Charles Chilton on the Archive Hour!

Charles Chilton

Radio 4's prestigious Archive Hour presents an hour long look at the career of Charles Chilton this Saturday. (21 Feb, 20:00 - 21:00). This is what the Radio 4 promotion says about the programme:

"Russell Davies looks at the career of Charles Chilton, possibly the most famous Radio producer ever. The man who captured the radio world's imagination with his legendary series Journey into Space. Chilton was a working class orphan from King's Cross who joined a youthful BBC and found his life transformed."

The Radio Times goes on to say:

"Charles Chilton's career is like a succession of radio milestones, with high points including his popular 1950s serial Journey Into Space and Riders of the Range. The maverick producer tells his own story of a life in radio. In the 1930s he became a presenter - his was probably the first working-class accent to be heard regularly on the wireless. As well as a flair for spinning a good yarn, he was the master of the radio feature - his evocation of the First World War eventually became Joan Littlewood's Oh! What a Lovely War. Russell Davies rides the range with one of the BBC's most outstanding talents."

The producer is Mark Burman.

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The World In Peril on BBC7

Photo © BBC 1955

The third series of the Journey Into Space trilogy, The World In Peril, gets a repeat on BBC7 from Sunday the 18th January 2004. The adventure runs for twenty weeks on Sundays at both 6pm and midnight. Recorded in 1955 it stars Andrew Faulds as Jet, Alfie Bass as Lemmy, Guy Kingsley Poynter as Doc and Don Sharp as Mitch. Other parts are played by David Jacobs, alongside Pat Campbell, Alan Tilvern, John Cazabon and Fred Yule (uncredited). The series picks up exactly where The Red Planet left off with the Mars Space Fleet returning to the Lunar colony.

	Episode 1	18th January
	Episode 2	25th January
	Episode 3	1st February
	Episode 4	8th February
	Episode 5	15th February
	Episode 6	22nd February
	Episode 7	29th February
	Episode 8	7th March
	Episode 9	14th March
	Episode 10	21st March
	Episode 11	28th March
	Episode 12	4th April
	Episode 13	11th April
	Episode 14	18th April
	Episode 15	25th April
	Episode 16	2nd May
	Episode 17	9th May
	Episode 18	16th May
	Episode 19	23rd May
	Episode 20	30th June

Please visit the BBC 7 web site for more details.

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Fiftheeth Anniversary

Congratulations to Charles Chilton and his cast and crew on the 50th anniversary of the transmission of the first episode of Journey Into Space! To celebrate we have knocked up an article entitled 50 years, 50 amazing facts. Prepare to be trivialised!

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The Red Planet on BBC7

As the Red Planet comes into close opposition with Earth, we travel back in time to 1971 for 20 weeks of adventure with Jet Morgan and his crew.

	Episode 1	31st August
	Episode 2	7th September
	Episode 3	14th September
	Episode 4	21st September - 50th Anniversary!
	Episode 5	28th September
	Episode 6	5th October
	Episode 7	12th October
	Episode 8	19th October
	Episode 9	26th October
	Episode 10	2nd November
	Episode 11	9th November
	Episode 12	16th November
	Episode 13	23rd November
	Episode 14	30th November
	Episode 15	7th December
	Episode 16	14th December
	Episode 17	21st December
	Episode 18	28th December
	Episode 19	4th January
	Episode 20	11th January

Please visit the BBC 7 web site for more details.

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Mayday alert: Space Force II

First broadcast on Radio 2 at half past three in the morning, it is not surprising that this second series went virtually unnoticed back in 1985. Now it is back on BBC7 in a more favourable timeslot. Again it is written by Charles Chilton and produced by Paul Mayhew Archer. Saxon, Magnus, Lauderic and Chipper are back. The dates are as follows:

Episode 1: The Return Of The Sun God	23rd May
Episode 2: The Red Planet	26th May
Episode 3: Great Martian Pyramids	27th May
Episode 4: A Test Of Endurance	28th May
Episode 5: Living With Death	29th May
Episode 6: Unto Death And Beyond	30th May

Please visit the BBC 7 web site for more details.

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Operation Luna to be repeated in April

"Hello Earth. This is Lemmy Barnet calling from the Moon. Trying to contact you."

Jet Morgan sets out again on his... Journey Into Space. Operation Luna is being repeated on BBC7 this April and May. The dates are as follows:

Episode 1	25th April
Episode 2	28th April
Episode 3	29th April
Episode 4	30th April
Episode 5	1st May
Episode 6	2nd May
Episode 7	5th May
Episode 8	6th May
Episode 9	7th May
Episode 10	8th May
Episode 11	9th May
Episode 12	12th May
Episode 13	13th May

Please visit the BBC 7 web site for more details.

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Veteran broadcaster Alan Keith dies aged 94

The presenter of Radio 2's Your 100 Best Tunes sadly passed away on Tuesday 18th March 2003. To Journey Into Space fans he was best known for his appearance in Episode 2 of Operation Luna as 'the Voice of London'.

In the 1950s he appeared in many radio plays including Riders of the Range, produced by Charles Chilton, for which he played Billy the Kid in the third series, amongst other parts.

Like David Jacobs and Pat Campbell he gave up his acting career to become a radio presenter. His best known work was as the presenter of Your Hundred Best Tunes, which began in 1959 - one of the longest running shows in radio history.

Keith was born in London and was also the brother of actor David Kossoff.

See the Guardian Unlimited site for a full obituary.

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Journey Into Space and Space Force to be repeated in anniversary year

journeyintospace.co.uk doesn't usually feature news but we feel it only fair to warn you that the new online radio station BBC 7 will repeating both Journey Into Space and Space Force in the coming months! This is especially good news as Journey Into Space will celebrate its 50th anniversary this year.

The two serials both come from the pen of legendary writer and producer Charles Chilton. Journey Into Space was first broadcast in the 1950s when it enthralled a generation and in the mid 1980s Space Force was a similar mix of speculative fiction and high adventure for the next generation!

Journey Into Space fans will have to wait until summer when BBC7 schedulers intend to give it another outing. But fans of Space Force can expect it to rocket across the airwaves in the next few months - broadcast in BBC 7's 7th dimension slot (6.00 - 6.30 pm Mon-Fri, repeated 12.00 - 12.30 am the following day, and 6.00 - 7.00 pm Sat-Sun, repeated 12.00 - 1.00 am the following day).

As well as 'webcasting' online, the station also transmits through the airwaves digitally. Listeners with DAB radio sets can receive it in mono, whilst television viewers with either satellite and freeview boxes can receive it in stereo, at high quality.

The station, still in it's first year of broadcast, has already repeated such science fiction classics as EarthSearch, The Foundation Trilogy and of course The Hitch-Hikers Guide To The Galaxy, as well as classic comedy from the 1950s such as Hancock's Half Hour and The Goons.

The long-overdue repeats may also coincide with the rumoured CD release of Journey Into Space. More details as we get it.

Stop Press

Incoming transmission... Space Force relaunches 26 March at 6pm!

"Epsilon Solar" - What is the significance of the mysterious message from space?