The saviours of the BBC... Bruce, Cilla and Dr Who!
- Publication: Daily Express
- Date: 2004-03-17
- Author: Mark Jagasia
- Page: 6
- Language: English
YOU KNEW IT, WE KNEW IT, NOW THE TV BOSSES ADMIT IT.. THE OLD ONES REALLY THE BEST
Stars back to rescue Saturdays
THEY are the much-loved veterans of light entertainment - and in its hour of the need the BBC is hoping they can rescue Saturday night television.
Bruce Forsyth and Cilla Black are to be brought back to prime-time BBC1 as the station hunts around for a big Saturday night show.
And, to add to the familiar feel, Dr Who is being lined up for a Saturday teatime return - 31 years after it first hit the airwaves.
Bruce, famous for his catch-phrase "Didn't They Do Well" and who presented his first Generation Game for the BBC in 1971, is to return to Saturday nights with Strictly Come Dancing.
The show is described as a new celebrity version of the long-running ballroom dancing show, which began just four years after the end of the Second World War.
And Cilla, known to millions for her sixties pop career and as former host of ITV dating show Blind Date, is working with BBC bosses on new projects that will air on the station at the end of this year or early next year.
BBC1 controller Lorraine Heggessey said yesterday that Bruce, who had been effectively written off by a younger generation of television commissioners and trendy media commentators, was still a showman.
"Bruce is a great dancer. He is right for that format," she said. "He is a great entertainer as we saw on Have I Got News For You when he stood in as a guest presenter last year. We felt he was spot on for this particular show." And the 76-year-old star's agent Jan Kennedy said her client was a timeless star -and that age was no bar to him presenting a new show.
"Bruce is ageless and is on top form," she said. "He takes care with his figure and looks after himself. He is still exceedingly popular with all age groups - from students to mums and dads".
The BBC are also committed to bringing back Dr Who. However, no final decision about who will play the Time Lord has yet been confirmed and a new generation of youngsters will probably have to wait until next year before they can see him again.
The Saturday night schedule will also be peppered with a mixture of other familiar faces, including Graham Norton and Paul O'Grady - although Ms Heggessey conceded that light entertainment is difficult to get right and that several shows may not stay the course.
The BBC governors recently admitted Saturday nights are "one of the most challenging areas for BBC1". "We are trying to grow the next generation of shows but it is really difficult to get entertainment right," said Ms Heggessey.
"The only way we are going to do that is through a process of trial and error. We would love to guarantee that every one will be a hit but sometimes it takes two or three times to get it right".
Meanwhile, other shows lined up include one to mark the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings.
Destination D-Day: Raw Recruits takes 19 young men through the preparations that their grandfathers might have experienced during the war.
Other shows in the pipeline include a lavish adaptation of Anthony Trollope's 19th century novel He Knew He Was Right, starring Bill Nighy and Lauren Fraser.
And Kevin Whately will play mysterious pig-catcher Wolf in the Legend of the Tamworth Two - a comedy drama loosely based on the true story of two pigs who escaped from the butcher's knife into the Wiltshire countryside, triggering a huge newspaper pig-hunt.
Other highlights include a drama-documentary on Sir Christopher Wren, the genius behind St Paul's Cathedral.
And TV veterans James Bolam and Dennis Waterman will star with Amanda Redman and Alun Armstrong as a group of retired detectives in light-hearted thriller New Tricks.
But despite "Black Wednesday", on which the BBC's rating fell lower than Channel 4's, bosses said they had no plans to extend East-Enders to make it a five-night soap.
Ms Heggessey said: "I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't. If I get the ratings, that's wrong, if I don't, that's wrong. There are lots of fantastic shows on Wednesday. Not everything is about getting massive ratings."
Disclaimer: These citations are created on-the-fly using primitive parsing techniques. You should double-check all citations. Send feedback to whovian@cuttingsarchive.org
- APA 6th ed.: Jagasia, Mark (2004-03-17). The saviours of the BBC... Bruce, Cilla and Dr Who!. Daily Express p. 6.
- MLA 7th ed.: Jagasia, Mark. "The saviours of the BBC... Bruce, Cilla and Dr Who!." Daily Express [add city] 2004-03-17, 6. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Jagasia, Mark. "The saviours of the BBC... Bruce, Cilla and Dr Who!." Daily Express, edition, sec., 2004-03-17
- Turabian: Jagasia, Mark. "The saviours of the BBC... Bruce, Cilla and Dr Who!." Daily Express, 2004-03-17, section, 6 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=The saviours of the BBC... Bruce, Cilla and Dr Who! | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_saviours_of_the_BBC..._Bruce,_Cilla_and_Dr_Who! | work=Daily Express | pages=6 | date=2004-03-17 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=31 March 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=The saviours of the BBC... Bruce, Cilla and Dr Who! | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/The_saviours_of_the_BBC..._Bruce,_Cilla_and_Dr_Who! | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=31 March 2025}}</ref>
