Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2025-10-09T08:36:19.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Lost 1950s cowboy show Hank Rides Again rediscovered after 64 years
items: The Likely Lads at 60 – how lost radio episodes of the classic sitcom were recovered
items: Lost episodes of radio classic The Clitheroe Kid will return to the airwaves
items: Hancock at 100: Tony Hancock centenary celebrated with broadcast of 'lost' episode
items: How lost episodes of Dixon of Dock Green and Softly, Softly were returned to the archives
items: Radio Times 1967 cover star Linda Lawrence remembers iconic photoshoot
items: Radio Times Treasure Hunt for lost TV and radio gems draws huge response
items: Join the Radio Times Treasure Hunt to find lost gems of TV and radio

Lost 1950s cowboy show Hank Rides Again rediscovered after 64 years
type: item
date: 2025-10-06T23:01:23.000Z
creator: Ralph Montagu
subject: Drama
subject: TV
description: Believed lost for over 60 years, 1950s TV cowboy Hank rides back onto our screens – thanks to the Radio Times Treasure Hunt.
encoded: It sounds like the sequel to a Wild West classic – which it is of sorts, but only to those brought up with the children's television of the 1950s. Hank, "the world's shortest tall-story teller and the toughest guy in the west", was created by Francis Coudrill and appeared live within the BBC's children's series Whirligig, which launched at Lime Grove Studios on 25 November 1950. The first episode was simply billed as The Adventures of Hank, but in the following edition his slot was titled Hank Rides Again – and so it remained. Each episode would open with cowboy-attired Coudrill talking to the camera with a puppet version of Hank and his horse Silver King to introduce the story. The popularity of cowboy films had already familiarised the television audience with Wild West speak, so Coudrill developed a dialect based on this. By May 1952, his cowboy characters had drawn the attention of Radio Times, which reported: "Many viewers, by no means all children, have written to ask who provides the diverse voices of 'Hank Rides Again', that cheerful Western item in 'Whirligig'. "The answer is simple: Francis Coudrill is a ventriloquist and provides all the voices himself. He also does pretty well everything else connected with the rootin', tootin' old-timer. "We met this amiable 36-year-old man the other day and he told us how the programme comes into being. 'First I think up the story and at the same time devise the animations so that the movements express the idea in the simplest way. (I made my first animated cut-outs at school and have since used animations in various ways, including animated pictures for nursery walls.) "'When the various movements are worked out, I cut out and paint the actual animations which are seen on the television screen. Some of the animations I completely assemble – the rest I leave for Alfred Wurmser and his assistants, who also operate them. Their cues are taken from the dialogue, which I write.' "Coudrill has a keen critic in his six-year-o…

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The Likely Lads at 60 – how lost radio episodes of the classic sitcom were recovered
type: item
date: 2024-12-16T08:00:54.000Z
creator: Ralph Montagu
subject: audio
subject: Radio
description: Six decades after their debut, The Likely Lads return with rediscovered radio episodes celebrating their comedy legacy.
encoded: Sixty years ago today, The Likely Lads made their television debut. Written by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, the comedy which gave birth to characters Terry Collier and Bob Ferris came to be seen as a classic of the period. "James Bolam and Rodney Bewes, two young Northern actors, play the heroes in this new situation-comedy series," reported Radio Times. "Around 21, working as apprentices, earning £12-14 a week, acquisitive, irreverent, but with a streak of Northern commonsense: these are the Likely Lads. "They are neither Mods nor Rockers, thugs nor intellectuals; they fit into none of the neat pigeon-holes of the sociologists. They are not types but normal human beings who have an exceptional propensity for getting themselves into funny situations." Whilst the series was set in the North, many people living in the region it portrayed would have struggled to see it, as the new BBC2 network which carried the show was initially only relayed from Crystal Palace and Sutton Coldfield transmitters. This was put right in time for the second series in March 1965 when the comedy switched to BBC1. Soon after the third and final series in 1966, James Bolam adapted the scripts for radio and these were broadcast in two series between 1967 and 1968. <img src="https://images.immediate.co.uk/production/volatile/sites/3/2024/12/Likely-Lads-S2E4-Big-Spenders-05-aae1162.jpg" width="1080" height="891" alt="A black-and-white still from The Likely Lads, featuring James Bolam as Terry Collier and Rodney Bewes as Bob Ferris standing with two women, all dressed in mid-1960s attire. The group is pictured smiling and chatting near a van with a sign reading "The Moppetts are coming," capturing a lighthearted moment typical of the show's humour." title="Likely Lads S2E4 Big Spenders 05" /> The combination of 21 television episodes and another 16 on radio had evidently gone into the public psyche. In January 1973, Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais created a sequel, Whatever Happened to the Li…

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Lost episodes of radio classic The Clitheroe Kid will return to the airwaves
type: item
date: 2024-09-05T15:27:16.000Z
creator: Ralph Montagu
subject: audio
subject: Radio
subject: BBC Radio 4
description: Radio 4 Extra are set to broadcast episodes which haven’t been heard on our airwaves for over 60 years.
encoded: A version of this article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. "Monday at Eight, on the Light". These might have been the words spoken by the Light Programme’s duty announcer to promote The Clitheroe Kid, the popular radio comedy which occupied this slot for most of its 290 episodes. Its place in the schedules may owe something to the idea that listeners, up to 10 million of them at the show’s peak, needed a few laughs after the first day of the working week. The show starred comedian Jimmy Clitheroe, who was actually 35 when he started playing the part of the cheeky schoolboy, but because he had not physically grown beyond the age of 11, he could pass for a child of that age, complete with a convincing high-pitched voice. Clitheroe’s first billing in Radio Times was in January 1952 as Wishee-Washee in Aladdin. Listeners heard a 30-minute excerpt from the pantomime production at the London Casino starring Julie Andrews as the Princess. From 1955, Clitheroe started making regular appearances in radio variety shows, notably the Northern Variety Parade series in which he was soon given his own show, Jimmy Clitheroe as the Call Boy. In it, he took listeners backstage to meet the stars of radio music hall but, in one edition, he was given a sketch in which his Clitheroe Kid character was introduced to listeners. The audience reaction was very positive and in 1957 The Clitheroe Kid was commissioned as series in its own right, albeit limited to the Home Service in the north. Only in May 1958 did The Clitheroe Kid move to the Light Programme for transmission across the country. The show became immensely popular and would run for a total of 14 years, finishing in 1972, only 7 months before Jimmy Clitheroe died. Most of the early episodes of The Clitheroe Kid were missing from the BBC archives, but many have been recovered in recent years thanks to our friends at the Radio Circle. Radio 4 Extra is now scheduling another six which haven’t been heard on our airwaves for over…

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Hancock at 100: Tony Hancock centenary celebrated with broadcast of 'lost' episode
type: item
date: 2024-05-10T10:03:26.000Z
creator: Ralph Montagu
subject: Comedy
subject: TV
description: Radio 4 Extra is honoring Tony Hancock with a five-hour special, including previously lost recordings and rare sketches, celebrating 100 years since the comedian's birth.
encoded: The centenary of Tony Hancock’s birth on 12th May has presented Radio 4 Extra with the perfect opportunity for a five-hour run of archive recordings featuring the comedian. Introducing the shows, Jim Lee will be joined by Martin Gibbons, president of the Tony Hancock Appreciation Society. The first item will be a previously lost edition of Star Bill, which went out live on coronation week in June 1953. The recording, which came from the Bob Monkhouse Collection, was Hancock’s last starring radio vehicle before he and writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson teamed again for Hancock’s Half Hour, which began the following year. The centenary line-up also features the 2014 compilation Steve Punt's Hancock Cuttings and two rarely heard sketches from the BBC Light Programme’s Calling All Forces. In the first of these, from February 1952, we hear Hancock reprise his role as the tutor to Peter Brough’s ventriloquial doll, Archie Andrews. For Hancock aficionados, the most significant item is an edition of Hancock’s Half Hour which hasn’t been heard since its first broadcast on 10th May 1955. The episode, later named A Visit to Swansea, was on the missing list until a recent discovery by Richard Harrison of the Radio Circle, our partners in the Radio Times Treasure Hunt. The tape was part of the same collection in which another lost Hancock, The Marriage Bureau, was found in 2022. So why were the two discoveries not announced at the same time? The answer provides an insight into the work of the group which regularly receives old tapes containing off-air recordings, sometimes in their hundreds. Richard Harrison told us that the Hancocks were but two of 600 tapes bought at auction, probably from a house clearance sale. As he went through the reels, anything which was unlabelled was set aside to tackle later; such recordings demand more time as the whole reel has to be listened to and identified. There was a tape box labelled 'Hancock's Return' but, as is often the way, the reel ins…

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How lost episodes of Dixon of Dock Green and Softly, Softly were returned to the archives
type: item
date: 2024-03-26T07:00:58.000Z
creator: Ralph Montagu
subject: Comedy
subject: Drama
subject: TV
description: The Radio Times Treasure Hunt has uncovered more episodes thought lost for ever.
encoded: The Radio Times Treasure Hunt has received hundreds of responses since it was launched in October 2022. The majority have concerned radio programmes, most recently giving rise to the BBC's Hidden Treasures season covered by David Crawford last week, but now we have a television discovery to celebrate. On Saturday 30 March, an episode of Dixon of Dock Green from March 1959, thought to be lost forever, will be screened on Talking Pictures TV, which has been running a series of repeats of the classic police drama that ran from 1955 to 1976 and starred Jack Warner as the avuncular PC George Dixon. The episode Duffy Calls the Tune came to the attention of the RT Treasure Hunt from collector David Stead. "I knew that most episodes of Dixon of Dock Green didn't exist as the early ones went out live and only a few were recorded on film," explained David. "I wasn't sure how the 16mm film would look after it was digitised, but was delighted by the quality of the sound and picture. After being lost in the woods of Dock Green for so long, it's great that people will get to see the episode again!" "I purchased the film some years ago from another collector who didn't appreciate the importance of it. I had planned to return it in 2022 for the BBC's 100th anniversary, in the name of my closest friend of almost 40 years, Martin Holder. He had been diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer and it would have been his parting gift to the TV world, something he would be remembered for. Unfortunately, progression of his illness came too fast. That hit me hard and it wasn't until the middle of 2023 that I arranged the film's return to the BBC through the Radio Times Treasure Hunt." David also returned a missing episode of the BBC series Softly Softly from 1968, entitled The Good Girl, and an episode from a comedy series called Them that was assumed to have been wiped without trace. Them was made in 1972 and is one of Johnny Speight's lesser-known creations, following two hapless 'gentlem…

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Radio Times 1967 cover star Linda Lawrence remembers iconic photoshoot
type: item
date: 2023-10-31T08:00:36.000Z
creator: Ralph Montagu
subject: audio
subject: Radio
subject: TV
description: Radio Times put out a call late last year in an effort to identify the cover model.
encoded: When Radio 1 hit the airwaves in September 1967, it was Tony Blackburn whose voice was first heard on the 'swinging new radio service'. It was also Tony who was seen on the TV news coverage of the day with Controller Robin Scott looking on. Readers of Radio Times, however, were presented with something different: a young woman dancing to the music coming from her transistor radio. The use of a model rather than a broadcasting personality was quite a departure for Radio Times but the cover image so epitomised the archetypal Radio 1 listener that a cartoon of what seemed to be the same girl regularly appeared next to the Radio 1 listings. The cover was the first edition of RT to be regularly printed in colour and, as time went on, the 'Dolly Bird' came to represent more than the start of Radio 1; she was the embodiment of a new pop era at the BBC. And so when we came to select our ten covers from key moments in history, this had to be one of them. But who was this uncredited model? Our recent appeal was answered by reader Glenn Reuben who recognised her as Linda Lawrence, a member of the then recently formed song and dance group The Young Generation. We wasted no time in tracking Linda down to see what she remembered. "I just went for an audition and they told me I'd got it. Then they said – the BBC being cheapskates – can you provide shoes in orange? So I just chose a pair of my shoes and dyed them with Lady Esquire." It was a good match for the Radio 1 logo printed on her dress, which was made from paper. "It was massive at the back with great Bulldog clips attached and, to make it stand out, they had a fishing line pulling on it from the side." The morning’s photo shoot over, Linda was then asked to star in a short promotional film for Radio 1. "I had to be in bed and then Tony Blackburn’s programme started on the radio and I jumped out of bed, ran downstairs and got into a car (my Morris 1100), and drove off. It was like a little commercial for the radio station. …

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Radio Times Treasure Hunt for lost TV and radio gems draws huge response
type: item
date: 2022-11-15T13:39:17.000Z
creator: Ralph Montagu
subject: TV
description: An update on our search for old and missing recordings.
encoded: The Radio Times Treasure Hunt for lost gems from our TV and radio past, which we launched in October, has sparked hundreds of responses. Steve Arnold, founder of our partner organisation, the Radio Circle, reports: "Over 80 per cent of what’s being offered is radio, so we’ve been very busy. The range of material is quite remarkable, from pre-war programmes on 78rpm discs to cassette recordings made in the 1990s. "Our team of volunteers is carefully checking each item offered against the catalogues to see if it actually is missing." Keith Wickham, the Radio Circle’s restoration expert, is keen to point out that, even if a show is already present in the archives, they are careful not to discard alternative copies too quickly. Quality differences or edits in different recordings mean that a restored show can be made from a dozen or so off-air copies. Richard Harrison, the Circle’s media specialist, says that much of what is coming forward is on 1/4-inch reels that were in common use from the mid-'50s. "Some of the tapes are unlabelled so we won’t know what they contain until they can be played," he adds. "The number of mystery tapes runs into the hundreds so it will take a while to work through them all. "But I feel a sense of anticipation every time I lace up a spool on the tape desk: it just might contain another gem, such as the Hancock’s Half Hour I discovered recently." Any verified finds will be announced later in Radio Times, but the good news is that programmes unearthed so far include classic panel games, comedy, plays and DJ-hosted music shows, some being early examples of commercial radio. While recordings of missing TV shows are rarer, a few interesting offers have been made to us. Some are soundtracks of missing programmes (notably the BBC’s commentary on the Apollo 11 Moon landing), but we’ve also been offered items on film, including music performances from the late '60s. Do please continue to contact us with news of anything you unearth. Email treasureh…

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Join the Radio Times Treasure Hunt to find lost gems of TV and radio
type: item
date: 2022-10-04T07:00:35.000Z
creator: Ralph Montagu
subject: TV
description: Do you own old recordings which could help fill the gaps in the archives?
encoded: Do you have fond memories of a particular drama series or comedy show, but can’t find your favourite episodes? That may be because they are missing from the official archives. Certain episodes of Doctor Who and Hancock’s Half Hour rank amongst the most wanted recordings by TV and radio collectors but there is so much more, including entertainment, music, current affairs, and children’s – even the continuity announcements and news bulletins are of interest. Perhaps you have some old recordings which could help fill the gaps in the archives? If so, you can join in the Radio Times Treasure Hunt to restore lost programmes to the broadcast archives. Many of the stars of television started on radio and so the discovery of their early appearances on radio can be really significant. Since most early home recordings are sound-only, we are partnering with The Radio Circle, run by expert radio historians, who have successfully restored many classic shows to the BBC, for broadcast on Radio 4 Extra. We’re asking anyone who has recordings of television or radio programmes on old formats (cassettes, reel to reel tapes or even film) to let us know. In most cases, missing programmes date from the 1980s or before but there are some later examples. If you send us the details of what you have, we will run a check to see whether the programmes in question are missing from the archives. If they are, we would be pleased to pass them back to the broadcasters for digitisation so they can be preserved for the enjoyment of future generations. To contact us, please e-mail treasurehunt@radiotimes.com with your name and details of your find. Many programmes survive because off-air recordings were made using domestic equipment whilst others exist because copies were made for producers or overseas transmission and never returned. Because few people now have the machines to replay these, the tapes or films may well be gathering dust in an attic or garage. If you’re not sure what you have, please se…

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