VISION ON SOUND

• VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 236 - TX APRIL 13 2025

  PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI and IRWIN ALLENFirst broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on April 13th 2025.Recently, I’ve been re-watching a whole load of late-era VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA episodes, as well as a smattering of examples from THE TIME TUNNEL, and this set me to thinking that I’d quite like to talk to one of my regulars about the quartet of high-concept television adventure series that were created by IRWIN ALLEN in the mid 1960s, which also included LOST IN SPACE and LAND OF THE GIANTS.Across a highly productive five years from 1964, around three hundred episodes of these shows were produced for the American networks, which, in an era of three main channels, where having just one show on the air is quite some achievement, is nothing short of impressive.Granted, the IRWIN ALLEN productions can sometimes be rightly accused of being a little bit eccentric or simplistic in their storytelling, and perhaps sometimes concentrate far more on the action and not so much on the drama, but these four shows definitely influenced a generation, both at home, and internationally, as they were sold across the world, and excited young minds wherever and whenever they were broadcast.Furthermore, such were the strong ideas at the core of these shows, that elements from all of them have often been taken and used in other series that built upon the imaginative ideas that were always at the core of IRWIN ALLEN’s shows.Anyway, after our shows last year in which PAUL CHANDLER, THE SHY YETI joined me to talk about various quartets of classic USTV shows, he seemed the obvious choice to join me this week to mull over his experiences of discovering these four shows during their repeat runs in the 1980s, and I hope you enjoy the hour as much as I did.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.

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• VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 235 - TX APRIL 6 2025

  ADAM HENLEY on BLAKE'S 7 series oneFirst broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on April 6th 2025.A couple of months ago, a new voice joined us on VISION ON SOUND in the form of ADAM HENLEY, and he introduced himself by talking about both his personal television history and a little bit about THE WEST WING.This went so well, that ADAM felt like making another appearance and, as he’d just finished watching the exciting new Blu-Ray release of the first series of BLAKE’S SEVEN, we thought we’d spend an hour having a bit of a chat about this iconic late 1970s BBC science-fiction series as it gets re-introduced to its long-standing fans and, perhaps a brand new generation eager to explore this fascinating dystopian drama.BLAKE’S SEVEN was a science-fiction series created by TERRY NATION who had been one of the early writers on DOCTOR WHO, for which he created the iconic Daleks, and he had also created the post apocalyptic drama series SURVIVORS for the BBC a few years earlier, so this exploration of a rebellion against the forces of the evil Federation was definitely just the sort of bleak vision of the future that you might expect from him.The series itself lasted for four series and fifty-two fifty minute episodes and ended on a shattering cliffhanger that definitely left its scars on a generation of television viewers just before Christmas 1981.Its first season introduced BLAKE played by GARETH THOMAS and his loyal–ish gang of rebels and freedom-fighters as played by SALLY KNYVETTE as space pilot JENNA, MICHAEL KEATING as lock-picking wizard VILA, DAVID JACKSON as the man-mountain GAN, JAN CHAPPELL as the telepathic alien CALLY, and PAUL DARROW as the enigmatic AVON who would eventually take the leading role as the series progressed. They were helped enormously by the fact that they luckily managed to acquire the super starship LIBERATOR and its wise master computer ZEN, as voiced by PETER TUDDENHAM, and this was how the original SEVEN was made up.Towards the end of the first series, and another devastating cliffhanger that helped give the show an astonishingly high profile at the time, another super computer ORAC was introduced, which changed the dynamic of the show in its second year.The forces of the Federation were mostly represented by JACQUELINE PEARCE as SERVALAN, a powerful and ruthless woman prone to wearing astonishing gowns, and STEPHEN GREIF as TRAVIS, a hate-fuelled leather-clad cyborg with an eyepatch and a gun for a hand, and they crossed swords with BLAKE and his crew on several occasions during the second half of this series.Fans of BLAKE’S SEVEN had been waiting a long time for it to get the Blu-Ray release that they felt it deserved, with many of its special effects updated from their somewhat low-budget and dated roots, and ADAM was one of the enthusiastic early adopters, and was very eager to share his enthusiasm with us today.And here's a link to Adam's Marathon challenge, if you are able to contribute https://2025tcslondonmarathon.enthuse.com/pf/adam-henleyPLEASE 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.

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• VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 234 - TX MARCH 30 2025

  STEVE HATCHER on twenty years of "New Who" (part two)First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on March 30th 2025.Last week, as you hopefully already will know, STEVE HATCHER joined me to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the revived version of DOCTOR WHO from CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON right through to the current incumbent NCUTI GATWA, and, whilst we had a long chat about the show, we did fail to address the copious notes that STEVE had made in preparation for that show, for which he had selected his one favourite episode - or story – from each of the DOCTORS from across those twenty years.So it really only seemed fair to invite him back to discuss those stories, why he chose them, and make our little VISION ON SOUND celebration, or acknowledgement, into a two-part episode that hopefully brackets the anniversary week in a most satisfying way.Also, please try not to worry. We’re not trying to make this show into yet another DOCTOR WHO themed production. There’s plenty of other archive telly just waiting to be talked about. It’s just that, well, the DOCTOR WHO community do have a lot to say, and sometimes that show does pass one of those significant milestones that we really can’t ignore, given that its longevity does mean that its name runs through popular TV archive history like letters through a stick of rock.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.

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• VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 233 - TX MARCH 23 2025

  STEVE HATCHER on twenty years of "New Who"First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on March 23rd 2025.This week, perhaps rather astonishingly, March the 26th will bring with it the twentieth anniversary of DOCTOR WHO returning to our television screens in its shiny new incarnation after a rather lengthy break which found it pretty much adrift in the time continuum for over a decade and a half, despite the odd big night in to entertain us with.During those “wilderness years” there had been several glimpses of the old Time Lord who simply refused to fade away, and the show had been managing to flourish in other formats, but it was only when RUSSELL T DAVIES presented his own uniquely updated take on the show, now featuring CHRISTOPHER ECCLESTON in the lead role alongside BILLIE PIPER as ROSE TYLER, that the true potential of this once hugely neglected science fiction masterpiece was rediscovered, and became something of an unexpected television smash hit in the year 2005.Since then the show has become something of a cornerstone of the television schedules, not least around Christmastime and continues to go in and out of fashion and divide its fans and enemies almost in equal measure, with several fine actors DAVID TENNANT, MATT SMITH, PETER CAPALDI, JODIE WHITTAKER, and NCUTI GATWA taking on the role across the last two decades.This week we welcome back our old friend STEVE HATCHER who specifically asked if he could come back to talk about DOCTOR WHO for this anniversary, which prompted what I hope you will find an enjoyable meander around the many lives of the Time Lord and their fans.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.

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• VISION ON SOUND EPISODE 232 - TX MARCH 16 2025

  ANDREW-MARK THOMPSON on the voices behind the puppets.First broadcast on FAB RADIO INTERNATIONAL at 19:00 on March 16th 2025.This week we welcome back our old friend ANDREW-MARK THOMPSON who’s making a much-postponed return to VISION ON SOUND. ANDY is the one of our regular contributors to the show who I feel is our expert on all things to do with the GERRY ANDERSON productions of which he is an enormous fan, so, when DAVID GRAHAM, the much loved actor responsible for giving us the voices of PARKER and BRAINS in THUNDERBIRDS - as well as a whole host of other brilliant performances - died in September last year at the grand old age of ninety-nine, we had planned to get together and record a show in his honour, but various gremlins got into the works, so it never happened.Instead we attempted to regroup in January and broaden our scope into a discussion about the many actors who performed in series such as FOUR FEATHER FALLS, FIREBALL XL5, THUNDERBIRDS, CAPTAIN SCARLET and, most particularly STINGRAY, so that’s what we attempted to do during the next hour, as we discuss, amongst others, the work of names such as RAY BARRETT, SHANE RIMMER, LOIS MAXWELL, and, of course the wonderful DAVID GRAHAM. You may not have known some of their faces, but their voices shaped a generation.Now, obviously, those gremlins really don’t appreciate a tryer, and, despite our persistence, there were still some sound issues during this recording, for which I can only apologise, and which all seems somewhat ironic, given that we were simply trying to talk about voice performers, and the great joy they brought to people over the years.Anyway, because we had such an enjoyable hour, I’ve done my best to salvage what I could, and I hope that you’ll find this fun conversation worth sticking with despite any of the slight sound issues that there may still be.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.

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