John Hannah The TV That Made Me


John Hannah

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TV, the magic box of delights.

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As kids, it showed us a million different worlds,

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all from our living room.

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-This takes me right back.

-That's so embarrassing!

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I am genuinely shocked.

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Each day, I'm going to journey through the wonderful

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world of telly with one of our favourite celebrities...

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It is just so silly.

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Oh, I love it! Is it Mr Benn?

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Shut it!

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..as they select the iconic TV moments...

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Oh, hello.

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..that tell us the stories of their lives.

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Oh! Oh, my gosh.

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-BOTH:

-Cheers.

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Some will make you laugh...

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Wah!

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SHE LAUGHS

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..some will surprise...

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HE QUACKS

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SHE LAUGHS

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..many will inspire...

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-Oh!

-Look at this. Why wouldn't you want to watch this?

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..and others will move us.

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Seeing that there made a huge impact on me.

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Got a handkerchief?

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So, come watch with us, as we rewind

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to the classic telly that shaped

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those wide-eyed youngsters into the much-loved stars they are today.

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APPLAUSE Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to The TV That Made Me.

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My guest today is a brilliant actor.

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Ladies and gentlemen, it is the one and only Mr John Hannah.

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CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

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Come on.

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Oh, good to see you, mate. Good to see you. Welcome to my flat.

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Come and sit yourself over there.

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This boyish, yet ruggedly handsome, Scot shot to international

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fame in the British blockbuster Four Weddings and a Funeral.

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And he's had big, gritty TV hits with Rebus, and Truth or Dare

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alongside the beautiful Helen Baxendale.

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The TV that made him

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is linked to the longest-running children's show in the world.

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And the TV show that really did make him.

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John Hannah is here.

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-And you've brought someone with you.

-I did. The dog, actually.

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-She wants to come over. Come on, then. Coco, this is live television.

-What's the dog's name?

-Coco.

-Coco.

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-Coco. You coming up? Come on, up you come.

-Up you get.

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-AUDIENCE:

-Aw!

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Oh, look.

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It is like having another pillow, isn't it, really?

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-Yes, she is kind of toasty.

-How old is she?

-Six.

-Six. What sort of breed?

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It's a female.

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LAUGHTER

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-They are different from us, aren't they?

-So...

-It is a bichon frise.

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A bichon frise. Oh, bless.

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John, today is a celebration of some TV classic moments that

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-you've chosen.

-Cool.

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Stuff that we hope has probably shaped you,

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-to make you the person you are today.

-Possibly, yes.

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We are going to have a little look back now,

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look back at what it was like growing up.

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-There's the young John Hannah.

-OK.

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John Hannah was born

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and raised in a small town just outside Glasgow,

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where his mum, Susan, worked at the local sweet factory,

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and his dad, also called John, was a toolmaker.

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Little John grew up with two doting older sisters, Elizabeth and Joan.

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I think it is fair to say that the young John Hannah preferred

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football to book reading in his school days.

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He left when he was 16 years old, and after four years working

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as an apprentice electrician, he downed tools and took to the stage.

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He studied at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama

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in Glasgow, and was catapulted to international

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fame after his fantastic performance in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

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Then came Nick in Truth or Dare,

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Spendlove James in The James Gang,

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and John Wade in Sea of Souls.

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Where did John Hannah grow up?

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-Where or when?

-Where.

-Oh. Because I've not really grown up yet.

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I'm still only about 12 in here. East Kilbride.

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It was great, actually, it was a great place to grow up.

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You know, there was green fields, cows at the bottom of the street.

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They weren't in the field, they were just wandering around the streets. No, they were, they were in fields.

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Did you take it for granted that you had a telly, or was it a big thing?

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Most people had a telly,

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-but I remember the first people in our street that had a colour telly.

-Oh.

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Yeah, I remember we all went in to watch Doug McClure in

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-Journey To The Centre Of The Earth.

-Oh, God, yes. In colour.

-In colour, yeah.

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That was like the first colour television in the street.

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And did your mum and dad put any restrictions on you watching TV?

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Parents didn't give a toss in those days, did they?

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You could do anything. I never did homework in my life.

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I never read a book. Stayed up late.

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Had a bath once a week, you know, on a Sunday, after my sisters.

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Never washed behind my ear. Never brushed my teeth before going to bed.

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I was Scottish, my mum worked at Schweppes, I didn't have any teeth.

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But I was very popular at school with the other kids,

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because we used to get these bags of broken chocolate and things, you know?

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-Right.

-So, yeah, the teeth had gone.

-So you used to get bags of broken sweets.

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Broken, like, chocolate bars, like Cadbury stuff, you know.

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Don't move, don't move. I'm just going in the kitchen. All right.

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Should I just carry on talking to these people, Brian?

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BANGING

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JOHN LAUGHS

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-There you go, John.

-Is that some broken biscuits?

-Sorry, Coco, no,

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-they're not dog biscuits. There you go, some broken biscuits.

-What is it?

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It's not toffee, is it? Because that'll pull my fillings out.

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-I don't know.

-It is toffee.

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LAUGHTER

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-Better suck on it.

-Yeah, I will do.

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All right, this is your first choice now.

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This is your earliest TV memory.

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'Here Come The Double Deckers, screened on the BBC in 1971.

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'It was a co-production between British and American producers.'

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'They're dancing and everything.'

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'So no expense was spared on the budget, then.

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'They're definitely on a bus in London, aren't they?'

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'I don't think they are actually singing that song.

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'I think this might be some Chinese remake,'

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because their lips are all moving at a different time to the words.

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'The 17-part series followed the adventures of the coolest

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'TV gang of the '70s.

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'Its swanky set and super-technicolour look

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'gave it production values most other

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'British children's TV shows could only dream of.'

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What used to happen on Double Deckers?

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There was usually some sort of mystery that they had to go

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'and solve or something, wasn't there?'

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I still don't see why it has to have a skirt!

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Bacon bonce!

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If it didn't, all the air would rush out the sides

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and then it wouldn't lift up, would it?

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-Aren't you clever?

-Ooh, pardon me.

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Look at that! The Peter Firth.

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'Peter Firth, of course,

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'went on to star in the BBC's

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'smash hit spy caper Spooks.

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'But he's not the only one who went on to have a brilliant career.

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'Spring went on to form the reggae band Aswad.

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'Billie is now a professor

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'of women's performance history.

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'And Doughnut became a theoretical physicist.'

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You wouldn't get away with some of those nicknames now.

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No, you wouldn't, would you?

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No, definitely not.

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That must've been very early.

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That must have been primary school, definitely,

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because it's obviously a childish thing.

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I think that was one of those shows

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that you watched in the summer holidays.

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You know, where they suddenly had

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things on like Don't Just Sit There, Let's Go And Do Something More

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Interesting and, like, The Flashing Blade and Belle and Sebastian

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and stuff like that, you know?

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Those, like, European programmes with dubbed dialogue.

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But do you think something like this...?

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Did you desperately watch this and want to become an actor?

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No.

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No, I probably wanted to kind of, like,

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incorporate some of those things into having our own little den.

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You know, the way the doors open and stuff.

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So who would you have watched this with?

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Nobody.

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Well, it's kind of embarrassing.

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You wouldn't want anyone to see you watching this, would you?

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"Don't tell anybody, right?" No, no, don't tell anybody.

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We'll have a look at what you did all watch together, John.

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-Right.

-And this is...

-Growing up, good stuff.

-Yes, here we go.

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-Granada three litre.

-Sing the tune?

-Yeah.

-Go on, mate.

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THEY HUM THEME TUNE

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THE SWEENEY THEME TUNE

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'The Sweeney was British TV's antidote to the Hollywood-style

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'glamorous shows like The Saint and The Champions.

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'It was shot with hand-held film cameras in real locations.

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'And even though the stars Dennis Waterman and John Thaw

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'had a rugged charm, there was nothing pretty about The Sweeney.'

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What was it about The Sweeney that you love so much?

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I remember, one of the things I remember about The Sweeney

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was it didn't always have a happy ending.

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It didn't always end with the cops getting the bad guy.

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Regan, I mean, he was a flawed character, wasn't he?

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-Yes.

-You know, he had a drinking habit, things like that.

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Yes, I suppose it was the start of... We're still

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dealing with all those flawed characters with drinking habits

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and problems with authority. I mean, that's every cop show

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-that's ever been on the TV since then, hasn't it?

-Yes.

-Yeah.

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-Who are you?

-We're the Sweeney, son, and we haven't had any dinner.

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You've kept us waiting, so unless you want a kicking,

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you tell us where those photographs are.

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-"We're the Sweeney, son."

-They were asleep there, weren't they?

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-They should've known that was coming!

-Yeah, come on.

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'It may have looked rough and ready, but at £85,000 per episode,

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'The Sweeney was considered to be a very expensive drama.

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'And the risk paid off for ITV. As many as 19 million of us

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'tuned in to watch every week for guaranteed action sequences

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'and well-choreographed fights like this.

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'And we all repeated Waterman and Thaw's classic one-liners

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'every Tuesday morning. "You're nicked."'

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I've got on this card here some classic lines from The Sweeney...

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-Right.

-..that we're going to re-enact.

-All right, mate.

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-You better get your glasses...

-Better get my glasses on, yeah.

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I'll read the first one, you read the second one and we're going

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to let the audience judge as to who is the best DCI Regan, OK?

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So, I'll go first.

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"All right, Tinkerbell, you're nicked."

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GENTLE LAUGHTER

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"We're the Sweeney, son, and we haven't had any dinner."

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Yeah.

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"Get your trousers on, you're nicked."

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That's the same as the other one, wasn't it?

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Yeah. This one rolls off the tongue nice and easy.

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"Now, listen, little lord spy master, you may be Special Branch,

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-"but that doesn't make you God almighty."

-Yeah.

-All right?

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GENTLE LAUGHTER

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"What are you doing standing around, looking like...?"

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Do you mind? LAUGHTER

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I'm trying to be evil.

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-It's comedy, Brian, you've either got it or you haven't.

-I know.

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-Mate, you've got loads of it.

-Thank you, love.

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-It's oozing out of every orifice.

-Every orifice.

-Every orifice.

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"What are you doing standing around, looking like a motorway breakfast?"

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-LAUGHTER

-Shut it!

-Shut it!

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OK, ladies and gentlemen, so by applause,

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what do we think of...DCI Conley?

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APPLAUSE

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Thank you, that's very good.

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DCI Hannah?

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CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

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-I have played a cop before, actually.

-Aha.

-Bit of an advantage there.

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-Give it me one more time.

-Shut it!

-See? He means it.

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John Thaw's Detective Inspector Regan of the Flying Squad

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set the template for many flawed cops

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who followed him into our living rooms.

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It's easy to forget John Nettles' Detective Bergerac

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went in into the first series recovering from a nasty divorce

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and a heavy drinking problem.

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And Dominic West's multilayered creation McNulty had the same

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problems as he negotiated the mean streets of Baltimore in The Wire.

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At the end of Ashes to Ashes, it turned out Philip Glenister's

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DCI Gene Hunt was literally a cop with a tortured soul,

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caught between Heaven and Hell.

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That might explain the language.

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Luther's major flaw is that he is emotionally damaged

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by his tragic life.

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Idris Elba gives this tough cop a soft heart

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that makes the best of us swoon...

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..but one of the most complicated cops in recent times

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is Sarah Lancashire's Catherine Cawood,

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whose human frailty is barely hidden

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in the brilliant Happy Valley.

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-Can I tell the ladies and gentleman...

-What?

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-..that we once done a film?

-Yeah, yeah.

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I wondered what you were going to say there. We did a few things!

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LAUGHTER

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And there's a scene where John had to threaten me with a gun

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and I was by the camera and John had to lift the gun up

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and threaten me with the gun and I would then deliver my lines.

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John lifted the gun up and I

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-was so terrified that I moved out of the way.

-You laughed!

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I moved out the way.

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And he said, "Why are you moving out the way?"

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I went, "Because you looked as if you were going to fire it at me!"

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And then John went, "I'm acting."

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LAUGHTER

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-But that is how good an actor John Hannah is.

-Ah!

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It's a film called Circus and that is how good this man is that

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I honestly believed

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-that you were going to fire that gun...

-I'm going to kill you?

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-Yeah, that's how good you are, John.

-Thanks, Brian. Thanks, yeah.

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How did it all start for you?

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-Acting?

-Yeah, I mean, when did the first love of it, or...

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you know, when did that spark ignite?

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It's a funny thing, you know,

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I hear a lot of actors say they fell into it and I fell into it.

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I was working as an electrician, serving a four-year apprenticeship,

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and I wanted to give up and do something else

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and I'd left school at 16 so if I wanted to go back to

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further education I would've had to go to night school

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and if I wanted to go to art school

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I'd have had to have been able to draw

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and music school, I'd have had to have been able to play

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a musical instrument and the only thing that you didn't need

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any qualifications for was drama school, you just had to go

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and audition and through ignorance, really, I thought, I'll do that

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and I did, I went, I auditioned and I got in, bizarrely.

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The first year...was weird, but I kind of liked it, you know.

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You weren't on a building site, up at eight in the morning,

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seven in the morning, it wasn't hard work and there was women around.

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It was great!

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However, I think there was... I think there was a kind of epiphany

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in the second year, we worked with this great director

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and that was a moment where I felt like,

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oh, I can do this.

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I don't have to be like Laurence Olivier, or,

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you know Richard Burton, Peter O'Toole, I can be like me,

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I can be truthful in that situation.

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Er, I felt like I had something to offer at that point

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and then that was it.

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-This next show is not one of your choices.

-Right.

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But it will give you a clue as to what is.

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-That's a bit cryptic, but have a little look.

-Right. Blue Peter.

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First we're going into space.

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Have a look at my bracelet and see if you recognise it.

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-Is that Blake's 7?

-Yeah.

-Right, OK. Cool.

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BLAKE'S 7 THEME TUNE

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'Blake's 7 was the brainchild of Terry Nation,

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'the man who created the Daleks for Doctor Who.

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'It was screened on Mondays on BBC One from 1978.

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'Experts say it's one of the most influential sci-fi series ever.

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'Although now it may seem a bit dated.'

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'That theme tune's terrible, isn't it?'

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JOHN LAUGHS

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'And that's, you know Star Trek's got the same sign,

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it's just vertical, isn't it?

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Ah, yeah, so that's where they got it from.

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-It's not just advanced, it's...

-Conceptually alien?

-Yes.

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There are a lot of controls that I haven't dared touch yet.

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'Blake 7's studio set may not have been as swanky

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'as the Enterprise, but in the UK,

0:16:160:16:19

'the show was more popular than Star Trek.

0:16:190:16:22

'Ten million of us were watching every week.'

0:16:220:16:25

SHIP ALARM

0:16:250:16:26

-'Oh, hello!'

-'Oh!'

0:16:280:16:30

LAUGHTER 'Stood in front of a hairdryer!

0:16:300:16:32

'Oh, that's lovely, isn't it? Oh, that is...'

0:16:320:16:35

'Touch the button, touch the button, look, we're going to crash into that big planet!'

0:16:370:16:41

Oh, God, the things you have to do as an actor.

0:16:410:16:44

-LAUGHTER

-I hope they got well paid.

0:16:440:16:47

I mean, there was a whole raft of really bad British science fiction.

0:16:470:16:51

I mean, the old Doctor Who with the Daleks,

0:16:510:16:53

I never kind of got into that.

0:16:530:16:55

But if you never got into them as a teenager, what was you into?

0:16:550:16:58

Football.

0:16:580:16:59

Apart from when it rained, obviously, then I stayed in.

0:16:590:17:02

It rained a lot more than I remember.

0:17:020:17:05

British TV is responsible for producing some of the best

0:17:050:17:08

sci-fi series in this or in any other world.

0:17:080:17:12

Our first ever sci-fi series for adults

0:17:120:17:15

was The Quatermass Experiment.

0:17:150:17:17

Screened in 1953,

0:17:170:17:19

five million people were completely hooked.

0:17:190:17:22

In 1963, Doctor Who was originally planned

0:17:240:17:27

as a time-hopping educational series.

0:17:270:17:30

But that idea was dropped

0:17:300:17:31

and it's now the most successful sci-fi series of all time.

0:17:310:17:35

The late great Douglas Adams wrote three episodes

0:17:390:17:42

of Doctor Who in the late '70s and went on to create the brilliant

0:17:420:17:46

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for TV in 1981.

0:17:460:17:50

The creator of Blake's 7, Terry Nation, also cut his teeth

0:17:540:17:58

on Doctor Who before giving us the post-apocalyptic sci-fi, Survivors.

0:17:580:18:03

That series was re-made in 2008 and featured Neil Dudgeon,

0:18:050:18:09

a very old friend of the one and only Mr John Hannah.

0:18:090:18:13

We met down at Bristol. We were doing a DH Lawrence play down there.

0:18:140:18:19

It was very funny, because there was two phone boxes out the back,

0:18:190:18:23

stage door, and it was...

0:18:230:18:25

it was in the old days where you needed money for the phone!

0:18:250:18:28

-Yeah...

-Nobody had it, yes, 2ps and 10ps, yes,

0:18:280:18:30

and both of us had girlfriends at the time.

0:18:300:18:33

And we used to go out after the play,

0:18:330:18:36

phone your girlfriend.

0:18:360:18:37

Anyway, at the end of that play, we both got dumped by the girls,

0:18:370:18:40

I don't know what that was about!

0:18:400:18:41

So I ended up sharing a flat with Neil.

0:18:410:18:44

Today Neil plays tough DCI John Barnaby in Midsomer Murders.

0:18:440:18:50

While the two of them were living together

0:18:500:18:52

they shared John's next TV choice.

0:18:520:18:54

Neil and I obviously sharing a flat and then this particular Christmas,

0:19:010:19:04

there was another mate of ours, Simon, who came,

0:19:040:19:06

he was sleeping on the couch. And...

0:19:060:19:09

They were all buddies from college, Simon and Dudge.

0:19:090:19:12

I came in the living room, made some tea and toast and stuff.

0:19:120:19:17

Er, for breakfast.

0:19:170:19:19

Two o'clock in the afternoon or something. Christmas, it was Christmas.

0:19:190:19:22

Dudge came in, got his tea and Simon was still sitting in bed,

0:19:220:19:25

so Dudge got in the bed and they were sitting, we were watching

0:19:250:19:28

It's A Wonderful Life.

0:19:280:19:29

We were watching it, got to the bit where he finds Zuzu's petals,

0:19:290:19:32

cos...his life had gone, then he's back

0:19:320:19:34

and he's got Zuzu's petals in his pocket.

0:19:340:19:36

And...I could feel the tears coming,

0:19:360:19:39

I was sitting there watching the telly, they were sitting in bed like this, Simon, Dudge,

0:19:390:19:42

me over there and I could feel, oh, my God,

0:19:420:19:44

I'm going start crying, and I looked over

0:19:440:19:46

and the two of them were sitting here, tears streaming down their face!

0:19:460:19:50

It was really sweet, actually, yeah.

0:19:500:19:52

And what age?

0:19:520:19:53

Oh, I was in my 30s!

0:19:530:19:55

LAUGHTER

0:19:550:19:58

Let's have a little look.

0:19:580:19:59

Oh, Wonderful Life, I'll start crying.

0:19:590:20:01

Quiet, quiet! Now get this, it's from London.

0:20:010:20:04

-Oh!

-"Mr Gower cabled you need cash. Stop.

0:20:040:20:07

"My office instructed to advance you up to 25,000. Stop.

0:20:070:20:11

"He-ha and Merry Christmas, Sam Wainwright."

0:20:110:20:14

CHEERING

0:20:140:20:15

'It's A Wonderful Life isn't just a great tear-jerker,

0:20:150:20:18

'it's up there with the greatest films of all time.'

0:20:180:20:21

-Ah, it's a great film.

-It's brilliant.

0:20:210:20:23

-It's a classic.

-It's brilliant.

0:20:230:20:25

To my big brother, George...

0:20:250:20:27

'It cost nearly 4 million to make,

0:20:270:20:29

'but when it was released in 1946, the movie bombed,

0:20:290:20:33

'putting director Frank Capra's film company into bankruptcy.

0:20:330:20:37

'There were no parties like the one depicted in the gloriously

0:20:370:20:41

'uplifting final scene.

0:20:410:20:43

'But when copyright lapsed on the film in 1974,

0:20:430:20:47

'TV companies discovered they could play it for free.

0:20:470:20:51

'Then it became appreciated as the ultimate Christmas

0:20:510:20:54

'feel-good masterpiece it really is.'

0:20:540:20:57

-BELL RINGS

-Look, Daddy!

0:20:570:20:59

Teacher says every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.

0:20:590:21:04

-John, I want to talk about your big break now.

-Right.

0:21:100:21:15

-Still waiting for it, Brian, still waiting.

-Gritty Glasgow drama.

0:21:150:21:18

-'Have a look at this. There it is.'

-'Brond?'

-'Yeah.'

0:21:180:21:20

The name's Brond, James Brond.

0:21:230:21:26

Sorry!

0:21:260:21:27

I don't know why I did that.

0:21:270:21:29

-Because it's funny.

-Thank you.

0:21:290:21:31

-My mum and dad came to this location, actually.

-Oh, really?

0:21:310:21:34

-First time I was ever filming, yeah.

-So what was the series about?

0:21:340:21:37

JOHN EXHALES

0:21:370:21:38

It was one of those, like, weird psychological dramas.

0:21:380:21:42

It was kind of about Scottish independent movement -

0:21:420:21:46

independence movement -

0:21:460:21:48

but it was a more militaristic

0:21:480:21:49

'independence movement.

0:21:490:21:51

Stratford Johns plays a kind of agent

0:21:540:21:57

who's brought in to infiltrate them.

0:21:570:22:00

I'm a student who's about to have peritonitis

0:22:000:22:03

and then everything is weird after that.

0:22:030:22:04

In as much as I don't know what's real and what's not real.

0:22:040:22:07

It's a mystery and we have to find out what goes on.

0:22:070:22:09

I saw a boy being murdered.

0:22:090:22:11

-You're right.

-What?

-I don't believe you.

0:22:110:22:15

'Brond was a high risk.

0:22:150:22:17

'It cost £2.5 million

0:22:170:22:19

'and everything hinged on the unknown actor playing the lead role.

0:22:190:22:24

'So no pressure for John Hannah, then.'

0:22:240:22:27

-John, how important was this to your career?

-Oh, it was huge.

0:22:270:22:31

I mean, I was out of drama school a couple of months.

0:22:310:22:35

It was huge for a short period of time, funnily enough.

0:22:350:22:38

Out of drama school a couple of months, worked with Michael,

0:22:380:22:42

it was a ten week shoot, six days a week

0:22:420:22:44

and I was in just about everything.

0:22:440:22:45

So it was like a course in film acting.

0:22:450:22:48

Michael is a terrific director.

0:22:480:22:51

Richard Greatrex was the DP - the director of photography -

0:22:510:22:55

and similarly he was great to work with, and great for me

0:22:550:22:57

to suddenly have this kind of education.

0:22:570:23:01

So it was good for me for a while and then, as I say,

0:23:010:23:04

it died until the '90s,

0:23:040:23:06

-'93 I think with...

-Four Weddings.

-Four Weddings, yeah.

0:23:060:23:11

So let's talk about Four Weddings,

0:23:110:23:13

-the time schedule...

-Yeah.

-..and how difficult that was to shoot.

0:23:130:23:16

I mean, I think with all things there's always a limit.

0:23:160:23:20

You know, there's never enough money, there's never enough time.

0:23:200:23:23

Rehearsals are important to get to know each other

0:23:230:23:25

but there was a scene that...

0:23:250:23:27

The scene before Simon dies that we had rehearsed for half a day

0:23:270:23:33

before we started filming and that was all great

0:23:330:23:36

and everybody knew what they were going to do

0:23:360:23:38

and how it was going to be blocked and all of that.

0:23:380:23:40

Then on the day it got to quarter to seven

0:23:400:23:42

and the sparks are pulling the plug at seven o'clock

0:23:420:23:44

and Mike was like, "Right, OK,

0:23:440:23:46

'"we'll do it in the doorway."'

0:23:460:23:48

-SPEAKER IN BACKGROUND:

-And also I want to thank

0:23:480:23:50

all those wonderful ladies in the parish

0:23:500:23:52

who did the flowers in the church...

0:23:520:23:55

'So he improvised how he wanted to do it.

0:23:560:23:59

'We had 15 minutes to do it,

0:23:590:24:01

'two cameras, possibly three cameras, just shot it really quick,

0:24:010:24:05

'really simple. We put it somewhere where it was already lit.

0:24:050:24:07

'So we ended up having to do a really, really important scene

0:24:070:24:10

'in 15 minutes, probably 20 minutes or something.'

0:24:100:24:13

-But it worked.

-Yeah, it was a beautiful scene.

0:24:130:24:15

-It added to it, added to the suspense.

-It did, it did in a way.

0:24:150:24:18

I think sometimes there's a certain energy, a certain frisson

0:24:180:24:21

that comes from having to think on your feet.

0:24:210:24:24

-But you'll always come up against that, whether it's The Mummy...

-Winging it.

0:24:240:24:27

Whatever it is, yeah.

0:24:270:24:29

"We've got ten minutes, we need to shoot this somehow."

0:24:290:24:31

They didn't have that sort of...

0:24:310:24:33

They didn't shoot The Mummy in ten minutes.

0:24:330:24:35

There was stuff... It's funny, at the end of the day

0:24:350:24:38

you always want more, you always want more time.

0:24:380:24:40

So in the last ten minutes there's always things that they want to get

0:24:400:24:43

because maybe this is the last day on that location or you've

0:24:430:24:46

got 400 guys in the background that

0:24:460:24:48

you're not getting back tomorrow, or something.

0:24:480:24:51

So, yeah, I mean, it's big and it's a different planet

0:24:510:24:54

in terms of production,

0:24:540:24:56

but it still comes down to getting in front of the camera

0:24:560:24:59

-and doing your stuff.

-Yeah.

0:24:590:25:00

Does it irritate you that people keep bringing up Four Weddings?

0:25:000:25:04

-No, no. I like Four Weddings, you know?

-It was a great movie.

0:25:040:25:07

Yeah, and I always say it's not like I robbed a bank.

0:25:070:25:09

It's a bit of television or a film or something. It's good, yeah.

0:25:090:25:13

Somebody said to me at school the other day,

0:25:130:25:15

"Four Weddings and a Funeral was on and we watched the repeat.

0:25:150:25:18

"Oh, you've aged, haven't you?"

0:25:180:25:19

And you're like, "Yeah, well, so have you.

0:25:190:25:21

"It's just that we don't have you on television to go, wow,

0:25:210:25:24

-"you were kind of good looking back in the day."

-Yeah.

0:25:240:25:27

Well, what are you watching now?

0:25:330:25:35

Well, funnily enough, I was working down in Somerset recently

0:25:350:25:39

doing a wee film down there and I spent a lot of time on the train.

0:25:390:25:41

I watched this series called Mr Robot, which was great, really good.

0:25:410:25:44

It's about hacking and everything and I thought my son would like it but it got a bit rude.

0:25:440:25:48

Have you enjoyed your time on the show today?

0:25:480:25:50

-Yeah, it's been great.

-Yeah?

0:25:500:25:52

-I love sitting talking.

-Yeah.

0:25:520:25:55

Well, thank God for that, otherwise you would have been a very boring guest.

0:25:550:25:59

Yeah, I love that about going to work

0:25:590:26:01

because you've got somebody to talk to because the kids

0:26:010:26:03

don't listen to you, my wife's usually too busy

0:26:030:26:05

with the washing machine. She loves her washing machine, mate.

0:26:050:26:08

I don't know what it is!

0:26:080:26:09

She loves her washing machine and now, she never ironed

0:26:090:26:12

anything for me, irons stuff for the kids,

0:26:120:26:14

makes proper dinner for the kids -

0:26:140:26:16

she's never made a shepherd's pie for me, you know!

0:26:160:26:18

But, no, the kids will get shepherd's pie and proper food.

0:26:180:26:22

-Well, it's...

-You come in at lunchtime... Sorry, Brian!

0:26:220:26:25

But you come in at lunchtime sometimes and she's got

0:26:250:26:27

something on for the kids and I'm like, "What have you got for me?"

0:26:270:26:30

"Some soup or something."

0:26:300:26:31

What I love is the only reason you came on the show is

0:26:310:26:33

that you'd have someone who would listen to you.

0:26:330:26:35

It's the only reason I go to work!

0:26:350:26:37

Sitting in make-up having a chat and a rant about everything I hate.

0:26:370:26:41

"See that Doctor Who! Shut it!"

0:26:410:26:44

Oh, John, it's been a real pleasure to have you on the show

0:26:440:26:46

-and Coco of course.

-Yeah.

0:26:460:26:49

We've got to thank Coco.

0:26:490:26:50

She's been such a good little thing sitting here all this time.

0:26:500:26:53

We give you a choice now to go out with a theme tune.

0:26:530:26:56

What's it going to be?

0:26:570:26:59

Ah, well, I know what it's going to be

0:26:590:27:01

and it is one of the programmes that I loved as a kid.

0:27:010:27:03

Well, it's the Rockford Files but what I loved about

0:27:030:27:06

the Rockford Files, in that theme tune there's an answering machine.

0:27:060:27:11

Up to that point, the most advanced technological

0:27:110:27:15

piece of phone equipment I'd seen was one of the neighbours had

0:27:150:27:18

an address book that you moved a wee slider down

0:27:180:27:20

and it opened at a particular letter.

0:27:200:27:23

I thought that was amazing!

0:27:230:27:24

AUDIENCE LAUGH

0:27:240:27:26

-They had it on the wee table next to the phone in the hall.

-Yeah.

0:27:260:27:29

So the idea that James Rockford had a machine that

0:27:290:27:34

'answered his phone and took messages was...'

0:27:340:27:37

JOHN EXHALES

0:27:370:27:39

-ANSWERING MACHINE:

-'Mr Rockford, this is the

0:27:390:27:41

'Thomas Crown School Of Dance And Contemporary Etiquette.

0:27:410:27:44

'We aren't going to call again. Now, you want these free lessons?'

0:27:440:27:47

John, we've got an answering machine here

0:27:470:27:50

to pay homage to the Rockford Files.

0:27:500:27:52

So we're going to go out, press play.

0:27:520:27:55

ANSWERING MACHINE: 'Ladies and gentlemen,

0:27:550:27:56

'this was the TV That Made John Hannah.

0:27:560:27:59

'Please leave a message after the credits. Goodbye.'

0:27:590:28:01

-Bye-bye.

-Bye.

0:28:010:28:04

MUSIC: The Rockford Files Theme by Mike Post and Pete Carpenter

0:28:040:28:07

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