Dramerrrrr-raaaaaaama

Ah, tea-time.  So many of our meetings have involved tea-time.  Around five o'clock, in my neck of the woods.  Usually on my knee in front of some fine piece of programming.   But now it is late at night and, as I have just written and deleted a huge piece on the grounds of good taste, (one day, I'll publish it, but not right now) my usual preamble must be a little briefer than I am used to.  This is a new regular thrill, beasts; a little trip into the hearts and minds of the after-school crowd c.1984.  Enter, if you can stand it, the world of Dramarama.

Well, that died on its arse, didn't it?  I mean, the title just kills it.  Hey! Guys!  Great idea for a new show to get the kids into discussing serious heavyweight issues!  Let's name it after the lesson at school that involves most twatting about!  Blinder of a plan, mate.  Next week, PE Mysteries starring Mr Baxter. 

Actually, fuck that.  I'd watch PE Mysteries if Baxter was in it.  No offense, Drama teachers, by the way.  I know your pain.

Clearly, ITV realised that they might have just killed the new anthology show dead, so they took to adding the word 'Spooky' in swirly green Chromakey.  They needn't have bothered.  The weird chanting Dramarama theme, followed by a badly animated curtain was all the freakout we needed.  Why is bad animation so scary?  If you ask me, it always gives the impression that a serial killer knocked it up in his shed, that's why.

Cosgrove-Hall-Manson productions.  Joke edited for taste, again.

So we get little one off plays.  Twenty odd minutes each.  As you and I know that's just enough time to mess with anyone's head in TV Land.  So, obviously, they go with family friendly tea-time viewing for episode one.    Dolls that come to life.  Naturally.

We open on a little Edwardian lad, sitting with his old Granny.  Poor bugger, first of all he gets his gran to tell him a bedtime story.  Being a pleasant old sort, she goes with the 'in a dark, dark house' routine, which goes down a freakin' storm, since she lives in a dark, dark house.  Then, by the time he's practically shat himself, it's off to bed on his own.  You know, in a dark, dark room and everything.  Well bugger me, if there isn't a dark, dark box in the corner.  By this point, you're expecting him to look resignedly to camera, like Wile E Coyote before he falls off a cliff, but it seems our hero has never a spooky film and doesn't know what's coming next.

Feeling scared, sonny?  Never mind, here's this tasteful and not at all sentient sailor doll to go on your shelf.  Hope it doesn't move by itself or anything.  Likewise, hope it doesn't remind you that your dad was a sailor who drowned.  Jesus, what is it with Granny?  Does she have his sanity insured or something? 

But it's all going to be OK!   It's just his dead father's ghost, moving the doll, that's all.  Well thank fuck for that.   Deceased relatives should always communicate through terrifying inanimate objects, it really speeds the grieving process along.  That, and a three minute blast of psychedelic hallucinations that make me wonder what exactly Granny was putting in the Ovaltine. 

How many of you fellow Britorians recall these little nightmares?  The sailor doll nearly caused the ten year old Ghost Transmissions to pass out in terror, but what else do you remember?  Here's a clue for next time...try writing your name on the blackboard.  Then...rub it out.  No!  Not your name!  HER name!