#television #australia #germainegreer #clivejames #abc
This is a reminder of the pleasures of night time television on the ABC in Adelaide the night of Monday, 1st July 1985.
Order of business:
First up is a promo for a barely remembered show Annika.
That's followed by a promo for the barely remembered Open File.
Next comes a teaser for the main show Clive James In London, featuring Germaine Greer and Punch editor Alan Coren.
Then comes a News Break, a reminder of the ludicrous days when the ABC rebranded its television news as "The National".
Two stories in the news help date this clip. The first is a story in Tribune, 3rd July 1985, telling the story of the Premiers' conference, fractious farmers and the notorious Queensland peanut premier, Joh Bjelke-Petersen - Trove here.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/259563099 (newspaper/article/259563099)
Another story concerns a corrupt former NSW minister, Rex Jackson, being committed for trial. See The Canberra Times, 2nd July 1985, Trove here.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/127205984 (newspaper/article/127205984)
After the weather comes a promo for Nicholas Nickleby, a reminder that in the old days the ABC was the preferred clearing house for British drama.
Then comes Clive James in London, made in 1984 but repeated in slow moving Adelaide in 1985. This makes the show two thirds Australian, though the connection of James and Greer to Australia was by then extremely tenuous (at least it was closer than that of Coren).
Coren's obituary in the Graudian:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2007/oct/19/pressandpublishing.television (media/2007/oct/19/pressandpublishing.television).
If you don't know about Kogarah boy James and mad feminist lady Greer, and their voluntary exile in England, you can't be dinkum.
James followed the show's usual format, riffing on and generating laughs from events of the day, followed by the interview with Greer, with Coren then joining in.
That's followed by a promo for a show about Hollywood, hosted by James Mason, and a promo for the premiere of a short-lived current affairs show featuring Richard Carleton and Max Walsh, The Carleton Walsh Report.
Both journalists are now dead, Carleton in 2006 and Walsh in 2022
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Carleton (Richard_Carleton)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Walsh (Max_Walsh)
That's followed by a final "The National" news break and the weather.
The featured hostage crisis has a wiki.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TWA_Flight_847 (TWA_Flight_847)
Finally there's a promo for a story about a new wonder petrol additive from gum trees in CountryWide (which didn't go anywhere), a promo for the ABC's A Big Country, and little rant from evangelist Billy Graham.
Memory lane for Adelaideans of a cardigan-wearing kind.