The best thing about my birthday as a kid was that it always fell in half term. We didn’t live that near any multiplex cinemas, so most of my trips to the pictures were in school holidays. My mother started dropping me off at the Showcase more often from the age of 10 or 11 …
I’ve had a lovely time listening to RetroTube over the last few months, enjoying the conversations of two friends as they share their love of archive television with one another – it really is right up my street. Heather and Adam’s slightly different tastes ensure the show varies from Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) to Blake’s 7 …
In the same month that issue 2 of Blake’s 7 Monthly reached newsstands, Marvel UK also published issue 39 of Starburst magazine. The monthly magazine has covered Blake’s 7 in several issues and this one takes us behind the scenes of its visual effects. The November 1981 version of Starburst has a tagline of ‘The …
Doctor Who had had its own magazine for two years by the time Blake’s 7 Monthly launched. After just over a year of being published weekly, the magazine went monthly. On the cover of issue 57 it is simply titled Doctor Who, but inside it’s clear that the contributors now consider the magazine to be …
It’s Autumn 1981. With Series D of Blake’s 7 on the horizon, what better time to launch a magazine devoted to the programme than just before the final series airs? Enter: Blake’s 7 Monthly! In between watching Series D, I’ll be sharing a few features from each issue. Throughout the magazine, there is no consistency …
Gender Education My next episode of The Goodies moves us swiftly further along to series 2, episode 11. At the Goodies’ headquarters, a well-turned-out, mature woman with glasses sneaks up on Tim and Graeme. She’s instantly recognisable as a faux-Mary Whitehouse and I must admit I was surprised that I saw this so quickly, yet …
Blake’s 7 is something I have been planning to look into for years but I didn’t actually know much about it – a BBC science-fiction series with a bunch of people on a spaceship. Was it just going to be a duller, dryer, version of Red Dwarf? I’d first come across it in the pages …