When You’ve Been Framed star hosted the Grateful Dead
a long-time fan of The Grateful Dead, I was delighted when my wife gave me an eight CD box set of the 1972 Bickershaw Festival.
The band headlined the last day of the three-day festival which, to be honest, I had never heard of.
Even more intriguingly, the cover proclaims: “Chris Hewitt and the late Jeremy Beadle present . . .” Would that be he of Game For A Laugh and Beadle’s About fame? –D.
It certainly would be.
The Bickershaw Festival took place on May 5-7, 1972, in Bickershaw, Wigan, and featured a host of rock, folk and brass bands, comedy performers, clowns and even a high diver act.
The organisers included Jeremy Beadle, before he found fame as a television presenter.
His role was to book acts from America’s West Coast, including The Grateful Dead, Captain Beefheart, New Riders Of The Purple Sage and Country Joe Macdonald.
The festival wasn’t a great success as it rained heavily and the site flooded and became a quagmire.
However, the music did inspire a new generation of musicians as Joe Strummer, who would go on to form The Clash, said it was his favourite ever concert, particularly a set from Captain Beefheart.
And the then 17-year-old Elvis Costello watched in awe as The Grateful Dead performed a marathon five-hour set, later saying it inspired him to form a band.
Sadly, there was only ever one Bickershaw Festival. Who was the ’70s TV detective who used to drink milk straight out of the bottle – it used to infuriate my mum. – R. I think you are mean private detective Frank Marker, played by Alfred Burke in Public Eye.
The drama, about a rather rough and ready unmarried loner in his 40s, was on our screens for 10 years, from 1965-75.
Burke was a talented character actor and appeared in The Saint, The Avengers and even a Harry Potter movie.