Does Armageddon Loom? BBC1 Closedown, 4th October 1988

Описание: I don't have any anthemic BBC1 closedowns on this channel. Let's remedy that right now with this one from October 1988. I think this was uploaded before years ago by someone who's not here anymore. I downloaded it ages back to mess around with, and in the interim the original account I got it from vanished, and their videos with them. A quick googling suggests the said former YouTuber has moved on to DailyMotion, the French YouTube, under the name "BBC TV Gold" and has re-uploaded it there. Or that might be another archivist. Either way, here's that file back on YouTube where it belongs, with all due (if vague) credit to whoever actually captured and shared it originally.

It's Tuesday, October the 4th, 1988 - technically moments into Wednesday October 5th, but for BBC1's purposes it's still Tuesday until the last note of the National Anthem fades away. The announcer on duty is Cathy Stewart, the poetess of Pres A, and she links out of a Lionel Richie concert to the promise of one by Alexander O'Neal. I don't remember him, but apparently he was briefly huge here in the UK as a libidnous soul singer in the Pendergrass/Vandross/Wildebeeste mould, all deep eyes and pencil moustache and apparently a pac-a-mac, at least in this photo.

And vaguely connected (in that music is a thing you hear): the BBC Radio Show is abroad. To celebrate the 21st anniversary of BBC Radios 1-4, they had a big exhibition party thing at Earl's Court in imitation of an annual tradition that had ironically been scrapped just before the new stations were introduced. Tomorrow, Woo Gary Davies On Your Radio will be presenting his show from it, and some people from The Archers will show up.

As for tomorrow's television, here's the overview, accompanied by the big glowing 1 usually seen with a globe-patterned ball bearing rolling helter-skelter in front of it . First, current Radio 1 Breakfast presenter Simon Mayo's on Wogan, presumably talking about the Radio Show, uncomfortably squeezed in between Kingsley Amis and Auberon Waugh. After which, hoorah, Doctor Who's back for its 25th season and part one of Remembrance of the Daleks, which is great. Cathy does her best to convince viewers to tune in to it instead of Coronation Street. Then Joan Hickson in a repeat of the previous year's Miss Marple serial, Nemesis. Not directed by Nicholas Winding Refn. Then Anne Robinson looms out of the screen with Points of View, and after the news an apocalyptic documentary from fly-on-the-wall pioneer Paul Watson about Thanksgiving '87 in West Virginia where the world is coming to an end which sounds like a trailer for now. And then just to cheer you up, Sportsnight has two men beating the shit out of each other with fists. Specifically a flyweight punch bout with Duke Mackenziie (he wins). Also a bunch of UEFA Cup ties.

And now the weather: it's going to piss down overnight, slightly more in the West than the East. And then tomorrow it's going to piss down absolutely everywhere until you die.

Then Cathy puts on a PIF. I think the deployment of these at closedown was mostly to do with the whims of whoever was at the controls. I certainly can't see any particular pattern. Here's Jane Asher anyway, standing around a primary school lamenting that all these children are going to die horribly by being flung through windscreens because their parents just don't care enough to fit seatbelts. It's not just the law, it's a good idea. To prove it, here's a genuinely chilling demonstration, in slow motion with lots of shattering glass sounds, Asher's disapproving voice on the soundtrack, and a freeze frame with no onscreen text, logos or anything to indicate a point of origin. And Cathy Stewart providing the closing tautology, which I think the BBC included in a confused BBC-ish attempt to add clarity to something that was already clear. It wasn't an advert, it was a film, but not one created by the BBC itself. And yet it didn't have credits, so the BBC figured the audience needed them to provide an explanation of some kind, so that everyone knew where they stood. In reality no-one cared and it was just more confusing and frightening this way, but never mind.

And so to the clock. It's only five past midnight, but what do you want from the BBC? There's always the radio, and Cathy points out that you might could listen to Round Midnight on Radio 2 with Angela Rippon talking to a lady who's organising an exhibition of works by the then-recently deceased Henry Moore, the man who sculpted holes. She's followed at 1 by the Dark Lord Alex Lester and Nightride. Apart from that you're out of luck. Radio 2 is the only one that really goes 24 hours at this point; Radio 1 has twenty minutes worth of Richard Skinner before it goes to bed, Radio 3 already has, and Radio 4's got some schools programmes about Metaphysical Bloody Poets before switching to the World Service. Or you could just go to bed.