THE NEW MUSICAL BOX

SMALL SCREEN THEME TIME (Introduction)

What do you think of the current crop of TV show theme tunes?

Some say that we're in a new *golden age* of creativity as composers and producers take advantage of modern technology to become ever more inventive. There's another camp that takes the view that it's all been downhill since the heyday of the 1960s and 1970s. I suspect the truth is a combinaton of the two and is all wrapped up in the explosion of channels and streaming services that we have today.

Z Cars - You probably still know the
theme tune. Especially if you're an
Everton fan.

In the days of three-channel telly, it was easier for a distinctive theme tune to become popular. With fewer choices, there was a cast-iron certainty that a good proportion of viewers would be watching each show and subconsiously absorbing the title music. They'd also become memorable as there were only a relatively small number of shows being broadcast on the networks which, in the main, only broadcast in the evenings. Popularity grew too because a good minority of these shows had a habit of running for years on end, frequency breeding familiarity and all that. It was also hard to ignore theme tunes in those black and white days: They were often stirring and loud, perhaps something to distinguish them from the ITV advert breaks and ensure viewers continued to pay attention. Loudness also helped overcome the poor quality of TV sets and speakers then available. No such luxuries as stereo or surround sound, just a pretty small speaker battling to cope with the harmonics of a family-filled 1960s front room. 

Today, the viewing audience is split between hundreds of channels, although theme tunes can benefit from the numerous repeat showings and become familiar through ubiquity. We can also record or pause and rewind, capturing a show whenever it suits us, time-shifting the viewing event to a more convenient time. We can download shows on the BBC's iTunes, we can stream services on-line via tablets and smart-phones and there's every chance that we'll pick up on distinctive themes. But - with so many more shows being produced today, the theme-tune jam is being spread very thin. It's quicker, cheaper and easier for almost anyone to produce theme-tune music - and unless the creator has the requisite skills, it's also quicker to produce distinctly average output as a consequence.

ITV's Scott & Bailey - A Distinctive theme tune by Murray Gold, also
responsible for much of the music in the re-booted Doctor Who

In this ten-part blog, I'm going to take a look at the ups and downs of this musical genre. I'll be concentrating on the UK as it's the area I know best, albeit, there'll be a few examples from the USA and Europe based on the shows that have been broadcast here. I'm only going to have time to scratch the surface of this vast subject, so I'll be taking a thematic approach covering Drama, Comedy and Sport.  

I hope you enjoy this journey through the crackling corridors of TV theme time history.

• Theme tune then:    Z Cars (BBC - Johnny Keating)
• Theme tune now:    Scott & Bailey (Red Productions for ITV - Murray Gold)  

DRAMA

Of all the categories of TV show, drama is perhaps the one that best lends itself to creativity within the theme tune arena. Drama includes a wide range of sub-genres and we'll take examples from each of them to show how title music has changed over the past six decades. Title music can also hide a multitude of sins as there have been some decidedly poor drama shows enlivened by creative use of introductory music. Take Blake's 7, the 1970s BBC science fiction series for example: there's nothing quite like spending a large proportion of the show's budget on some spectacular opening credits and music and then finding that as the show starts, it all falls back into studio-bound footage with variable acting and Blue Peter props.  But, I'll do my best to take a balanced view of such things as I review each sub-genre, so let's take a look at what they are:

• Historical  
• Shows based on historical events or set in past eras, whether fact or fiction
• This is the theme music to Colditz, a BBC TV series that ran for two years and was based on the real-life story of a group of mainly British officer Prisoners Of War who were incarcerated in Colditz, the prison that was meant to be "impossible to escape from"

Colditz - BBC TV  (1972 -1974) 

                                          Colditz - BBC TV (Robert Farndon)

• Police/Detective
• Contemporary shows (at the time of broadcast) including police procedural and related detective/crime/court dramas
• The Sweeney was produced by Thames TV's Euston Films division and filmed on 35m film stock which gave it a gritty feel, a feel that was in keeping with the style of this landmark detective series.  

John Thaw as Regan in Euston Films' The Sweeney (1975-1978)

                                   The Sweeney - Euston Films (Harry South)

• Westerns
• Usually US imports and still very popular through to the turn of the 1970s 
• One thing the UK wasn't good at - for obvious reasons - was proeducing Western-themed shows. In the USA, they had been the staple diet of TV since the early 50s and continued to be so through to the 1970s. A typical show was The Virginian which starred James Drury as the eponymous cattleman, a show broadcast on BBC1 throughout the 1960s.

The Virginian - NBC (1962 - 1971) 

                                         The Virginian - NBC TV (Percy Faith)

• Medical/Hospital
• A type of show that comes and goes, but there have been several examples with distinctive title music. 
• Angels was a BBC show that was set in a training hospital and looked at the lives of a group of trainee nurses, the Angels of the title. It started as a weekly drama, but for its last few years, it was converted into a twice-weekly soap.

Angels - BBC TV (1975 - 1983)

                                           Angels - BBC TV (Alan Parker)

• Spy/Agent/ITC
• Big in the 1960s with the range of ITC drama series such as The Saint and still a sub-genre that makes a regular comeback
• Although it only ran for 17 episodes and finished in a somewhat ambiguous fashion, ITC's The Prisoner - created and largely written by its star Patrick McGoohan - remains a landmark  and enigmatic show. ITC's boss Lou Grade thought he was getting an updated, colour version of McGoohan's previous series Danger Man. Little did he know.  

The Prisoner - ITC  (1967)

                                         The Prisoner - ITC (Ron Grainer)

• Contemporary Drama
• Whether kitchen sink or high-powered gloss and glamour, they'll be in here.
• Singer-turned actor Adam Faith starred as cockney chancer Budgie, the title character in this superb LWT series that ran for two years in the early 70s. It also featured Ian Cuthbertson as Budgie's *boss*, Charlie Endell. 

Budgie - LWT (1971-1972)

                                 Budgie - London Weekend TV (Nick Harrison)

• Science Fiction/Fantasy
• Always a staple type of show on UK television and today, highly popular.
• Blake's 7 proved to be a well-loved series if also highly creaky of set. It was made by many of those who had worked on Doctor Who and told the story of a band of renegade ex-prisoners who had escaped from their planetary jail and acquired an alien spaceship as their get-away vehicle of choice. 

Blake's 7 - BBC TV  (1978-1981)

 
                                     Blake's 7 Theme - BBC TV (Dudley Simpson)

COMING NEXT....

Next week, we dive into the subject *proper* with a look at the Historical, Police/Detective and Western categories. There's plenty of intriguing material in there, so do please join me then.

Alan Dorey

8th April 2014