This week sees what one hopes is the last, hacking gasp of a genre more dried out and spent than a teabag used ten times over - the '50 Greatest' nostalgia fest. Entitled Solve Your Murder, it's an excuse to trawl through past and present cop and detective shows. The clips are entertaining but what galls, as ever, is the insistence on having every item remarked upon by some microscopically minor but immensely self-satisfied celebrity as if the viewers cannot be trusted to appreciate for themselves why old clips of Kojak look kitschy and comical in retrospect.
This has been the format for every foray into nostalgia these last ten years, since the I Love The 70s series in which the likes of Justin Lee Collins made a name for himself with wisecracks like "Curly Wurlies? What were they about, eh?" and no footage of The Sweeney could go unaccompanied by a frivolous montage of celebs humming its theme tune. The format proliferated to such an extent that one sad Saturday evening, 80s one hit wonders Liquid Gold featured on our screens twice, on Channel 4 and then BBC2.
All of which makes one hanker for the way nostalgia used to be. Back in the mid-80s, The Rock'n'Roll Years began. It eventually took in the period 1956 to 1989. It consisted of a mix of old newsreel footage, soundtracked with popular songs of each year, as well as clips of, say, The Rolling Stones performing at an NME Awards show. It was a simple format but carried off exceptionally well by its (all female) production team. There was no heavy-handed attempt at mediation by funky Channel 4 Yoof presenters gurgling superfluous "Blimey? Eh? I mean, eh?" inanities, merely brief captions offering minimal information.
Watching this footage - monochrome, revealingly, humorously prosaic - of hellish, snowbound winters, of the last debutantes to be presented before the Queen, of David Coleman meeting The Beatles at Heathrow Airport, of groups like The Overlanders (handpicked for their dated dismalness), actually functioned as a sort of nostalgia suppressant. It reminded you what an almost toxically grey and hidebound country England was, caught in a fog even the likes of Bobby Vee and Adam Faith had a hard time dispelling. There are clever juxtapositions - a ranting Ian Paisley in 1969 followed by a spangly Dusty Springfield performing Son Of A Preacher Man - as well as sombre events such as the Munich Air Disaster and the Hanratty execution, an interwoven part of British tapestry denied by today's retro-merchants. In all, The Rock'n'Roll Years was a discreet triumph of archive research and editing, as riveting and provoking as any great photography exhibition. And it went out in primetime, back when our intelligence was less insulted. The Rock'n'Roll Years - The 90s, anyone?
