ITV 60

Network have released a massive 12 discs compilation of programs aired on ITV over the past sixty years, and we’re talking many different shows here. With a retrospective like this, it is always hard to decide what to show when there is so much to choose from! All in all, this compilation offers a wide selection across the field and there’s bound to be something for everyone.

Apart from obviously being a mixed bag this set is perhaps also interesting from a film or media student's point of view. So, let's have a look at what's on offer: documentaries, adventure series, soaps, variety shows, sitcoms, kids TV and chat shows. You will find yourself thinking repeatedly “is that what people really wanted to see then or found actually found amusing?” Mind you, with the absence of ‘circus TV’ and pointless Reality TV shows dumbing down the nation things seemed gentler then.
First up is Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's groundbreaking puppet series Thunderbirds the first of this ilk to get full length running time. Indeed, it was something quite special back then. Btw the included discs are in no particular sequence and the contents appear to have been picked at random… thus we have, for example, something like a thirty year gap between programs on any given disc. The sit-coms and the soaps can only be seen as historical documents and often are boring by nowadays standards. More often than not they are also offensive and utterly predictable. Well, it says a lot that On the Buses is still being repeated!

We are furthermore treated to an episode of Patrick McGoohan's seminal 1967 series The Prisoner, although why not show the very first episode? Nonetheless, this being an episode called ‘Checkmate’ we have an extra treat for Peter Wyngarde fans who plays 'Number 2'. The compilation also offers the episode 'To Russia with Panache' from the 1970 cult series Jason King (a spin-off from Department S), once again featuring the fabulous Mr. Wyngarde. Jason King is of course an enjoyable pastiche and the ultimate in kitsch.
Other top shows on offer are The Avengers (the episode ‘The Winged Avenger’ is a good choice, but we could have had a Wyngarde-triple and included an episode with him), plus The Saint (Roger Moore was hilarious and quite brilliant as the sardonic ‘Simon Templar’), and Randall & Hopkirk, Deceased (the original and altogether better series from 1969). It is curious that series like The Baron, Man in a Suitcase or McGoohan's earlier series Danger Man are not included here. Anthony Newley's The Strange World of Gurney Slade is as surreal as it gets and certainly 'strange' for it's time… or even for this our time.

Other than the big budget affairs it’s nice to see intelligent drama's like Callan, a role that Edward Woodward made very much his own with that effective stammer (Callan offers perhaps a slightly more realistic view of what it is like to be a government 'civil servant') or Public Eye (Alfred Burke's downtrodden and sympathetic private eye ‘Frank Marker’ with a big social conscience), or even Gideon's Way (featuring John Gregson thoroughly decent copper ‘George Gideon’). Patrick Wymark was the biz as ‘Sir John Wilder’ in The Power Game and become a role model for many a power-crazed City boy or girl.

Looking at the comedy elements included in the set: Sunday Night at the Palladium, produced by legendary imp Val Parnell (now back with us again) was mega in the early 60's. Can't help wondering what the latter day feminists would have made of the ever so gentle Des O'Connor's discourse on women.
Scottish comic Stanley Baxter's talents as a mimic were not far removed from that of Sellers. It is nevertheless astonishing that he could begin his Stanley Baxter Show in such a juvenile and racist manner and top it all with one of the worst jokes about rape (was this then a subject to be laughed at?)… only to go on to do a riotous send-up of Upstairs, Downstairs!
Some of the kids programs included here are great fun - who could not adore Geoffrey Bayldon's medieval wizard Catweazle? Ace of Wands - a spooky kids series from P.J. Hammond (who later gave us the brilliant Sapphire and Steel) is well worth a look if spooky is your bag.

On the documentary side, Alan Whicker was very much the roving documentary broadcaster in the 60's and 70's (before Louis Theroux) and here we are treated to The Orient Express. After reading Dame Agatha's fictional murder mystery you can find out what it was really like on board this luxury express train.
Overall this is a fair look at what ITV presented the public with over such a long period, and ask yourself how things have improved in the last two or so decades. TV buffs will be only too happy to get this as a Christmas present!