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Lesser-known David Dickinson shows.

Started by Glebe, February 12, 2021, 01:17:58 AM

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Glebe



Dickinson is renowned for his consummate professionalism, but even he makes the odd smeg-up! And thus a 50-minute extravaganza has been prepared, hosting by David himself and showing all his best foul-ups, cock-ups, blooped moments and outtake-fuck ups!

Exclusively made available by Polygram Video on a specially-prepared 'retro' VHS release limited to 500 copies, Dickinson's Smeg-Ups and Cocked Scenes! sees everyone's favourite TV antiques man put his foot in it - and frequently in his mouth! Lines are fluffed, expensive vases are dropped and there are fits of giggles as we see outtakes from the cutting room floor, some 'too hot for TV' and with the odd rude word uttered!

So go on, do y'self a favour and order the video - NOW!

Mr Farenheit



Deja Vu! that strange feeling we sometimes get that we've lived through something before. David Dickinson completists will soon be experiencing deja vu of their own when DAVID DICKINSON'S DEJA VU returns to screens on the Flashback Channel. The Flashback CEO recently nutshelled the deal to me from inside some kind of psychedelic rave-tent. "We're a niche channel dedicated to LSD related content but to be honest there's not much market for that so we're trying to widen our content with more general memory, deja-vu, presque-vu and jamais-vu based shows. We picked up DDDV on the cheap to see if this idea has legs."

David himself provided more info on a zoom call from his island fortress in the mid-atlantic. "Deja Vu! That strange feeling we sometimes get that we've lived through something before. That was the name and concept of a show which I did back in the early noughties. When the execs explained it to me it was more a psychology-themed documentary but I instantly realised this would bore the pants off viewers. The show needed a hook and the hook was antiques!

"We did some footage from the antiques shop I was running at the time and the idea was we'd shoot one short scene and repeat it four or five times during the episode, interspersed with some reaction shots of me making 'eh? That's peculiar' type faces. It was free advertising for me and we saved a small fortune in production costs because we only had to produce 10 minutes of footage for an 'original' 45 minute show!

"I also called up antiques chums and repeated old scams I'd run on them in the past. Trying to give them a feeling of deja-vu, that strange feeling we sometimes get that we've lived through something before. It didn't really work though, except for Hugh Scully who I managed to convince to pay me six times over for an 'antique' gramophone which he already owned!" David chuckled.

"I've been told its going to be repeated on the Flashback channel. They're a niche channel dedicated to LSD related content but to be honest there's not much market for that so they're trying to widen their content with more general memory, deja-vu, presque-vu and jamais-vu based shows."

The show lasted one series on late night Channel Five before getting canned. There are six episodes but each episode features so much repeated content from the previous shows that episodes four, five and six have no original content whatsoever. Somewhat notorious when it came out, the show never recovered from the ridicule of smug satirist Ian Hislop who famously said "I've deja turned off!" on an episode of Have I Got News For You. The incident kicked off a long running vendetta for David, especially as he was guest presenter that night!

The show sadly sank without trace after that but is back on our screens this spring on the Flashback Channel as David explained. "The Flashback Channel is a niche channel dedicated to LSD related content but to be honest there's not much market for that so they're trying to widen their content with more general memory, deja-vu, presque-vu and jamais-vu based shows. The show is about Deja-Vu, that strange feeling we sometimes get that we've lived through something before." David said, smoking god-knows-what through a giant antique bong.

Five minutes after our call ended, David phoned me again to tell me about his new show David Dickinson's Deja-Vu. "It's about Deja-vu, that strange feeling we sometimes get that we've lived through something before..." I told him that with a sense of humour like that it's no wonder that a Dickinson stand-up special on Netflix is rumoured to be in the works! "You what mate? I told you about the show already? Fuck me, I'm out of me gourd, the fellas at Flashback gave me this stuff, its stronger than the heroin I used to mainline back in the day."


Glebe

^Excellent stuff, F! I think I saw that before... but I'm not sure. Hmmm.



The BBC have featured some classic adaptations in their time, but none so successfully chilling as 1969's O Whistle and Dickinson Will Come to You, My lad. Based on the much-loved 'cautionary auction' tale by Agatha Christies, it was directed by Alan Bennett and (unusually!) screened as a one-off fictional BBC Panorama special ('Parorama-normal', if you will!).

The 50-minute story features a young David Dickinson as a fictional version of himself, holidaying on the coast of Manchester. One day, he finds a mysterious antique whistle and loudly proclaims, "Finders keepers, I'm 'avin that, that's off to auction!" But little does he know that [SPOILER ALERT!] the whistle belongs to the ghost of Tim Wonnacott, who will appear to him in the form of a ghostly blanket!

Dickinson's performance was praised at the time, with Anthony Burgess calling it "a masterful study of a driven antiques nut". The programme itself was hugely influential, inspiring the likes of Mark Gatiss to create The League of Antique's Roadshow Gentlemen. Look for it on iPlayer... good luck!

Sonny_Jim

'David Dickinson's Dick in Sons', where a sombre faced Dickinson explores the history of incest through historical artifacts.  This week it's medieval dildos with intricate carvings.[nb]Monkey tennis?[/nb]

Glebe



Classic sitcoms rarely come two a penny, but they're nowt s'scrumptious as Dickinson All Hours! It saw David in the role of grumpy antiques shopkeep Dickwright, ably abetted by his nephew, Wonnville (Tim Wonnacott). Running for five series on BBC 1 from 1979-86, it brought in a wopping 50 million viewers weekly at the height of it's infamy.

The shop itself was a character of it's own, what with it's antique copies of Woman's Weekly hanging from a clothes line and dusty packets of Omo washing powder left unbought! And bringing up the rear was Fiona Bruce as Nurse Gladly Emmanuelle, and boy, did the innuendos fly! Another controversial aspect was Dickwright's stutter, which would never be allowed now THANKS TO THE PC BRIGADE.

But the laughs came thick and fast. "It's amazing, these modern z-zip trousers!" was one line that would have made you laugh, whilst Wonnville's constant daydreaming about possibly being the son of a Hungarian antiques millionaire proved warmly amusing. Meanwhile, the temperamental cash register was the most antique thing in the shop, but Dickwright always had an ace in the hole when he needed cheering up, thanks to Wonnville's antique ormolu timepiece ("Fer-fetch y'clock, Wonnville!").

A sequel to the series, Still Wonnacott All Hours, ran for four series from 2014-18, and saw Wonnville take over the role of Dickwright after his retirement, selling 'special paste' to Johnny Vegas.

Glebe



Far be it from me to aggressively insist you check out any of David's lesser-known works, but I will certainly beseech you to order Dickinson's DMT Dream Delusions when it is made available to order from Warp Films soon. The 90-minute docu-drama/movie 'experience' features David Dickinson going where no Dickinson has gone before, by imbibing a potent cocktail of DMT, LSD, psilocybin, mescaline and ayahuasca, and licking a toad for good luck!

The aim of the experiment is to see whether there is anything beyond our stolid, physical realm, or if the fairy dreams of other dimensions are mere trifling fancies! So how did David get on?

"Not bad!" chirps David as he Zoom calls from beyond the ethereal fractal today. "I thought I saw a few DMT elves, and I was sure I heard a kind of endlessly echoing squeak of infinite joy at one point, but that may have just been a small dog that wandered into my vicinity while I was tripping off my skull on a mixture of insane chemi-blasters."

And would David do it again? He laughs and raises his eyebrows. "Em, well I would have to think twice about that!" he smiles wryly, phasing in and out of reality as we speak. "I'm not even sure I'm here or if I'm a ghost or an echo of a dream or a thought... all I can say is that I've started reading a lot of Terrence McKenna, and man, that dude knew where it was at, psychedelics-wise!"

And there we leave you David, in hopes that you return to some sort of less colourful, jellified form in the near future!

Mr Farenheit

A lot of 'Double-D' fans may think that David's foray into the world of detective vehicles ended in 1986 with the infamous final episode of Dickinson, P.I. (now streaming 5 days a week on Netflix). If so, they obviously can't be bothered doing much research as they are missing out onDavid Dickinson- Gym Detective. Some bloody fans!







The fitness/sleuth mash-up was commissioned in 1997 by Planet Muscle, a short-lived production company making programs for body building cable channels. I spoke to Mike Atlas (grandson of Charles!) the former CEO, on a zoom call from his Malibu living room.

"We were pumping out footage from body-building meets but no-one was biting!" he yelled at me in between bouts of 'carb-loading'. "I was disgusted at the cable execs turning down prime shows, those guys were physical and mental weaklings with no vision!

"Then I was bench pressing one day and it hit me. There were zero body building channels out there at the time! We were trying to sell muscle to news, history and nature channels! I immediately called a 6-man arm-wrestle aka a Planet Muscle board meeting! We decided if we wanted to get body building into people's living rooms we had to do it by stealth!"

I asked the flexing exec if that was when he called David Dickinson but it seemed like 'roid-rage' had got the better of him. "How many pull-ups can you do???" he demanded angrily before launching a punch at his webcam. I made my excuses and left the zoom meeting room.

Looking for more 'clues' I gave David Dickinson himself a call. "Haha sounds like Mike hasn't changed!" he chuckles. "DDGD was a cracking little show. The premise was simple- I was a detective solving crimes in a gym! Sounds shite but I'd sunk a lot of money into buying abandoned safes at the time. I was told they had antiques in 'em but they turned out to be empty! So when the Planet Muscle guys rang I immediately signed up!"

The show featured David in the title role as a detective assigned to a gym when a body is discovered on the treadmill one morning! This is just the first of a series of crimes in the gym and David moves in to get to the bottom of the fitness centre crime-wave. As well as grisly murders David busts a changing room bootleg-vodka racket, a passport forging operation run from a rowing machine, and even foils a plot to murder Her Majesty the Queen on a royal visit to the gym!

The show featured Rory McGrath as the gym's resident hobo and Sharon from Eastenders (replaced by Trevor from Eastenders after three episodes) as Deborah, the gym manager and constant thorn in David's side. She always insists on strict gym protocol while David is trying to bang up the bastards that done it!

Unfortunately the show didn't last beyond one series and was never even aired! David puts this down to the volatile producer, Mike Atlas. "Mike was constantly on edge," he explains. "and he demanded 110% commitment to his body building vision. He would barge onto set and put the cast and crew through their paces on the treadmills and weight machines! I was exempt because I was the star but a lot of people walked out, like Sharon from Eastenders. Rory McGrath had a terrible time of it but he was so pissed he'd forgotten about it by the next day so he wasn't bothered.

"In spite of all this, we had a great six part series wrapped up and I thought this one had the potential to go all the way. Mike blew it though! He was pitching to the top dogs at Channel Four but he had lactic acid build-up in his glutes, pecs and quads and was in a foul mood. Michael Grade said the wrong word and Mike turned the Channel Four board room upside down!" David laughs. "I heard he literally picked up the board room table- it can seat 24 people mind you!- and was spinning it around his head. I would have LOVED to be a fly on the wall that day!"

After that Mike Atlas was persona non-grata in media-land, Planet Muscle went into receivership and David Dickinson- Gym Detective was consigned to TV legend, never to be aired.

But in a twist worthy of the show itself, the master tapes have been picked up by none other than Andrew Neil for his constantly delayed GB News channel! David filled me in: "Everyone realised the channel sounded shite, so they're going to change it to GB News and Mysteries- and I'm pleased to say that David Dickinson- Gym Detective will be the flagship show!" That's right, the full series of DDGM will be shown every day on our screens and you can see it- for a small fee- on GB News and Mysteries!

Glebe

Crikey, must check that out! Perv McGrath is no longer on our screens!

Mr Farenheit





As David Dickinson awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed into the star of a 6 part series on Mike Ashley's 'INSECT NETWORK' TV channel.

"Honestly, I had no idea what I was signing up to!" David explained to me recently on a Skype call from his penthouse suite in the BT Tower. "I'd been talking to Mike Ashley's people about doing personal appearances in House of Fraser stores and went to meet Mike in person to close the deal.

As was usual with Mike Ashley the contract was signed in a pub and there were copious amounts of lager involved. "I've been around and even had a brush with H but I'd never seen drinking like it," said Dickinson. "Mike had already downed three pints in the first 15 minutes and the boozin' didn't stop there! At one point me and Mike were both on our knees throwing up in the pub fireplace."

"I don't remember much of the evening but somehow the contract changed from in-store appearances to fronting a new show on a TV channel Mike had just bought. The bloody 'Insect Network' if y'can believe that!"

Ashley himself filled me in on the details David was too smashed to remember: "I'd bought a TV channel so I could strip its assets then sell it to some mug!" belched the cockney mogul on a call from- you guessed it- a pub. "But we 'ad to keep up some appearances so I commissioned a show. David Dickinson showed up in me office the next day and I thought 'eres me fackin show!"

The next morning Dickinson woke up with a raging hangover to find a vomit-and-lager-stained (but legally binding) contract with his name on it!

At that point no-one knew what the show would be. "David was the star and it 'ad to be abaaht insects," explained Ashley. "That's all we 'ad to go on so I called a brain-storming session at the pub wiv the board. Someone said it should be a nature documentary about ants or somefink wiv David narrating. I thought faaaak that, it'll cost me an arm an a leg. Let's just put the cant in a cockroach costume!"








David had no luck pitching alternative plans and reluctantly had to go along with the premise. "I was not best pleased but I tried to make the best of it," explained the consummate professional.

A special human sized cockroach suit was commissioned from the biology department of Southend University which David would be wearing for the full month of shooting. Wearing the tightly fitted suit was no picnic and it took a full three hours to get on and off. It was so much trouble that by the third week David decided to just wear the suit permanently!
 
In the infamous series David attempted to navigate basic daily life- as a cockroach! "It was certainly a challenge!" he relates. "The thing was me natural position in the suit were horizontal and one foot off the floor! It took me a month to get used to manoeuvring the legs, it makes all sorts of daily functions- like eating a fry-up- really awkward!"









In one shoot they had me go into Waterstones to buy an antiques book but it was right at the top and I made a right mess trying to clamber up the shelves!"

There were some bright moments though and after some time David grew to love life as a cockroach. Some of his fondest memories of the show include learning to slip under people's doors and the time when he caused havoc on the London underground!








"Looking back, it was one of me weirder televisual adventures but I'm proud of the work we did raising awareness of the daily challenges our six-legged friends face!" the insincere antiques star told me. Just then our call was interrupted with a loud cry from David then loud banging noises and what sounded like "Got yeh, y'bastard!" could be heard in the background. David picked up again and put me in the picture. "Y'll never guess what that was! A cockroach! In me fuckin living room!" he chortled.

Sadly the Insect Network is in liquidation so DD's Metamorphosis is not on the air but there is some good news- rights for the show can be currently be bought for £1.49. Will YOU be the one to snap up the master tapes???

Glebe

Absolutely brilliant F! Pix hilarious... David having a special cockroach suit made a highight!

selectivememory


Mr Farenheit

Cheers SM, Glebe! David Dickinson eh? The more research you do into the guy, the stranger and stranger things you find!

Glebe



Coming soon to Five, it's David Dickinson's Double Your Earnings!

The concept of this quiz show is simple - though a little unusual! All the contestants are celebrities, though only those in the employ of host Dickinson himself. His Z-list maintenance staff are given the chance, as the title suggests, to double their earnings by facing a barrage of fiendishly difficult questions that would have the Chasers in a spin!

"It really is quite a challenge," chuckles David when we meet outside his local for the first pub pint either of us have had in ages. "I wouldn't have it any other way, though. I'm not shelling out my hard-earned cash to any tosser who can name the capital of Uzbekistan. No, my washed-up guests will have to prove themselves if they want that illusive wage-increase!"

But isn't the deck stacked in your favour just a little bit, David? "Don't be ridiculous!" he snaps, covering me in beer-spittle in the process. "It's all fair and square. Contestants have a chance to insure they earn up to a whopping two quid an hour - that's not to be sniffed at!"

With the likes of Joe Swash, Keith Lemon and Mick Hucknall all set to appear, it is apparent that viewers are in for a star-studded treat. But one guest had to be cut from the show when he started getting "ideas above his station," as David puts it.

"Yeah, Tim Wonnacott was acting the prick, saying the show was tacky and 'beneath him'," he confirms. "I said Tim, if you'd prefer to be back at Dickinson Manor weeding out the garden, be my guest!"

In closing, would David care to tantalise us with bit of behind-the-scenes gossip? "Well, we were doing a test-run of the 'Electrified Floor' round - which  nobody has reached so far in any of the episodes we've filmed - and some dogsbody ended up getting fried. Think his family are suing Five. Cheeky bastards. Here mate give us a bit of your hand gel, I forgot mine. Now finish up your drink and fuck off, I've got business to attend to back at the plantation."

Glebe





There was great news for anti-woke TV antiques fans this morning when it was officially announced that David Dickinson would be joining the newly-launched gammon network GB News, and we can now exclusively reveal details of not one but TWO shows he will be hosting on the shite-channel!

Having previously kept out of the political arena, David is preparing to step into the lions' den with Dickinson's Debate Duration. Each fifty-minute episode will see David chair what will often prove to be a heated debate, as various politicians and celebrities join the panel to discuss the mad political conundrums of the day! But Dickinson promises to be a fair adjudicator, allowing both liberal and conservative voices to be heard over the braying of each week's vociferously-irate audience!

David will be able to take a well-earned break from the stuffy confines of the GB News studios thanks to At the Coalface with David Dickinson. If it's happening in your province, municipality, community or village then David's reporting on it! "We'll be reporting the news other outlets couldn't be bothered with!" promises David in a trailer sting for the show. "Look out Britain... we're about to dig up all the news nobody else is talking about!"

So it's a full plate for Dickinson this season... only on GB NEWS!

Glebe

#44


Hoots mon, there's a Dickinson loose aboot the Highlands! Coming this summer exclusively on BBC Scotland, it's Dickinson's Highland Fling, a six-part series that will surprize and shock in equal measure! Prior to the pandemic, David Dickinson headed north of the border to spend six months in the 'Big Country', land of the bonnie lass, the Rowan tree and cock-a-leekie soup! He ended up staying, and as our exclusive chat reveals, he soon became more Scots than the Scots themselves!

"Oh aye, I've had a braw guid time here, in fact ye could say I've gone native!" chuckles Dickinson over a pint of McEwan's. We are meeting in Inverness at his local, The Stolen Piglet, not far from the wee log cabin he now calls home. "Ah mus' nae stay long, as me noo wife Morag has a lovely haggis cooking!" warns 'McDickinson', as he is known locally!

So did David enjoy filming the series? "Crivens! Ye mus' be jokin, mon!" he chuckles. "Ah had a braw guid time doin' it!" What was his favourite experience? "Goin' oot tae Loch Ness tae see if we could spot Nessie!" he grins, visibly brightening at the memory. "We didnae spot 'im, but we had a braw guid time, Jimmy!"

And did the experience change him in any way? "Jings! If ye cannae ken that, ye mus' be daft! Ah used ta be a surly Sassenach, but noo it's all caber tosses, lumps o' coal, Hootenannies and Rabbie Burns, the noo!"

The series is sponsored by McCowan's Highland Toffee ("It's braw guid!" reports David, surprizingly) and is suitable for everyone from "old grannies tae wee bairns!" according to David. So tune in... it's gonna be "braw guid!"

Glebe



Long before achieving 'antiques-presenting' fame, David Dickinson showed his drama chops in the BBC's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Dickinson, based on the renowned 'antiques espionage' novel of the same title by Bob le Dazzler. First airing in 1980, it's six-episode run gripped the nation, even though they hadn't a fucking clue what the fuck was going on most of the time.

Intriguingly, le Dazzler's book featured a fictionalised 'spy' Dickinson, so it is somewhat incredible to see Dickinson himself essay the role! But he did it with aplomb, bringing a quiet dignity to the role that Gary Oldman later admitted he 'struggled to top'.

The story concerns the little-known antiques branch of M16, and centres around the rooting-out of a mole in the top echelons. Dickinson is brought out of retirement and tasked with discovering the identity of the double-antiques agent, and when he's not purchasing information "cheap as chips!", he's enlisting the assistance Paul Martin, known in the trade as a 'Bargain Hunter'. Martin handles all the rough stuff, from dressing down dealers who won't lower the price to 'having a word' with those who won't play ball on the antiques black market!

Of course every great tale has it's antagonist, and the 'villain' of this piece is a Russian double-dealer known as Timur Karlacott. Dickinson has history with Karlacott, who obtained a rare antique cigarette lighter from him during an interrogation some years before. A gift from Dickinson's wife, it inspired a campaign of abuse against Dickinson for those he suspected of treachery, with the mocking cry of "All our love to Ada!" heard from many duplicitous corners of the Antiques Ministry for many years to come!

The complex script can be hard to follow at times, with a sub-plot involving antique Russian dolls threaded throughout. Nevertheless it's a gripping and surprisingly emotional tale, and you can watch the whole thing on Drama soon, with 1983's follow-up series Dicky's People also likely to air later in the year! Enjoy!