Play Away S8E5 (1978) - FULL EPISODE

Christmas Is Coming. Julie Stevens, Brian Cant, Anita Dobson, and Tony Robinson star in this festive edition of Play Away, originally broadcast on Saturday, 23rd December, 1978. Once more, this off-air recording is likely to be the last copy left in existence as the Beeb yet again only went and wiped the master tapes. The bungling blunderers.

There's a nice long sketch in this one with Santa accompanied by the wonderfully-named Gordon Gnome (with a hard G), Peter Pixie, and Alf Elf, and it includes some clever sleigh special effects, a roof scene reminiscent to me of a couple of T-Bag episodes (perhaps not entirely a surprise when you study the end credits), and a song I haven't heard since primary school.

Meanwhile, the list of socks raised a smile, the Stick the Tache on Santa game gave me a chuckle, and I enjoyed Brian's Groucho Marx character a lot - you don't get enough Marx Brothers references on kids' TV these days. I'm not sure about Brian's other character seemingly going on about marrying his cousin, though. I wonder whether that country bumpkin character is a nod to Ronnie Barker. In fact, I suspect there's a second Two Ronnies reference in this one...

The tree baubles telling jokes amongst themselves is a funny idea and must have been tricky to pull off, while look out at the end for a writing credit for none other than Johnny Ball, and a teeny tiny bit of continuity after the post-credits gag. Lovely stuff.

Huge amounts of thanks and credit to all those who helped bring this recording back from the dead, including Lee for not wiping the tape in the first place.

(If you're a copyright holder and have any objections, please feel free to contact me. Alternatively, I haven't monetised the video, so you're welcome to do so, and that way everybody wins.)