This edition of the podcast is dedicated to Katie Coxall, a bold, daring, brilliant artist and friend of ours who lost her battle with cancer earlier this week. She will be much missed and fondly remembered in equal measure. On this week's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian have been watching one of the first Channel 4 programmes, Splash! with David Wilkie from 1982, an intermediate-level instructional television programme about swimming that (seemingly) also dabbles in inadvertent softcore por...
May 13, 2021•50 min
On this week's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian have been watching an episode of BBC1's The Russ Abbot Show from 1986. It allows your heroes to reflect both on Russ Abbot's lengthy some call it legacy as well as renewing our ongoing affair with the work of Les Dennis, now in his third appearance in the podcast. There's plenty of meat on these ravaged old bones, including a trek through some well weathered comedy landscapes, a consideration of the morals and ethics of doing impersonations of r...
May 06, 2021•51 min
On this week's This Is Our Everest, your intrepid heroes are at the beach for the BBC's Seaside Special from August 1975. It affords them ample opportunity to explore their relationship with light entertainment, as all the while Tony Blackburn fights for his life against the cruel tides of the English Channel. Fortunately for everyone involved he was rescued by the Royal Navy just in time, allowing the tragic life and death of Lena Zavaroni to test Ian's faith in God and children telling jokes t...
Apr 29, 2021•1 hr 4 min
This Is Our Everest returns from our Easter/house moving break with one of your heroes' favourite television programmes of all time, Crimewatch UK from May 1986, an edition that Edward picked for reasons it turns out are far more frivolous than the content of the programme, which essays crimes by at least two of Britain's most odious and notorious 1980s crime syndicates. It's an opportunity for Edward to reveal his controversial views on facts flagged as "citation needed" on Wikipedia as well as...
Apr 22, 2021•1 hr 7 min
This week, Edward and Ian have been watching Lift Off With Ayshea, a Granada TV-produced ITV pop music programme from October 1974. These were eventful and turbulent times and shows like this one did a lot of the heavy lifting with regard to helping people forget this. After a quick style guide to pronouncing Ayshea's name and a surprise appearance by no fewer than five old friends of the podcast, your heroes get stuck into the big issues. These include the perils of high-waisted trousers, defin...
Mar 25, 2021•1 hr 4 min
On this week's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian watched the first episode of the BBC's monolithic dog obedience series Training Dogs The Woodhouse Way from 1980. It was a good opportunity for your heroes to top up on their own abilities to control their dogs (and children) as well as to receive some much needed group therapy, however bad it makes them look in the court of public opinion. Meanwhile, Ian is trialling a new ultra-patriotic theme to see if it will improve listening figures, the m...
Mar 18, 2021•1 hr
On this week's This Is Our Everest, your heroes watched at episode of Noel Edmonds' Saturday Roadshow from December 1988. As the setting for these hi-jinx was purportedly The Kremlin, Edward and Ian are duly able to discuss the full scope of Perestroika albeit through the lens of multiverse theory, famously the last refuge of fatuous idiots and charlatans. NESR is a programme that Ian had never seen because he spent Saturday evenings at the time out and as such is only now able to face his demon...
Mar 11, 2021•56 min
On This Is Our Everest this week, your intrepid heroes watched the 1985 ITV quickfire comedy sketch and impressions show Copy Cats, an innocuous enough sounding task which actually pushed both men to the limits of human endurance. It's a show designed by history to explain why "Alternative Comedy" had to happen exactly when it did and nobody emerges unscathed from the whole sorry affair. There's something for everyone here: discriminatory humour, childish jokes, Bobby Davro and, inevitably, Pegg...
Mar 04, 2021•51 min
This week on This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian watched the first episode of the Bay City Rollers' 1975 ITV series Shang-a-Lang and found themselves grimly fascinated by it all. As one of our panel put it, it was the schadenfruede of a jaded middle-aged man watching young men present a terrible television programme. Your heroes ponder how much of an educational remit this programme must have had thrust upon it to justify its existence, dismiss the idea of a record of diesel locomotive hydraulic...
Feb 25, 2021•1 hr 4 min
This week on This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian watched the early 1990s celebrity panel whodunnit show Cluedo. Still reeling from the news that one of their most fervent regular listeners may have been done in with a snooker ball in a sock, your heroes discuss means, motive and opportunity all framed by one of the most gleefully cast and pantomimed shows from UK television history. Mollie Sugden, making her fourth appearance on this ridiculous podcast, chews the scenery and not even a technical...
Feb 18, 2021•54 min
On this week's This Is Our Everest, your heroes watched Triangle, the BBC's North Sea ferry-based soap opera that was one of Auntie's most high profile disasters. It's a programme so glacially-paced, stupid and confusing that both Edward and Ian watched a second episode independently in the vain hope that they might find out what was going on. Edward has deep misgivings about the food while Ian offers a measured critique of Kate O'Mara's "system" at the roulette table. But if there's something t...
Feb 11, 2021•47 min
On this week's This Is Our Everest, Edward and Ian have been watching the BBC veterinary comedy-drama series All Creatures Great and Small. It's a programme with which Edward was already familiar but that Ian has never seen. Although he has seen Call The Midwife, which is in many ways very similar. Your heroes discuss the myriad design flaws with livestock, are disappointed by the contents of a tortoise and reminisce about a man Ian once knew who had an unfortunate and final encounter with a hor...
Feb 04, 2021•50 min
On this week's This Is Our Everest, your heroes get their glad rags on for the 1979 EMI World Disco Dancin' Championships. There's much discussion to be had about whether or not disco sucks (it doesn't) and what the alternative might have been, which brings a sobering conclusion. Racism is, once again, roundly criticised after a particularly unfortunate interview with a blameless Japanese dancing superstar, the dreamscape is explored and Ian rejoices to discover the identity of the competition's...
Jan 28, 2021•50 min
This week's This Is Our Everest sees your heroes visit the 1980 ITV horror anthology series Hammer House of Horror. Ian has a number of issues with horror, probably caused by his baffling insistence on living relentlessly in the real world. Edward - a gibbering, credulous buffoon - is, on the other hand, predictably quite a fan. They work their way through a number of paranormal and supernatural occurences with a critical eye, touching on the existence (or otherwise) of poltergeists and cryptozo...
Jan 21, 2021•48 min
This Is Our Everest returns today, albeit as a far more sensible weekly edition, with Edward and Ian getting their RDA of The Price Is Right. Your heroes - one in particular - are both connoisseurs of the American programme, so how are they going to respond to the first edition of the Leslie Crowther-fronted UK series from March 1984? Pretty much as you'd expect, to be honest. In this bumper, seaside special, episode there's a gimlet eye run over the prizes on offer, endless talk of deep conspir...
Jan 14, 2021•47 min
The final door of the This Is Our Everest Advent calendar inevitably reveals the terrifying spectacle of Fanny Cradock Cooks For Christmas. Our heroes both watch this monstrosity every Christmas regardless and it doesn't disappoint. There are thoughts on hygienic food preparation, painting pissy leaves with melted chocolate and the best way to mix a Christmas cake. But really, you're all here for the same reason that we were: so settle down with a glass of something green, pop some mushrooms und...
Dec 24, 2020•41 min
The penultimate day of the This Is Our Everest Advent calendar goes back 50 years to the black and white world of Please Sir! Ian is fascinated by any programme that depicts London in the early 1970s, even if it is just for the social documentary aspect, and as such is much more kindly disposed to this programme than his colleague. Your heroes discuss the potential emergence of a hitherto unheard London accent, the potential pitfalls of inviting only your enemies to your wedding reception and cr...
Dec 23, 2020•32 min
Day 22 of the This Is Our Everest Advent calendar sees Edward and Ian join Chas and Dave for their 1982 Christmas Knees-up. It is a programme that acts as a salve on both of your heroes' battle-scarred psyches and also one which allows Ian to expand upon his sitcom-worthy childhood family Christmases in North London (or Tier 4, as it is now better known). Expect pianos to be wheeled in and beer barrels to be breached by people who didn't really know which end was up. There's also thoughts on the...
Dec 22, 2020•36 min
Day 21 of the This Is Our Everest Advent calendar sees Ian break all known rules for this already stupid and pointless exercise, picking a 2011 festive edition of Yo Gabba Gabba. Edward is keen to find out whether or not having two young children has now addled Ian's brain to the point that this is now the sort of television programme he enjoys and is not disappointed to discover the answer. That said, there are some excellent late gift ideas for the season courtesy of skateboarding royalty, Ian...
Dec 21, 2020•35 min
Day 20 of our Advent calendar sees Edward and Ian watching the 1977 Fat Albert Christmas Special. It's your heroes' first encounter with this particular US television monolith but the helter skelter melding of the Nativity and A Christmas Carol soon takes a back seat to the inevitable questions. Can we really separate the art from the artist, when the artist in question did a Bill Cosby? How sanitary are junkyard clubhouses for human childbirth? And how exactly did Ian go a single day in his mad...
Dec 20, 2020•33 min
Day 19 of the This Is Our Everest Advent calendar and Edward and Ian are watching the Concentration Christmas special from 24th December 1968. Eschewing the commonly-held notion that the secret to a long life is mild cheese and exciting television, Edward has decided to try it the other way round with a 52-year old US game show and a honking lump of Epoisses. As two drunk Father Christmases do battle to win money for charity, Ian talks 1968, two Kennedys are assassinated and the intellectual rig...
Dec 19, 2020•32 min
Day 18 of the This Is Our Everest Advent calendar sees your heroes have their first encounter with the other-worldly Lawrence Welk, and The Lawrence Welk Christmas Show from 1972. Edward and Ian learn about what Republicans do to celebrate Christmas, most of them by the looks of it against their will. In amongst the songs and the forced child labour, Ian finally realises the awesome power Father Christmas has over children and fondly remembers The Andy Williams Show, which is far better than thi...
Dec 18, 2020•33 min
Day 17 of the This Is Our Everest Advent calendar inevitably sees Edward and Ian watching The Generation Game Christmas Special from 1973. Both of your heroes are thrilled to bits to see Frankie Howerd again and are effusive in their praise for both him and the show's titular host (he's in charge), Bruce Forsyth. Ian is very busy this episode, explaining the evolution of Christmas crackers, commiserating with the balding younger gentleman and wondering out loud whether your team's manager making...
Dec 17, 2020•35 min
In an entirely church-based 16th day of our Advent calendar, your heroes have been watching an episode of ITV's Morning Worship from 1993. It brings back all kinds of repressed childhood memories for Edward which is bound to have done him no good at all. Meanwhile, Ian learns about the Last Supper and offers some ruminations on the potency of language in the religious experience, something which can be easily undermined if someone decides to change the words of the Lord's Prayer. Freestyling cle...
Dec 16, 2020•31 min
In the 15th episode of our Advent calendar, it's a star-festooned Christmas extravaganza with the BBC's 1972 Christmas Night With The Stars. The normally risk-averse Ian gets another opportunity to engage with The Goodies for a reason you probably won't expect and also airs an inconvenient truth about Mike Yarwood. Edward is concerned that The Liver Birds may be hellbound for their lifestyle choices and whether or not any of this stuff is considered canon anyway. Your heroes also worry about the...
Dec 15, 2020•36 min
Day 14 of this stupid Advent calendar sees your heroes watching The Les Dennis Laughter Show from 22nd December 1990. Ian is far from impressed with the programme, which delighted Edward who - uniquely among these festive selections - has chosen the episode. It's pretty thin gruel all round however, in the spirit of good will to all men, Les Dennis receives a full and unconditional pardon, conditional on us not ever having to watch this again. Why is Gazza unsuitable for Milk Tray adverts? Is tw...
Dec 14, 2020•33 min
Day 13 of the This Is Our Everest Advent calendar looks at the world of home computing in December 1985 with the BBC Micro Live Christmas Special. With the eight-year age gap between Ian and Edward there's plenty of opportunities for some generational blindspots and your heroes gleefully walk right into them. There's the almost inevitable mention of the imminent robot uprising that defined the 1980s, hand-in-hand with its perky apocalyptic chum, the 1984 film Threads. Firebrand socialist rabble ...
Dec 13, 2020•38 min
Day 12 of our Advent calendar sees your heroes watching another programme from the ITV schedule on Christmas Day 1980: Runaround, the energetic children's quiz presented by Mike Reid. It's a programme that provides Edward and Ian some blessed relief from the poundings that have gone and those that are yet to come. Up for discussion is plastics technology, taxidermy, Big Daddy's prospects as a breakout children's TV star and exactly how much animal abuse can really be tolerated in light entertain...
Dec 12, 2020•32 min
Day 11 of the This Is Our Everest Advent calendar sees Edward and Ian revisit Christmas Day 1980 and an episode of 3-2-1. It's a programme that aggravates Edward in the extreme, not least because Ian remains entirely convinced it is some kind of Runic statement from another plane of human consciousness if he could only decode it. Whether he is right about this or not (he isn't), we discuss what primetime family entertainment was like 40 years ago with help from special guests Barbara Woodhouse, ...
Dec 11, 2020•35 min
What would Christmas be if it didn't include at least one uncomfortable discussion about racism? Well, day 10 of our Advent calendar sees Edward and Ian watch the 1985 In Sickness and In Health Christmas special in order to facilitate this. It's a programme Ian finds so odious he doesn't even mention the fact it has a theme tune by Chas and Dave. Words such as "screed", "diatribe" and "bulwark" make an appearance. Our heroes speculate as to the exact way this programme got recommissioned and wha...
Dec 10, 2020•32 min
