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A casual cultural critique of vintage television, where Britain’s best-loved battleaxe is never far from our minds...
Episodes
Sunday May 15, 2022
Sunday May 15, 2022
But lo, something is in the air! The evenings are lighter, the breeze is warmer and the studio at MountPeg Towers might even be getting closer to its annual clean (don't hold your breath. Actually, holding your breath in there might be an idea). Yes, spring has sprung and drink will be drunk as Doctor Velvet and Blackout presage the new series of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour with a quintet of special episodes focusing on big screen entertainment; albeit viewed on a small screen...
The first cinematic gem to stagger through the mists of time is Disney's 1979 live-action historical sci-fi farce, The Spaceman and King Arthur (aka Unidentified Flying Oddball), with a welter of British talent and perhaps more sauce than one might expect for this sort of dish.
Just how loose can The Science be in a script, before it can no longer be legally classified as science-fiction? Just how tense can an auditorium of accompanying adults become as a film tries to balance Arthurian legend hat-tips and a running joke about bongo mags? And which of our impressionable hosts was brainwashed by the film into belting bits of old metal with a hammer in order to make magnets?
Our Feature Presentation is one way to find out...
The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to peggymountpod@gmail.com
Friday Dec 31, 2021
Friday Dec 31, 2021
OCH! Well help our boabs and jing our crivvens, The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour finds itself queuing once more at Berwick's passport office in an annual pilgrimage northward for the New Year's Eve celebrations, where all Blackout, Doctor Velvet and Ozzy Bognops have to declare is some pretty firm Opinions™ on the television of years past...
Their first-foot is a trip to the rural majesty of Glendarroch, where domestic strife and highfalutin corporate angst stand shoulder-to-shoulder. Will auld acquaintances be forgot in time for the bells to ring in the new year? The only way to find out is to Take The High Road. Then it's a rest from All The Drama and onto All The Fun (or a percentage thereof); no festive season would be complete without a visit from Les Dennis, here this time to host a hooting Hogmanay Special of Family Fortunes as he pits two Scottish clans against one another in a survey-analysis to the death.
Does every croft North Of The Border have a special room where all the sound effects are kept? Do ITV's gameshow booking department only have the phone number of one village hall in Scotland? And how long can Blackout keep doing that accent before half his family disown (or claymore) him?
Make it YOUR New Year's resolution to hit PLAY and find out...
(NOTE: If you want to count down to midnight with us in the show, start the podcast at 22:49:04. That's forty nine minutes and four seconds past ten o'clock at night. Smashing.)
The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to peggymountpod@gmail.com
Friday Dec 24, 2021
Friday Dec 24, 2021
Splash the halls with pints of sherry, fa-la-la-la-laaa etc, it's the joyous culmination of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour's Yuletide Extravaganza! The final baubles are placed on branches which have already begun shedding into the carpet, the last odd-tasting chocolate is snaffled from behind a cardboard door and washed down with booze it's socially acceptable to drink before 10am, and the well-thumbed double issue of the Radio Times lies open with more biro circles than a spirograph test sheet. Yes, the TRUE meaning of Christmas is celebrated here: watching the telly with a drink in your hand...
Messrs Velvet, Bognops and Blackout retire from a day's important wassailing to observe a mechanical egg making a festive forest look all tacky and low-rent in Ludwig, and then witness the BBC's 1972 light entertainment budget get well and truly rinsed with the stellar (if unrehearsed) line-up of the final Christmas Night With The Stars.
Is a Christmas episode of a programme still a Christmas episode of a programme if it's titled Christmas but no one in it says the word Christmas? Is a Christmas episode of a programme still a Christmas episode of a programme if it's filmed in August and the only seasonal set decorations get added via blue-screen in early December? And why does this podcast keep watching things with Cilla Black in them, when that's clearly only going to go one way?
Unwrap the Play button to find out...
Friday Dec 17, 2021
Friday Dec 17, 2021
As dear Laird McMullington of Kintyre once slaved 'pon his bureau to note: "The moon is right; the dander's up; we're watching channel three tonight; there's absolute hell on". And as cumbersome as those lyrics may appear in their written form, it's worth noting that his same ditty goes on to employ the carefully chosen libretto "ding dong, ding dong, ding dong, ding ooh ooooh". So y'know, you take your cultural insight where you can find it...
Back on terra iracundia however, messrs Velvet, Bognops and Blackout inflict upon themselves a duology of televisual flagellation from the light channel in the form of T.Bag's Christmas Turkey and Cilla Black's Christmas - two vintage yuletide offerings which evidently did their very utmost to fly the flag for Scrooge-like militant atheism in the living rooms of children and adults alike. So at least everyone's catered for. Which is the meaning of Christmas, we suppose.
Did our Lady Of Perpetual Outrage Dame Pegatha Mountbatten have an inadvertent hand in Thames Television's resounding lack of franchise-renewal? Is a heart-melting sense of festive poignancy overdone by depicting Baroness Cillosis Blackjack as some old lady who sits around the house waiting for guests who never turn up and talking at the television? And is it just true that no good terrestrial Christmas programming has ever been broadcast on a channel which has adverts?
You'd certainly be forgiven for thinking so...
Friday Dec 10, 2021
Friday Dec 10, 2021
Christmas may only come once a year, but The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour presents an unholy trinity of seasonal specials to keep you warm during the darkest month. Doctor Velvet and Blackout invite Ozzy Bognops round for yuletide reminiscence, irreverent chat and lashings of booze as they delve into the televisual archive and summon the ghosts of Christmas past...
Selecting from the festive kids' menu our trio draw the curtains, flip out the screen-glare shields and brace for a dead leg and an all-expenses-paid trip to Bethlehem in Watch. Then it's back in good old blighty where everything is refined, restrained and furiously beige as tradition meets aspiration in To The Manor Born.
Will there really be Peace On Earth when a TV presenter ends up stranded in Television Centre alone with a pair of scissors, two cameras and four hundred empty shoeboxes? Will there be goodwill toward men when a prime-time Christmas Special is commissioned seemingly in the second week of December and with the budget of a clip-show? AND WILL THERE BE ANY PORT LEFT?
Crack open the eggnog and hit Play to find out...
The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to peggymountpod@gmail.com
Friday Dec 03, 2021
Friday Dec 03, 2021
It's all go round at MountPeg Towers as Doctor Velvet and Blackout limber up to slip in a quick one before Christmas (quiet at the back), and end up rolling out the welcome mat for Simon and Ken from The Exton Moss Experiment podcast. Because what could be more self indulgent than two middle-aged men mulling over the slightly bitter taste of eighties reminiscence, than doubling that up for a foursome? (really, keep it down)
First up, the boys are out of this world in excitement over Buck Rogers' 25th Century romp on the Planet Of The Amazon Women, before coming right back down to earth (and hard) with some Duty Free as the San Remo Hotel gets a bit of extra oomph when a famous - and flirty - guest arrives. All of this might sound sexy, but unfortunately the only sauce on offer here is the hard liquor (some of it positively medicinal) required to sit through it all.
Is there a German word for that feeling when the future looks way cheaper than the present when it's filmed in the past? Is there a Spanish word for the year-on-year diminishing returns of a massively successful but oddly era-specific sitcom? And is there any word at all for the incandescent umbrage one feels at being the only person in the room to have actively enjoyed what everyone's just sat through?
The play-button will reveal all...
Friday Oct 29, 2021
Friday Oct 29, 2021
Gather round! It is time once more to bob your apples, carve some pumpkins and get them treats tricked, as our cauldron is stirred for a generous and potentially lethal helping of the home-brewed Peggy Mount Calamity Hour's Hallow'een Special! Yes, there's just time before the Feast Of All Saints to get your fangs stuck into a couple of spooky morsels, whether it's out of hunger for untold riches, long-sought vengeance or just a liverwurst and ice cream sandwich.
The moonlit streets of California are our first stop-off, as a gang of young paranormal investigators solve the riddle of the tombs as best they can whilst also enquiring as to the present whereabouts of Scooby-Doo. And then it's a short train ride into East Anglia, where mirth, merriment and magic combine to mask the more sinister intentions of Derek Jacobi's Stranger In Town...
Which battle-attired porcine-fronted hostelry in Norfolk finds itself the unwitting focus of an unsolicited endorsement campaign? Is there no end to the lengths to which some ingeniously theatrical criminals will go, when a simple night-time ram raid and/or sniper rifle would probably get the same job done more efficiently? And come on, is that *really* not what we expected?
Press Play to find out, if you dare...
The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour is a free podcast from iPorle Media, which holds production copyright. Opinions and recollections expressed are not to be taken as fact. The title and credit music is by Doctor Velvet. Audio segments from television programmes are presented for review and informational purposes only under fair use, and no ownership of these is claimed or implied by this show. Email enquiries to peggymountpod@gmail.com
Friday Aug 27, 2021
Friday Aug 27, 2021
Because we are nothing if not the guests you cannot get shot of at the end of a party, ten episodes was never going to be enough tomfoolery and so we are proud to present the first of this year's seasonal shenanigans in the bumper Peggy Mount Calamity Hour Summertime Special Summertime Special...
First up we're off to deepest darkest Poole in to watch Peter Powell and Cilla Black master their ring in the BBC's big top for 1979's Seaside Special. Then as we salve our sunburn with ice lollies and saltwater, there's just time to take the land-train round to Bournemouth's BIC where Michael Barrymore is pleased as punch to present his 1987 Summertime Special.
How much of a programme's content can you feasibly compile from VT footage, given that you've already dragged nine hundred people into a specially erected tent to watch a handful of the only acts who were all available on the same night? How much of a programme's content can you realistcally film when the cast, crew and audience of a 10,000 seat theatre are all ankle-deep in sequins? And how much of a programme's content will ever make the hosts of this podcast content?
Pour one more sangria while the sun's still shining and find out...
Friday Aug 20, 2021
Friday Aug 20, 2021
What a ride it's been, you lovely lot, as The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour has stopped off at each year of the 1980s to sample memory-stirring merriments and televisual treats. And there's one more riddling foray to be had before we pull the curtain and hope the theatre doesn't inexplicably catch fire...
This week it's 1989 and THE FUTURE™ of immersive gaming is in its absolute prime as we don a horned helmet and stumble around an empty room while our friends enjoy themselves in Knightmare. Any danger is all virtual of course, so safe in that knowledge we relax to put the kettle on and watch a bit of telly. And it's getting a bit stuffy in here, so we'll see if we can make it as far as opening the window before suffering A Case Of Spontaneous Human Combustion.
Is Gavin Gillespie's brand of bawdy, working-class rhetoric really suitable for Friday afternoon sword-and-sorcery broadcasting when there are children watching? How many scientists arguing over the possibility of involuntary auto-incineration would it have taken to assuage the permanently-on flammability fears of three youngsters in the 1980s? And for the last ruddy time, does anybody want an apple?
Friday Aug 13, 2021
Friday Aug 13, 2021
It feels like it's been YEARS since we last relaxed in the company of the very reason we're all gathered around the wireless today (it's been eight weeks, in fact), and so The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour goes all Agadoo as it bends over backwards, pulls out the stops and pushes out the boat...
This week it's 1988 and we find ourselves in the mood for a double Pegging (okay, quiet at the back), as we pick up a flyer for The Greatest Show In The Galaxy only to find Dame Peggatha Mountbatten on a stall outside selling rice pudding and cold sick served in half a pineapple. Then we're so incensed about this, we find ourselves on trial for the things we only imagined doing in Ray Bradbury's Punishment Without Crime. It turns out Peggy's the judge, so we're definitely going down (really please, calm down).
Could absolutely any dystopian wilderness be improved with the judicial placement of an absolutely incendiary P.Mount? Could R.Bradbury's office be improved with the judicial placement of a cleaner? And is the ninth episode of the series really the best time for D.Velvet and B.Out to be bringing in a new outlandish character?
Well, the jury's still out...