This Is Your Life

The Christmas edition of "This Is Your Life", 1996, on BBC was dedicated to Noddy. Noddy thought that he was to appear on "Mrs Merton's Christmas Show" and had no idea of what he was getting himself into. The guests included Roy Wood, Suzy Quatro, Toyah, Gary Glitter, Brian May, Reeves & Mortimer among others as well as Nod's mum, wife and children and of course Don, Jim and Dave.
I must admit that the programme was a bit disappointing, as I hadn't expected it to be that short. The Danish version of "This Is Your Life" seemed to run for hours and hours so the guests could get really deep into their stories about the "victim", but on BBC the programmes lasted for a short 30 minutes. That meant that the guests could only talk for 20-30 seconds each, which really isn't enough.
Of course it was great seeing Nod, Jim, Don and Dave in one room, but the guys hardly got to say anything. Dave talked a bit about their experiences in the Bahamas in the 1960's. Don gave a hilarious account of Nod not wanting to pay for going to the toilet in Torquay. And Jim commented on their somewhat troublesome arrival at the Reading festival. That was it. The rest of the time they just sat there while other guests gave their 20 second speeches. I just thought, what a waste! Here you finally have the guys together in the same room and then you just let them sit there, doing nothing!
It was, however, funny to watch their reactions when a short clip of Reeves & Mortimer's spoof on Slade was shown. Where Don and Dave were rolling with laughter, Jim looked rather anguished and the smile that he came up with afterwards was very strained.
All in all the programme was much too short, though, and afterwards you hadn't really learned anything new about Noddy at all!