Three For Me: Top TV from CP Lee.

CP Lee, the passionate Mancunian musician, writer, broadcaster and film historian, picks his top three TV shows of all time.

The Blues & Gospel Train (GTV), 1964
Produced by the legendary Johnnie Hamp, this music show went out mid-week in a prime-time slot and had an audience of over 12 million. Starring some of America’s finest black performers and shot at a disused train station in South Manchester, there simply hadn’t been anything like it in broadcasting history, a rollicking celebration of blues and gospel music in front of an ecstatic crowd of young Mancunians, chickens and goats! The climax is a dazzling rendition of Didn’t It Rain by Sister Rosetta Tharpe playing some of the meanest guitar licks you ever heard. Spine tingling even now.

Top Of The Pops (BBC), 1964 – 2006
In the Sixties, BBC TV in Rusholme served up a brilliant contribution to TV culture with a show that was unashamedly for young people at a time when pop music was becoming something bigger and broader than anyone could conceive of. It was beamed directly down the Manchester Hip Canal from a studio in a converted church that had once been the base of the Mancunian Film Company. The show played a significant part in the cultural revolution that swept post-war Britain. The Beatles, the Stones and Hendrix all appeared on it before the Beeb stole it off us and took it to London.

Teach Yourself Gibberish (GTV), 1982
Labelled a ‘cult classic’ by website TV Cream, this six-part comedy series written by me for late-night television was, for some unknown reason, put on by Granada as a children’s show at teatime on a Friday. Featuring rock-parody band, Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias, this surreal sketch show centred on a different theme each week, such as ‘M for Mystery’ or ‘E for Explorers’ and featured a brand new Alberto number in every episode. A second series was commissioned but got shelved. It remains a cult classic because you can’t find it anywhere, but you might try having a look at www.cplee.co.uk.

For more TV classics, check out Manchester, Television & the City: Ghosts of Winter Hill at Urbis (until 27 Feb, free). CP Lee will appear on Rude Britannia in 2010. His latest book, The Lost World of Cliff Twemlow, is the product of his and Andy Willis’s interest in ‘the King of Manchester exploitation movies’.

Image: Still from Teach Yourself Gibberish, courtesy CP Lee.

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