Number 73

NUMBER 73
Made by: TVS
Shown on: ITV
Years shown: 1982-88

In an effort to show the usual Saturday morning cartoons, guest bands, competitions and educational bits in a slightly different format, ITV came up with Number 73, which mixed all the old guff with a kind of soap opera. Ethel (Sandi Toksvig) was the landlady, living in Maidstone, ME15 6RS (or “me fifteen, six arse”, which is obviously riotously entertaining), and presideed over her ‘family’ of young boarders. There was Harry Stern (Nick Staverson), a mulleted fashion-victim, who thought he was pretty cool, but was actually very dense; equally carefully-coiffed was Neil (Neil Buchanan), a struggling artist, who was clearly never going to make it. For a while, Neil was going out with Kim (Kim Goody), who was friends with roller-skating cockney, Dawn (Andrea Arnold.) Dawn was a vegetarian and all-round animal lover, who worked as an assistant to a vet, and frankly was the only one who wasn’t going to end up dossing around for the rest of her life. The neighbours of the folks at Number 73 were Martin Edwards, who was always starting up some kind of feud, and his more sympathetic wife, Hazel.

Number 73 was a bit like watching a drama class rehearse; the script was developed through a combination of intense rehearsals and a fair bit of improvisation. But, in its own way, it was groundbreaking, because it was live drama, with no room for mistakes during the broadcast. It proved popular, but the makers felt it necessary to reinvent the show later on as 7T3, to remain ‘hip with the kids’, and was minus a few cast members. Neil Buchanan has made it as an artist in a sense, as he continues to wield the tubes of paint on ITV’s long-running Art Attack; but most of the rest of the young cast have disappeared into obscurity, including Kim Goody, who briefly tried to launch a pop career - and failed to chart.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 2/10

(Thanks to www.paulmorris.co.uk for the borrowed pic)