PAGE ONE: Once More (With Footnotes) (Again) #PGat35

IMPORTANT: This review contains SPOILERS. Massive great honking ones. If you haven’t ever seen Press Gang (Seriously?! Are you a KD?!!!  What are you even doing here reading this, you fool?!  Click right on over to Amazon, buy yourself the complete series boxset and remedy that situation immediately before you read any further…) #CommissionsEarned

It won multiple awards, it’s regularly cited as “classic tv”, and it marked the beginning of an illustrious career for a young Scottish writer. So, just how well has this 35 year old kiddie TV show about a kiddie newspaper stood the test of time?

A pre-title sequence throws us headlong into the action. Here is a newsroom in glorious, fledgling chaos, with walls still being painted, desks and office supplies being argued over, and new “volunteers” turning up all the time. At the eye of the storm sits Lynda Day, juggling multiple conversations and all too conscious that the very first edition of the Junior Gazette will be published in just five days time and is still missing its lead story…

The constant movement of characters around the newsroom and the zippy dialogue prove a heady combination, and the exquisitely detailed set design grants this début episode a richness uncommon in Children’s television. Indeed, it is rare in any television programme.¹ This is a breathless succession of short scenes and snappy exchanges, crammed in tight, without a wasted second: 24 minutes bursting at the seams. So much so, in fact, that the action even spills out over the end credits.² 

It is all the more astonishing to realise that whilst there is a great deal of drama here, there no real plot to speak of. However, we learn so much that it scarcely matters we will have to wait until the end of the next episode for the denouement of the wafer-thin storyline. As an exercise in ‘showing not telling’, Page One is a masterclass.  Here are just some of the things we learn:

Lynda is a workaholic perfectionist who used to produce the school magazine at Norbridge High.  She writes her name on everything, favours the colour red, likes Garfield, and works comfortably in organised chaos (just look at the state of her In-Out trays already!)  The thermos flask on her desk suggests that she is already keeping long and unsociable hours in the newsroom.  She can be judgemental and harsh to the point of cruelty, and expects everyone to operate to her own standard of excellence. (Example: being Lynda, she wouldn’t believe in all that Horoscopes nonsense – this is why she has given them to Frazz in the first place – but they’ll be included because they are expected in a “proper” newspaper, and she wants them to sound convincing… “Again. Less silly.”)

She is sneaky (pinching Mr Vader from under Chrissie’s nose) and manipulative (the wide-eyed girlish fascination verging on mild flirting she employs to charm him across to the JG office).  She is perfectly happy to screw over her mentor in pursuit of a story. And we are told Lynda is brilliant at English, but could she be rubbish at Maths? She shared a class with gormless Godfrey Hunter, so this might be the case, and would go at least some way to explaining her willingness to defer to Colin on money matters…

Matt Kerr is a nationally-known “top journalist” (although in fact the news clipping in question reports that producer Biddy Baxter is leaving Blue Peter!), who has moved to Norbridge to become Editor of the Gazette, and subsequently sets up the Junior Gazette initiative. He and Mr Sullivan are old friends.  (We might further speculate that Matt Kerr is a local boy who has moved back to Norbridge…)  Kerr has a formidable reputation, a figure of fear in the newsroom, and even Lynda dreads the summons to his office (in fact he is the only adult she seems uncomfortable interacting with).  Chrissie perpetuates the idea of him as a monster, although she is clearly a trusted member of Kerr’s team.

Kenny has a dark sense of humour, and is totally comfortable joking with Lynda even though he knows they don’t yet have their own front page headline, and this could be a sensitive subject in more ways than one.  He is one of “Sullivan’s Stars” and therefore clearly a high achiever and very capable, but it is more important that Lynda trusts his judgement and to have her back at all times. His support is not unquestioning though – rather surprisingly he sides with Spike over the disco story. Kenny and Lynda interact like old friends who have known each other for years, and have their own short-hand for things, like KDs.  However, he appears to be defined by his relationship with Lynda: Spike rapidly pigeon-holes him as dull (“Hey! You with no personality!”). Although Kenny is initially amused as Lynda crushes Spike’s advances (he has the unmistakeable look of someone who has witnessed this scene play out many times), he later appears uncomfortable and distinctly unhappy when he is caught in the middle of the Lynda-Spike crossfire. And at times, unfortunately, he can look a bit of KD himself…

Overall, the script is superb and relentlessly funny, making it almost impossible to choose a favourite line. In the end, Linda’s “Lethal? Great!” triumphs. It speaks volumes about who and what Ms Day is, and what she has the potential to become. She may not have quite hit her stride yet, but nevertheless it is clear that her steely gaze is already firmly on the prize, regardless of the number of small children that have to be obliterated in the process.

And then there is the drama. Our hero, Master James “Spike” Thomson Jr, stares unrepentantly into the lens as he is forced to listen to a detailed catalogue of his misdemeanours, culminating in something unspeakable at the school dance, before he is thrown one final lifeline and packed off to “volunteer” at the Junior Gazette.

Before he ventures into the newsroom, Spike deliberately dons his habitual armour, the ever-present sunglasses. Once inside, he is brash, breezy, smart-mouthed – and utterly and completely hooked within a minute of first encountering Lynda. Their banter will soon become familiar – Lynda severe and very often condescending, and Spike cheeky to the point of rudeness – but in this initial exchange it is somewhat derailed with a beautiful moment of intimacy, when Spike removes his shades and declares war on dragons.³ The line is corny, but Spike is delighting in the thrill of the chase already, and he finds himself having fun. You can see why anyone with less starch in their tights might cave immediately.

As the episode edges towards its climax, Matt Kerr encounters Spike in the Gazette car park.⁴ Imperceptibly, everything slows down, suddenly burdened with the baggage of our soon-to-be-best-chum Captain Subtext. Why, we should ask ourselves, does Spike engage so readily with Matt Kerr… especially as he clearly regrets initiating the conversation as soon as he realises exactly who the owner of the cowboy boots is? Can that be the unmistakable lack of a father figure thrumming in the air between them? There are clearly issues here begging to be unearthed, and Spike’s apparent willingness to allow Kerr to convince him to stay piques the interest. There is obviously still a lot we have to learn about Spike.

Ultimately of course, it is not Matt Kerr who coaxes Spike back into the newsroom, but Lynda.⁵ Which actually tells you everything you’ll ever need to know about their relationship right there, on Page One.

1. Life on Mars exhibited a similarly rich design, which was crucial in establishing the reality of 1973 for Sam. The intricately detailed set in Press Gang makes believing in the Junior Gazette easy from the instant we first see it.

2. It should be noted that this particular little quirk in Press Gang pre-dates by some 18 months the use of the same device in the massively popular newsroom comedy Drop the Dead Donkey. There’s a thesis somewhere in there about the parallels between the two shows, I’m sure, but I’ll leave that for another day.

3. See that dragon?  That dragon will be back one day…

4. On a technical point, it’s worth noting that the end of this scene looks rather odd, as if some the latter Kerr dialogue might have had to be re-shot. One can speculate that this is a legacy of director Colin Nutley’s dissatisfaction with the way this episode turned out, although I’m hard-pressed to find other occasions where issues are apparent.

5. Lynda is quick to step up once she realises that she made a mistake. (“I dug the hole, I’ll do the climbing.”)  Most interestingly though, the Lynda we see in action once she steps outside the newsroom is a revelation: she is softer, conciliatory, and clearly in auto-flirt mode again, flashing her bra strap, playing with her hair and leaning in close as she works her magic to convince Spike to stay. All the signs are there: this particular dragon is formidable.