VISION ON SOUND

PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI himself, discusses the sitcom LEAD BALLOON.

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on November 8th 2026.

This week, PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI himself is back once again, and he’s chosen another archive TV show that he’s been watching to talk about.

This time it’s the BBC4 sitcom LEAD BALLOON, a starring vehicle for comedian JACK DEE which ran for four series and 27 episodes between 2006 and 2011 which, with it now being 20 years since its debut perhaps goes some way towards showing that some archive TV was made far more recently than you might think.

Co-written by JACK DEE and PETE SINCLAIR, the show featured the comedy misfortunes, embarrassments and disappointments that befall the cynical and misanthropic stand-up comedian RICK SPLEEN, portrayed by DEE, starring alongside RAQUEL CASSIDY as his partner MEL. The show also features SEAN POWER as his co-writer MARTY, ANTONIA CAMBELL HUGHES as his daughter SAM, and RASMUS HARDIKER as her boyfriend BEN.

The ensemble cast is completed by TONY GARDNER as café owner MICHAEL, ANNA CRILLY as MAGDA, the SPLEEN’s East European housekeeper, and, in later seasons JOHN BIGGINS as their neighbour CLIVE.

As always, PAUL has been diligently re-watching his show of choice in recent weeks and has watched the first two seasons to give us something to discuss.

PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.

WARREN CUMMINGS discusses some recently lost TV icons.

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on November 1st 2026.

Whilst VISION ON SOUND was taking its summer break, unfortunately the grim reaper did not take any time off, and their scythe swept away far too many of those iconic television personalities of whom we were all very fond.

This week, WARREN CUMMINGS is back as it always seems to be him who gets lumbered with talking to me about this kind of thing. The problem is that he, unlike me, seems to be pretty good at finding the right words to say. Judging by the echoes, he’s apparently locked himself in his deepest, darkest crypt for the duration, but I hope that this won’t detract from what he is saying.

What follows is a warm, affectionate, reflective and perhaps slightly too light-hearted chat about such recently lost familiar TV faces as SAM NEILL, DESMOND MORRIS, PENELOPE KEITH, JUDITH CHALMERS, and RICHARD O’SULLIVAN, amongst others, and I hope that our memories raise a few smiles as we try to fondly remember all of them.

Since recording, of course, others have fallen, but that unfortunately is the nature of the reaper’s non-stop dark work. This does of course mean that I must apologise because some more recent losses have not been mentioned.

At least not this time.

PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.

STEVE HATCHER and his guests discuss the adventure series AQUILA.

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on October 25th 2026.

This week in a slight change to our usual format, our occasional roving reporter STEVE HATCHER presents an extended interview with BEN BROOKS and CRAIG VYE, two of the stars of the children’s adventure series AQUILA first broadcast in thirteen 25 minute episodes across two seasons in 1997 and 1998.

AQUILA was created by ANDREW NORRISS, adapted from his own book of the same name, and directed by DAVID BELL, and tells the story of two boys TOM BAXTER and GEOFF REYNOLDS who discovered an amazing spacecraft as they were digging in a field (as you do) and their subsequent weekly adventures.

It’s not a series that I’m familiar with, so I handed the keys to VISION ON SOUND over to STEVE this week, and left it to him to explain the series in a little more detail, and introduce his guests.

PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.

JOHN ISLES discusses THE X-FILES.

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on October 18th 2026.

This week we welcome aboard JOHN ISLES who is a writer, film-maker, and one third of the podcast hosts on I Don't Do Sci-Fi, and Tripodscast, and he’s joining us here on VISION ON SOUND for the first time because he found out that I’d been watching THE X-FILES a lot recently, and he’s a bit of a fan.

Whilst he mostly wanted to talk about the recent Directors cut of the second X-FILES feature film I WANT TO BELIEVE: VRACH FRANKENSHTEYN, I also managed to discuss the X-FILES in more general terms with him, alongside some of TEN THIRTEEN PRODUCTIONS’ other output, and a few other TV shows along the way.

PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.

PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI goes WITHIN THESE WALLS.

First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on October 11th 2026.

This week, PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI himself is back, and he’s been following up on a topic we’ve chatted about a few times on VISION ON SOUND over the years, the TV prison drama.

Or, more specifically, the women’s prison drama. PAUL has watched several of these over the years, from PRISONER (or, if you prefer PRISONER CELL BLOCK H) to WENTWORTH and BAD GIRLS, amongst others, and it’s a genre that he returns to and which he finds altogether fascinating, and not for the reasons some of you might suspect.

Anyway, this time he’s been watching WITHIN THESE WALLS, created by DAVID BUTLER, which was a highly successful ITV drama series made by LONDON WEEKEND TELEVISION in the mid-to-late-1970s, which ran for 72 episodes across five seasons from January 1974 to April 1978.

Set in the fictional HMP STONE PARK, it’s a series that I have always associated with the name GOOGIE WITHERS who played FAYE BOSWELL, the first prison governor on the series, for its first three years, with her replacements being played by KATHERINE BLAKE and SARAH LAWSON in the last two years of its stretch.

Known for its hard-hitting, bleak storylines, WITHIN THESE WALLS featured a whole host of familiar faces in its guest cast, and, as you’ll hear from PAUL himself, it’s definitely proved intriguing enough to make him keep on watching.

PLEASE NOTE - For Copyright reasons, musical content sometimes has to be removed for the podcast edition. All the spoken word content remains (mostly) as it was in the broadcast version. Hopefully this won't spoil your enjoyment of the show.