The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour

Greetings traveller, and welcome back! You catch us in a state of some flux as the decorators are almost finished, just in time for the NEW series of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour! Taking a slightly more focused approach to profane nostalgia, it's time to slough off the aviators and reach for the wayfarers and speciality spin-off merchandise... In this special sneak-peek, we wave goodbye to the ca...

HOOTS! Grab the hand-sanitiser, whatever's left of the scotch and remember to stick a lump of coal in your pocket for The Peggy Mount Hogmanay Hour! Messrs Velvet, Blackout and Bognops rouse from their festive sloth to see in the new year, or perhaps more pertinently see out the old. We drop in with Dame Penelope Keith assuring that us The 70s Stop Here!, an unequaled archival treat which values s...

They said it couldn’t be done, but here we are at last - the twelfth day of Pegmas and the final seasonal serving of treasured, televisual treats.  As was staunch tradition once upon a telly time, Christmas Eve bestowed upon us a lavish light-entertainment repast in the form of BBC’s Christmas with Val Doonican from 1986. Messrs Velvet, Blackout and Bognops pull on festive knitwear, a well-pressed...

A home is where the Christmas heart is and that’s certainly the case in this penultimate seasonal episode (yes, you’re nearly there). Velvet, Blackout and Bognops sit athwart the glitterati syndicate known as ‘The Window Gang’ and view the yuletide hustle and bustle at Paradise Lodge in Yorkshire Television’s festive edition of  You’re Only Young Twice from 1980.  Although the episode is entitled...

Our trenchant trinity of Velvet, Blackout and Bognops lend themselves to something traditionally competitive as they approach the oche and ‘take it steady’ before scoring Central Television’s Bullseye Christmas Celebrity Special from 1988.  Accompanying James Bowen Esq. is of course  Anthony Green, and in a manner uncannily similar to a Dickensian apologue, they’re visited by visions from sport an...

In a return to the traditional enactment of yesteryear-viewing endemic to pre-1990, Velvet and Blackout play host to a Christmas guest who accompanies their scrutiny of an abundance of archetypes courtesy of Michael Yarwood and his Christmas Show of 1978. Not a politician nay a celebrity of the day is safe from the posturing, posing and parodying of the mimicking Mike and his arguably fundamental...

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a ghost story, some say, and oft finding an appetite for the seasonally supernatural our heroes Velvet and Blackout set off to Norfolk to excavate the crowning glory of Christmas Eve, 1972 on the BBC. Yes, the televised adaptation of M.R. James’ A Warning To The Curious lures us into a malevolent and malignant mood, courtesy of an avaricious ex-convict and t...

It is said that Christmas is a time for tradition, and there’s no better setting for Velvet and Blackout, than Dickensian London, as they visit  Auntie Beeb’s seasonal offering from 1985 in the form of Kenny Everett’s Christmas Carol. With such a fine supporting cast (God bless them, every one), and two highly-revered script writers behind him, Cuddly Ken can’t possibly fail to guarantee giggles a...

Substituting the traditional motifs of moss green and Santa-red for garish neon and pastels, Velvet And Blackout alight from a horse and carriage ride with a ‘ho ho ho’ as they experience the ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Come-To-Our-Screens in the form of 1980s avant-garde and adroit avatar, Max Headroom in his Christmas Special from 1986.  Are the limiting physical parameters of a television screen...

It’s Day Five of the constant Christmas content from Velvet and Blackout and the atmosphere is that of an all-night holiday once they step inside Russ Abbott’s Christmas Madhouse courtesy of London Weekend Television in 1984. The titular star is joined by an Avengers assemblage of contemporary vaudevillians to assist in the delivery of quick-fire, slapstick hilarity but is this enough to keep you...

In this fourth, festival feature we take a pharmaceutical turn and find Velvet and Blackout in a hospital ward of all places with three unlikely, supposedly-ailing acquaintances courtesy of Yorkshire Television’s 1981 Christmas edition of the sitcom Only When I Laugh. On initial examination, it would seem that costume in the form of elegant gentleman’s pyjama-wear is in good health however a melan...

The cosy confines of Christmas armchairs by the fire are abandoned for the cold, far reaches of the galaxy today, as  Velvet and Blackout harness the Power of Grayskull and romp among birthday celebrations on the planet of Eternia with Prince Adam and Princess Adora in The He-Man and She-Ra Christmas Special from 1985.  Just like the Earth-bound Orko, they discover much, including the true meaning...

In the twinkling of a star above a stable, our couple of Christmas critics return to a festive finger-buffet of contemporary celebrities from 1982 courtesy of London Weekend Television’s Punchlines, (with Lennie Bennett). Like any culinary collection, there’s bound to be the odd tasteless offering and this Christmas Eve broadcast is no exception.  A seasonal stockpiling of contemporary comedic tal...

’Tis the season to be jolly once more, and hark! This heralds some frivolous and festive outpouring from Messrs Velvet and Blackout who, in the first of twelve (yes…twelve) daily broadcasts, endeavour to trudge through a blizzard of ghosts from the Yuletide televisual past. No quest is too Little or indeed too Large as their first frost-covered outing attests, examining Syd and Eddie’s respective...

Join us for a between-the-series bonus episode of The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour, where teleportational trauma and practical menswear meet in a head-on collision. The social awareness of naive dragons and over-promoted store clerks is analysed under test conditions, as Doctor Velvet and Blackout pore over the first episode of Chorlton And The Wheelies, as well as a Series 4 outing from Are You Bein...

All good things must come to an end, as The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour’s terrifying triptych of pernicious programming reaches its unholy zenith. The podcast shines a light upon that which should never have been unearthed, as The Munsters Today presents a far more horrifying spectacle than any of the writers or producers could have foreseen. Then back to more comforting times in Hammer House Of Hor...

The second tarry of the week approaching TotenSonntag finds our dour duo, Velvet and Blackout, immersed in a world of windmills, witches and whimsy, as their voyage whisks them to the dark delights offered by Emu’s All Live Pink Windmill Show; a showcase of the soured cream of stage school talent amongst other anti-climactic features. The cheery, naive tone of the antipodean bird’s comfort zone is...

We reconvene with our couple of contumelious and cogent cajolers at the embarkation of a week of Samhain celebrations, to dust the sprawling cobwebs from a solid-oak planchette and summon  ghostly intimations from televisual spectres long since departed. The first calling heralds the manifestation of a triumvirate of American film studio derivatives in the form of 1980’s Drak Pack; the animated ad...

In this euphonious and mellifluous episode, Doctor Velvet and Blackout are joined once again by the estimable Oswald Bognops to partake of repartee a la television vintage. Rural yet congenial hospitality is the order of the day as our ‘wholly' trinity of annotators sample the delights of country living, courtesy of Bod and his mates, who’ve decided to open a rooming house of sorts ‘pon arable far...

This week’s retrospective televisual constitutional adopts a scholastic and erudite resonance as Doctor Velvet and Blackout commingle with the tawny and tangerine studio set of BBC Television’s Think Of A Number; once comfortable, all manner of scientific and mathematical remonstrance are thrust their way courtesy of Mr Jonny, (erstwhile Graham Thalben) Ball Esquire. Cerebral exertion completed, a...

The energetic arrival of our eponymous hosts Doctor Velvet and Blackout is heralded this week amidst chaotic, trauma inducing cacophony, extraneous luminosity and (to adopt the apt regional parlance), some bang-on Callard and Bowsers, courtesy of Mr Michael Reid and his Runaround programme. After enjoying a harmonious recital by pop quartet The Jags, we move swiftly onward to prime time entertainm...

Fear (feer) noun 1 a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid. 2 a specific instance of or propensity for such a feeling.   The demarcation of the aforementioned is the selected substratum for this week’s episode as Doctor Velvet and Blackout self-immerse and wallow in an ambience of forebodi...

In this week's friendly, neighbourhood episode we find Messrs Velvet and Blackout ambling in the aisles whilst speculating on the sartorial protocols of a University costume party in Upper State New York, and the flaws and truisms of a decidedly languorous machiavellian scheme pitted against Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends. After a tentative rummage through the 'Bargain Bin', the topic turns to...

The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour comes perilously close to living up to its doomful nomenclature as 'one' half of the presenting duo (no names) takes against an innocent, well-meaning 1980s children's programme with a gusto normally reserved for the news cycle of the 21st century. The esteemed company of Master Jonathan Briggs is closely followed by that of Mr Richard Turpin Esq, who naturally comes...

Doctor Velvet and Blackout are caught on-the-hop and without the best doilies out, as the podcast plays host to an impromptu visitor! Yes, The Peggy Mount Calamity Hour has its first guest of the series in the shape of Mr Ozzy Bognops, all the better to decode the linguistic mysteries of Jigsaw and the middle-class angst of Terry & June. How many condenser mics could realistically be hired under t...