About

What others have said about Television Heaven

An extraordinary website! A goldmine of information. I shall be a regular visitor from now on!

Chris Drake

Rich and informative content, eclectically diverse subject matter, your hard work deserves to be an integral part of any genuine media study course. This site more than lives up to its name.

Christopher MacLane

Your site continually amuses, educates, entertains and enlightens me. Its content is rich, and my admiration grows stronger with each frequent return visit. Pure quality!

Samantha Cox

This is a terrific site. I admire what you're doing and the scope of what you've taken on!

Digger

I found your site purely by accident. But I'm glad I did. With this kind of quality I won't be needing to visit any other classic telly site in the future.

John Wisheart

A thoroughly researched, excellently presented and entertaining web site. I found it a delight to indulge myself by re-visiting my childhood (and not so childhood!) heroes such as Dr Who, Bilko and Columbo.....Well done!

Steve Selby

A very impressive site - it will become the source of many quiz questions at our local pub quiz night (Barley Mow, Hartford, Cambs) Nice one.

Ste Greenall

what a joy to have found this place so many laughs, tears, and happiness to recall

david

I just had to visit again, this site is addictive! and one of the most regularly updated means you're a lot better than some of the other Classic TV sites I've come across, Cheers!

Steve

This really is a great site. The information you provide helps me to appreciate the shows I have seen and make me want to see those I haven't. Brilliant work!

Lyndsey Ann Gibbons

Site History

Television Heaven (TVH) was created and designed in 2000 by Laurence Marcus. 

Its beginnings came from a 5 page website Bring Me Sunshine, which was the first site on the Internet (in 1999) dedicated to the comic geniuses that were Morecambe and Wise. Wishing to expand the site, Laurence approached his friend Steve Hulse and suggested writing about 20 television shows that the two writers considered to be the very best of television.

Within a few months the new site, Television Heaven was launched. Since then it has expanded to cover hundreds of reviews, numerous articles, biographies and the history of television. Television Heaven also has a sister site, Teletronic, dedicated solely to the history of television.

Steve left the site a number of years ago in order to concentrate on his own novels and has since had two published.

Laurence continues to write for and develop the site to this day with the help of valued contributors (please see our page of Article Writers for more information).

For media enquiries or paid advertising please contact [email protected]  

Please note: TVH will be unable to answer questions about individual shows. Please use the TVH - Facebook page

Television Heaven does not sell DVD or videos directly and is not affiliated with any other Website that may use the name Television Heaven or similar to sell recordings of shows that have not been officially released. This is an infringement under copyright law and sellers and buyers of this type of material could leave themselves open to criminal proceedings. Instead, we use Amazon to recommend the purchase of officially released material due to their comptetiveness of their price. Not all the shows reviewed are available on DVD however, but click on any of the Amazon links and you will be taken to Amazon's website where you can browse all their titles.

Television Heaven may receive a small commission on any items purchased through Amazon but this does not reflect the price you pay. It merely helps to offset the cost of running the site.

TVH would be more than happy to hear from anyone wishing to contribute original and well-written articles for this website. To find out more contact Television Heaven at [email protected]

If you have a non-profit making fan website of your own please use the TVH email address to contact the site and TVH will be more than happy to add reciprocal links. Television Heaven will not link to businesses that are looking for free advertising under the assumption that TVH simply wants to raise its Search Engine rating.

Credits

Obviously when putting together a website of this size and depth it is necessary to research numerous resources and call on an untold amount of references. This means utilising what is available as well as relying on the memories of those people who have been gracious enough to grant Television Heaven interviews or send emails with pieces of information that might not be available elsewhere. There will be unavoidable instances where something you have read here may be available elsewhere either in print or on the Internet. That is because Television Heaven is a factual work and not a work of fiction. It is inevitable that comparisons may be drawn by articles appearing here to those you may have read elsewhere. However, every attempt is made to avoid the wholesale reproduction of other authors work. All the articles on this website, unless otherwise stated are the original words of the attributed authors. Where references have been used every attempt is made to give due credit. Some authors works have been reproduced with those authors' express permission. Where authors have not been traced credit is given and TVH is more than happy to hear from those authors to discuss any credits inadvertently missed. 

The following printed references have been knowingly used to confirm certain facts, dates and other programme and/or biographical information: The Television Annual (1950/51 - 1961), TV Mirror (various issues), TV Mirror Annual (1956), Here's Television (Kenneth Baily), Girl Film and Television Annual (1957 - 65), A Guide to Independent Television (1964 - 88 (later Television and Radio)), Hulton's Television Annual (late 1950s), The BBC Television Story (circa 1956), Television close-up (early 1960s), Television Show Book (circa 1965), Television Stars Who's Who In Showbiz (1964), ATV Show Book (various annuals), ATV Star Book (various annuals), How Sweet It Was (1966) (Arthur Shulman and Roger Youman), All Star Television Annual, Look-In (various annuals), TV Times (various issues), Radio Times (various issues), Do You Remember: Television (1974), 40 Years of British Television (Jane Harbord and Jeff Wright) The Setmakers (Keith Geddes), The Golden Age of Children's Television (Geoff Tibballs), British Television (BFI publication), Still Dancing (Lew Grade), Missing Believed Wiped (Dick Fiddy), The Tuppenny Punch and Judy Show (Jo Gable), Halliwell's Television Companion, The Guinness Book of TV Facts and Feats (Kenneth Passingham), Into the Box of Delights (Anna Home), Action TV magazine, TV Zone magazine (monthly publication), Cult Times (monthly publication), Roy Hudd's Cavalcade of Variety Acts (Roy Hudd), The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable Shows (Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh), The Hill and Beyond (Alistair D. McGowan and Mark J. Docherty), ITV: The People's Channel (Simon Cherry), The Pengiun TV Companion (Jeff Evans), Radio Times Guide to TV Comedy (Mark Lewisohn), Contrast - The Television Quarterly (1960s BFI publication - various issues), TV News (1950s periodical published by Television News, Ltd), Television Weekly - Britain's First Weekly Television Newspaper (a 1950s Precinct Publication).

The following websites (apart from those on the links page):
http://www.tvhistory.btinternet.co.uk/index.html
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/index.html
http://dir.yahoo.com/Entertainment/Television_Shows/
http://www.terramedia.co.uk/documents/opening_of_bbc_television.htm
http://www.the-mausoleum-club.org.uk
http://www.transdiffusion.org/index.html
http://www.stuart.cann.freeuk.com/britcoms.htm
http://www.screenonline.org.uk/tv/index.html
http://www.angelfire.com/retro/cta/UK/_UK_Europe.htm
http://www.tvstudiohistory.co.uk
http://www.findarticles.com/
http://www.wikipedia.org/
http://www.sitcomsonline.com
http://www.imdb.com/
http://www.thestage.co.uk/
http://www.bbc.co.uk/entertainment/
http://www.timvp.com/tv.html

The following people: Ian Freeman, Michael Grade, Michael Bangerter, Bernard McKenna, Anna Home, Mollie Sugden, Pete Bryden, David Edgar, Raymond P. Cusick, Matt Zimmerman, Jennifer Blanc, John Smithson, Richard Broke, Graham McCann.

The following contributors: Michael Spadoni, Daniel Tessier, John Winterson Richards, Duncan Thomas, Frank Collins, Pippa Gwilliam, David P. May, Denise Lovell, Phil McCormack, Bob Furnell, Bonnie Gale, Andrea Iannuzzi (aka Maggie Roberts), Paul Webb, Brian Slade, John Collins, Andrew Cobby, John Barran, Derek Thompson, Andrew O'Day, Joshua Nicholson, Matt Owen, Jennifer AJ.

Every attempt has been made to make the above list as comprehensive as possible and TVH apologises for any omissions. If your name is not here and it should be please email TVH. 

Television Heaven was built using Statamic

Also a huge thank you to website designer Jonathan Karic (https://pph.me/jonkaric) for his excellent and patient work and for putting up with my constant questions and alterations. "If you seek his monument look around you."

Finally, since starting the website I have lost two very dear friends who are mentioned above: Michael Spadoni and Andrea Iannuzzi. You are both sadly missed but your work lives on for all to see.