TV Pop Diaries
Pop Music on British Television 1955 - 1999

From TV Times "An informal mixture of comedy, music, film, news, people in the news, cartoons, sports results... in fact, anything of interest late on a Sunday night."

A curious mixture, a Sunday late night news magazine, co-written and starring Michael Bentine, and co-written and directed by Dick Lester. From the description in the TV Times the show seemed to lean towards comedy and featured, along with Bentine, legendary character actors Clive Dunn and Dick Emery. The reference to "cartoons of Biograph" in TV Times presumably refers to Bob Godfrey's wonderful creations. The Reg Owen Septet were the resident group, while the designer was Robert Fuest, later to work on The Avengers and direct the Dr Phibes movies in the early seventies.

The musical guests included Lonnie Donegan, Shirley Bassey, Cleo Laine, Humphrey Lyttelton, Rosemary Squires, most of whom appeared on more then one show.

The first series was broadcast on Sundays, moving to Saturday for the second series beginning 12th September 1959.

The show's format would be later copied by ABC's Gazette, Granada's Late Scene and any amount of satire shows from the early sixties onwards.

AFTER HOURS

ABC

5th October 1958 - 19th December 1959