During the Summer of 2015, I was presenting Crossroads Check-in at the weekend on Big Centre. I was also helping Chanelle Shea-Calvin with Postbag which was a nice little half hour programme which highlighted stuff on the station, and allowed people to get in touch with their thoughts. Between us, we had the idea that we could expand the programme from its half-hour slot, to a full one-hour magazine style programme. I put this to the bosses and they agreed! So it was that The Big Centre Magazine was born.

We planned the items, wrote the scripts, and I submitted an idea for the new opening titles along the lines of Chanelle and I buying a magazine from a kiosk and then we’d see all of our items escaping from inside it. Thoroughly groundbreaking stuff, I’m sure you’ll agree. However, if you watch the first few shows, you’ll notice that this isn’t quite the case. Instead, it shows Chanelle and I visiting the Post Office to collect all of our letters in a bin bag! These shots were supposed to be part of the magazine/kiosk titles, but we ran out of filming time. So until our graphic designer could spare the time to come filming with us again, I had to quickly fashion the version you see on these early shows which unfortunately gives the impression that I’m at the Post Office to take out the trash! That’s showbiz.

Happily, we soon did the extra filming and completed the titles exactly how I’d wanted them. And I still have the prop magazine that we made for the titles, and which featured most weeks in the show.

Flan Alert!

Peter Thomas from TiswasOnline was persuaded (yeah, right) to take on the role of the 2015 Phantom Flan Flinger

After the end credits had rolled, the camera returned to me for a theatrical “Honestly!” (fade to black)

At the same time as The Big Centre Magazine was going out, I had another programme running on Big Centre: Tiswas Pies Again. This compilation series was the first ever proper compilations of Tiswas to be shown on TV since the show had finished in 1982, and it was also one of my own “UpAndHappy! Productions”. During the Magazine, I hit on the idea of running another special 5 minute ‘extra’ bit of Tiswas every week. I asked Peter Thomas from TiswasOnline (of which I am also a long-standing part) to make The A-Z of Tiswas. This irreverent anthology of Tiswas-related bits and pieces ran during each week that Tiswas Pies Again was on the air, and Peter also helped The Phantom Flan Flinger to make an appearance on the Magazine – and I got a pie in the face. As you can see from the photos, Chanelle managed to escape that one!

Another Tiswas feature, was the time when the Tiswas Bunny Boy turned up. Matthew Butler had sung ‘Bright Eyes’ (from the film, ‘Watership Down’) on Tiswas in 1980/81 whilst wearing an all-covering rabbit suit… the song was released as a single and hit around No.121 in the charts! Matthew came onto the Magazine for a chat, still dressed in a full-size rabbit suit. It was almost as if it had grown with him over the following 35 years.

Like Crossroads Check-in, which I’d made before this, during the Summer of 2015, I was across all aspects of the production. Chanelle and I planned the show, wrote the scripts and arranged the interviews and features. We then went into the studio on a Friday morning and did the whole thing ‘as live’. Then as soon as we finished, I sat down at the editing computer and finely tuned (!) everything, adding graphics and whatever little ‘flourishes’ I was able to bring to the production. Then it was rendered and uploaded ready for it’s weekend transmission.

You can probably tell that The Big Centre Magazine was the most fun programme I was involved with at Big Centre (in addition to my time as a quiz host in 2016). We really cared about what were doing, I do hope you enjoy watching what we did.

Watch The Big Centre Magazine below

A quick note about how the listings below work. Videos all play in the main big screen, and you choose from the thumbnail listing underneath! Oldest first, newest last. Click the one you want, and it’ll play in the big screen. Some extra interview segments are down at the end.

BC Mag Show 01 TX 12th September 2015

BC Mag Show 02 TX 19th September 2015

BC Mag Show 03 TX 26th September 2015

BC Mag Show 04 TX 3rd October 2015

BC Mag Show 05 TX 10th October 2015

BC Mag Show 06 TX 17th October 2015

BC Mag Show 07 TX 24th October 2015

BC Mag Show 08 TX 31st October 2015

BC Mag Show 09 TX 7th November 2015

BC Mag Show 10 TX 14th November 2015

BC Mag Show 11 TX 21st November 2015

BC Mag Show 12 TX 28th November 2015

The Big Centre Magazine - 24hour sing-along

The Big Centre Magazine Life Changes question

Youth Excellence Awards interview - Big Centre Magazine

This article, along with various others in my website are part of the wider story of Big Centre Television as seen from the perspective of the programmes I was making at the time. Most of the articles contain a video gallery of the original shows that I made.

I was with Big Centre Television from the very first day of production in January 2015 until the last of the original team were made redundant in November 2017 when the bulk of production and operations were being moved up to Leeds, the HQ of Made TV with whom Big Centre had merged in October 2016. Big Centre had a wonderful team all the way through, I miss them all and I remain really proud of what we ultimately achieved.

Contents (click an entry to go to that page)

As time goes on, I'll be filling in some of the gaps as well as adding more to these existing parts of the story too. If there's anything missing, or you'd like me to talk about something in particular, send me a message on social media (see the very top or very bottom of this page) or contact me through the website.