Crossroads News

In this week's TV Times (Covering schedules 1-7th November) Anne Charleston comments on the short-lived 'Yvon Grace' version of the classic soap from 2003.

"It's such a shame this show was cancelled. It had lots of potential, a great cast and guest stars, and this was such a nice role." She said.

Charleston was hired by Carlton in 2002 to play Betty Waddle in their 'glamourous' attempt at the Crossroads brand. The series was axed after only a few weeks into its run as viewers, advertisers and long term fans turned off. It managed in the end to run for five months out of its year-long contract.

Charleston is right about some of the cast however. Jane Asher was sinfully divine, as was Luke Roberts, Graham McGrath and Jane Gurnett.

It's nice to see Anne is able to do interviews again, when the fan club tried to speak with the former Neighbours actress we were told she didn't have email. Obviously at the time she seemingly was also unable to speak via her agent, write letters, answer calls or meet in person..

Jane Rossington has agreed to appear at the TellyNation2 convention at Ye Olde Bell Hotel, in Retford on Saturday 20th September. The event is a weekend long celebration of Telly for fans of the best stuff.

The event is a fan organised show with profits going to a very good charity, Steps The Leicestershire Conductive Education Centre.

Organiser Les Hollis said "I grew up with crossroads in the seventies, and followed it until the end with Jill driving away into the sunset with her man, so I'm chuffed that she has agreed to come to Retford."

Les is also happy to arrange a special 'one day ticket' for any Crossroads fans who would just like to be part of the Saturday event which Jane Rossington is part of.

Jane, as well as being a staple part of Crossroads for twenty-four years, also starred in ATV London serial 'Emergency Ward 10' and BBC Radio's rural drama, The Archers. In recent years she has starred in Children's ITV dramas and Channel 4's gritty soap, Brookside.

Further details of the event can be found at Telly Nation, or you may e-mail Les direct by clicking here.

UPDATE: The event we are told was 'well attended' and Jane gave a wonderful insight not only into Crossroads, but television production of the 1960s in general.

Terence Rigby has died at his London home, aged 71. He had been suffering from lung cancer.

For twelve million viewers he was the Crossroads Motel boss Tommy Lancaster from 1986 to 1988 but Terence Rigby had forged a long television and stage career long before dropping into the Midlands' most famous soap. During the 1970s he starred in popular BBC police drama Softly Softly as PC Snow.

His movie credits include: Get Carter in 1971, The Dogs of War in 1980 and Scandal in 1989. And a decade ago he starred in blockbuster Bond movie, Tomorrow Never Dies.

Television roles include Our Friends in the North, Midsomer Murders, Holby City, Heartbeat and Doctors.

Rigby appeared in several National Theatre productions but treated soap opera as equally important. He never turned down roles if they were good - his family described him as 'an actors, actor'.

The actor's spokesman Peter Charlesworth said: "He will be sorely missed. There are not so many like him anymore. He was a very powerful character actor, able to play villains and nice roles with ease. He was particularly good at playing Pinter roles, which were very difficult."

If you're a reader of Real Lives magazine you'll have seen one of our top members featured last week.

Jean Hochet discusses her love of actor Ronald Allen - David Hunter in the motel saga - also her diaries of the soaps' storylines and how she stumbled upon the Crossroads Appreciation Society website and soon realised that a large Crossroads fanbase continues online.

Since our ITC-CAS releases in the 1980s and early 90s, some episodes have gone missing from the master-tape archive. These include episodes from 1973, (1885) 1975 (2300) and 1977 (2814, 2815 and 2867). If you have any good quality SP VHS' copies of any fan club released tapes, we'd really like to hear from you. Email us today, any information is most appreciated.

As revealed several months ago on the Destination Crossroads forum, former Crossroads actor Peter Dalton - Minty Sutton in the 2001-2002 run - is to take a leading role in a new BBC Three comedy.

You can now see a promotional trailer for the show, 'Trexx and Flipside' on the BBC's You Tube Channel HERE. The series airs regularly on BBC Three currently.

Scarlet TV put together a collection of the fifty - in their view - best endings for characters and television series. While Meg's swansong on the QE2 wasn't for some reason included - the 2003 ending was.

Scarlet TV did contact us about that ending, and also the final edition of the original series in 1988 - but we did point out the final spin-off ending was the most, er, memorable..

The full top fifty, which on Sky One was hosted by Cilla Black, are listed below:

50 TOP OF THE POPS, 49 ONE FOOT IN THE GRAVE, 48 CROSSROADS, 47 MIKE BALDWIN, 46 TISWAS, 45 SWAP SHOP, 44 JUST GOOD FRIENDS, 43 MOONLIGHTING, 42 GOLD BLEND, 41 ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS, 40 DYNASTY, 39 VERA DUCKWORTH, 38 FRASIER, 37 HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY, 36 BEVERLY HILLS 90210, 35 THE FAST SHOW, 34 24, 33 ELDORADO, 32 DOCTOR WHO, 31 NOEL'S HOUSE PARTY, 30 ALAN BRADLEY, 29 DINNERLADIES, 28 BLAKES 7, 27 QUEER AS FOLK, 26 POP IDOL, 25 MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE, 24 FOOTBALLERS' WIVES, 23 PORRIDGE, 22 THIS MORNING, 21 TWIN PEAKS, 20 CHARLENE ROBINSON, 19 THE YOUNG ONES, 18 CHEERS, 17 SHARONGATE, 16 BROOKSIDE, 15 BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, 14 INSPECTOR MORSE, 13 THE VICAR OF DIBLEY, 12 EMMERDALE, 11 THERE'S SOMETHING ABOUT MIRIAM, 10 HILDA OGDEN, 9 BLACKADDER, 8 LOST, 7 THE OFFICE, 6 M*A*S*H, 5 BLIND DATE, 4 THE ROYLE FAMILY, 3 COLD FEET, 2 ONLY FOOLS AND HORSES, 1 LIFE ON MARS.

Newspaper Puts Crossroads Appreciation Society in Classic Telly Websites' Top Ten

The Sunday Mercury newspaper for the West Midlands released its 'Top Ten Classic TV Websites' yesterday, and at number seven was 'crossroadsappreciationsociety.co.uk'.

The weekly publication commented that our website was "worryingly in-depth" - we think thats sort of a compliment! The top site was 'TV Cream', with fellow 'ATVLand' website 'Tiswas Online' at number five in the chart. Other sites included the official TV-am webpages, fansites for BBC sitcoms Porridge and Steptoe and Son and the ever popular TV Ark.

In January BBC News Online also listed CAS as a site to visit in a soap queens article which featured Noele Gordon.

On Monday May 12th 2008 the Crossroads Fan Club featured on the BBC Radio WM's Ed Doolan show. We returned to the airwaves on Saturday May 17th 2008 to discuss the new found 1965 episode. Janice Long was the host, she seemed to be a little bit of a fan of old Crossroads herself.

It was certainly a great chat about how the long lost episode was found, and the affection still for the soap opera. Marc Webber of ITV.com also featured to discuss the premier of the episode at the Best Of ITV website.

You know, isn't it a great shame they've never brought Crossroads back.. ..maybe one day.

You can watch a little bit of television history on ITV.com - as they are the first in the world to show a newly discovered 1965 edition of the motel soap - last seen over forty years ago in only a handful of ITV regions.

Experts uncovered the 1965 episode in an unmarked tin in the old ATV archive, which now resides in west London. They thought most of the episodes from the decade had been lost forever after the film and video tapes used to store the programmes were either disposed of or re-used as the years passed.

The premiere of this find marks a major re-launch of ITV.com’s archive video section, which contains full-length episodes of shows like Rising Damp, Survival and Joe 90.

Marc Webber, Head of Content at ITV.com said “Crossroads will always have a place in people’s hearts. People poked fun at it for its wobbly sets and bad acting, but it continually attracted millions of viewers every week. Hopefully, some of those fans will join us on itv.com for a brilliant trip down memory lane this weekend.”

If you think you've got a lost episode of Crossroads, itv.com would like to hear from you. They are interested in any recordings of episodes broadcast before 1982 - on videotape or could even on reels of film! If you think you've got something in your garage or loft, drop the team a line at lost.crossroads@itv.com.

You can see the episode right now at ITV.com's Crossroads section in the Best Of ITV: www.itv.com/crossroads

We're sure Network DVD will be incredibly grateful to the staff of ITV who went beyond the call of their duty to bring these finds to them, and of course without these staff - who go that extra mile - so many episodes would have remained lost and un-released on DVD. So if you want to keep episode 126 in your personal collection its now on sale from Network DVD. Order it here.

The DVD and ITV.com has had huge publicity, with reports airing on Central Tonight and Central News through all of Wednesday 15 May 2008, and practically every news website from MSN Entertainment to Digital Spy have reported the discovery. Newspapers from The Mirror to The Guardian, and nearly all the local daily papers reported how the episode was found, and where it would be seen and on sale.

We're certainly thrilled with the coverage, who'd have thought 'wobbly' old Crossroads would still dominate news pages. On behalf of the fan club we thank more than the people at ITV for making it all possible, without them Network wouldn't have the episode for DVD, and thus the fans wouldn't get the chance to see it.

On Monday May 12th 2008 the Crossroads Fan Club featured on the BBC Radio WM's Ed Doolan show. For the whole week a different appreciation society was to be featured on the programme everyday. The first to feature was us, and what a delightful experience it was to talk to Ed - who had starred in the soap, and who knew Noele Gordon well.

The debate included the popularity of the programme, what the fan club does and Ed's appearance in the programme with his recollection of being paid a royalty fee of £1.50 for a repeat of the show.

We also discussed the rather sad state of Noele Gordon's grave, which has been left somewhat neglected. In the 'old days' her agent Michael Summerton and CAS would keep it clean a few times a year, but in recent years it has been difficult to find anyone locally to keep it tidy.

Crossroads' Adam Chance, played by the delightful Tony Adams was Paul Wappat's guest for 'Six at Six' on the North East's Smooth Radio tonight (02/05/08). Paul commented that Tony was one of the best guests he'd had on the slot, and it was certainly a great listen.

As guest, Tony picked six pop songs, and chatted about his career from stage to screen, from Adam Chance to his current starring role in the stage musical, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, where he appears as Grandpa Potts. The musical is at the Sunderland Empire for the next few weeks.

Paul has been pondering a campaign to bring back Crossroads. Well, as long as they don't make it in Nottingham, put it on at 5pm and fill it with teens it should work..

Only a few weeks after the exciting discoveries of Crossroads material, it seems even more has come to light this week. Along with the recently found 'film inserts' dating back to the early years of the 1960s and two black and white episodes from 1973 we are now aware that episode '126' from April 1965 has also been discovered.

It stars John Bentley in one of his earliest appearances at the motel along with Noele Gordon, Anthony Morton, Peggy Aitchison and Roger Tonge to name only a few.

The episode can be bought, along with the 1973 monochrome editions, from Network DVD on a special limited release.

As part of a new gallery of famous Birmingham people a portrait of Noele Gordon will be on display as part of the season.

"Although not born in the city she adopted it as her home and had many friends here." said artist David Viney of thisisculture.org.uk. Noele also was patron of over 30 local charities in the Midlands and of course helped launch ITV in the region back in 1956.

Popular actress Kathy Staff - famous as Nora Batty in the BBC sitcom Last Of The Summer Wine - has spoken about the Carlton Television attempt at making Crossroads.

Staff, who starred in the original as Doris Luke between 1978 and 1985, was lured by Carlton to star in their re-make of the cult ATV classic soap in 2001. It soon turned sour, though. Kathy Staff quit after a year.

Speaking last week on BBC One's Inside Out (East Midlands edition) she said she was disapointed with the production.

When asked if she regretted ever being in 'new Crossroads' she commented: "Yes I do, it wasn't anything like I expected. And er, very disapointing so I soon decided that I would come out of it as soon as my contract finished.. ..A lot of people had worked many many years to establish it [the original] as a programme. And at one time, we used to get fifteen million viewers in the old days. But it never took off the new one. And it was very disapointing, very disapointing."

Inside Out was looking at the demise of local ITV, with a close up investigation of the former Central Television productions made at the Nottingham Lenton Lane studios. The Carlton Crossroads was in production in the East Midlands between 2000 and 2003, but a long list of continuity errors between original Crossroads and the 'new version' made it unpopular with old fans.

It wasn't just fans who were upset by the lack of regard for the original motel saga. Peter Ling, Kathy Staff, Sue Lloyd, Jane Rossington, Lynette McMorrough and Angus Lennie have spoken of their distaste for the Carlton 'trade-in' on the Crossroads brand.

The Australian actor Lloyd Lamble has died at the age of 94. Lloyd began his career on radio as an announcer with 3DB before touring theatres across Australia with the J.C. Williamson Company. During the Second World War he returned to radio to help keep moral on the home front high but things turned bad when the war ended as rumours began to spread about his communist leanings and he was blacklisted from working in the entertainment industry.

As a result Lamble left for the UK in 1950 and would find himself in constant employment both on stage and screen. He appeared in the movie Blue Murder at St. Trinian's, played Jim Bartle in the soap opera Crossroads and also had roles in shows such as The Kids From 47A, Dixon of Dock Green, The Avengers, Crown Court and the BBC medical soap Angels.

Following on from the major recent finds in the Central archive at YTV, further long lost Crossroads has recently turned up. John McElroy, member of the Roobarb DVD forum, recorded a number of episodes of Crossroads and two programmes - one from 1969 and another from 1970 have been unearthed.

John Williams and Ian Beard have worked at identifying the episodes and conclude that one edition is from around June 1969 which is somewhere between episodes 1009 and 1182 as featured on the Network DVD releases.

John Williams of The Mausoleum Club comments on the audio discoveries: "John showed a fine devotion to the Crossroads as a lad and recorded some episodes. There is a complete episode from 1969 and roughly half an episode from 1970 - the latter is the famous "black magic" episode which is the climax of the plot that saw Jill and Diane get mixed up with some crazy West Midland diabolists."

In the last few weeks there have been a number of discoveries - and in some cases rediscoveries - of Crossroads archive material.

* Three episodes from 1976/7, recovered from home video cassettes (Philips N1500). These episodes do not exist on a master format, so these are the only surviving copies. One of these was recorded off air from Westward Television (episode 2521 - Vera sacks Sheila) and the other two came from the collection of the late Zeph Gladstone, who played Miss Vera. Playback of these ageing and now wildly obsolete cassettes was undertaken by Lucinda Woodward of London's The Video Ark (http://www.videoark.co.uk)

* Most - if not all - of the sequences filmed outside the studio on location and played into studio, some dating back to the earliest monochrome days of the series. This hoard seems to include the 1967 Spain/Tunisia sequences!

* Two monochrome telerecordings of 1973 episodes, originally broadcast in colour and also now not extant on master format. These episodes were last seen as clips on Crossroads Revisited (1985) and Open Air (1988).

Network DVD have already announced the inclusion of episode 2521, recovered from home video, on a forthcoming archive DVD volume, and will shortly be appraising the other material for technical quality, clearance position and possibility of release.

I'm sure all Crossroads fans will be pleased with this latest news, and so on their behalf CAS thanks all involved at ITV in locating these items from a much lost era of Crossroads.

The former Crossroads star - who played popular dimwit Benny Hawkins - is to play the legendary Birmingham comedian Tony Hancock.

The Aston-born actor was last seen in television drama Bad Girls for ITV in 2006, and had several other small roles on TV since being axed by Crossroads boss William Smethurst in 1987. Henry also suffered problems in his private life including losing his 18-year-old daughter Justine in a road crash - and his luxury home in Barnt Green, near Bromsgrove, was repossessed after he racked up debts of more than £400,000. Paul had gone from earning £100,000 a year to nothing, but by 1994 had rebuilt his life running a pub and bar ventures in the West Midlands with his wife Sheila.

Now the one time "motel handyman" is taking on the role of Hancock who committed suicide at the age of just 44 in a Sydney hotel room. Hancock took his life back in 1968 as his career started to dwindle.

Paul has agreed to star as Hancock in a 25-year-old play being re-adapted for modern audiences by not-for-profit Birmingham production by the Maverick Theatre. Reported the Birmingham Mail.

'Hancock's Finest Hour' will tour Britain in around 18 months' time. Maverick Theatre artistic director Nick Hennegan said the tiny Birmingham company had bought the worldwide rights to the play, written by actor Colin Bennett, for five years.

"I am hoping that this will put Paul back in the spotlight. It's going to be a unique production and we would like to kick it off in Birmingham," Nick told the Birmingham Mail.

"It's a fairly tall order for Paul - it's only a three-hander and runs the whole gamut of Hancock's life. It's a big part and a difficult part but I think it's also the perfect Birmingham dream team with Paul as Hancock.."

"I am hoping that we can find a Birmingham company who can stump up some sponsorship. This is a unique opportunity."

In related news Tony Adams - Adam Chance at the motel - appeared this week (10/03/08) on Tyne Tees' North East Tonight news show to promote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang the stage musical which is currently in the North East. There was some Crossroads featured, and TTTV were awfully nice about Tony and the soap.

The Birmingham Mail has suggested the end is in sight for the ITV region that launched in 1956. Highlights from their report below, link to full article at the base of the story:

'News from the West Midlands may soon be fighting for airtime with stories from rural Lincolnshire, the far reaches of north Nottinghamshire or even the fringes of the Home Counties.

ITV has decided to slash its network of regional TV news programmes from 17 to nine. Faced with falling audience figures and cut-throat competition from satellite channels and the internet, ITV chairman Michael Grade announced mass cutbacks across the network.

Grade said in a letter to ITV staff last September: "The commercial reality is we're spending more on regional news than can be commercially justified. ITV spends £120 million a year on its regional services, the majority on regional news. We believe a more realistic obligation on ITV would create savings of £35 million to £40 million a year."

If ITV's plans are nodded through by regulator Ofcom, Central Tonight will merge with its counterpart in Nottingham, creating one programme serving a huge swathe of Middle England, from rural Herefordshire to the east coast.

The outlook for jobs remains blurred, but up to 40 per cent of ITV employees across the Birmingham and Nottingham operations are thought to be at risk.'

Border TV Regional news staff have started a campaign to save their ITV region. Despite ITV London having poor local news ratings, many of the other programmes across the UK actually perform far better. Border staff suggest ITV bosses are only looking at London ratings, and not the bigger picture.

ATV, the original producers of Crossroads were forced to 'become more regional' and were transformed into Central Television in 1982, with three local news programmes eventually airing across the Central region. Should Ofcom allow these plans the news service will revert to the much disliked 'ATV Today' era of reporting, which many said simply wasn't local enough.

A senior Central executive predicted a grim future for one of Birmingham's best-loved institutions, the birthplace of Crossroads and the TV company which forged the careers of Chris Tarrant, Gary Newbon and Bob Warman.

"Morale has been on the floor for some time. When ATV was at its height and before it became Central more than 20 years ago, the company employed around 2,000 people.

"Today there's probably around 160 across the area. At one time in Birmingham, they were doing a load of network programmes, including Crossroads. But the world of TV has changed so much.

"There's much more choice with satellite TV and the Internet. And there are lots more independent companies selling their programmes to ITV and the BBC.

"There's a feeling Central was in an amazing position a few years ago and let it dwindle. Now there's a fear viewers will stop tuning into Central for their local news, weather and travel when they see Bob Warman talking about Lincolnshire." The executive told the Birmingham Mail.

Fans of regional ITV believe the 'selling Ice Cream in winter' effect is being used to make it seem regional television is dead - mainly by showing programmes that are not interesting or very local and in slots that are against soap opera or late at night. These critics point out however the BBC still gain good ratings locally, and if ITV bosses looked further than London, many ITV regions do too when local programmes worth watching air.

Mary Barclay Dies

She played David Hunter's stern mother-in-law from Hell, Stella Dane, between 1970 and 1972, the actress Mary Barclay died yesterday (19/02/08) aged 91.

She was Rosemary Hunter's domineering mother, but after 18 months in the soap became tired of the long days and soap format and so asked producer Reg Watson to kill off her character.

She also starred in other TV classics such as Secret Army, Spy Trap, Dixon of Dock Green and Steptoe And Son.

Born Mary Biddulph in Somerset, she achieved a double-first in classics at Cambridge University, after enrolling at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the actress married Richard Barclay, who became a successful BBC film editor.

Richard Barclay died from a heart attack in 1985 and the actress married a Scottish widower, David Taylor, in 1987. Mary died at a nursing home in Guernsey on Tuesday, where she had been living since she suffered a stroke seven years ago.

The Young Doctors was Australia's longest running drama serial and was a ratings winner in the UK as well as in other countries around the world. The show launched with an initial hour long pilot episode in 1976 and by the time that the Albert Memorial Hospital closed its doors for the final time in 1982 it had clocked up a further 1396 half hour episodes.

Viewers as far away as New Zealand, Angola, the Bahamas, France and the Netherlands were hooked on the romance and drama of The Young Doctors. The Albert Memorial Hospital was run like a well oiled machine by medical superintendent Dr Brian Denham (Michael Beecher) and his ever efficient secretary Helen Gordon (Lyn James). Kiosk lady Ada Simmonds (Gwen Plumb) kept the gossip flowing, orderly Dennis Jamison (Chris King) was the joker of the pack and Sister Grace Scott (played by Home & Away star Cornelia Frances) kept the flighty young nurses in line with a rod of iron.

The show was awash with sexy young nurses and hunky doctors including Nurse Jo Jo Adams (Delvene Delaney), Nurse Tania Livingstone (Judy McBurney), Nurse Sherry Andrews (Karen Pini), Nurse Maggie Gordon (played by Neighbours regular Jackie Woodburne), Dr Peter Holland (Peter Lochran), Dr Tony Garcia (Tony Alvarez) and Dr Greg Mason (played by Australian Idol judge Mark Holden). Then we had the prickly Dr Graham Steele (Tim Page), the abrupt Dr John Forest (played by Alan Dale of Neighbours and Ugly Betty fame) and the suave senior surgeon Dr Raymond Shaw (Alfred Sandor). The series also featured a very young Russell Crowe in his television acting debut and Joseph Furst who played the evil Dr Metz in the James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever.

The Young Doctors was produced, written and directed by Alan Coleman who directed the first eight years of Crossroads. The series was created and executive produced by Reg Watson who produced Crossroads from its inception up until 1974 and the show featured a host of Crossroads actors including Vincent Ball and John Scholes.

Umbrella Entertainment - www.umbrellaent.com.au - have released two volumes of classic episodes from the show on DVD - 'The Young Doctors - The Best Romances' and 'The Young Doctors - Classic Cliffhangers.' These DVD's have been selling like hot cakes and now fans are campaigning to have the entire series released on DVD in chronological order.

"I have been approached by a lot of fans asking if the whole show will be released on DVD in chronological order," said Darren Gray of Darren Gray Management who represent a number of The Young Doctors cast members and who also represent Alan Coleman who produced, directed and wrote the series, "I know that the programme has a strong and loyal fan base and I'm certainly throwing my weight behind this campaign to release every episode of the show in regular monthly instalments.

"Umbrella Entertainment have recently announced that they'll be releasing the whole of Sons & Daughters on DVD and A Country Practice and Prisoner (Cell Block H) are already being released in their entirety so we know that a massive audience exists for classic Australian drama serials.

"In addition with a brand new version of The Young Doctors about to be produced in Australia I would suggest that now is the ideal time for the release of the original series - viewers can enjoy the new show whilst also revisiting the classic episodes to see where it all began."

So if you are a fan of The Young Doctors and would like to see the entire series released on DVD you are urged to e-mail Umbrella Entertainment to show that the demand exists for this to happen. E-mail Andrew Mercado at info@umbrellaent.com.au

You can re-live the 1979 motel Christmas day episode on ITV.com. Yes Join Meg and the staff of the Crossroads Motel as they sing a little Christmas song for the regular viewers.