talkmagic.co.uk

I recently acquired a copy of Cards as Weapons, and was amazed to learn that Ricky Jay appeared on Parkinson back in the 70's alongside Fred Kapps on a Xmas special on magic. (it was were Ricky set the world record in card throwing witnessed by Norris McWhirter)

So I sent an email to the head of archives at the BBC to find out the process of viewing this or acquiring a copy. They dont entertain individual enquiries but did suggest I call the National TV Viewing Archives in Tottenham Court Road 020 7255 1444- ask for Ian if your interested). The show was called The Parkinson Magic Show and aired 25/12/76. You can book a viewing for £10/hour +vat.

What if, assuming others are suitably interested, we petitioned the BBC to air the show again. I pay my licence fee and feel that I should not have to pay to view something that in part belongs to the people?

any others wish to comment on this.

Bug

If you're looking for names than stick me down, it would be interesting to see.

Wonderful.

The Beeb can put on endless repeats of Only Fools... Some Mothers... Ground Force etc which are good but have been shown ad nauseum yet they balk at the thought of showing something which may have been transmitted well before many members on this forum were born and which would, therefore, be 'new', 'refreshing'. and 'interesting'.

As you say, this is what we pay our licence fee for. Grrrrrrrrr!!!

(Perhaps they just don't want to show Michael Parkinson in his flared trousers and all that hair with the big mutton chop sideburns!)

While were at it do you think we might be able to persuade them to show the program they aired not so long ago on BBC 2 called TX ? That was also about Ricky Jay and I missed it

Hustlers, Hoaxsters, Pranksters, Jokesters and Ricky Jay

aired in November '95. Excellent programme.

Anyone know how we go about getting things re-shown...I've tried email ing a few bods at the BBC, but no feedback yet...

Bug

Come to think of it, what was the last proper magic programme shown on the Beeb? I'm tempted to say it was probably the last Paul Daniels Show but there must have been others since.

Anyway, the point is that they no longer seem to class magic as worthy entertainment. I can remember the episode of One Foot in the Grave where Victor has all his sad old g*t mates round, dressed in top hats & tails, all trying to do stage magic in small room. OK, there's comedy in magic but it would be nice to see magic in magic - and proper magic on mainstream TV.

There was a rumour on the grapevine a while back that the Beeb were commissioning a 'game show' where 'celebrities' watched magic routines and then had to work out how they were done. Whilst this may not be an accurate report, it's still worrying that they try to get a strange angle on magic otherwise it's of no interest. Add this to the trend for the Masked Magician and I confidently forecast that the next programme to be shown will be, ' Yankee Tom's Greatest Secrets Revealed' This difference being that the programme ends with the Masked Magician getting a well deserved thumping!

Currently, the only thing Magical about the Beeb is:

a: the apparent and timely lack of Terry Wogan
b: the quality of their marketing engine (look at the inter-schedule marketing - very nice)

If I think back, I think Paul Daniels WAS the last serialised magic show... and that was a treat! Even if they brought back those episodes as repeats, I think at least we'd be able to chew on some genuine magical entertainment again for a while.

I opened a thread about Simon Drake, who I guess was one of my heroes back in the days... and over the past four or so years, I've been searching and querying how I can get my hands on videos of his stuff.

Now, Channel 4, who are a relatively new company in comparison to the Beeb were uninterested in going through their archives - and they've only got one (terrestrial) Channel to worry about.

The Beeb, on the other hand, have possibly enough physical tape and film footage to get to the moon and back. Plus, I think that due to my vivid imagination - I imagine the staff of C4 being all 'dudes' in Bermuda's, checking through digital video archives - whereas the Beeb probably has a little old pensioner called Norm, who wheels himself through dark, cobwebbed passageways with a dim torch, looking at little Dymo labels on shelves...

I don't know if you've ever seen 'points of view', but there's a million people or more probably writing in to the BBC to see such mundane footage as Keith Chegwin's firs 'Basin-cut'...

How does a minority group like us stand a chance?

Now look, which one of you has the resources to set up a pay per view type channel thingy on Sky showing magic for a couple of evenings a week or even acouple of hours every day or something ?

Not anything giving away secrets or such drivel, but good quality magic archive show and new up to date acts and tv specials etc...


The only thing we have at the moment is on CITV at about 4.20pm and I only know of that cause i was off work watching telly with my son the other day - and I did actually enjoy it.

I did a quick search of the Beeb's website to see if there's anything promising under magic and, as you can guess, nothing at all. A search for Paul Daniels gets you to a BBC News story about his recent appearance in Carmarthen where the organisers had to change the venue twice, each time for bigger premises, as the tickets kept selling out! Bit of a hint there, Beeb, magic is popular.

Perhaps less money spent on taking 200 staff to London Zoo on a jolly at our expense (see today's Teletext pages!) and a bit more spent on programmes might be a good idea!

Not sure whether this might prompt a decent programme to be commissioned but there's plenty of time!

I've just seen that the Magic Circle will be 100 years old in 2005 and this ought to be enough of an excuse for some decent magic on mainstream TV. Perhaps if we started e-mailing and writing now we might get somewhere?

OK, let's put it another way. I suggest we write to/e-mail the BBC and say something along the lines of, ' As you know, the Magic Circle will be 100 years old in 2005 and we reckon that's a marvellous reason for you to commission and produce a season of proper programmes on Magic leading up to the event. Let's face it, there's enough time to organise it! So, how about it then?' Or words to that effect. We can then also contact the Magic Circle and let them in on things along with details of our dearest wish - to see some proper Magic on mainstream TV.

OK, I know most magic is much better when performed live and right under your nose but I doubt the Magic Circle will travel all the way to our individual places of residence to put on a performance!

We will probably just get the standard BBC reply - I once e-mailed Terry Wogan to ask when Children in Need would be on that year as I wanted our local Chrstmas Fayre to be on a different Friday. The Automatic reply came back along the lines of,' Thank you for your message, your request will be played on Terry's programme as soon as possible.' OK, a proper reply came though from the producer the following day but he still didn't have the details to hand!

Whaddya folks think? (Not about Tery Wogan, about petitioning for some TV magic!)