There was a time when Channel 4 did drama properly. Before Bake Off and Come-Dine-with-Whatever took over the schedule and the nation’s soul, you had these weird little one-series gems tucked away at ten o’clock, midweek — the kind of slot only students, insomniacs, and the terminally single were still watching. One of those was And the Beat Goes On, which I’m now convinced I might be the only person alive who remembers.
It aired in 1996, ran for eight episodes, and then vanished faster than Brookside’s religious phase. But I watched it. All of it. And now — thanks to some low-level digital archaeology I’ve got the full run again. VHS quality. Grainier than a Findus crispy pancake. But intact. And honestly? It still holds up.
Written by Brookie’s backroom boy
The show was written by Joe Ainsworth, who was knocking around Brookie at the time under the not-so-subtle steerage of Mal Young and Phil Redmond. You can tell. It’s got that same blend of working-class grit, social awkwardness, and people getting pregnant at deeply inconvenient moments.
Set in Liverpool — but not 80s/90s Scallies-and-sink-estates Liverpool — this was the 60s: all perms, prams, and political repression. Two families at the centre of it. One of them, the Spencers, were proper respectable. Nick Spencer was a Conservative MP (I know), and Jenny Agutter played Connie, his long-suffering wife. But don’t go picturing her with a G&T and a ciggie — this wasn’t Abigail’s Party. Connie was a “good wife”. She kept the dinner warm, wore a twinset like it was armour, and swallowed disappointment like cod liver oil.
Their daughter Christine (played by a pre-cookery telly Lisa Faulkner) turns up with a dodgy boyfriend and a whiff of rebellion. Cue simmering tension, raised voices at the tea table, and that classic middle-class meltdown: someone leaving without finishing their sausage and mash.
Over the road: The O’Rourkes
The O’Rourkes were the contrast — Mickey, Mary Ann, and their lad Ritchie (among many other family members including a fantastic tuyrn by John McCardle as a spiv). It’s Ritchie who ends up in proper teenage bother when his girlfriend Cathy turns out to be up the duff… by someone else. Peak 60s scandal. Arguments, guilt, shouty dads, and Ritchie storming out in a leather jacket, scowling like he’s auditioning for The Smiths. Played, by the way, by Danny McCall — fresh off Brookie and still looking like someone who’d happily rob your milk crate for 10 Regal.
I once saw Danny McCall live in concert. At Butlins. With Sinitta.
Not even joking. It was a week away at Bognor Regis with Watty and Bolty. Danny done a bit of crooning, bit of chat, looked like he was enjoying himself. Sinitta absolutely tore it up — So Macho had more power live than it had any right to. Oh, there was also Nookie Bear!
Same Mersey, different manor
It was filmed at Mersey TV’s Campus Manor — the same lot that gave us Brookie, Hollyoaks, and that weird Grange Hill Goes Urban era. You can see the Redmond fingerprints: kitchen-sink families, emotional repression, women holding everything together while the blokes make terrible decisions in bad jumpers.
The cast was a solid “Oh yeah, them” line-up:
- Jenny Agutter being brilliant while visibly dying inside
- Lisa Faulkner perfecting her proto-Silent Witness stare
- Danny McCall, pulling faces and starting arguments
- Stephen Moore, Katy Carmichael, John McArdle, Roy Brandon, Dominic Jephcott — all giving reliable 7-out-of-10 performaces.
No one talks about it
It never got a repeat. No VHS. No DVD. But somehow, I’ve got all eight episodes in my TV collection.
Why does it matter?
Because And the Beat Goes On was proper telly. Not flashy. Not ironic. Just people trying to live their lives, making rubbish decisions and trying to hold it all together. It didn’t shout. It didn’t explain itself. It just was. And it stuck with me.
If you’ve got a vague memory of Jenny Agutter staring into the middle distance while Danny McCall sulks over a shepherd’s pie — congratulations. You’re in the club.
Oh, and a fantastic soundtrack to accompany it.
