The Queen owned her own home before The Beatles! And I think Brian Epstein moved out of his tree several years before John, Paul, George and Ringo put down their own roots! Pun intended.
I used to have dinner with Ray and Alan and others once a year and asked him about this around 2005. Ray had a domestic machine around 1971 and he did record some Steptoe and Son. He also recorded a lot of other shows he and Alan (And John Antrobus who he wrote with when Alan retired for a decade to look after his wife) wrote. But the 1960s Steptoes were indeed given to Ray in the way you describe. Bob Monkhouse had a domestic video recorder around 1967, though he'd been archiving comedy since the 1940s. We know Maurice Gibb had a domestic video in 1969 of course. I never heard John Paul or George had one in the 60s (George ordered 35mm and 16mm film prints from the BFI until the 1980s to show at home over Christmas, etc.) though I believe Ringo had an early one (but not before 1969). Home Video cassettes (VHS, Betamax, Philips 2000 etc) didn't come in until 1975/6. The big explosion in home recording started when the price came down, September 1977. Sadly Alan died last year and Ray hasn't been in the best of health since 2016. At Alan's funeral, Ray said "why are we here again?". At 87 I suppose it's inevitable.
The Beatles indeed emerged from a Cavern in 1962 and lived with The President in 1963 before Paul lived rent free with his girlfriend (canny move, lad) and the others bought houses in 1964.
I think I saw that somewhere. Didn't Paul have a big theater organ he liked to read Superman comics on?
Sorry to hear of Alan's passing but his work with Ray will live forever. Bob Monkhouse did have a massive archive of material. I wonder what sort of recorder he had in 1967. Presumably it would have been some sort of professional machine (reel to reel) in those days? I'm guessing the tapes would have been expensive and his archive would have majored on comedy. Interesting that his company did however provide some material for the Abbey Road special. Would it have been enough for him to consider taping the programme I wonder?
I always recall seeing Abbey Road being played in its entirely on BBC. So I assume it was this programme. Don't recall too much more about from being amazed that an 'LP Record', as we called them then, would be played in its entirety on BBC television. Wish I could remember more!
I've checked with people who were involved in the cataloguing of the Bob Monkhouse archive after his death and sadly there was no home video recording of the show in his collection. Apparently almost all of the home video items recorded before the late seventies featured him. He would obviously have access to any footage his company supplied in higher quality 16mm or 35mm film format so recording on video tape, even of his own supplied material, would have been a little pointless as in those day it would have been rudimentary quality (probably around 200 lines for domestic type video recorders of that age. At least it removes another unknown possibility from the mix. If the BBC did not keep it and it was not sold elsewhere just about the only other possibility is that Apple requested a copy. It is possible but since that had pretty minimal direct input and it was probably considered at best a free publicy vehicle they may not have considered it worthwhile - they should have made it a condition of supplying the material of course but it was proably not considered important enough. Having said that they do have copies of other material such as the Hey Jude/Revolution performances so it is not impossible. I somehow think though that this would have been less of a priority and I'm guessing that they would have at least thought about including something from it on the recent promo video collection. It is possible that the lack of any direct band performance or officially sanctioned animation would have made inclusion of the material less important. The only clip that would possibly have fitted would have been the A Day In The Life footage but this was obviously used in its native form on the song itself. It's not impossible they have a copy but I'm guessing we won't see it (unless perhaps they expand the Anthology for blu-ray and take another trawl through their archives. Since we are not getting key video footage such as Let It Be or Shea or other live performance such as Paris or Japan I would not hold my breath for this!
My pleasure. I must address something that you mention above though... I can't see the TV Times for that week being useful to us because back then it contained listings on ITV-only programmes. There may have been other 'independent' mags that held BBC listings back then - eg Look In just came to mind but that was all ITV as well and didn't start until 1971 anyway. For those who don't know, that was a kid's magazine that had comic strips, features and more on the popular shows of the day. There just could be something else along those lines. Just a thought!
The last paragraph... so sad to read. I didn't know that Alan was no longer with us and Ray too - my heart really goes out to his family, having someone very close to me having what he appears to be suffering with. Genius writers of Steptoe, Hancock and more (my two favourite comedies!) But it's nice to read that you used to meet up with them and boy, would I have loved to have done the same...
Yes, I stand corrected. The TV Times was a typo. I did mean Radio Times. Obviously at that time the two magazines did deal exclusively with either BBC or the independent channels. I'm sure I would have asked my friend to check the correct magazine, but even if I didn't he would have known what I meant!
They were tremendously energetic and great fun to be with. Ray would hang out with us at the bar until 4 or 5 in the morning, then join us for breakfast at 8! Alan would have been in bed since 11 ! Ray's stories of being in LA in the 60s when they were screenwriting for a couple of movies and working out the Steptoe/Sandford and Son deal were hysterical: His fight with Robert Mitchum and arguing communism with Ronald Regan; remember Ray and Alan were both 6'4" ! Yes, our annual dinners were highly anticipated, and the last one, in 2015, was very poignant. Here's Alan in the purple shirt with Ray L and June Whitfield R at our 2015 dinner. I left the table to take this sneaky blurred snapshot.
Thanks for posting this! Any time they were interviewed, I'd not be able to miss it... I didn't mind at all them recounting things like how they came up with the idea for Steptoe, time and time again. They were just so entertaining to just listen to and always came across as very nice chaps - just great to be around. Not just that, but highly knowledgeable and unafraid to tackle 'issues' in their writing.
I once asked Alan what line of his he was most proud of and he said first "Ray came up with all the best lines, I just typed it up" but then admitted he was fond of a line he wrote from Hancock: "I've got friends all over the world! All over the world! None in this country, but all over the world." He said it seemed appropriate in the modern world of Twitter and Facebook. And Ray said that he'd love to write for Count Arthur Strong, he was the funniest current comedian.
I could hear Hancock's voice speaking that line, just as I was reading it ... it's the 'delivery' of course too. And he was a master at that.
The New Musical Express dated 13 September 1969 carried this preview of the Late Night Line-Up show BEATLES' NEW ALBUM GETS BBC-2 PREVIEW The whole of BBC-2's "Late Night Line-Up" on Friday, Aeptember 19 will be devoted to a preview of the Beatles' new album "Abbey Road". This will be the first occasion on which the tracks have been played publicly, and the first time that this long-running TV series has confined itself solely to showcasing an album. Film of the Beatles will be seen while the tracks are playing, and it is likely that one or two of the group will be present in the studio to discuss the LP. The NME understands that the Beatles themselves approached the "Late Night Line-Up" office with this programme suggestion because they like the manner in which the series deals with pop subjects.. Meanwhile, in view of the late delivery of the LP sleeve, its British release have been put back two weeks to September 26. Beatle Ringo Starr was admitted to Middlesex Hospital last weekend suffering from internal pains. He was detained for observation with a suspected intestinal obstruction but was expected to be discharged later this week. Well a few things didn't pan out there. No-one live in the studio and only a limited amount of Beatles footage to accompany the tracks.
Sadly, it doesn't look like the NME ran a review of the actual programme. There is a track by track run down of the album in the following issue but it was probably too late to include a review before it went to press. It don't think the following issue included one either although the album was given pride of place on both the front and back covers of the paper. Perhaps the show was reviewed elsewhere.
I thought that was Her Chastity... Oh, I mean Her Majesty. Being an American, I never realized that The Queen and Her Majesty were the same ...
I was just speaking to someone (a fellow long-time fan) about this and he recalled that the programme was arranged at short notice - as were most of the Late Night Line Up shows, to ensure that they were dealing with cutting-edge topics, and that it was only announced at the beginning of the week in which it was broadcast, in time for it to be reported in the music press, which came out on Thursday (Wednesday night in London). As ever, it's hard to say how accurate these recollections are, but now he's mentioned this, it seems to be how I remember it as well. So whether it was advertised in the BBC listings magazine The Radio Times, seems dubious. As mentioned, it's certainly not in the archived listings on-line. Not many of the Late Night Line Up shows in these archives have any details of content in them. The delay in sleeve artwork, which meant a delayed release date, mentioned in an earlier post, was news to me, but would also account for some sudden decisions about advertising. The first tracks I heard, on Kenny Everett's Saturday morning BBC show, were the end of the medley, Polythene Pam into She Came in Through the Bathroom Window, which he had on a promo disc or an acetate, so he said. He played it maybe two weeks before the album came out.