Grumpy Guide To The Eighties is a brand new, one-hour special from the makers of Grumpy Old Men and Grumpy Old Women, in which a very-cross-section of Grumps (old and young…ish) wax irritable about the decade that style, taste and decency forgot. These ten years that saw the rise of rampant consumerism, the Wicked Witch of Westminster, shoulder pads and rubbish hair were a difficult time for those of a disgruntled disposition, so expect their Filofaxes of fury to be positively bulging with caustic memos.
GEOFFREY PALMER narrates a show that puts the monkey boot into Roland Rat, the Rubik’s Cube, mullets, Cabbage Patch Kids and Agadoo, assisted by an illustrious list of whingers including PENNY SMITH, AL MURRAY, NEIL MORRISSEY, ALISTAIR MCGOWAN, RONNI ANCONA, JOHN THOMSON, SHAPPI KHORSANDI, ED BYRNE, HUEY MORGAN, FIONA ALLEN, RUSSELL KANE, MARK RADCLIFFE, BOBBY DAVRO, DONNA MCPHAIL, MARK STEEL, ANDI OLIVER, MATTHEW LE TISSIER and TERRY CHRISTIAN.
The eighties, a decade defined by vacuity, are perhaps best summed up by the dross that passed for pop back then; AL MURRAY found the lyrics of The Human League “tongue in cheek at least. Whereas you never got the feeling that Duran Duran had a tongue or a cheek. It was just brass neck.” Even scarier than the New Romantics was the Leader of the Free World, as MARK RADCLIFFE recalls: “On Spitting Image, Ronald Reagan was not as funny as the real thing. It just seemed impossible that this had happened.” But there was another, more sinister puppet unsettling FIONA ALLEN. “Stupid, green, pointless, squeaking, irritating pile of furry sh*t”, she fondly reminisces, before concluding, “I’d like to have an Orville bonfire party.” There were strange fads too, including CB radios. “It was odd, it was just a lot of children speaking to truck drivers” says RUSSELL KANE. “Now, there’d be an electronic tag on your leg faster than you can say, ‘Meet me by the bins, I’m thirty-seven’.” Plus, TERRY CHRISTIAN reveals what the acronym ‘Yuppie’ really stands for: “Young-upwardly-mobile … whatever. I just thought they were a bunch of tw*ts.”
Grumpy Guide To The Eighties is a Liberty Bell production. The film is produced and directed by PIP BANYARD, with STUART PREBBLE the Executive Producer for Liberty Bell and GILLY HALL the Executive Producer for the BBC.
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Grumpy Guide To The Eighties will transmit on BBC Two on Sunday 9th May
What the press said about Grumpy Guide To Christmas:
“Thank Santa for these keeping-it-real curmudgeons - and it’s now a mixed-gender complaints fest - who snarl in the face of festive bounty, traditions and gift-giving. If, like them, you’re a proud Grinch, then you’ll lap up their guide to all things that people of an older persuasion like to moan about at Christmas.”
Ruth Margolis, Radio Times
“The show that has elevated spleen-venting to an art form.”
Vicki Power, ‘Review’ The Daily Telegraph
For more information please contact Ben Nolan, Lucy Plosker or Dan Lloyd at Avalon Public Relations on: 020 7598 7222 / benn@avalonuk.com, lucyp@avalonuk.com or danl@avalonuk.com
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LIBERTY BELL PRODUCTIONS
Liberty Bell Productions, which was formed in autumn 2002, is based in Newcastle and London, and specialises in the production of television documentaries and features, factual entertainment, current affairs, drama-documentary and youth programming. Recent productions include: Life and Death on the NHS (ITV1), Portillo on Thatcher: The Lady’s Not For Spurning (BBC FOUR), The Alastair Campbell Diaries (BBC TWO), Three Men In Another Boat (BBC TWO), The Grumpy Guides to… (BBC TWO), Grumpy Old Men (BBC TWO), Grumpy Old Women (BBC TWO), Why We Went to War (More 4), Don't Get Me Started (Five), Real Life: Beating Breast Cancer (ITV1), The Meaning of Life (BBC ONE), and The Widow’s Tale (BBC TWO).
WHAT THE PRESS HAVE SAID ABOUT PREVIOUS LIBERTY BELL PRODUCTIONS
Life and Death on the NHS
“A startling, beautiful documentary following the experiences of a clutch of patients in hospital: a simple idea related with colour and subtlety and it was incredibly moving without ever exploiting its subjects…This wasn’t a political documentary and it wasn’t a feather-brained confected set-up. It was sober and tightly edited documentary making. It didn’t patronise you, it simply showed three diverse experiences of patients and the professionalism and skill of those doctors and nurses who helped care for them - and O’Brien directed it with the brevity and sensitivity of whatever the television equivalent of fine short storytelling.”
Tim Teeman, The Times
Portillo on Thatcher: The Lady’s Not For Spurning
“Gordon Brown and David Cameron should watch it. Tony Blair should get a hold of a tape and reflect on what might have been. Media bosses who only commission films if they portray politicians as corrupt and mad should take note also… I know people with only a passing interest in politics who were gripped.”
Steve Richards, The Independent
The Alastair Campbell Diaries
“Just as DVD extras allow you to see the human fallibility that lies behind the polished exterior of the finished film, Campbell’s diary fills in the engrossing trivia of off-stage politics… it is completely engrossing.”
Thomas Sutcliffe, The Independent
The Widow’s Tale
“This complex and moving film is one of the television highlights of the year so far.”
Andrew Male, The Sunday Times
Grumpy Old Men
“The whole programme put me into an uncharacteristically, seethingly good mood… Wonderful stuff.”
A.A. Gill, The Sunday Times
