Dedications: My four late friends Rory, Stan, Bryan, Jeff - shine on you crazy diamonds, they would have blogged too. Then theres Garry from Brisbane, Franco in Milan, Mike now in S.F. / my '60s-'80s gang: Ned & Joseph in Ireland; in England: Frank, Des, Guy, Clive, Joe & Joe, Ian, Ivan, Nick, David, Les, Stewart, the 3 Michaels / Catriona, Sally, Monica, Jean, Ella, Anne, Candie / and now: Daryl in N.Y., Jerry, John, Colin, Martin and Donal.

Thursday 29 March 2012

Philip Jenkinson, R.I.P.


Those of a certain vintage here in England will fondly remember broadcaster Philip Jenkinson (1935-2012, who died on 4 March aged 76) from the early days of BBC2 television in the late 60s and 70s. He was one of the resident critics - the camp one - on new channel BBC2's flagship arts programme "Late Night Line Up" where he often interviewed older stars and directors and was passionable about classic movies of the 30s and earlier - fascinating then to young people like myself in my 20s finding out about the classics of earlier eras. He also co-hosted BBC2's "Film Night" back in the days when they pioneered showing classic and world cinema movies.
Like fellow critic Alexander Walker, Philip had that bouffant hairstyle and his enthusiasm for cinema was catching - a worthy colleague to the more serious Tony Bilbow and Joan Bakewell twirling her pencil in her op art mini-dresses as "the thinking man's crumpet" - (or Joan Bakewell Tart, as she was parodied in "Private Eye"; now in her 70s she champions older people's rights). Jenkinson also had regular columns in magazines like "Radio Times", and was parodied by Eric Idle in a MONTY PYTHON sketch and he appeared with other critics like Barry Norman and Michael Aspel in a MORECAMBE & WISE special where they were all dressed as sailors singing "There is nothing like a dame", back in 1977. RIP to a great champion of classic movies.

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