Category: one-off dramas

Three Dead Souls Trapped in an Apartment – Mystery 80s Drama (IDENTIFIED – WE THINK!)

~ UnidentifiedWeirdTV ~ 5 Comments

Today’s UWTV entry comes from a member of the Weird British TV Memories group on Facebook, James Fish, who recalls a strange production on TV back in the 80s about three people trapped in an apartment, possibly in purgatory.

Over to James…

“I have a vivid memory from something fairly unnerving I saw some time during the 80’s in the UK with my family.

It starts off with a guy alone in an apartment. He is soon joined by 2 women and all 3 have no memory of how they got there. As they try and work it out, they get flashbacks of horrible deaths. The insinuation is that they are all dead.

I recall my mum explaining this next part to me because I was too young to understand. One of the women and the guy are gay. The other woman is straight. The gay woman takes a shine to the straight woman and the straight woman takes a shine to the gay man.

It’s obvious that none of them can be happy together because of this dynamic. Moving closer into despair, they all decide to leave the apartment but they emerge into what seems like an endless expanse of pitch dark corridors. They speculate that if they leave, they may wander round for ever and never find their way back. That’s where it ends.

So, does this ring any bells for anyone? I’m erring on the side of it being an episode of Tales of the Unexpected or Play for Today but I’ve looked through episode guides for them and cannot find anything even close. Thanks.”

Does anyone else recall this, or can anyone help James identify and locate this production? If so, please leave a comment below or email us!

07/11/23 – An update to this entry; it seems like this UWTV memory may have been identified!

It seems likely to be the TV movie Vicious Circle from 1985, which was adapted from Jean-Paul Sartre’s play Huis Clos, known in most English-speaking countries under the title No Exit.

Vicious Circle – IMDb entry
No Exit – Wikipedia entry

As of the present moment, the film seems elusive, but we at UWTV are on the search for a copy; if you can help us locate it, please get in touch with us via email, Twitter or the comments below!

James is satisfied that this is the production he recalls; so big thanks to Twitter users The Earlham Review and Ian Winterton, and our followers Kevin Lyons and A Smith who commented below, for suggesting Vicious Circle!

In the meantime, we’d like to say a huge thank you to Feedspot, who have featured this blog in their list of Top 25 British TV Blogs on the web! Huge thanks to all at Feedspot, and to all our followers and contributors – we couldn’t have got this far without you!

Top 25 British TV Blogs

Animated short: Anthropomorphic Dog on the London Underground

~ UnidentifiedWeirdTV ~ 1 Comment

Today we continue our exploration into the dark recesses of televisual and psychological do-they-or-don’t-they-exist mysteries, with this UWTV memory submitted by one of our followers, Kirsty Asher, of a strange animated claymation short film about an anthropomorphic dog, seen on TV around the turn of the millennium.

Over to Kirsty!

“I have searched and searched for evidence this animated short exists because I definitely remember watching it, but haven’t managed to locate any stills or IMDb clues. It would have been late 90s, possibly early 00s. No idea what channel it was on I was probably about 7 or 8 when I watched it.

It was a claymation short about an anthropomorphic dog (I think he was a black labrador?), living in London and he gets on the Underground with his CD Walkman. All the other background characters were some form of anthropomorphic animal, at least as best as I can remember. Puts his headphones on when he gets on the tube and falls asleep, has weird, trippy nightmares that he thinks are really happening, then when he wakes up he realises the tube’s reached the end of the line and he’s locked in the carriage. I remember it ending with him all stressed and banging on the doors of the carriage.

I realise this is such a vague synopsis to go on but I’m hoping someone might remember!”

As this sounds like a particularly intriguing, and possibly disturbing production, it would be well worth identifying and locating this animated short.

Does anyone else recall seeing this? Or does anyone know the title or have access to a copy?

UPDATE (03/04/25) – It seems someone else remembers this production and is looking for it, going from this thread on Reddit (click to read). According to this Reddit user, the dog’s dreams featured him in a time machine controlled by a computer, travelling to three different periods in the future, the final one of which features a meteor falling from the sky, which hits before the dog can get back into his time machine, causing him to wake up. The ending apparently sees the dog running out from the tube carriage yelling “I need to tell people about my prophecy!”

As of yet, other users on the thread above have not been able to identify this piece of lost media.

If you can help us out, please respond below or send us an email!

Image Credit: “Metal Dog” by oliva732000 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Unidentified Short Film: Man Trapped in River

~ UnidentifiedWeirdTV ~ 2 Comments

Today’s UWTV memory comes from one of our blog followers, Stephanie Owens, who is looking on behalf of a friend for a strange short film or sketch, thought to have been shown on Channel 4, about a man trapped in a river.

This one may be slightly outside of our usual 1970s-90s range as the person who saw this thinks it was around 2002-2005 that they saw this. But it is certainly weird and seems to echo of classic Hauntology-era TV weirdness, so it is definitely worth an entry on UWTV.

So over to Stephanie, to relay the memory from her friend:

“Some time in the early 2000s – probably around 2002 – 2005 is a good time frame – there was a TV sketch (I think it was a Channel 4 thing) that revolved around a man that needed to be rescued from drowning. 

It is daytime and this man stands with water above his waist in a still river or canal, and is unable to move. Two men approach, walking along the towpath, wearing what seems to be Orthodox Jewish clothing. The man in the water asks for help, the two men realise that as it is the Sabbath they cannot help unless he is in danger. The man in the river considers his situation but does not think he is in immediate danger. The man in the water comes up with several suggestions including throwing the lifesaving ring, but the other men still say that as it is considered work, they can’t do that. The three enter into a dialogue to discuss the situation and to explore if there is an alternative. I believe it ended with no solution, and the man is left standing in the river.” 

This piece of lost media seems to echo of the much-emulated classic La Cabina, with its themes of someone becoming trapped, and unhelpful passers-by. Though it sounds from the description as though this one may have taken a more comedic approach as opposed to horror like the latter film and its many imitators.

Does anyone else recall seeing this film/sketch/clip, or know what it was or where to find it?

If you are able to help us identify this piece of lost media, please respond below or email us!

The Girl Who Could Fast-Forward Time – Disturbing 80s TV Drama (IDENTIFIED!)

~ UnidentifiedWeirdTV ~ 9 Comments

In the various forums on which weird TV of the Haunted Generation is discussed, many obscure and long-forgotten gems of British kids’ TV’s disturbing past come up. While many long-lost shows have been rediscovered this way, there is one that’s been enquired about on several occasions that has yet to be identified. And it’s got many of us curious to find it, because it sounds outright disturbing, if not frankly terrifying…

From the recollections of the people who’ve posted about it, this was a children’s TV drama, broadcast some time around the late 80s or early 90s. The description of this TV show is as follows:

A young girl comes into possession of a TV remote control device, that she can use to control the world around her, and fast-forward or rewind time. She uses this to her advantage, fast-forwarding through boring bits in life, putting life on pause etc. Then one day she gets tickets to see her favourite band in concert (some viewers remember this being Howard Jones, others claim it was Wham!), and can’t wait for the day of the concert to arrive. So she uses the device to fast forward to the day of the concert. But, while life is on fast forward, the girl falls asleep, and eventually wakes up as a decrepit old woman, looking into the mirror and seeing herself ancient and decrepit. She quickly reaches for the remote and tries to rewind back to her youth, but accidentally hits fast forward and crumbles into a skeleton. The last shot is of her looking in the mirror as she becomes a skeleton.

Quite a few people remember this TV show, but no one seems to remember what it was called, and whether it was part of an anthology show or a one-off in its own right. One viewer recalls it having Alison Bettles, who played Fay Lucas in Grange Hill, in a supporting role. And several of the people who remember it recall watching it in school, raising the question of whether it was targeted at school pupils, like the legendary Interference.

Whatever it was, it seems to have been a moral tale warning against wishing one’s life away – but what exactly was this show, and is it still out there anywhere?

UPDATE, 10/09/24

Thanks to John Mawdsley, a member of the Facebook group Weird British TV Memories (70s-90s), we have a lead and a potential title for this!

John recalls this program as being titled “Cold Feet” and that it aired on BBC2 some time in the morning:

“I remember watching this when it aired and checking the tv guide for the name. It was aired on BBC Two during the morning and I recall it was called “Cold Feet”. Any searches I’ve done have always resulted in the other TV show. I could be wrong but I always remembered it as Cold Feet.”

Thanks to John for this information! As yet, predictably, searches online have only shown up results for the far more well-known 90s series also called Cold Feet – but now we have a possible title for this long-elusive piece of lost media, this should greatly help our search.

UPDATE, 25/11/24

VERY PROMISING LEAD!

Thanks to our reader SimonT in the comments to this article, we now have what looks like a very promising lead for this elusive drama. Simon has done some digging, and it seems very possible this was an episode of the Thames TV schools programme Middle English titled “Fast Forward”.

Simon’s recollection is as follows:

“I’m almost certain that it starred Roger McGough doing a Peter Sellars routine in multiple roles (including as a metal-head biker whose favourite bands included ‘Lead Balloon’ and ‘Spiky Sausage’).

Imdb sadly hasn’t thrown up much info, but Roger McGough was involved with a Thames TV programme called ‘Middle English’, which ran throughout the 80s, providing a mix of documentaries and dramas. This feels like a really likely candidate, for two reasons: firstly, we definitely watched at least one other episode from the same series in school (an animated adaptation of ‘The Shrinking of Treehorn’ and secondly, there’s an episode from series 11 (1986, which totally fits the time-line for when I saw this) called . . . ‘Fast Froward’. There’s no other info out there at the moment, sadly, but this feels like a very definite maybe.”

This looks like a very likely candidate. The Broadcast For Schools website has a list of Middle English episodes that features a brief snippet of information on the episode “Fast Forward”:

“Kurt, Mungo, B.P. and Me (spring 1984), Fast Forward (autumn 1986) and Mistaken Identity (autumn 1990), 3 separate plays about the experiences of a poet, written by and featuring Roger McGough”

This would corroborate Simon’s memory of Roger McGough starring in this production as well as the date, so this looks to be our most promising lead yet. It would certainly make sense that this production came from the same series that brought us the classic and terrifying Interference (1985), but as yet there is no further information online about “Fast Forward” and a YouTube search yields no results.

UPDATE 07/12/24 – IDENTIFIED!!!

With special thanks to Paul Rhodes, a member of the Weird British TV Memories (70s-90s) group, we have now identified this piece of lost media for sure – we know now for certain that as SimonT suggested, it was an episode of Middle English titled “Fast Forward”, which aired on September 23 1986 and was repeated on September 25. Below is the proof, from a Times Educational Supplement from back in the day:

TRANSCRIPT OF THE ABOVE:

“David Self Looks at Thames Television’s ‘Middle English’

This term has seen a justified repeat of Jan Mark’s Izzy. Next term (September 23 and 25) there is a new play by Roger McGough, Fast Forward. Both sophisticated and accessible, it is also very funny. The central character, a 13-year-old girl, is played mainly by the camera. She idolizes the pop star Howard Jones and, finding the rest of life boring, she conjures up a remote-control unit that allows her to “fast forward” through those bits she finds especially tedious, for example, PE lessons and being told off by the head. Both the head and the PE mistress (and other characters) are played by McGough himself. He is especially good as the head, offering visitors paperclips to fidget with as if they were sweets.”

So going from the sound of it, Fast Forward was a mostly comedic children’s play with a particularly dark and twisted ending, which no doubt shocked a lot of children who viewed it at the time.

Huge thanks to Simon and Paul for identifying this piece of lost media that we and many other enthusiasts of the Haunted Generation have been seeking for a long time. Now we just need to find if any recordings of it still exist – and if so, does anyone have a copy they can upload, or know where we can find one? If so, please comment below or email us!

Two mystery TV horror films from the 80s…

~ UnidentifiedWeirdTV ~ 1 Comment

Today’s UWTV memory is a guest blog post by one of our readers, named Pat. If anyone can help Pat identify or find these elusive TV horror films from the 80s, please comment here or drop us an email!

Over to Pat…:

The first was screened in the scheduling dead zone after Christmas, definitely on ITV, during a weekday afternoon in early January 1985 or 1986, while the schools were off. I think it was called Fraidy Cats, and it was an American or Canadian production. It was a one-off, shown at maybe 1pm-2pm, on the STV regional channel.

I remember watching this with my brother on an old black and white TV screen, and this would have added to the atmosphere, but there was little doubt that this show was weird, creepy and probably wouldn’t be broadcast now.

It showed this young boy and some of his friends being involved in scary, odd incidents. One of these involved an old man taking the boy out on his boat, and then going mad in the middle of the trip. There are other scenes which show the boy walking around the house at night in the pitch dark, and we “see” what he fears. There are claws rasping against the walls, ghosts and demons following him around. It really lodged in my brain. It’s doubly odd in that I am fairly sure of the name of the show (there is a possibility it was “Scaredy Cats”, but I am sure it was “Fraidy Cats”), but there is no mention of it online, it doesn’t appear on any archived listings, and no-one I know remembers seeing it.

The second one is even more bizarre – a slasher movie, complete with dead bodies and blood, totally serious in tone… that was screened on a Sunday morning on BBC1 at about 10am, 1984 or 1985.

It was shown, again, in that odd dead zone you used to get on Sunday mornings, usually when loads of niche/minority interest or religious shows are scheduled to fulfil quotas. This was an education show (not part of Open University), which proudly showed the winning entries of a national student film contest.

One of these was a slasher movie – and, to seven- or eight-year-old me, it was utterly horrifying.

It followed a school bus trip out into the woods. It was British. Like the American slasher movies of the time, it followed teenagers and presented a list of victims/suspects. They are picked off, one by one, by a hidden figure who is wearing a gauntlet of some kind. I can remember blood; I can remember one of the teenagers ending up garrotted and strapped to a tree by the neck, while another character wanders past on the other side, oblivious.

The final shot of the video reveals the unexpected killer, one of the quieter kids on the coach, wearing the gauntlet.

In my mind’s eye it was quite well shot, but whoever decided this was fit to broadcast on a Sunday morning must have been either out of their mind, or simply not checking the content of the films.

Does anyone remember these?

If you recall either of these films or know where to find them, please comment here or send us an email!

**UPDATE** Thanks to Twitter user Adrian Bott, the first of these two productions has been identified! It is a short Canadian TV film titled Fraidy Cats: The World According to Nicholas , shown on UK TV as a Short Story Theatre feature – and here it is for your viewing pleasure!

Big thanks to Adrian for identifying and finding this for us. Thanks also to @ScarredForLife2 for sharing this post!

Adrian also thinks he may know the second feature remembered by Pat above – the slasher film he thinks may be Breakdown, a Young Film Makers Competition entry that was shown on Screen Test on December 6th, 1984.

If you are able to confirm this for us or shed any further light, please comment or email us!

The Green-Eyed Monster – One-off CITV Drama

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There were a lot of paranormal and sci-fi dramas on children’s TV throughout the 70s-90s. Many of these have strong cult followings all these decades on. But one that I rarely ever see anyone else mention – perhaps because it was a one-off as opposed to a series – is The Green-Eyed Monster, shown on Children’s ITV in 1989.

Technically this isn’t an ‘unidentified’ show, but it’s obscure and unknown enough to justify a post here. From my recollection, this one-off drama was shown around September 1989 – I may be wrong about the month but I seem to recall it being around that time of year. It was advertized a lot in trailers on CITV in the weeks leading up to its airing, so never one to miss a good paranormal show, I watched it…

The plot was about a young girl, who an internet search reveals was called Cora and was played by Joanne Leigh-Palmer. Cora possessed a strange psychic ability that caused her eyes to literally light up green whenever she became jealous – and whenever her eyes lit up, something bad would happen to the person she was jealous of. The main plot was about Cora’s mother having a baby, and this triggered Cora’s jealousy as up until then, she had been an only child and had always been the centre of attention.

Cue lots of strange and frightening things happening whenever her jealousy was aroused. I remember very few details so recollections from here are only vague… but I think there was one scene at a friend’s birthday party. According to one person I’ve found who recalls it, Cora made glass crack with her mind. And there was another scene where Cora was stood in line with a load of kids by a swimming pool, I think during a lesson of some sort (for some reason I seem to remember all the kids singing “Why are we waiting”) and Cora’s eyes lit up, and this caused the teacher to fall into the pool. The teacher then yelled at the girl stood behind her, accusing her of pushing her in – but she hadn’t, it was Cora’s psychic powers that did it. The show culminated in Cora’s house being set on fire, presumably due to her jealousy of the baby, and as the family stood outside the house as the fire brigade arrived, the camera closed in on the baby’s eyes turning green, indicating the baby had the same powers. That’s where it ended…

Although my memories are pretty vague, I seem to recall it being quite dark and freaky for a Children’s ITV show; or at least it struck my 7-year-old mind as being so. Surprisingly there seems to be next to nothing about it online – just this short article on the BFI website. The most detailed info I’ve found is this extract from Look-In, posted by someone on the Weird British TV Memories (70s-90s) group on Facebook:

The Green-Eyed Monster – excerpt from Look-In, 1989

Apparently it was scripted by Paula Milne, one of the UK’s most accomplished screenwriters – but other than the limited information online The Green-Eyed Monster seems to have completely vanished into obscurity.

On the subject of recurring tropes in sci-fi fiction, it’s probably worth me noting that this one-off drama seemed to have striking similarities with a very disturbing story I read as a child in a book of children’s sci-fi stories in the primary school I went to. It was a story about a boy called Simon who had strange psychic powers that meant he could cause things to happen just by thinking about them. Simon had just moved to a new neighbourhood, where he befriended the boy who was narrating the story – and at first the kids found Simon fun to have around, using his powers to help them get free ice creams, and get out of a scrape with the local bully. But later on, things turned nastier as Simon used his powers to do outright evil things, going as far as killing his teacher by causing him to have a car crash, while at home he used his powers to terrorize his parents, who lived in fear of him. Simon’s mother had just had a baby girl, and Simon was jealous of her and tried to use his powers to kill her – but the baby turned out to have the same powers and used them on Simon, causing him to levitate and hurl around the room, smashing into walls until he was dead. The story ended with Simon’s mother leaning over the baby’s cot, whispering “Oh no, not her as well…” (UPDATE: This story has now been identified and found – it’s “Sinful Simon” by John Wagner of 2000AD fame, published in the 1982 book Exciting Stories of Fantasy and the Future)

II’m digressing a bit by mentioning the above story here, but it’s worth noting the striking similarity to The Green-Eyed Monster, and I wonder if this story may have been its inspiration, or perhaps more likely, they may share a common inspiration.

Either way, I’ve found a small number of people who remember The Green-Eyed Monster and were freaked out by it as kids, and so naturally, would love to see it again… can we rescue this lost curiosity of 80s kids’ sci-fi from complete obscurity?

If you remember The Green-Eyed Monster or have any more detailed recollections… or better still, have a copy of it anywhere… then please drop us an email! And if not, feel free to share this blog post in the hope of reaching someone who can help!

UPDATE – 25/05/25 – It has been a pleasure to hear from Joanne Savory, who appeared as an extra in The Green-Eyed Monster as a child. Joanne tells us:

“The Swimming Pool Scene was filmed at Burntwood School, London, SW17 where I was a pupil.

My friends and I were lucky enough to appear a few times and I’m one of the girls swimming in the pool scene.

My friend and I were given strict instructions to swim really slowly (almost in slow motion) as the girl who played Cora wasn’t a confident swimmer.”

Joanne thinks she may have a copy of the show taped from the TV somewhere, so let’s hope she can reunite us with this long-lost TV obscurity – thanks Joanne for getting in touch!

(IDENTIFIED!) War Drama/Documentary about “The Charlemagne Division”

~ UnidentifiedWeirdTV ~ 4 Comments

70s and 80s society was awash with Cold War paranoia, and this was reflected in much of the TV at the time; the threat of nuclear war making for particularly gripping drama across the genres – influencing sci-fi, horror and general drama of the time.

One of this blog’s readers recalls a particularly unusual drama, seemingly a one-off, aired on UK TV in the late 80s or early 90s, done in the style of a documentary, on the subject of a war between the USA and the EU (EEC at the time of course).

The details we have are as follows:

“I seem to remember it being caused by the US using battlefield nukes against the East Germans which the West Germans considered an attack on themselves and off it all went. I think it was in a format that used fake news reports, I remember a mention of a combined French and German infantry division called “The Charlemagne Division” going into action against the US army that was stationed in Germany and possibly a segment on a French aircraft carrier being sunk.“

Does this ring a bell for any of our readers? We’d be very keen to find this piece of UWTV, so feel free to share this post as wide as you can, and if you recall this yourself or have any further details, please contact us or post a response here!

Update (28/11/20)

Thanks to Twitter user @Araminta_Kane we have managed to identify this show – it was a BBC-produced film aired in 1993 titled Europe on the Brink:

Europe on the Brink (includes YouTube video in Italian)

According to the link above:

“A drama set in the year 2013 which postulates that Europe has become rich and unified with Berlin Wall-style fortifications around it to keep out immigrants. It is also on the brink of war with the United States. The projected scenario is based on the work of strategic thinker Jonathan Eyal.”

The film does not seem to have been screened again since its airing on the BBC in 1993, and has never been released on DVD – so far we have only managed to locate a version of it on YouTube dubbed into Italian, which can be viewed on the above link.

Huge thanks to @Araminta_Kane (nice Moondial reference in that username) for identifying this elusive production for us – and if you can help us out further by hooking us up with the original English language version, please do not hesitate to comment here or send us an email!