of skeletons are tends to vary; common knowledge seems to have it that in the early years Lister really is alone, and the universe he inhabits tends to become rather more inhabited over time. Perhaps a series-by-series look at the number of credited guest cast would be useful?

Series I

Episode	Credited Guest Cast
“The End”	7
“Future Echoes”	2
“Balance of Power”	5
“Waiting for God”	2
“Confidence & Paranoia”	2
“Me2”	1
Series Average	3.17

The only reason "The End" -- the first two-thirds of which take place before the radiation leak kills everyone -- isn't a massive outlier is because of the flashback in "Balance of Power" which features Chen, Selby and Petersen. "Balance" was the second episode recorded, and was bumped down to third because "Future Echoes" turned out so strongly and was felt to be the most likely episode to keep viewers watching, although the only two credited guest actors in "Future Echoes" are voiceovers.

(The other two guest parts in "Balance" are a voiceover and Rimmer impersonating Kochanski, and the only guest actor in “Me²” is Captain Hollister in the video of Rimmer's death. This is before you even get into that episode being a replacement for "Bodysnatcher", which would also have only utilised the main cast and voiceovers, and Holly was also originally intended to be voice-only until after the first two episodes were recorded. Until very late in the day Lister could've been even lonelier than he is.)