When British television was once the envy of the rest of the world, and our productions were being sold across the globe to widespread acclaim, it would have been easy for people to see the whole country cast in a kind of pseudo-Victorian or Edwardian mould, with everyone here speaking with either Received Pronunciation or Cockney accents, and nothing in-between, like the nation was preserved in aspic.
With heavyweight productions like Upstairs, Downstairs or The Forsyte Saga being popular on PBS in America, the idea of there being different regions must seem like a – literally and figuratively – foreign concept. When the newer Happy Valley was shown over there, viewers were advised to have the subtitles turned on in order to understand the dialogue being delivered in a Yorkshire brogue. Yet regionalisation has seen a growing representation on British screens, as more of the nation was reflected in its speech and culture to greater degrees over the years, and certainly since the advent of ITV with its regional network.
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To say that the way in which places have been portrayed on TV in this country has been something of a mishmash is an understatement. Name a county or a city, and the way that you perceive that place might have been heavily influenced by the gogglebox. Yorkshire, for example, could be viewed through the prisms of either Emmerdale (with or without the Farm), or Last of the Summer Wine. For Liverpool, that might be The Liver Birds, Brookside, Bread, or Boys from the Blackstuff. In the instance of Manchester, besides the obvious Coronation Street, other possible options may be the likes of perhaps Cracker, Life on Mars, Queer as Folk, or Cold Feet.
The Midlands – and in particular Birmingham – has been a mixed bag in how it has been depicted over the decades. In more recent years, the image has been given a polish due to the success of Peaky Blinders (although it does appear that the Brummie accent has posed difficulties in being grasped overseas), and the recent cancellation of West Midlands-set Doctors made the news headlines. Before all of that, there was Boon, as well as a gritty-turned-fantastical look at the criminal underworld of 1970s Brum, in Philip Martin’s drama Gangsters, and the most notorious example of all, which has cast the longest of shadows across the city and wider region: the infamous Crossroads, which sparked cliched accusations of wobbly sets and even wobblier acting.
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Yet amongst all of this, there are some series which seem to have slipped from the public consciousness altogether. One such case in point is Swizzlewick, a fact probably not helped by its almost complete absence from the BBC’s archives. But in its time, this short-lived serial caused quite a buzz, as the infamous Mary Whitehouse set her sights on the show when it had appeared that a character was based upon her and was interpreted as being a pointed attack not just upon the moral crusader, but also her ‘Clean Up TV’ movement. Given that it sparked quite a controversy and backlash at the time, this – along with the programme itself – would seem to have been all but forgotten nowadays.
Set in a fictional Midlands town, and being a satire upon the workings of local government, Swizzlewick was created by playwright David Turner, and ran twice-weekly for a total of 26 episodes in 1964, before being cancelled. It seems quite curious that for a production which courted such notoriety at the time is barely a footnote in popular culture, and so little is really known about the series that even a cursory search on Google produces little of any substance. Swizzlewick has for so long now been an enigma, and so it appeared destined to remain. That is until writer Michael Seely began to turn his attention to the obscure comedy drama, after researching a book on director Douglas Camfield, who had worked on it at BBC Birmingham.
The end product of all his labours is Taste and Decency: The Swizzlewick Story, which shines a light on this neglected bit of British television ephemera. Seely’s book is split into two main parts: the first looking at the inception, rise and fall of Swizzlewick, and the other being a detailed episode guide to the whole series, giving breakdowns of each scene. As there are a number of myths which have sprung up that surround the Swizzlewick hullabaloo with Mrs Whitehouse, Seely has taken a methodical approach to the controversy, and brings to light the real story behind what really went on here, like whether the character of Mrs Smallgood was truly a pointed dig, as she had considered it to be.
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Seely’s work here is nothing short of remarkable, especially as virtually all of the key players are now no longer with us to be able to give their sides of the story. As such, Seely has left no stone unturned in his quest for revealing the truth behind Swizzlewick, using so many contemporary accounts, along with having access to internal BBC documents housed in the Corporation’s Written Archives Centre in Caversham. What becomes unexpectedly apparent is that the paths of so many Doctor Who alumni had crossed with Swizzlewick during its brief life, showing there was much cross-pollination taking place on so many drama productions at the time, due to the BBC making things in-house at the time, rather than using a variety of independent companies like nowadays.
Taste and Decency: The Swizzlewick Story is a true mixture of archaeology and alchemy, and stands right up there with the finest television reference works. With further books on the way dealing with other vintage television obscurities, it looks as though Seely will very quickly cement a reputation as one of the foremost chroniclers of British broadcasting’s arcana and productions which have fallen by the wayside of public memory.
Taste and Decency: The Swizzlewick Story is out now from Saturday Morning Press.
