A Touch Of Frost – When Harry Met Sally…– University Challenge

First on this tape, it’s another episode of A Touch Of Frost. Judging by Frost being at his wife’s graveside I’d guess this is episode two. The tape starts a short way into the episode, so no on-screen title to tell me.

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Tony Haygarth turns up as Frost’s Detective Sergeant.

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There’s been vandalism in the local churchyard, and a woman has been receiving anonymous phone calls and porn through the mail, then she receives a visit from two undertakers. She’s frightened by all of this, her nervous state not helped by being married to Dominic Jephcott off of The Beiderbecke Affair, who’s deeply patronising and rude to Frost when he arrives to take their statement.

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Then a body is found in the crypt of the church – a body of a young girl who was recently reported missing.

Remember electric fires like this? Lovely.

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Talking of fires, the annoying Mr Jephcott is caught in a fire at their house. It was the wife all along, setting up the threatening mail, poisoning her own fish, then setting fire to the house, to collect on the insurance.

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The young girl’s murderer is also found, the nice man who was mourning his wife, and his confession seems to make it all her fault as some kind of teenage jezebel.

I really enjoyed this. Jason was charming and affable, helped by Haygarth, and the story was interesting, although I did spot the guilty wife fairly early on, and had my suspicions about the murderer too. But it’s perfectly good ITV drama.

After this, recording switches to BBC1 and it’s Christmas.

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It’s When Harry Met Sally. It’s a romantic comedy from the 80s, so obviously it’s going to be immensely problematic except… I don’t think it is. Now, I don’t agree with the film’s initial premise – that men and women can’t be friends because sex always gets in the way – but then I don’t think the film does either. But the fact that the film is basically a growing friendship between Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal means it doesn’t fall into a lot of the pitfalls that other older romcoms can – because the men in them are often borderline stalkers.

I wonder if the difference is that this was written by a woman, the great Nora Ephron? Or is it just that it was written by a great writer?

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But this is still a total pleasure. The dialogue is snappy and funny, and you like the characters. Plus, of course, Carrie Fisher is in it, which is always a good thing.

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And Bruno Kirby rounds out the central ensemble nicely.

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It’s so full of brilliant moments that it’s hard not to just recite the entire film. But I do particularly like the scene where he and Sally are singing ‘Surrey with a Fringe on Top’ in a Sharper Image. At first you think the joke is going to be about how Sally can’t really sing very well (a great performance from Ryan), and then he meets his ex wife with her new man, Ira. It’s a great reversal, and then it leads into the later scene with Harry telling Jess and Marie to make the most of their new relationship because “one day you’ll be singing Surrey with a Fringe on Top in front of Ira!”

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Then there’s the Pictionary scene, the punchline of which “Oh but Baby Fish Mouth is sweeping the nation” somehow became a running joke among my friends.

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One thing I just noticed is that, among all the songs from the Great American Songbook, there’s one by grumpy 70s talent show judge Tony Hatch. Brilliant.

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BBC Genome: BBC One – 26th December 1992 – 22:05

After this, recording switches to BBC2, and it’s still Christmas.

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There’s a trailer for programmes later in the evening, as part of a Granadaland night of programmes.

Then, a special edition of University Challenge, beginning with a short history of the programme. It’s a pro-celebrity match between students of Keble College, the winners of the last edition of the programme, and four celebrities who had previously appeared on the programme, including John Simpson

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