CROSSROADS - NO MORE, P-LEEEASE

By Graham Young on May 15, 08 09:21 PM

MY WORST initial fear about doing the Crossroads 'lost tape rediscovered' story was that somebody might suddenly want to exhume the show's bones once again.

There can be no more, surely. After it was supposed to have been axed for good in 1988, bringing it back and recycling it twice involved a series of mistakes that have hopefully been laid to rest once and for all.

And yet, at the back of my mind, a contact at ITV.com was sooooo excited by the news of the earliest tape discovery that somehow you wouldn't put it past them...

The best thing about Crossroads was that it was always surprisingly relevant as well as being accessible on screen and behind the scenes.

Researching the story also reminded me what a giant, much-loved star Noele Gordon was... and that I must post on this site an interview I once did with her agent. Look out for it soon because it's an interesting retrospective insight into former values.

Eight times Noele won TV Times' biggest annual award, for example.

She used to live in Handsworth Wood, where one of her bedrooms was converted into a walk-in wardrobe. Nice.

Who and where are the stars now flying the flag for Brum... and living here?

When Trevor Eve was on Jonathan Ross recently, no mention was made of this city.

Cat Deeley doesn't give interviews to the papers of her home city, any more than Frank Skinner does.

Talking of whom, having declined many requests for interviews, his London agent once phoned me up and had the temerity to suggest I could join a queue to see Frank at WH Smith in town where he'd be reading extracts from his new book.

And, you've guessed it, I still couldn't interview him!

I dare say that if I bumped into Frank or Cat in the street they'd be as nice as pie, if less generous with their time than the likes of proper stars like Ken Dodd, Ernie Wise, Bob Monkhouse, Jasper Carrott, Leslie Crowther and Bruce Forsyth have been with me over the years.

If truth be known, it's been easier to interview everyone from Martin Scorsese, Tom Hanks, Sean Connery and Barbra Streisand than it has been to get a peep out of Cat or Frank - who seems to have blown the chance that was once there for the taking for him to become one of this country's best-loved, all-time great comedians of the highest order.

The idea that ignorant London PR firms sometimes try to run Showbiz Britain (Midlands Division) like the equivalent of a police state makes me seethe.

Perhaps the return of a good old-fashioned, Midlands-friendly series like Crossroads wouldn't be such a bad idea after all.