TV MEMORIES # 14 - STRANGE BUT TRUE ?

I've written quite a lot on here recently about the wave of shows that appeared on British TV in the mid to late 90's that dealt with themes of a paranormal or Fortean persuasion. Inspired by the then current "X-Files mania" shows like Channel 4's Fortean TV and BBC2's all-nighter Weird Night served to feed the viewing public's hunger for the strange and unusual.

So now we come to ITV's offering in the shape of Strange But True ? This show was broadcast on Friday nights (If I remember right) from the 21st of May 1993 to 7th of November 1997 - a run of four series, totalling 39 episodes and covered all the usual paranormal subjects from UFO's to ghosts all the way through to psychic pets.

The show was presented by Michael Aspel. By this point in his career Aspel had become a much respected figure in British broadcasting. With his steel grey hair and smooth cultured voice and manner Aspel bought an air of authenticity and authority to the proceedings. His presence made it clear that this was a serious show that dealt with the paranormal in an earnest manner. Every week Aspel would introduce that episode's topics in a suitably academic (yet still creepily atmospheric) looking setting - for example a shadowy looking library or the type of candlelit study that you could imagine M.R. James himself hanging out in.

After a suitability ominous sounding intro from Aspel we where then treated to a Crime Watch style reconstruction of a paranormal case including interviews with the various witnesses themselves. These dramatic reconstructions made up the lions share of the show's content. At the time they where probably seen as being quite disturbing by a fair portion of the audience but as with most things they haven't really aged that well.

The reconstructions themselves are quite well shot and are decently atmospheric, the problem lies mainly with the quality of acting involved. These people are very VERY far from being "A list" performers and often bear little physical resembelence to the real-life people they are supposed to be portraying. This wouldn't be so bad if we didn't keep cutting back to interview footage with the actual people themselves, it just serves to draw attention to the fact and makes the whole thing look more staged and unconvincing than it otherwise would. I will say this though - the cheesiness of the reconstructions definitely has a lot of charm and adds a lot of unintentional fun to a show that was otherwise in danger of taking itself way too seriously.

The show opened with a pilot episode before graduating to a full series. I remember watching it round my then girlfriend Emma's house and I seem to remember it dealing with the same cursed miniature skeleton that Fortean TV would later run a story on.

However, upon looking on Wikipedia whist researching this article no mention is made of this appearing in the pilot episode (the pilot's topics are instead listed as UFO'S and reincarnation). This is completely NOT how I remember it being - so it's either a case of me misremembering things, Wikipedia being wrong (which lets face it is hardly a rare occurrence) or a case of that Fortean phenomena known as The Mandela Effect in action. If any readers out there can put me straight on this then please do - just to reassure me that I'm not going totally doolally...

Most of the episodes I do remember watching pretty much all hail from the first season which aired in 1994. This is mainly because by the time the second series rolled around in '95 I'd started uni and was living in halls of residence so didn't have access to a TV. By the time I was living in a shared house and had a TV again the much more fun Fortean TV had started airing and it was that show that caught my attention. Compared to Lionel Fanthorpe's motorbike and song and dance routines poor old Michael Aspel seemed a bit dull in comparison.

Perhaps my most fondly remembered episode was the one that dealt with the Stocksbridge bypass case. The bypass is widely regarded to be one of the most haunted stretches of road in the UK and since it was built in the late 80's there have been many weird incidents and sightings reported. This episode reconstructed a few of them.

Most memorable was a sighting of a group of ghostly children singing "Ring A Ring A Roses" under a nearby electricity pylon. That's right - dead Victorian children singing a nursery rhyme about people dropping dead from the Bubonic Plague...it REALLY doesn't get any creepier than that and this episode portrayed this encounter in loving detail.

Later on we're treated to two policemen being menaced by a terrifying hooded figure believed to be a ghostly monk.

"We saw summat...it where...EVIL !!!!" screams the non-actor playing the role of one of the terrified coppers to his bemused looking desk sergeant. The acting may have been awful but the creepiness of the story still came over well, resulting in a truly memorable episode.

Another one I remember well is an episode that dealt with the Rendlesham Forest UFO case. In the late 1980's an American airbase located near the forest detected the presence of an unidentified flying object. A bunch of soldiers witnessed strange lights in the sky and allegedly saw an actual alien space craft. This episode really embraced the chance to go "full on X-Files" and employed lots of stylistic touches that would have been familiar to fans of that show - mainly lots of people running through dark forests at night waving torches around.

The final segment that sticks in my mind is the section dealing with Chingle Hall reported to be one of the most haunted houses in Britain. This episode was broadcast after I'd stopped watching regularly but I made a special point to actually watch this one...

This was mainly due to the fact that I'd actually visited Chingle Hall with a bunch of uni friends the year before and we'd paid to stay there overnight on a ghost hunt. We didn't actually see anything ourselves that night but a few weird things happened  - our video cameras refused to film anything and we experienced cold spots and rapid temperature drops but nothing major. However it was still nice to sit back and watch a TV show about the Hall a year later and reminisce about what was - for me - an interesting and fun evening's break from the usual university bar hopping.

Strange But True's final episode aired on the 7th November 97. As with Fortean TV it fell victim to declining ratings - the X-Files assisted bubble had burst and the viewing public where starting to become more interested in early "reality TV" instead. 

It was a pretty good show overall but for me Fortean TV's off kilter, more fun approach to the subject was a lot more entertaining to watch. My own personal taste aside Strange But True? remains a fondly remembered show and was a big hit for ITV by any margin. They even published a couple of tie-in books complete with an appropriately dour looking Aspel (complete with "spooky" crystal ball) adorning the front cover.

Don't Plasma balls just scream 1990's to you ?