Friday Night, Saturday Morning - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Friday Night, Saturday Morning was a television chat show with a revolving guest host. It ran on BBC2

BBC Two

BBC Two is the second television channel operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It covers a wide range of subject matter, but tending towards more 'highbrow' programmes than the more mainstream and popular BBC One. Like the BBC's other domestic TV and radio...

from 28 September 1979 to 2 April 1982, broadcast live from the Greenwood Theatre, a part of Guy's Hospital

Guy's Hospital

Guy's Hospital is a large NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in south east London, England. It is administratively a part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. It is a large teaching hospital and is home to the King's College London School of Medicine...

. It was most notable for being the only television show to be hosted by a former British Prime Minister (Harold Wilson

Harold Wilson

James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...

) and for an argument about the blasphemy claims surrounding the movie Monty Python's Life of Brian
Monty Python's Life of Brian
Monty Python's Life of Brian, also known as Life of Brian, is a 1979 British comedy film written, directed and largely performed by the Monty Python comedy team...

.

The programme was the idea of Iain Johnstone

Iain Johnstone

Iain Johnstone is an English author and broadcaster.In April 2010 he published two books, 'Streep: A Life in Film' a biography of Oscar winning actress Meryl Streep and the novel'Pirates of the Mediterranean'....

and Will Wyatt

Will Wyatt

Will Wyatt is a British media consultant and company director, formerly a journalist, television producer and senior executive at the BBC. His career began in 1964 as a trainee journalist on the Sheffield Telegraph newspaper, before moving to the BBC in 1965 as a sub-editor in BBC radio news...

, who insisted on a changing presenter every fortnight

Fortnight

The fortnight is a unit of time equal to fourteen days, or two weeks. The word derives from the Old English fēowertyne niht, meaning "fourteen nights"....

. Another innovation was that the presenters chose the guests they were to interview.

Harold Wilson

The editions of 12 and 19 October 1979 were the first television shows ever hosted by a former or sitting British prime minister. Harold Wilson

Harold Wilson

had resigned as PM three years earlier. A media-savvy personality, he seemed a promising host for a talk show, an experiment now seen as a failure. Wilson was at a loss, often leaving gaps while he tried to think of a question to ask his guests, such as Pat Phoenix

Pat Phoenix

Patricia "Pat" Frederica Phoenix was an English actress who became one of the first sex symbols of British television through her role of Elsie Tanner in Coronation Street.-Early life and career:Born in Ireland to Anna Maria Josephine Noonan and Tom Manfield, but moved to Manchester before...

and Harry Secombe

Harry Secombe

Sir Harry Donald Secombe CBE was a Welsh entertainer with a talent for comedy and a noted fine tenor singing voice. He is best known for playing Neddie Seagoon, the central character in the BBC radio comedy series The Goon Show...

. In 2000, Friday Night, Saturday Morning was voted in the "100 TV Moments from Hell" by Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

. One critic described Wilson's reading the autocue

Autocue

Autocue is a UK based manufacturer of teleprompter systems, owned by QTV. The company was founded in 1955 and licensed its first teleprompter, based on a patent by Jess Oppenheimer, in 1962...

as if it were the Rosetta Stone

Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek...

.

Producer Iain Johnstone

Iain Johnstone

later attributed Wilson's poor performance to memory loss. It may have been an early sign of the Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...

which caused Wilson's later dementia.

Monty Python's Life of Brian

On the edition of 9 November 1979, hosted by Tim Rice

Tim Rice

Sir Timothy Miles Bindon "Tim" Rice is an British lyricist and author.An Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, Tony Award and Grammy Award-winning lyricist, Rice is best known for his collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, with whom he wrote Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus...

, a discussion was held about the then-new film Monty Python's Life of Brian
Monty Python's Life of Brian
Monty Python's Life of Brian, also known as Life of Brian, is a 1979 British comedy film written, directed and largely performed by the Monty Python comedy team...

, which been banned by many local councils and caused protests throughout the world with accusations that it was blasphemous. To argue in favour of this accusation were broadcaster and noted Christian Malcolm Muggeridge

Malcolm Muggeridge

Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge was an English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist. During World War II, he was a soldier and a spy...

and Mervyn Stockwood

Mervyn Stockwood

Arthur Mervyn Stockwood was Anglican Bishop of Southwark from 1959 to 1980.Mervyn Stockwood was born in Bridgend, Wales, to a middle-class family. His solicitor father was killed during the First World War. He was introduced to Anglo-Catholic worship at All Saints' Church, Clifton, which...

(the then Bishop of Southwark

Bishop of Southwark (Anglican)

The Bishop of Southwark is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Southwark in the Province of Canterbury.Until 1877, Southwark had been part of the Diocese of Winchester when it was transferred to the Diocese of Rochester...

). In its defence were two members of the Monty Python

Monty Python

Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...

team, John Cleese

John Cleese

John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...

and Michael Palin

Michael Palin

Michael Edward Palin, CBE FRGS is an English comedian, actor, writer and television presenter best known for being one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python and for his travel documentaries....

.

According to Monty Python - The Case Against, by Robert Hewison

Robert Hewison

Robert Alwyn Petrie Hewison is a British cultural historian.He was educated at Bedford School, Ravensbourne College of Art and Design, and Brasenose College, Oxford, where he graduated BA in 1965, MA in 1970, MLitt in 1972, and DLitt in 1989.For most of his professional life he has made a living...

, the show "began affably enough, with Cleese and Palin talking on their own to their host, Tim Rice

Tim Rice

– himself the lyricist of Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Superstar
Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera by Andrew Lloyd Webber, with lyrics by Tim Rice. The musical started off as a rock opera concept recording before its first staging on Broadway in 1971...

" (which itself had been accused of blasphemy a decade before). Hewison continues "but while a second clip from the film was being shown, Stockwood and Muggeridge came on to the set. The full effect of the entry of the Bishop in his sweeping purple cassock

Cassock

The cassock, an item of clerical clothing, is an ankle-length robe worn by clerics of the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Anglican Church, Lutheran Church and some ministers and ordained officers of Presbyterian and Reformed churches. Ankle-length garment is the meaning of the...

and chunky cross was missed by the television audience, who found him already seated beside a bronzed and gleaming Malcolm Muggeridge when the film excerpt ended. Tim Rice explained that Stockwood and Muggeridge had seen the film earlier in the day and invited their comments. With that, the gloves were off."

The debate was heated, including the following exchange:
The Pythons seemed shocked by the aggression of the attack, especially because all four had met before the show, when there had been no hint as to what was to come.

The Bishop made the point that without Jesus this film would not exist, and ignored the Pythons' protestations that the film was about the abuse of faith, not faith itself.

In his diaries, published in 2006, Michael Palin wrote of the Bishop:

Muggeridge complained about the ease with which the Pythons "were able to extract humour from the most solemn of mysteries". He said he was upset that this film was, to him, denigrating the one man responsible for all art ever invented. Cleese was keen to point out that there were other religions, and that civilisation existed before Christ. Michael Palin says of this incident in the book The Pythons, edited by Bob McCabe, that when Muggeridge said "that Christianity had been responsible for more good in the world than any other force in history", Cleese said "what about the Spanish Inquisition?"

The studio audience appeared to be on the side of the Pythons throughout, especially when Cleese said, "four hundred years ago, we would have been burnt for this film. Now, I'm suggesting that we've made an advance."

At some points, the Pythons tried to control the audience, who, they believed, were showing too much partisanship in their favour.

Cleese, defending the film, went on to say that it was about "closed systems of thought, whether they are political or theological or religious or whatever: systems by which, whatever evidence is given to a person, he merely adapts it, fits it into his ideology".

As the debate went on, the Pythons found it harder to be polite, especially because their opponents barely let them get a word in. According to Palin, the Bishop was "outrageously dismissing any points we made as 'rubbish' or 'unworthy of an educated man'".

Stockwood was particularly upset at the use of the crucifixion, forgetting the distinction between it as Christian symbol and its use as a traditional Roman punishment. The debate ended with the Bishop pointing at the Pythons and saying "you'll get your thirty pieces of silver".

Cleese has frequently said that he enjoyed the debate, because, he believed, the film was "completely intellectually defensible".

Palin told McCabe: "It turned out, after the show, that they'd missed the first fifteen minutes of the film, they'd been having a nice lunch. John was brilliant in that show. I remember it used to be Douglas Adams

Douglas Adams

Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...

's favourite bit of television ... He thought it was such a rivetting piece of TV, and it really is". Palin also claimed that, after the discussion, both his foes said "How pathetic, hopeless and meaningless and juvenile it was. Instead of there being any sort of division between us afterwards, they came up as though we'd all been 'showbiz' together, out doing an entertainment, with the Bishop saying 'That all seemed to go very well'. I hadn't realised they weren't being vindictive, they were just performing to the crowd."

Also backstage, according to Palin, he had met Raymond Johnston from the Nationwide Festival of Light
Nationwide Festival of Light
The Nationwide Festival of Light was a grassroots movement formed by British Christians concerned about the development of the permissive society in the UK at the end of the 1960s....

, a prominent Christian group who had been campaigning to have Life of Brian banned. Instead of aggression, though, Johnston was most complimentary to Palin, saying he had been embarrassed by the performance of the Bishop. Palin says "[Johnston] had found it quite clear that Brian and Jesus were separate people", and that the film was making some "very valid points about organised religions".

Looking back, Michael Palin recalled in The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

: "[w]e had done our homework, thinking we were going to get into quite a tough theological argument, but it turned out to be virtually a slanging match. We were very surprised by that. I don't get angry very often, but I got incandescent with rage at their attitude and the smugness of it". Cleese preferred to sum it all up by saying "I always felt we won that one by behaving better than the Christians".

The programme and the events surrounding it were dramatised in the 2011 television film Holy Flying Circus
Holy Flying Circus
Holy Flying Circus is a 90-minute BBC television comedy film from 2011, about the 1979 television debate about the film Monty Python's Life of Brian...

, broadcast on BBC Four

BBC Four

BBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....

in October 2011.

General Synod's Life of Christ

After this debate, a parody of this discussion appeared on the satirical comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News
Not the Nine O'Clock News
Not the Nine O'Clock News is a television comedy sketch show which was broadcast on BBC 2 from 1979 to 1982.Originally shown as a comedy "alternative" to the BBC Nine O'Clock News on BBC 1, it featured satirical sketches on current news stories and popular culture, as well as parody songs, comedy...

. Chaired by Pamela Stephenson

Pamela Stephenson

Pamela Helen Stephenson Connolly is a New Zealand-born Australian clinical psychologist and writer now resident in the United Kingdom. She is best known for her work as an actress and comedian during the 1980s...

, who would later guest on the real show, it involved a bishop defending his new film, General Synod's Life of Christ, which was accused of being "a thinly disguised and blasphemous attack on the members of Monty Python

Monty Python

, men who are, today, still revered throughout the western world."

Series one

28 September 1979 - Ned Sherrin

Ned Sherrin

Edward George "Ned" Sherrin CBE was an English broadcaster, author and stage director. He qualified as a barrister and then worked in independent television before joining the BBC...

- Christopher Reeve

Christopher Reeve

Christopher D'Olier Reeve was an American actor, film director, producer, screenwriter, author and activist...

, Willie Rushton

Willie Rushton

William George Rushton, commonly known as Willie Rushton was an English cartoonist, satirist, comedian, actor and performer who co-founded the Private Eye satirical magazine.- School and army :William George Rushton was born 18 August 1937 in the family home at Scarsdale Villas,...

, John Wells

John Wells (satirist)

John Wells was an English actor, writer and satirist, educated at Eastbourne College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford...

, Arianna Stassinopoulos

Arianna Huffington

Arianna Huffington is a Greek American author and syndicated columnist. She is best known as co-founder of the news website The Huffington Post. A popular conservative commentator in the mid-1990s, she adopted more liberal political beliefs in the late 1990s...

, Alan Coren

Alan Coren

Alan Coren was an English humorist, writer and satirist who was well known as a regular panellist on the BBC radio quiz The News Quiz and a team captain on BBC television's Call My Bluff...

, David Halverstone and Linda Lewis

Linda Lewis

Linda Lewis is an English vocalist, songwriter and Guitarist. Lewis is the oldest of six children two of whom also had singing careers...

.

5 October 1979 - Ned Sherrin

Ned Sherrin

Edward George "Ned" Sherrin CBE was an English broadcaster, author and stage director. He qualified as a barrister and then worked in independent television before joining the BBC...

- Willie Rushton

Willie Rushton

, John Wells, Arianna Stassinopoulos, Emma Soames

Emma Soames

Emma Soames is a British editor. She is the granddaughter of Winston Churchill and the one-time girlfriend of Martin Amis. She was a long-serving editor of the Telegraph magazine. She is now the editor-at-large of Saga magazine...

, Gerard Kenny

Gerard Kenny

Gerard Kenny is a popular music singer-songwriter.-Career:Kenny formed his first band whilst in high school and between then, and the early 1970s, he toured the club circuit. In 1968 he landed his first recording contract with Warner Bros...

, Secret Affair

Secret Affair

Secret Affair were a mod revival band, formed in 1978 and disbanded in 1982. They reformed to perform and record in the 2000s.-Career:In a period of a little over two years, Secret Affair posted five releases in the UK Singles Chart and released three albums...

, Ian Page

Ian Page

Ian Page is a British singer and author, achieving notoriety as singer in the band Secret Affair in the late 1970s.Teaming up with guitarist Dave Cairns while at school, Ian Page formed power pop/punk band New Hearts and signed to CBS Records in 1977, releasing two singles and touring with The Jam...

, Jimmy Pursey

Jimmy Pursey

Jimmy Pursey is an English singer and record producer. He was the founder and frontman of the English punk rock band, Sham 69 from 1976 to 1980, and from 1986 to 2006.-Biography:...

, Antonia Fraser

Antonia Fraser

Lady Antonia Margaret Caroline Fraser, DBE , née Pakenham, is an Anglo-Irish author of history, novels, biographies and detective fiction, best known as Antonia Fraser...

.

12 October 1979 - Harold Wilson

Harold Wilson

- Harry Secombe

Harry Secombe

, Pat Phoenix

Pat Phoenix

, Tony Benn

Tony Benn

Anthony Neil Wedgwood "Tony" Benn, PC is a British Labour Party politician and a former MP and Cabinet Minister.His successful campaign to renounce his hereditary peerage was instrumental in the creation of the Peerage Act 1963...

, Freddie Trueman and Sponooch.

19 October 1979 - Harold Wilson - Mike Yarwood

Mike Yarwood

Mike Yarwood, OBE is an English impressionist and comedian. He was one of Britain's top-rated entertainers, regularly appearing on television from the mid 1960s to the early 1980s. He left Bredbury Secondary Modern School in 1956 and worked as a messenger and then salesman at a garment warehouse...

, Robin Day

Robin Day

Sir Robin Day, OBE was a British political broadcaster and commentator. His obituary in the Guardian stated that "he was the most outstanding television journalist of his generation...

, Winston Churchill, Mary Wilson, Dean Friedman

Dean Friedman

Dean Friedman is an American singer-songwriter who plays piano, keyboard, guitar and other instruments, including the harmonica.-Music:...

.

26 October 1979 - Alan Brien

Alan Brien

Alan Brien was a British journalist best known for his novel Lenin. This took the form of a fictional diary charting Lenin's life from the death of his father to shortly before his own demise in 1924....

- Russell Davies

Russell Davies

Robert Russell Davies , known as Russell Davies, is a British journalist and broadcaster. He presents a Sunday radio programme on BBC Radio 2 which spotlights popular song, as well as Brain of Britain on Radio 4.-Background:...

, Harold Evans

Harold Evans

Sir Harold Matthew Evans is a British-born journalist and writer who was editor of The Sunday Times from 1967 to 1981. He has written various books on history and journalism...

, Sponooch, Jilly Cooper

Jilly Cooper

Jilly Cooper OBE is an English author. She started her career as a journalist and wrote numerous works of non-fiction before writing several romance novels, the first of which appeared in 1975. She is most famous for writing the Rutshire Chronicles.-Early life:Jilly Sallitt was born in Hornchurch,...

, Prof. Peter Townsend

Peter Townsend (professor)

Peter Brereton Townsend was a British sociologist. The last position he held was Professor of International Social Policy at the London School of Economics. He was also Emeritus Professor of Social Policy in the University of Bristol, and was one of the co-founders of the University of Essex...

, Lord Melchett

Peter Mond, 4th Baron Melchett

Peter Robert Henry Mond, 4th Baron Melchett , son of the British Steel Corporation Chairman Sir Julian Mond and Sonia Melchett , was educated at Eton and Cambridge, where he read Law...

, Peter York

Peter York

Peter York, real name Peter Wallis, born 1943, is a British management consultant, author and broadcaster most famous for co-authoring Harpers & Queen's The Official Sloane Ranger Handbook with Ann Barr...

, Lynda Hayes, Will Elsworth-Jones, and Jeremy Child

Jeremy Child

Sir Coles John "Jeremy" Child, 3rd Baronet is an English actor.He was born in Woking, England and educated at Eton College, as well as trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. After appearing in repertory theatre, he was cast in a significant role in the 1967 film Privilege...

, Norman Bird

Norman Bird

Norman Bird was a British character actor. Often sporting a moustache and an air of worried resignation, he seemed to specialise in downtrodden roles...

, Ronnie Brody

Ronnie Brody

Ronnie Brody was a British actor who appeared in many comedy television series and films.His film appearances included: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Carry On Loving and The Beatles film Help!....

in a sketch.

2 November 1979 - Tim Rice

Tim Rice

- Tom Stoppard

Tom Stoppard

Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...

, Bob Willis

Bob Willis

Robert George Dylan Willis MBE , known as Bob Willis, is a former English cricketer who played for Surrey, Warwickshire, Northern Transvaal and England...

, George Martin

George Martin

Sir George Henry Martin CBE is an English record producer, arranger, composer and musician. He is sometimes referred to as "the Fifth Beatle"— a title that he often describes as "nonsense," but the fact remains that he served as producer on all but one of The Beatles' original albums...

, Elaine Paige

Elaine Paige

Elaine Paige OBE is an English singer and actress best known for her work in musical theatre. Raised in Barnet, North London, Paige attended the Aida Foster stage school, making her first professional appearance on stage in 1964, at the age of 16...

and The Searchers

The Searchers (band)

The Searchers are an English beat group, who emerged as part of the 1960s Merseybeat scene along with The Beatles, The Fourmost, The Merseybeats, The Swinging Blue Jeans, and Gerry & The Pacemakers....

.

9 November 1979 - Tim Rice - John Cleese

John Cleese

John Marwood Cleese is an English actor, comedian, writer, and film producer. He achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and performer on The Frost Report...

, Michael Palin

Michael Palin

, Malcolm Muggeridge

Malcolm Muggeridge

Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge was an English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist. During World War II, he was a soldier and a spy...

, Arthur Mervyn Stockwood (the Bishop of Southwark

Bishop of Southwark (Anglican)

), Norris McWhirter

Norris McWhirter

Norris Dewar McWhirter, CBE was a writer, political activist, co-founder of the Freedom Association, and a television presenter. He and his twin brother, Ross, were known internationally for the Guinness Book of Records, a book they wrote and annually updated together between 1955 and 1975...

, Paul Jones

Paul Jones (singer)

Paul Jones is an English singer, actor, harmonica player, and radio personality and television presenter.-Career:As P. P...

and The Blues Band

The Blues Band

The Blues Band is a British blues band formed in 1979 by Paul Jones, former lead vocalist and harmonica player with Manfred Mann, and vocalist/slide guitarist Dave Kelly, who had previously played with the John Dummer Blues Band, Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker...

.

16 November 1979 - Cambridge Footlights - Martin Bergman

Martin Bergman

Martin Bergman is a British producer, writer and director notable for working in Hollywood.After leaving Cambridge University in 1979, where he was president of the Footlights, Bergman produced several live arena shows with his Australian partner Michael Edgley, including the world tour of ice...

, Hugh Laurie

Hugh Laurie

James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE , better known as Hugh Laurie , is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director...

, Robert Bathurst

Robert Bathurst

Robert Guy Bathurst is an English actor. Bathurst was born in the Gold Coast in 1957, where his father was working as a management consultant. His family moved to Dublin, Ireland, in 1959 and Bathurst was enrolled at an Anglican boarding school...

, Emma Thompson

Emma Thompson

Emma Thompson is a British actress, comedian and screenwriter. Her first major film role was in the 1989 romantic comedy The Tall Guy. In 1992, Thompson won multiple acting awards, including an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, for her performance in the British drama Howards End...

, Peter Cook

Peter Cook

Peter Edward Cook was an English satirist, writer and comedian. An extremely influential figure in modern British comedy, he is regarded as the leading light of the British satire boom of the 1960s. He has been described by Stephen Fry as "the funniest man who ever drew breath," although Cook's...

.

7 December 1979 - Willie Rushton

Willie Rushton

- Barry Cryer

Barry Cryer

Barry Charles Cryer OBE is a British writer and comedian. Cryer has written for many noted performers, including Dave Allen, Stanley Baxter, Jack Benny, Rory Bremner, George Burns, Jasper Carrott, Tommy Cooper, Les Dawson, Dick Emery, Kenny Everett, Bruce Forsyth, David Frost, Bob Hope, Frankie...

, Peter Glaze

Peter Glaze

William George Peter Glaze was an English comedian born in London. He hosted Crackerjack with Leslie Crowther in the 1960s and with Michael Aspel, Don Maclean, and Bernie Clifton in the 1970s...

, Seid Saeid, Sponooch, Andy Williams

Andy Williams

Howard Andrew "Andy" Williams is an American singer who has recorded 18 Gold- and three Platinum-certified albums. He hosted The Andy Williams Show, a TV variety show, from 1962 to 1971, as well as numerous television specials, and owns his own theater, the Moon River Theatre in Branson, Missouri,...

, The Alberts

The Alberts

The Alberts were a British music/comedy troupe of the mid 1950s to mid 1960s, featuring brothers Tony and Douglas Gray. They often also appeared with Bruce Lacey. They were influenced by music hall, 1920s jazz and Surrealism...

.

14 December 1979 - Jackie Stewart

Jackie Stewart

Sir John Young Stewart, OBE , better known as Jackie Stewart, and nicknamed The Flying Scotsman, is a Scottish former racing driver and team owner. He competed in Formula One between 1965 and 1973, winning three World Drivers' Championships. He also competed in Can-Am...

- Henry Cooper

Henry Cooper

Henry Cooper may refer to:*Sir Henry Cooper , British Heavyweight boxer*Henry Cooper from Tennessee*Henry Cooper , English recipient of the Victoria Cross...

, James Hunt

James Hunt

James Simon Wallis Hunt was a British racing driver from England who won the Formula One World Championship in . Hunt's often action packed exploits on track earned him the nickname "Hunt the Shunt." After retiring from driving, Hunt became a media commentator and businessman...

, Eddie Kidd, Barry Humphries

Barry Humphries

John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE is an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the...

as Dame Edna Everage

Dame Edna Everage

Dame Edna is a character created and played by Australian dadaist performer and comedian, Barry Humphries, famous for her lilac-coloured or "wisteria hue" hair and cat eye glasses or "face furniture," her favorite flower, the gladiola and her boisterous greeting: "Hello Possums!" As Dame Edna,...

, Sponooch.

21 December 1979 - Ned Sherrin - Geoff Greenfield, Arianna Stassinopoulos, John Wells, Willie Rushton

Willie Rushton

, Andrew Boyle

Andrew Boyle

Andrew Philip More Boyle was a Scottish journalist and biographer. His biography of Brendan Bracken won the 1974 Whitbread Awards and his book The Climate of Treason exposed Anthony Blunt as the "Fourth Man" in the Cambridge Five Soviet spy ring.He was born in the Scottish city of Dundee and was...

, John Bird

John Bird (actor)

John Bird is an English satirist, actor and comedian.-Early life:Born in Bulwell, Nottingham, England, and educated at High Pavement Grammar School, Nottingham, Bird briefly joined the Socialist Party of Great Britain, while still at school...

, Sponooch, Paul Jones and The Blues Band.

Series two

18 January 1980 - Ned Sherrin - Timothy West

Timothy West

Timothy Lancaster West, CBE is an English film, stage and television actor.-Career:West's craggy looks ensured a career as a character actor rather than a leading man. He began his career as an Assistant Stage Manager at the Wimbledon Theatre in 1956, and followed this with several seasons of...

, Denis Follows

Denis Follows

Sir Denis Follows, CBE was a British sports administrator. Between 1962 and 1975 he was Secretary of the Football Association and from 1977 was Chairman of the British Olympic Association. He was educated at the universities of London and Nottingham, and was President of the National Union of...

, James Wellbeloved

James Wellbeloved

Alfred James Wellbeloved is a former British politician.Wellbeloved was educated at South London Technical College and was a commercial and industrial correspondent...

, David Bedford

David Bedford

David Vickerman Bedford , was an English composer and musician. He wrote and played both popular and classical music....

, Richard Ingrams

Richard Ingrams

Richard Ingrams is an English journalist, a co-founder and second editor of the British satirical magazine Private Eye, and now editor of The Oldie magazine.-Career:...

, John Wells

John Wells (satirist)

John Wells was an English actor, writer and satirist, educated at Eastbourne College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford...

, Russell Davies

Russell Davies

, Jonathan King

Jonathan King

Jonathan King is an English singer, songwriter, impresario and record producer. He is also the author of three novels, Bible Two and The Booker Prize Winner , and Beware the Monkey Man , and an autobiography, 65 My Life So Far .King first came to prominence as an...

, John Bird

John Bird (actor)

, Aimi Stewart.

25 January 1980 - Ned Sherrin - Terry Jones

Terry Jones

Terence Graham Parry Jones is a Welsh comedian, screenwriter, actor, film director, children's author, popular historian, political commentator, and TV documentary host. He is best known as a member of the Monty Python comedy team....

, Marti Webb

Marti Webb

Marti Webb is a musical actress from England, who appeared on stage in Evita, before starring in Andrew Lloyd Webber's one woman show Tell Me on a Sunday in 1980...

, Andrew Lloyd-Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Baron Lloyd-Webber is an English composer of musical theatre.Lloyd Webber has achieved great popular success in musical theatre. Several of his musicals have run for more than a decade both in the West End and on Broadway. He has composed 13 musicals, a song cycle, a set of...

, Peter Nichols

Peter Nichols

Peter Nichols FRSL is an English writer of stage plays, film and television.Born in Bristol, England, he was educated at Bristol Grammar School, and served his compulsory National Service as a clerk in Calcutta and later in the Combined Services Entertainments Unit in Singapore where he...

, John Wells

John Wells (satirist)

John Wells was an English actor, writer and satirist, educated at Eastbourne College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford...

, Peter McKay, Richard Boston

Richard Boston

Richard Boston was an English journalist and author, he was a rigorous dissenter and a belligerent pacifist...

.

1 February 1980 - Ned Sherrin - Meryl Streep

Meryl Streep

Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep is an American actress who has worked in theatre, television and film.Streep made her professional stage debut in 1971's The Playboy of Seville, before her screen debut in the television movie The Deadliest Season in 1977. In that same year, she made her film debut with...

, Paul Goodman, Ian Russell, Barbara Woodhouse

Barbara Woodhouse

Barbara Kathleen Vera Woodhouse , was a well known British dog trainer, author and television personality. Her 1980 television series Training Dogs the Woodhouse Way made her into a household name in the UK...

, John Wells

John Wells (satirist)

John Wells was an English actor, writer and satirist, educated at Eastbourne College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford...

, Richard Ingrams

Richard Ingrams

Richard Ingrams is an English journalist, a co-founder and second editor of the British satirical magazine Private Eye, and now editor of The Oldie magazine.-Career:...

, Paul Callen, Stan McMurtry.

8 February 1980 - Ned Sherrin - John Mortimer

John Mortimer

Sir John Clifford Mortimer, CBE, QC was a British barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author.-Early life:...

, Audrey Whitting, Patrick Montague-Smith, Lezlee Carling, John Wells

John Wells (satirist)

John Wells was an English actor, writer and satirist, educated at Eastbourne College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford...

, George Melly

George Melly

Alan George Heywood Melly was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for The Observer and lectured on art history, with an emphasis on surrealism.-Early life and career:He was born in Liverpool and was educated at Stowe...

, Nigel Dempster

Nigel Dempster

Nigel Richard Patton Dempster was a British journalist, author, broadcaster and diarist. Best known for his celebrity gossip columns in newspapers, his work appeared in the Daily Express and Daily Mail and also in Private Eye magazine...

, Simon Hoggart

Simon Hoggart

Simon David Hoggart is an English journalist and broadcaster. He writes on politics for The Guardian, and on wine for The Spectator. Until 2006 he presented The News Quiz on Radio 4...

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15 February 1980 - Ned Sherrin - Wayne Sleep

Wayne Sleep

Wayne Philip Colin Sleep OBE is a British dancer, director, choreographer and panelist. He was a Principal Dancer with the Royal Ballet and has appeared as a Guest Artist with several other ballet companies.-Early life:...

, Gerard Kenny

Gerard Kenny

, Auberon Waugh

Auberon Waugh

Auberon Alexander Waugh was a British author and journalist, son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh. He was known to his family and friends as Bron Waugh.-Life and career:...

, A.J. Ayer

Alfred Ayer

Sir Alfred Jules "Freddie" Ayer was a British philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism, particularly in his books Language, Truth, and Logic and The Problem of Knowledge ....

, John Wells

John Wells (satirist)

John Wells was an English actor, writer and satirist, educated at Eastbourne College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford...

, Hugh Sykes

Hugh Sykes

Sir Hugh Sykes, DL, MA, LL.B, CA, Hon LL.D, FCIB, FRSA , international industrialist and investor, noted for championing regeneration in and around Sheffield...

, Valerie Grove

Valerie Grove

Valerie Grove is a British journalist and writer, for many years a feature writer, interviewer and columnist for The Times newspaper....

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22 February 1980 - Ned Sherrin - Quentin Crisp

Quentin Crisp

Quentin Crisp , was an English writer and raconteur. He became a gay icon in the 1970s after publication of his memoir, The Naked Civil Servant.- Early life :...

, Arianna and Agape Stassinopoulos, Corky Hale

Corky Hale

Corky Hale has been a working jazz musician since the late 1950s. As an in-demand session player, she has traveled across the United States and throughout Europe, playing harp, piano and flute, and singing, as well...

, Nigel Williams

Nigel Williams (author)

Nigel Williams is an English novelist, screenwriter and playwright.-Biography:He was educated at Highgate School and Oriel College, Oxford, is married with three sons and lives in Putney, south-west London...

, Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer is an Australian writer, academic, journalist and scholar of early modern English literature, widely regarded as one of the most significant feminist voices of the later 20th century....

, John Wells

John Wells (satirist)

John Wells was an English actor, writer and satirist, educated at Eastbourne College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford...

.

29 February 1980 - Tim Rice - Mike Brearley

Mike Brearley

John Michael Brearley OBE is a former cricketer who captained the England cricket team in 31 of his 39 Test matches, winning 17 and losing only 4. He was the President of the Marylebone Cricket Club in 2007–08.-Early life:...

, Rick Wakeman

Rick Wakeman

Richard Christopher Wakeman is an English keyboard player, composer and songwriter best known for being the former keyboardist in the progressive rock band Yes...

, John Lill

John Lill

John Lill CBE is an English classical pianist.-Biography:Lill studied at the Royal College of Music and with Wilhelm Kempff. His talent emerged at an early age, as he gave his first piano recital at the age of nine. At age 18, he performed Rachmaninoff's 3rd Piano Concerto under Sir Adrian Boult...

, Pamela Stephenson

Pamela Stephenson

, Joseph Wambaugh

Joseph Wambaugh

Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh, Jr. is a bestselling American writer known for his fictional and non-fictional accounts of police work in the United States...

.

7 March 1980 - Jane Walmsley - Zandra Rhodes

Zandra Rhodes

Zandra Rhodes, CBE, RDI, is an English fashion designer.Zandra Rhodes was introduced to the world of fashion by her mother, who was a fitter in a Paris fashion house and a teacher at Medway College of Art, now the University for the Creative Arts. Rhodes studied first at Medway and then at the...

, Terry Gilliam

Terry Gilliam

Terrence Vance "Terry" Gilliam is an American-born British screenwriter, film director, animator, actor and member of the Monty Python comedy troupe. Gilliam is also known for directing several films, including Brazil , The Adventures of Baron Munchausen , The Fisher King , and 12 Monkeys...

, Hazel O'Connor

Hazel O'Connor

Hazel O'Connor is an English singer-songwriter and actress. She is the daughter of a soldier from Galway who settled in England after World War II to work in a car plant...

, Esther Samson, Anthony Shrimsley.

14 March 1980 - Tim Rice - Mike Batt

Mike Batt

Michael Philip "Mike" Batt is a British songwriter, musician, producer and Deputy Chairman of the British Phonographic Industry...

, Tom Conti

Tom Conti

Thomas "Tom" Conti is a Scottish actor, theatre director and novelist.-Early life:Born Thomas Conti in Paisley, Renfrewshire, he was brought up Roman Catholic, but he considers himself anti-religious...

, Tina Brown

Tina Brown

Tina Brown, Lady Evans, CBE , is a journalist, magazine editor, columnist, talk-show host and author of The Diana Chronicles, a biography of Diana, Princess of Wales. Born a British citizen, she took United States citizenship in 2005 after emigrating in 1984 to edit Vanity Fair...

, David Essex

David Essex

David Essex OBE is an English musician, singer-songwriter and actor. Since the 1970s, Essex has attained nineteen Top 40 singles in the UK , and sixteen Top 40 albums...

, Colin Blunstone

Colin Blunstone

Colin Blunstone is an English pop singer-songwriter, best known as a member of the pop group The Zombies, and for his participation on various albums with The Alan Parsons Project.-Biography:...

.

21 March 1980 - Terry Wogan - Larry Hagman

Larry Hagman

Larry Martin Hagman is an American film and television actor, producer and director known for playing J.R. Ewing in the 1980s primetime television soap opera Dallas and Major Anthony "Tony" Nelson in the 1960s sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.-Early life and career:Hagman was born in Fort Worth, Texas...

, John Wells

John Wells (satirist)

John Wells was an English actor, writer and satirist, educated at Eastbourne College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford...

, Frank Hall

Frank Hall

Frank Hall was an Irish broadcaster, journalist, satirist and film censor. He is best remembered for his satirical revue programme Hall's Pictorial Weekly.-Early life:...

Series Three

26 September 1980 - Tim Rice - Michael Parkinson

Michael Parkinson

Sir Michael Parkinson, CBE is an English broadcaster, journalist and author. He presented his interview programme, Parkinson, from 1971 to 1982 and from 1998 to 2007.- Early life :...

, Dickie Bird, Dave Edmunds

Dave Edmunds

David 'Dave' Edmunds is a Welsh singer, guitarist and record producer. Although he is primarily associated with Pub rock and New Wave, and had numerous hits in the 1970s and early 1980s, his natural leaning has always been towards 1950s style rock and roll.-Early bands:As a teenager Edmunds first...

and Carlene Carter

Carlene Carter

Carlene Carter is an American country singer and songwriter. She is the daughter of June Carter and her first husband, Carl Smith....

, Nick Lowe

Nick Lowe

Nicholas Drain "Nick" Lowe , is an English singer-songwriter, musician and producer.A pivotal figure in UK pub rock, punk rock and new wave, Lowe has recorded a string of well-reviewed solo albums. Along with vocals, Lowe plays guitar, bass guitar, piano and harmonica...

, Peter Lush, Marvin Hamlisch

Marvin Hamlisch

Marvin Frederick Hamlisch is an American composer. He is one of only thirteen people to have been awarded Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, and a Tony . He is also one of only two people to EGOT and also win a Pulitzer Prize...

.

3 October 1980 - Desmond Morris

Desmond Morris

Desmond John Morris, born 24 January 1928 in Purton, north Wiltshire, is a British zoologist and ethologist, as well as a popular anthropologist. He is also known as a painter, television presenter and popular author.-Life:...

- Andrea Newman

Andrea Newman

Andrea Newman is an English author.An only child, mainly brought up by her grandmother, she taught at a grammar school after graduating with a degree in English from London University...

, Gerard Kenny

Gerard Kenny

, Lynn Barber

Lynn Barber

Lynn Barber is a British journalist, who writes for The Sunday Times.-Early life:Barber attended Lady Eleanor Holles School...

, Graham Dangerfield, Prof Randolph Quirk, Betty Fitzpatrick.

10 October 1980 - Tim Rice - Christopher Matthews, Helene Hanff

Helene Hanff

Helene Hanff was an American writer. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, she is best known as the author of the book 84, Charing Cross Road, which became the basis for a stage play, , and film of the same name.- Career :...

, The Hollies

The Hollies

The Hollies are an English pop and rock group, formed in Manchester in the early 1960s, though most of the band members are from throughout East Lancashire. Known for their distinctive vocal harmony style, they became one of the leading British groups of the 1960s and 1970s...

, Allan Clarke

Allan Clarke (footballer)

Allan John Clarke , nicknamed "Sniffer", is a former footballer who played in the Football League for Walsall, Fulham, Leicester City, Leeds United and Barnsley, and won 19 international caps for England.-Early career:Clarke started his career at Walsall and made his debut aged 17, in 1963...

, and David Bowie

David Bowie

David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

from Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

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17 October 1980 - Tim Rice - B. A. Robertson

B. A. Robertson

B. A. Robertson is a Scottish musician, actor, composer and songwriter.-Career:...

, Kingsley Amis

Kingsley Amis

Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism...

24 October 1980 - Clive Jenkins

Clive Jenkins

David Clive Jenkins was a British trade union leader. "Organising the middle classes", his stated recreation in Who's Who, sums up both his sense of humour and his achievements in the British trade union movement....

- Peter Corey

Peter Corey

Peter Corey is the author of the Coping With... children's book series. The series targets youngsters using humour. He is also the author of books of non-humorous nature. He has also written scripts for many television programmes and he has played characters in drama]]s and soap operas.- Biography...

, Saul Reichlin, Alan Simpson, Karolina Larusdottir, Neil Kinnock

Neil Kinnock

Neil Gordon Kinnock, Baron Kinnock is a Welsh politician belonging to the Labour Party. He served as a Member of Parliament from 1970 until 1995 and as Labour Leader and Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition from 1983 until 1992 - his leadership of the party during nearly nine years making him...

, Peregrine Worsthorne

Peregrine Worsthorne

Sir Peregrine Gerard Worsthorne is a British journalist, writer and broadcaster. He was educated at Stowe School, Peterhouse, Cambridge and Magdalen College, Oxford. Worsthorne spent the largest part of his career at the Telegraph newspaper titles, eventually becoming editor of The Sunday Telegraph...

, Sioned Williams, Marion Montgomery

Marion Montgomery

Marion Montgomery was a United States born jazz singer who lived in the United Kingdom.Born Maud Runnells in Natchez, Mississippi, she began her career in Atlanta working clubs, and then in Chicago where singer Peggy Lee heard her on an audition tape and suggested she should be signed up by...

.

31 October 1980 - Jane Walmsley - Elizabeth St George, Lois Bourne

Lois Bourne

Lois Bourne is an influential figure in the Neopagan religion of Wicca, having been involved in it from the early 1960s, and has written a number of books on the subject...

, Esther Rantzen

Esther Rantzen

Esther Louise Rantzen CBE is an English journalist and television presenter who is best known for presenting the BBC television series That's Life!, and for her work in various charitable causes. She is founder of the child protection charity ChildLine, and also advocates the work of the Burma...

, The Flatbuckers, Ian Dury

Ian Dury

Ian Robins Dury was an English rock and roll singer, lyricist, bandleader and actor who initially rose to fame during the late 1970s, during the punk and New Wave era of rock music...

, Bob Worchester, Bonnie Angelo, Rik Mayall

Rik Mayall

Richard Michael "Rik" Mayall is an English comedian, writer, and actor. He is known for his comedy partnership with Ade Edmondson, his over-the-top, energetic portrayal of characters, and as a pioneer of alternative comedy in the early 1980s...

.

7 November 1980 - Jackie Collins

Jackie Collins

Jacqueline Jill "Jackie" Collins is an English novelist and former actress. She is the younger sister of actress Joan Collins. She has written 28 novels, all of which have appeared on the New York Times bestsellers list. In total, her books have sold over 400 million copies and have been...

- Paula Yates

Paula Yates

Paula Elizabeth Yates was a British television presenter and writer, best known for her work on two television programmes, The Tube and The Big Breakfast.-Early life:...

, Jean Rook

Jean Rook

Jean Kathleen Rook was an English journalist dubbed The First Lady of Fleet Street for her regular opinion column in the Daily Express...

, Dennis Waterman

Dennis Waterman

Dennis Waterman is a British actor and singer, best known for his tough-guy roles in television series including The Sweeney, Minder and New Tricks.-Early life:...

, Phil Palmer

Phil Palmer

Philip 'Phil' John Palmer is a sideman and session guitarist in jazz and rock who has toured, recorded, and worked with numerous famous artists...

, Bryan Ferry

Bryan Ferry

Bryan Ferry, CBE is an English singer, musician, and songwriter. Ferry came to public prominence in the early 1970s as lead vocalist and principal songwriter with the band Roxy Music, who enjoyed a highly successful career with three number one albums and ten singles entering the top ten charts in...

, Bruce Oldfield

Bruce Oldfield

Bruce Oldfield OBE is a British fashion designer, best known for his couture occasionwear. He dresses Hollywood actresses, British and International royalty and European aristocracy; famous clients have included Sienna Miller, Barbra Streisand, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Diana Ross, Emmanuelle...

, Marie Helvin

Marie Helvin

Marie Helvin is a fashion model, who worked extensively with David Bailey—to whom she was married between 1975-85—in the 1970s and 1980s she appeared in many fashion stories for British Vogue and posed for a series of nude photographs made by David Bailey, which were published in his 1980 book...

, Wendy Medway, Peter York

Peter York

.

14 November 1980 - Martin Bergman

Martin Bergman

- Emma Thompson

Emma Thompson

, Hugh Laurie

Hugh Laurie

James Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE , better known as Hugh Laurie , is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director...

, Robert Bathurst

Robert Bathurst

, Rory McGrath

Rory McGrath

Patrick Rory McGrath is an English comedian and writer. He is best known for roles in Who Dares Wins, Chelmsford 123, Three Men in a Boat and its successors. He was also a regular panellist on They Think It's All Over....

, John Bardon

John Bardon

John Bardon, is an English stage and screen actor. He was awarded the Laurence Olivier Award in 1988 as 'Best Actor in a Musical' for Kiss Me, Kate, sharing the award with co-star Emil Wolk.-Acting career:Bardon is best known for playing Jim Branning in the popular British soap opera EastEnders...

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21 November 1980 - Simon Hoggart

Simon Hoggart

Simon David Hoggart is an English journalist and broadcaster. He writes on politics for The Guardian, and on wine for The Spectator. Until 2006 he presented The News Quiz on Radio 4...

- Roy Hattersley

Roy Hattersley

Roy Sydney George Hattersley, Baron Hattersley is a British Labour politician, author and journalist from Sheffield. He served as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party from 1983 to 1992.-Early life:...

, Peter Marsh

Peter Marsh

Professor Peter Marsh is a British academic administrator and academic in the fields of sociology and social work. He is the Professor of Child and Family Welfare at the University of Sheffield and was the Dean of Social Sciences at the University from 2005-2008.He has worked on practice...

, Tom Bussman, Trudi Pacter, Stewart Sanderson

Stewart Sanderson

Stewart Antony Sanderson is an English rugby league winger and hooker who currently plays for Gateshead Thunder in the National League Two.-Playing career:...

, Lynda Hayes.

28 November 1980 - Toyah

Toyah (band)

Toyah is the name of the band fronted by Toyah Willcox between 1977 and 1983. The only other consistent band member throughout this period was Joel Bogen, Willcox's principal co-writer and guitarist.-Background :...

- Vivian Stanshall

Vivian Stanshall

Vivian Stanshall was an English singer-songwriter, painter, musician, author, poet and wit, best known for his work with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, for his surreal exploration of the British upper classes in Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, and for narrating Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells.-The great...

, Christopher Biggins

Christopher Biggins

Christopher Kenneth Biggins is an English actor and media personality.-Career:Biggins was born in Oldham, Lancashire, England and brought up in Salisbury, Wiltshire, where he took elocution lessons and participated in local drama groups...

, Steve Strange

Steve Strange

Steve Strange , is a Welsh pop singer, best known as the lead singer and frontman of the 1980s pop group Visage...

, Derek Jarman

Derek Jarman

Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman was an English film director, stage designer, diarist, artist, gardener and author.-Life:...

.

5 December 1980 - Laurie Taylor

Laurie Taylor (sociologist)

Laurence John "Laurie" Taylor is an English sociologist and radio presenter originally from Liverpool.-Academic career:After attending Roman Catholic schools including the direct grant grammar school St Mary's College in Crosby at the same time as Liverpool poet, Roger McGough, Taylor first...

- Viv Nicholson

Viv Nicholson

Vivian Nicholson became publicly known overnight within Great Britain in 1961 when she received £152,319 in a football-pools win and announced to the press that she was going to "spend, spend, spend"...

, Tom O'Connor, Anthony Clare

Anthony Clare

Anthony Ward Clare was an Irish psychiatrist well known in the UK and Ireland as a presenter of radio and TV programmes.-Career:...

, James Fox

James Fox

James Fox, OBE is an English actor.-Early life:James Fox was born in London, England to theatrical agent Robin Fox and actress Angela Worthington. He is the brother of actor Edward Fox and film producer Robert Fox. The actress Emilia Fox is his niece and the actor Laurence Fox is his son. His...

, Lindsey Moore, Fay Weldon

Fay Weldon

Fay Weldon CBE is an English author, essayist and playwright, whose work has been associated with feminism. In her fiction, Weldon typically portrays contemporary women who find themselves trapped in oppressive situations caused by the patriarchal structure of British society.-Biography:Weldon was...

, Harriet Harman

Harriet Harman

Harriet Ruth Harman QC is a British Labour Party politician, who is the Member of Parliament for Camberwell and Peckham, and was MP for the predecessorPeckham constituency from 1982 to 1997...

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12 December 1980 - Ned Sherrin

Ned Sherrin

Edward George "Ned" Sherrin CBE was an English broadcaster, author and stage director. He qualified as a barrister and then worked in independent television before joining the BBC...

- Sheena Easton

Sheena Easton

Sheena Easton is a Scottish recording artist. Easton became famous for being the focus of an episode in the British television programme The Big Time, which recorded her attempts to gain a record contract and her eventual signing with EMI Records.Easton rose to fame in the early 1980s with the pop...

, Norman St John-Stevas, Lord Longford

Frank Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford

Francis Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford KG, PC , known as the Lord Pakenham from 1945 to 1961, was a British politician, author, and social reformer...

, Lord George Brown, John Wells

John Wells (satirist)

John Wells was an English actor, writer and satirist, educated at Eastbourne College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford...

, Willie Rushton

Willie Rushton

, Rob Buckman

Rob Buckman

Robert Alexander Amiel "Rob" Buckman was a British-Canadian doctor of medicine, comedian and author, and president of the Humanist Association of Canada...

, Nigel Dempster

Nigel Dempster

.

19 December 1980 - Ned Sherrin - Dai Llewellyn, Frederick Forsyth

Frederick Forsyth

Frederick Forsyth, CBE is an English author and occasional political commentator. He is best known for thrillers such as The Day of the Jackal, The Odessa File, The Fourth Protocol, The Dogs of War, The Devil's Alternative, The Fist of God, Icon, The Veteran, Avenger, The Afghan and The Cobra.-...

, David Puttnam

David Puttnam

David Terence Puttnam, Baron Puttnam, CBE, FRSA is a British film producer. He sits on the Labour benches in the House of Lords, although he is not principally a politician.-Early life:...

, John Boulting, Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken

Christopher Walken is an American stage and screen actor. He has appeared in more than 100 movies and television shows, including Joe Dirt, Annie Hall, The Deer Hunter, The Prophecy trilogy, The Dogs of War, Sleepy Hollow, Brainstorm, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New...

, Bertice Reading

Bertice Reading

Bertice Reading was an American actress, singer and revue artiste.Bertice Reading was born in Chester, Pennsylvania. Her performing career started at the age of 3, when she was talent-spotted by Bill "Bojangles" Robinson....

, John Wells

John Wells (satirist)

John Wells was an English actor, writer and satirist, educated at Eastbourne College and St Edmund Hall, Oxford...

, Willie Rushton

Willie Rushton

, Mike Harding

Mike Harding

Mike Harding is an English singer, songwriter, comedian, author, poet and broadcaster. He is known as 'The Rochdale Cowboy' after one of his hit records...

Series Four

30 January 1981 - Jane Walmsley - Felicity Kendal

Felicity Kendal

Felicity Ann Kendal, CBE is an English actor known for her television and stage work.Born in 1946, Kendal spent much of her childhood in India, where her father managed a touring repertory company. First appearing on stage at the age of nine months, Kendal appeared in her first film, Shakespeare...

, Harry Chapin

Harry Chapin

Harry Forster Chapin was an American singer-songwriter best known in particular for his folk rock songs including "Taxi", "W*O*L*D", and the number-one hit "Cat's in the Cradle". Chapin was also a dedicated humanitarian who fought to end world hunger; he was a key player in the creation of the...

, Fania Fénelon

Fania Fénelon

Fania Fénelon was a French pianist, composer and cabaret singer.-Biography:...

, Derek Jameson

Derek Jameson

Derek Jameson is a retired British tabloid journalist and broadcaster.As a child, Jameson was evacuated from London in WW2...

, Nigel Dempster

Nigel Dempster

, Susan Isaacs

Susan Isaacs

Susan Isaacs is an American novelist and screenwriter. She was born in Brooklyn, New York, educated at Queens College, and worked as a senior editor at Seventeen magazine. She married Elkan Abramowitz, a lawyer, in 1968 and in 1970 left work to stay at home with her newborn son, Andrew. Three...

, 20th Century Coyote

20th Century Coyote

20th Century Coyote was a comedy group famous for first uniting Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson. Mayall started the group at Manchester University with friend Lloyd Peters and some others and attempted to gain a lunchtime residency at the Band on the Wall club...

.

6 February 1981 - Clare Francis

Clare Francis

Clare Mary Francis MBE is a British novelist also known for her former career as a yachtswoman.Clare Francis was born in Thames Ditton, Surrey, and spent summer holidays on the Isle of Wight, where she learnt to sail...

- Hammond Innes

Hammond Innes

Ralph Hammond Innes was a British novelist who wrote over 30 novels, as well as children's and travel books....

, Ken Follett

Ken Follett

Ken Follett is a Welsh author of thrillers and historical novels. He has sold more than 100 million copies of his works. Four of his books have reached the number 1 ranking on the New York Times best-seller list: The Key to Rebecca, Lie Down with Lions, Triple, and World Without End.-Early...

, Beryl Reid

Beryl Reid

Beryl Elizabeth Reid, OBE was a British actress of stage and screen.-Early life:Born in Hereford, England in 1919, Reid was the daughter of Scottish parents and grew up in Manchester where she attended Withington and Levenshulme High Schools.-Career:Reid applied for and was accepted in a revue in...

, Dr. Richard Mackarness, Baby Grand

Baby Grand

"Baby Grand" is the fourth and final single released off Billy Joel's album The Bridge. A duet with Joel and Ray Charles, the song is a ballad dedicated to the baby grand piano, and the relationship it can share with its players. The two originally got together when Charles contacted Joel about the...

, Julie Walters

Julie Walters

Julie Walters, CBE is an English actress and novelist. She came to international prominence in 1983 for Educating Rita, performing in the title role opposite Michael Caine. It was a role she had created on the West End stage and it won her BAFTA and Golden Globe awards for Best Actress...

, Jim Parker

Jim Parker (composer)

Jim Parker is a British composer.After graduating as a silver medallist at the Guildhall School of Music, Parker played with leading London orchestras and chamber groups as well as being a key part of The Barrow Poets for whom he provided both original instrumental music and music to accompany the...

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13 February 1981 - Simon Hoggart

Simon Hoggart

Simon David Hoggart is an English journalist and broadcaster. He writes on politics for The Guardian, and on wine for The Spectator. Until 2006 he presented The News Quiz on Radio 4...

- Kiri Te Kanawa

Kiri Te Kanawa

Dame Kiri Jeanette Te Kanawa, ONZ, DBE, AC is a New Zealand / Māori soprano who has had a highly successful international opera career since 1968. Acclaimed as one of the most beloved sopranos in both the United States and Britain she possesses a warm full lyric soprano voice, singing a wide array...

, Barry Took

Barry Took

Barry Took was an English comedian, writer and television presenter. He is best remembered in the UK for his weekly role as presenter of Points of View, a BBC TV programme in which viewers' letters criticising or praising the BBC were broadcast...

, Kenneth Williams

Kenneth Williams

Kenneth Charles Williams was an English comic actor and comedian. He was one of the main ensemble in 26 of the Carry On films, and appeared in numerous British television shows, and radio comedies with Tony Hancock and Kenneth Horne.-Life and career:Kenneth Charles Williams was born on 22 February...

, Malcolm Bradbury

Malcolm Bradbury

Sir Malcolm Stanley Bradbury CBE was an English author and academic.-Life:Bradbury was the son of a railwayman. His family moved to London in 1935, but returned to Sheffield in 1941 with his brother and mother...

, Dr Keith Stolls, Rio and the Robots.

20 February 1981 - Robert Lacey

Robert Lacey

Robert Lacey is a British historian and biographer. He is the author of a number of bestselling biographies, including those of Henry Ford and Queen Elizabeth II, as well as works of popular history....

- Prince Abdullah Al-Saud, Barbara Cartland

Barbara Cartland

Dame Barbara Hamilton Cartland, DBE, CStJ , was an English author, one of the most prolific authors of the 20th century...

, Aboud Abdel-Ali and Orchestra, Hula Al-Rasheed, Fatima Shaker, John Glubb, Peter Whitehead.

27 February 1981 - Lorin Maazel

Lorin Maazel

Lorin Varencove Maazel is an American conductor, violinist and composer.- Early life :Maazel was born to Jewish-American parents in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France and brought up in the United States, primarily at his parents' home in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood. His father, Lincoln Maazel , was...

- Edward Heath

Edward Heath

Sir Edward Richard George "Ted" Heath, KG, MBE, PC was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and as Leader of the Conservative Party ....

, Alan Coren

Alan Coren

Alan Coren was an English humorist, writer and satirist who was well known as a regular panellist on the BBC radio quiz The News Quiz and a team captain on BBC television's Call My Bluff...

, Ellen Burstyn

Ellen Burstyn

Ellen Burstyn is a leading American actress of film, stage, and television. Burstyn's career began in theatre during the late 1950s, and over the next ten years she appeared in several films and television series before joining the Actors Studio in 1967...

, Doreen Wells

Doreen Wells

Doreen Wells, Marchioness of Londonderry , is a retired British ballerina and theatre dancer.-Career:Wells received her early dance training at the Bush Davies School of Theatre Arts, continuing her studies at the Sadler's Wells Ballet School. She is a winner of the Adeline Genee Gold Medal from...

, Edward Fox

Edward Fox (actor)

Edward Charles Morice Fox, OBE is an English stage, film and television actor.He is generally associated with portraying the role of the upper-class Englishman, such as the title character in the film The Day of the Jackal and King Edward VIII in the serial Edward & Mrs...

.

6 March 1981 - Geoffrey Robertson

Geoffrey Robertson

Geoffrey Ronald Robertson QC is an Australian-born human rights lawyer, academic, author and broadcaster. He holds dual Australian and British citizenship....

- Jill Craigie

Jill Craigie

Jill Craigie was an English documentary film director, screenwriter and feminist. She was the wife of the Labour Party politician Michael Foot , whom she met during the making of her film The Way We Live....

, Lesley-Anne Down

Lesley-Anne Down

Lesley-Anne Down is a British film and television actress, former model and singer.Down achieved fame as Georgina Worsley in the ITV drama series Upstairs, Downstairs...

, Clive James

Clive James

Clive James, AM is an Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet and memoirist, best known for his autobiographical series Unreliable Memoirs, for his chat shows and documentaries on British television and for his prolific journalism...

, Peter Hain

Peter Hain

Peter Gerald Hain is a British Labour Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for the Welsh constituency of Neath since 1991, and has served in the Cabinets of both Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, firstly as Leader of the House of Commons under Blair and both Secretary of State for...

, Lynda Hayes, 20th Century Coyote

Rik Mayall

.

13 March 1981 - Anouska Hempel

Anouska Hempel

Anouska Hempel, Lady Weinberg , born Anne Geissler, is a film and television actress turned hotelier and designer. She is also a noted figure in London society.-Personal life:...

- Gloria Swanson

Gloria Swanson

Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...

, Sissy Spacek

Sissy Spacek

Sissy Spacek is an American actress and singer. She came to international prominence for her for role as Carrie White in Brian De Palma's 1976 horror film Carrie for which she earned her first Academy Award nomination...

, David Hicks, Terence Conran

Terence Conran

Sir Terence Orby Conran, FCSD, is an English designer, restaurateur, retailer and writer.-Early life and education:Terence Conran was born in Kingston upon Thames, the son of Christina Mabel and South African-born Gerard Rupert Conran, a businessman who owned a rubber importation company in East...

, Richard Rogers

Richard Rogers

Richard George Rogers, Baron Rogers of Riverside CH Kt FRIBA FCSD is a British architect noted for his modernist and functionalist designs....

, Candida Lycett-Green, Lezlee Carling.

20 March 1981 - Tim Rice

Tim Rice

- Richard Jenner-Fust, Jane Darling, Bill Drysdale, Petra Siniawski, Shirley Williams, Hank Marvin

Hank Marvin

Hank Brian Marvin is an English guitarist, best known as the lead guitarist for The Shadows. The group, which primarily performed instrumentals, was formed as a backing band for vocalist Cliff Richard...

, Richard Huggett

Richard Huggett

Richard John Huggett is a British citizen noted for standing in a variety of elections using descriptions which were similar, but not identical, to those of established political parties, leading to this practice being outlawed under the Registration of Political Parties Act 1998.Most notably he...

, Dr Anne Smith, Leslee Carling.

27 March 1981 - Michael Wood - Sid Waddell, Sylvia Kristel

Sylvia Kristel

Sylvia Kristel is a Dutch actress, model and singer. Her most famous role is in the French film Emmanuelle.- Early life :...

, Baron Brockway

Fenner Brockway, Baron Brockway

Fenner Brockway, Baron Brockway , was a British anti-war activist and politician.-Biography:Archibald Fenner Brockway was born in Calcutta, India, which was at that time under British Imperial rule...

, Denis Law

Denis Law

Denis Law is a retired Scottish football player, who enjoyed a long and successful career as a striker from the 1950s to the 1970s....

, Hank Wangford

Hank Wangford

Hank Wangford is a distinguished English country and western songwriter. Hank Wangford is the stage name of Dr. Samuel Hutt, . His music is notable for its humour and cheerful irony, and occasional excursions into biting political undercurrent....

, Peter Sykes

Peter Sykes

Peter Sykes, FRSC was a British chemist and a former Fellow and Vice-Master of Christ's College, Cambridge. He is the author of highly popular undergraduate-level organic chemistry textbook A Guidebook to Mechanisms in Organic Chemistry, now in its sixth edition.-References:...

.

3 April 1981 - Barry Norman

Barry Norman

Barry Leslie Norman, CBE is a British novelist, impresario, film critic and media personality. He was the BBC film critic on television from 1972 to 1998.-Early life:...

- Terry Waite

Terry Waite

Terry Waite CBE is an English humanitarian and author.Waite was Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie's Assistant for Anglican Communion Affairs in the 1980s. As an envoy for the Church of England, he travelled to Lebanon to try to secure the release of four hostages including journalist John...

, Philip Edmunds, Pamela Stephenson

Pamela Stephenson

, Kit Hain.

Series Five

6 November 1981 - Terry Jones

Terry Jones

- Richard Mabey

Richard Mabey

Richard Mabey is a naturalist and author.He has been called by The Times 'Britain's greatest living nature writer'. Among his acclaimed publications are Food for Free, The Unofficial Countryside and The Common Ground, as well as his study of the nightingale, Whistling in the Dark...

, Colin McCabe, Helen Mirren

Helen Mirren

Dame Helen Mirren, DBE is an English actor. She has won an Academy Award for Best Actress, four SAG Awards, four BAFTAs, three Golden Globes, four Emmy Awards, and two Cannes Film Festival Best Actress Awards.-Early life and family:...

, Bernard Williams

Bernard Williams

Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams was an English moral philosopher, described by The Times as the most brilliant and most important British moral philosopher of his time. His publications include Problems of the Self , Moral Luck , Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy , and Truth and Truthfulness...

, Rosalie Bertell

Rosalie Bertell

Rosalie Bertell is an American physician and epidemiologist best known for her work in the field of ionizing radiation. A dual citizen of Canada and the United States, she has worked in environmental health since 1970....

, Elkie Brooks

Elkie Brooks

Elkie Brooks is an English singer, formerly a vocalist with Vinegar Joe, and later a solo artist. Elkie has been nominated twice for Brit Awards' top female singer. She is known for her powerful husky voice...

, The National Theatre of Brent.

13 November 1981 - Tim Rice - Julian Lloyd Webber

Julian Lloyd Webber

Julian Lloyd Webber is a British solo cellist who has been described as the "doyen of British cellists".-Early life:Julian Lloyd Webber is the second son of the composer William Lloyd Webber and his wife Jean Johnstone . He is the younger brother of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber...

, Bill Hartson, David Steel

David Steel

David Martin Scott Steel, Baron Steel of Aikwood, KT, KBE, PC is a British Liberal Democrat politician who served as the Leader of the Liberal Party from 1976 until its merger with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the Liberal Democrats...

, Tracey Ullman

Tracey Ullman

Tracey Ullman is a British stage and television actress, comedienne, singer, dancer, screenwriter and author ....

, Geoffrey Burgon

Geoffrey Burgon

Geoffrey Alan Burgon was a British composer notable for his television and film themes.-Life and career:Burgon was born in Hampshire in 1941, and taught himself the trumpet in order to join a jazz band at school...

, Adam Ant

Adam Ant

Adam Ant is an English musician who gained popularity as the lead singer of New Wave/post-punk group Adam and the Ants and later as a solo artist, scoring ten UK top ten hits between 1980 and 1983, including three No.1s...

.

20 November 1981 - Desmond Morris

Desmond Morris

- Freddie Hancock, David Cockcroft, Lucy Colbeck, Kit Williams

Kit Williams

Christopher 'Kit' Williams is an English artist, illustrator and author best known for his book Masquerade, a pictorial storybook which contains clues to the location of a golden jewelled hare created by Williams and then buried "somewhere in Britain."Williams wrote another puzzle book with a bee...

, Rod Argent

Rod Argent

Rod Argent is an English rock musician and a founding member of the 1960s English pop group The Zombies and the 1970s band Argent....

, Kit Hain, Ian Greaves

Ian Greaves

Ian Denzil Greaves was an English football player and manager. He was born in Crompton, Lancashire. He won a League Championship medal and an FA Cup runners-up medal while playing fullback for Manchester United between 1953 and 1960...

, Kate Bush

Kate Bush

Kate Bush is an English singer-songwriter, musician and record producer. Her eclectic musical style and idiosyncratic vocal style have made her one of the United Kingdom's most successful solo female performers of the past 30 years.In 1978, at the age of 19, Bush topped the UK Singles Chart...

, Susanna Kubelka

Susanna Kubelka

Susanna Kubelka von Hermanitz is a German-speaking writer living in France.She was born in September 1942 in Linz . Having left high school she briefly worked as primary school teacher before graduating in English literature. In 1977 she took a PhD with a thesis on The way women were represented in...

, Bettine le Beau, Dr Robert Burchfield and The Outer Limits.

27 November 1981 - Maria Aitken

Maria Aitken

Maria Penelope Katharine Aitken is an English actress, writer, producer and director.Aitken was born in Dublin, the daughter of Sir William Aitken, a Conservative MP, and socialite Penelope Aitken, whose father was John Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby. She is a great-niece of newspaper magnate and...

- Edward Hibbert

Edward Hibbert

Edward Hibbert is an American-born English actor and literary agent.-Biography:Hibbert was born in Long Island, New York, the son of Geoffrey Hibbert. He has one sister. He was raised in England, where he attended London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Art...

, Anthony Andrews

Anthony Andrews

-Life and career:Andrews was born in London, the son of Geraldine Agnes , a dancer, and Stanley Thomas Andrews, a musical arranger and musical conductor. He grew up in the North Finchley district of London...

, Jonathan Lynn

Jonathan Lynn

Jonathan Lynn is an English actor, comedy writer and director. He is best known for being the co-writer of Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister.-Personal life:...

, Rob Buckman

Rob Buckman

Robert Alexander Amiel "Rob" Buckman was a British-Canadian doctor of medicine, comedian and author, and president of the Humanist Association of Canada...

, Ian Hall.

4 December 1981 - Derek Jameson

Derek Jameson

Derek Jameson is a retired British tabloid journalist and broadcaster.As a child, Jameson was evacuated from London in WW2...

- Johnny Speight

Johnny Speight

Johnny Speight , was a British television scriptwriter of many classic British sitcoms.He emerged in the mid 1950s. He wrote for the radio comics; Frankie Howerd, Vic Oliver, Arthur Askey, and Cyril Fletcher. For television he wrote for the Arthur Haynes Show, Morecambe & Wise, and Peter Sellers...

, Russell Harty

Russell Harty

Russell Harty was an English television presenter of arts programmes and chat shows.-Early life:Born Frederick Russell Harty in Blackburn, Lancashire, he was the son of a fruit and vegetable stallholder on the local market...

, Su Arnold, Sue Wilkinson and Stiff All Stars http://www.youtube.com/stiffallstars#p/a/u/0/SenYE16wHLk.

11 December 1981 - Geoffrey Robertson

Geoffrey Robertson

Geoffrey Ronald Robertson QC is an Australian-born human rights lawyer, academic, author and broadcaster. He holds dual Australian and British citizenship....

- Robyn Archer

Robyn Archer

Robyn Archer AO CdOAL is an Australian singer, writer, stage and director, artistic director, and public advocate of the arts, in Australia and internationally.-Life:Archer was born Robyn Smith in Prospect, South Australia...

, Lord Colville

John Colville, 4th Viscount Colville of Culross

John Mark Alexander Colville, 4th Viscount Colville of Culross QC was a British judge and politician. He was one of the 92 hereditary peers elected to remain in the House of Lords after the House of Lords Act 1999....

, Jan Kavan

Jan Kavan

Jan Kavan is a Czech diplomat and politician.-Biography:Kavan was born in London, the son of a Czech diplomat, Pavel Kavan, and a British teacher, Rosemary Kavan. His father was arrested and tried in a Czech show trial in the 1950s; his mother later wrote a memoir, Love and Freedom.He is a member...

, Jessica Mitford

Jessica Mitford

Jessica Lucy Freeman-Mitford was an English author, journalist and political campaigner, who was one of the Mitford sisters...

, Jill Tweedie

Jill Tweedie

Jill Sheila Tweedie was an influential feminist, writer and broadcaster. She was educated at the independent Croydon High School in Croydon, South London. She is mainly remembered for her column in The Guardian on feminist issues , 'Letters from a faint-hearted feminist' and for her autobiography...

, Christopher Logue

Christopher Logue

Christopher Logue, CBE is an English poet associated with the British Poetry Revival. He has also written for the theatre and cinema as well as acting in a number of films. His two screenplays are Savage Messiah and The End of Arthur's Marriage...

, Denise Coffey

Denise Coffey

Denise Coffey is an English actress, director, and playwright.After training at the Glasgow College of Dramatic Art, Coffey began a career in repertory at the Gateway Theatre in Edinburgh, then moved to the Palladium Theatre there...

, Phillip Hodson

Phillip Hodson

Phillip Hodson is a British psychotherapist, broadcaster and author who popularised ‘phone-in’ therapy in his role as Britain's first 'agony uncle'. His afternoon and evening counselling programmes ran on LBC Radio in London for nearly 20 years...

.

18 December 1981 - Jane Walmsley - Maureen Lipman

Maureen Lipman

Maureen Diane Lipman CBE is a British film, theatre and television actress, columnist and comedienne.-Early life:Lipman was born in Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the daughter of Maurice Julius Lipman and Zelma Pearlman. Her father was a tailor; he used to have a shop between the...

, Jonathan King

Jonathan King

, Malcolm McLaren

Malcolm McLaren

Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren was an English performer, impresario, self-publicist and manager of the Sex Pistols and the New York Dolls...

, D. M. Thomas

D. M. Thomas

Donald Michael Thomas, known as D. M. Thomas , is a Cornish novelist, poet, and translator.Thomas was born in Redruth, Cornwall, UK. He attended Trewirgie Primary School and Redruth Grammar School before graduating with First Class Honours in English from New College, Oxford in 1959...

, Kevin Mulhern, Russell Davies

Russell Davies

, Sue Wilkinson and Steve Caudal.

Series Six

8 January 1982 - Tim Rice

Tim Rice

- Selina Scott

Selina Scott

Selina Scott is a British newsreader, journalist, television producer and presenter.- Background and early life :Scott was born in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire in 1951, the eldest of five children...

, Kevin Godley

Kevin Godley

Kevin Godley is a British musician and music video director.He was born in a family of Jewish descent, and went to North Cestrian Grammar School in Altrincham....

and Lol Creme

Lol Crème

Lol Creme is an English musician and music video director, best known for his work in 10cc. He sings, plays guitar and keyboards.-Biography:...

, Michel Roux

Michel Roux

Michel Roux is a French-born chef and restaurateur working in Britain.Born in Charolles, Saône-et-Loire, Roux moved to Paris with his family after the war, where they set up a charcuterie...

, Sonia Stevenson, Richard Shepherd

Richard Shepherd

Richard Charles Scrimgeour Shepherd is a Conservative politician in the United Kingdom. He is currently a Member of Parliament, having represented the constituency of Aldridge-Brownhills since 1979....

.

15 January 1982 - Jane Walmsley - Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer

, Ken Livingstone

Ken Livingstone

Kenneth Robert "Ken" Livingstone is an English politician who is currently a member of the centrist to centre-left Labour Party...

, Auberon Waugh

Auberon Waugh

Auberon Alexander Waugh was a British author and journalist, son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh. He was known to his family and friends as Bron Waugh.-Life and career:...

, Nigel Dempster

Nigel Dempster

, Roger Rees

Roger Rees

Roger Rees is a Welsh actor. He is best known to American audiences for playing the characters Robin Colcord on the American television sitcom show Cheers and Lord John Marbury on the American television drama The West Wing...

, Streetwalker.

22 January 1982 - B. A. Robertson

B. A. Robertson

B. A. Robertson is a Scottish musician, actor, composer and songwriter.-Career:...

- Tommy Docherty

Tommy Docherty

Thomas Henderson "Tommy" Docherty , commonly known as "The Doc", is a Scottish former footballer and football manager.-Playing career:...

, Associates, Gillian Gregory

Gillian Gregory

Gillian Gregory is an English dancer and choreographer for stage and film.Gregory is a patron of the theatre charity The Music Hall Guild of Great Britain and America.-External links:...

, Phil Oakey, Ruth Herring, Mike Read

Mike Read

Michael David Kenneth Read is an English radio disc jockey, writer, journalist and television presenter.-Early life:...

.

29 January 1982 - Clare Francis

Clare Francis

- Tristran Jones, Robert Palmer, The Outer Limits, Roger Royle

Roger Royle

Roger Royle is an Anglican priest and broadcaster. He has been most well known for presenting Sunday Half Hour on BBC Radio 2.- Early life :...

, Des Wilson

Des Wilson

Des Wilson is a New Zealand born British campaigner, political activist, businessman, sports administrator, author and Poker player. He was instrumental in the 1960s as a founder of the pivotal British homelessness charity Shelter and was for a while an activist in, and President of, the British...

, Elspet Gray

Elspet Gray

Elspeth Jean Gray, Baroness Rix is a Scottish actress, known for her work on British television in the 1970s and '80s...

.

5 February 1982 - Laurie Taylor

Laurie Taylor (sociologist)

- Trevor Griffiths

Trevor Griffiths

Trevor Griffiths is an English dramatist.Raised as a Roman Catholic, he attended Saint Bede's College, before being accepted into Manchester University in 1952 to read English...

, Nell Dunn

Nell Dunn

-Early years:Dunn was born in London and educated at a convent, which she left at the age of fourteen. Although she came from an upper class background, in 1959 she moved to Battersea and made friends in the neighbourhood and worked for a time in a sweets factory...

, Juice on the Loose, Ron Kavana

Ron Kavana

Ron Kavana is a London-based Irish singer, songwriter, guitarist and band leader. Born in the County Cork town of Fermoy, he is the son of an Irish father and an American mother from Chicago with Cajun roots....

, French and Saunders

French and Saunders

French and Saunders is a British sketch comedy television show written by and starring comic duo Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. It is also the name by which the performers are known on the occasions when they appear elsewhere as a double act....

, Ray Gosling

Ray Gosling

Ray Gosling is an English journalist, author, broadcaster and gay rights activist. In February 2010, he claimed during a local BBC television programme to have killed a lover, in an act of euthanasia. He was arrested and released on police bail...

, Beryl Bainbridge

Beryl Bainbridge

Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge, DBE was an English author from Liverpool. She was primarily known for her psychological novels, often set amongst the English working classes. Bainbridge won the Whitbread Awards prize for best novel in 1977 and 1996; she was nominated five times for the Booker...

.

12 February 1982 - Frank Delaney

Frank Delaney

Frank Delaney is an Irish novelist, journalist and broadcaster. He's the author of New York Times best-seller "Ireland", the non-fiction book "Simple Courage: A True Story of Peril on the Sea", and many other works of fiction, non-fiction and collections...

- Siân Phillips

Siân Phillips

Jane Elizabeth Ailwên "Siân" Phillips, CBE, is a Welsh actress.-Early life:Phillips was born in Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen, Neath Port Talbot, Wales, the daughter of Sally , a teacher, and David Phillips, a steelworker-turned-policeman...

, Anthony Burgess

Anthony Burgess

John Burgess Wilson – who published under the pen name Anthony Burgess – was an English author, poet, playwright, composer, linguist, translator and critic. The dystopian satire A Clockwork Orange is Burgess's most famous novel, though he dismissed it as one of his lesser works...

, Paul Theroux

Paul Theroux

Paul Edward Theroux is an American travel writer and novelist, whose best known work of travel writing is perhaps The Great Railway Bazaar . He has also published numerous works of fiction, some of which were made into feature films. He was awarded the 1981 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his...

, Robert McCrum

Robert McCrum

Robert McCrum , is an English writer and editor. He served as literary editor of The Observer for more than ten years. In May 2008 he was appointed Associate Editor of the Observer and was succeeded as literary editor by William Skidelsky...

, Gillie McPherson.

19 February 1982 - Germaine Greer

Germaine Greer

- Mary Whitehouse

Mary Whitehouse

Mary Whitehouse, CBE was a British campaigner against the permissive society particularly as the media portrayed and reflected it...

, David Sullivan, Noel Dilly, Viviene Ventura, Graham Chapman

Graham Chapman

Graham Arthur Chapman was a British comedian, physician, writer, actor, and one of the six members of the Monty Python comedy troupe.-Early life and education:...

, The Stranglers

The Stranglers

The Stranglers are an English punk/rock music group.Scoring some 23 UK top 40 singles and 17 UK top 40 albums to date in a career spanning five decades, the Stranglers are the longest-surviving and most "continuously successful" band to have originated in the UK punk scene of the mid to late 1970s...

.

26 February 1982 - Brian Glover

Brian Glover

Brian Glover was an English character actor, writer and wrestler. Glover was a professional wrestler, teacher, and finally a film, television and stage actor. He once said, "You play to your strengths in this game. My strength is as a bald-headed, rough-looking Yorkshireman".-Early life:Glover was...

- Peter Marsh

Peter Marsh

, Molly Parkin

Molly Parkin

Molly Parkin , is a Welsh painter, novelist and journalist, who became most famous for exploits in the 1960s.Parkin was the second of two daughters, born and raised in Pontycymer in the Garw Valley, Wales...

, Elaine Loudon, Frank Keating

Frank Keating

Francis Anthony "Frank" Keating is an American politician from Oklahoma. Keating served as the 25th Governor of Oklahoma. His first term began in 1995 and ended in 1999...

, Oasis

Oasis (1980s group)

Oasis was an English music group which formed in 1984. The group consisted of Peter Skellern, Julian Lloyd Webber, Mitch Dalton, Bill Lovelady and Mary Hopkin....

.

5 March 1982 - Frank Delaney

Frank Delaney

- Penny Junor

Penny Junor

Penny Junor is an English journalist and author.-Education:Junor was educated at the independent Benenden School in Kent and read History at St Andrew's University, but left in her second year to get married....

, Nigel Nicolson

Nigel Nicolson

Nigel Nicolson OBE was a British writer, publisher and politician.-Biography:Nicolson was the son of the writers Sir Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West; he had a brother Ben, later an art historian...

, J. T. Edson, Victoria Glendinning

Victoria Glendinning

The Hon. Victoria Glendinning, CBE , is a British biographer, critic, broadcaster and novelist; she is President of English PEN, a winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, was awarded a CBE in 1998 and is Vice-President of the Royal Society of Literature.- Biography :She was born in Sheffield...

, Gillie McPherson.

12 March 1982 - Michael Wood - Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali

Tariq Ali , , is a British Pakistani military historian, novelist, journalist, filmmaker, public intellectual, political campaigner, activist, and commentator...

, Richard Clutterbuck

Richard Clutterbuck

Richard Clutterbuck was a pioneer in the study of political violence. In his lifetime he was both a professional soldier and academic. Clutterbuck was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1937 after graduating in mechanical sciences from Cambridge...

, Christopher Hill

Christopher Hill (historian)

John Edward Christopher Hill , usually known simply as Christopher Hill, was an English Marxist historian and author of textbooks....

, Tom Nairn

Tom Nairn

Tom Nairn Born in born 2 June 1932 in Freuchie, Fife) is a Scottish theorist of nationalism.Prof Tom Nairn is a Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Government and International Affairs at Durham University...

.

19 March 1982 - Diana Quick

Diana Quick

-Life:Quick was born in London, England. She grew up in Dartford, Kent, the third of a dentist's four children. She was educated at Dartford Grammar School for Girls, Kent. She was greatly aided by her English teacher, Miss Davis, who encouraged her to pursue acting...

- Jane Gibson, Merry Conway, Jay Geary e, Victoria Wood

Victoria Wood

Victoria Wood CBE is a British comedienne, actress, singer-songwriter, screenwriter and director. Wood has written and starred in sketches, plays, films and sitcoms, and her live stand-up comedy act is interspersed with her own compositions, which she accompanies on piano...

, The Great Soprendo, Bill Campbell, Jacko Fossett, Colin Harper

Colin Harper

Colin Harper is an Irish music journalist. He was born in Belfast and graduated in 1989 from Queen's University, Belfast. As a writer for the Belfast "Irish News" he wrote unsiged features on local bands and famous bands on tour...

, Sarah Mortimer

Sarah Mortimer

Sarah Mortimer is a British actress. She has worked extensively in both television and theatre.Mortimer trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts and her stage career includes Peter Hall's production of Coriolanus with Ian Mckellen, playing the original Alice in "Daisy pulls it off"...

.

26 March 1982 - Alexander Chancellor

Alexander Chancellor

Alexander Chancellor is a British journalist. He was educated at Eton College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge. He was the editor of the conservative Spectator magazine from 1975 to 1984, and now contributes a weekly column in The Guardian, published in the "Weekend" supplement each Saturday...

- Jeffrey Bernard

Jeffrey Bernard

Jeffrey Bernard was a British journalist, best known for his weekly column "Low Life" in the Spectator magazine, and also notorious for a feckless and chaotic career and life of alcohol abuse. He became associated with the louche and bohemian atmosphere that existed in London's Soho district...

, Taki

Taki Theodoracopulos

Taki Theodoracopulos , originally named Panagiotis Theodoracopulos is a Greek/American journalist, socialite, and political commentator.Better known as Taki, diminutive for Panagiotis, he is a Greek-born journalist and writer living in New York City, London and Switzerland...

, Carlos Bonell

Carlos Bonell

Carlos Bonell is an English guitarist of Spanish origin, famous for having given concerts in the most popular music as well as collaborating several times with British television stations and Film...

, Jo Grimond, April Ashley

April Ashley

‎‎April Ashley is an English model and restaurant hostess. She was the first British person to be outed as a transsexual, which was by the Sunday People in 1961...

, Harriet Waugh.

2 April 1982 - Jane Walmsley - Buzz, Julian Barnes

Julian Barnes

Julian Patrick Barnes is a contemporary English writer, and winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize, for his book The Sense of an Ending...

, Jocelyn Stevens

Jocelyn Stevens

Sir Jocelyn Stevens, CVO is the former publisher of Queen Magazine; a financier of the first British pirate radio station Radio Caroline; newspaper editor for major London dailies and former chairman of English Heritage.-Career:...

, David Puttnam

David Puttnam

David Terence Puttnam, Baron Puttnam, CBE, FRSA is a British film producer. He sits on the Labour benches in the House of Lords, although he is not principally a politician.-Early life:...

, Colin Welland

Colin Welland

Colin Welland is a British actor and screenwriter. He won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for his script for Chariots of Fire ,,,....

, David Soul

David Soul

David Soul is an American-British actor and singer, best known for his role as Detective Kenneth "Hutch" Hutchinson in the television programme Starsky and Hutch . He gained British citizenship in 2004.-Early life:...

, John McVicar

John McVicar

John McVicar is a British journalist and one-time convicted armed robber.-Career:In the 1960s, he was an armed robber who was tagged "Public Enemy No. 1" by Scotland Yard. He was apprehended and given a 23-year jail sentence. He escaped from prison on several occasions and after his final...

, Gareth Hunt

Gareth Hunt

Alan Leonard Hunt was an English actor, known as Gareth Hunt, best remembered for playing the footman Frederick Norton in Upstairs, Downstairs and Mike Gambit in The New Avengers.-Early life:...

, Jeremy Nichols, Terry Walsh

Terry Walsh

Terence Arthur Walsh is a former field hockey striker from Australia, who competed in two Olympic Games for his native country.-External links:*...

, Allen Whalley.

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