We’ve received a bunch of messages about the music in the podcast so here it is! The music of Leyline High is available NOW on @bandcamp.com including the chart-topping Christmas hit “Time for Christmas Time” and charity single “Don’t Raise the Dead” 🎶 thomasnelstrop.bandcamp.com/album/rewind...

🗣️NEW 🎄CHRISTMAS🎄 EPISODE! podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/9...

Want to try my sketch podcast Crowley Time but not sure where to start? Well here it is, a brand new Best Of with a difference! Finally, me, Tom Crowley, is made to answer for his crimes by the highest authority: aliens. Available on your podcast app and at crowleytime.com now!

Our Xmas episode will arrive in your podcast feed at 3:30pm today! (Home time) Let us know YOUR favourite Leyline High Xmas special. Was it the one from 1989 where the chemistry teacher is buried with a stake of Holly through his heart- but then comes back to life because of a Xmas Zombie virus?

Legend has it that this moment in the Morecambe & Wise Christmas show 1977 broke television sets up and down the country because of how much star power was onscreen. 🤩

Do you have a favourite Leyline High Christmas special? Maybe it’s the one from 1978 where the nativity play set is home to a magical portal and everyone passing through the manger doors is transported back in time to 0 AD. (Barry gets into terrible trouble with some Pharisees.)

Thanks for listening! Our Christmas episode is out tomorrow- in which we discuss our favourite Leyline High Christmas specials. 🎄

Cutting pres from CBBC is baffling. There's so much talk about young viewers abandoning trad TV for YouTube & TikTok; content which is overwhelmingly direct address to camera, talking directly to the viewer. Pres seems to be the thing that could compete with that the most. youtu.be/5jiBoupSt30?...

The Empress of the Racnoss “akakakaka” from Doctor Who and Anna “yes, no, the fact is” Rampton from W1A are both played by Sarah Parish and I don’t think we talk about that enough. An actor who understands the assignment. Unrecognisable. 🤩

Spotted the Blue Peter 1981 annual in a market for £1 so snapped it up. Bonus Doctor Who and Grange Hill! 🤩

I long for a tile on BBC iPlayer called something like Play-For-Today-niverse or whatever. And you click there are all 306 episodes just there for anyone to watch. And the 28 missing ones have been lovingly animated. Why is this too much to ask??

Just been paid for a recall audition I did in May. Merry Christmas, freelancers!

Really enjoying Box of Delights: The Story of BBC Children’s TV. Love all the nail-biting TV stories. This one from Play School is typical. They could only do 3 edits across 5 programmes so Derek Griffiths had to improvise 3 mins of broadcasting armed only with a lump of plasticine! What a pro!

And…cue Queen. RIP Stanley Baxter! I remember enjoying his authorised biography very much. The chapter titles alone are mind-boggling.

Working out the claps in Jethro Tull’s Solstice Bells.

Heads up, you can apply to be Director General of the BBC through the job listing here: careers.bbc.co.uk/job/Director... And if you think you're not qualified, just remember that John Reith had to find out what "broadcasting" was before his interview.

Immersive.

Armed with only a brilliant script, even a young inexperienced screenwriter can get their work produced by a huge studio. You just have to WANT it hard enough. Reach for the stars, budding writers!💫

Frog put the cookies in a box. “There,” he said. “Now we will not eat any more cookies.” “But we can open the box,” said Toad. “That is true,” said Frog.

Why would Wikipedia show this to me? I know what I’m like. I don’t need reminding.

Woo! That’s some excellent podcast company we’re keeping. Thanks for listening, Christopher!

Ooh! A lovely pin badge treat from Etsy made by @blacksmoke1033.bsky.social just arrived! It’s Mari Lwyd season!

Order soon if you want some Crowley Time swag for Christmas! Both the Sumptuoso Sweatshirt and the NEW AND IMPROVED Maximum Elite T-Shirt must be ordered by the 16th Dec in the UK and the 7th Dec in the rest of the world if Mister Christmas is to get them to you for the big day! crowleytime.com

Interesting thread 👇 There are also the weeks/months of UNPAID development to get the option or commission in the first place. And sometimes your main point of contact suddenly leaves the company, you get a bounceback email & you have to slowly accept your project is no longer going anywhere.

Eep! This gorgeous tome from @tenacrebooks.bsky.social arrived! Yum yum yum. 😋 📺

So it’s just Black Friday forever now, right? Eternal pretend sales until the heat death of the universe.

This BBC kids tv advert from 1998 is still very impressive and very lovely

We’ll be back in that blue box in no time. Happy #DoctorWhoDay

Pretty soon the prize for the Edinburgh Comedy Award will just be a role in a supermarket Christmas advert. Cut out the middle man.

It’s been a fun week for seeing live sketch comedy. Burnistoun’s Favourite Son was getting himself in the ground in The Death of Biscuity Boyle at BAaD in Glasgow. And then the Fast Show gang were reunited at the bloody London Palladium! Both shows an absolute treat. Massive audiences! 💫

This one time I saw an actor in TV show who wasn’t already a really famous star so naturally I turned it off in disgust.

PAUL F TOMPKINS ON CROWLEY TIME! 🎉

MY SCRIPT FOR NEXT JAMES BOND GROUCHO: (Enters wearing bow tie and fez) Greetings, Russkies. I’m Bond James Bond, my Dad had a stutter. Put your guns down! Now put your hands up! Now put your feet up! It gets tiring, this espionage game. Allow me to introduce my associate, Voluptua Gazungas.

Daniel Craig as Bond, poisoned and blown to smithereens, regenerates into Billie Piper. Problem solved. ✅

Jesus, if we were to lose the BBC and ITV’s Media & Entertainment division is bought by Comcast we’ll see the complete Americanisation of UK television. The US obviously makes loads of wonderful television. But I like to think the weird Britishness of stuff we make over here has value too.

The Day Today’s legacy is a whole generation of people who say “proof, if proof be need be” and can’t quite remember the real phrase.

Floella Benjamin for DG.

OK FINE! I’ll be the next BBC Director General. Day 1: funnel the budgets into a load of new comedies, dramas & documentaries. New Play for Today / Screen One type strand, new Comedy Playhouse pilots series once or twice a year. Day 2: resign

Ah, there’s nothing I like better than to gather the family around me and watch my phone footage of fireworks displays from years gone by.

90 seconds in and we've already got Mr Blobby doing Riverdance. What a immense explosion of fun for a Saturday morning. 🤩

Remember, remember… that I wrote an episode of Missy in which she makes sure the gunpowder plot *works* this time so she can install herself as Queen👑 (It was fun to write, this one.) www.bigfinish.com/releases/v/m... @bigfinish.bsky.social

A movie you've seen more than 7 times with a gif

Just when I thought the Map Men book couldn’t be any more up my street, I turn the page & there’s a chapter on the ITV regional franchises. 🤩 @jayforeman.bsky.social @markcooperjones.bsky.social

Off to Foxhill Drive to try living with impossible. 👻

Can a children's TV show be cursed? Do you dare click on our Halloween special episode to find out? (Please do dare.) podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/8...

More than Ghostwatch, the finale of Paul Daniels: Live at Halloween 1987 scared the SHIT out of me as a kid. The slam of the iron maiden, the horrifying silence, the voice of a floor manager asking everyone to leave. And then silent credits. Incredible television. www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5R0...

Meine Lieblinge! Is that me you can hear as Dr Marta Baumgartner in this year’s Beef & Dairy Halloween special BEEF PIE? 🥧 (Yes)