RetroFit
Press Gang is a show that we at OxStu Towers take particularly close to our hearts. We can sympathise with the long hours, the stress and the choices faced by this merry band of schoolkid journos. However, we can never understand why they were never sued for libel. It happens to us every day.
Anyhow, returning to Press Gang, this eponymous series focused around the adventures and misadventures of a school newspaper. It is notable for, firstly, being the only children's TV drama (think bad Australian schlock) which was Any Good, and secondly as being the launchpad for more meteoric careers than Blue Peter.
Julia Sawalha for instance. Before Pride and Prejudice there was Ab Fab. And before Ab Fab there was Lynda Day, the committed but ever-so Machiavellian editor of the Junior Gazette. It was said of her that "They needed an industrial laser to pierce her ears." More like a pneumatic drill and an phalanx of main battle tanks. Renowned for taking on the baddest of the bad guys and coming out on top she was what all editors dream of being: smart, sassy and good-looking with a vast and completely obedient staff to do her every bidding. We wish.
But she had her weak side, which came in the somewhat Americanised form of Spike Thomson a.k.a. Dexter Fletcher: the only man to have looked worse than his set on Gamesmaster. In the old days when poor Dexter could actually act, he did quite a good fake yankee accent and kept poor Ms Sawalha hanging in suspense.
Among other star careers launched in the Press Gang newsroom was that of the lovely young Gabrielle Anwar, now safely ensconced chez Hollywood who had a bit part in the second series as Sam Black. Easily forgotten. Not something one would say about Colin.
Paul Reynolds did nothing in his life except play 'dodgy' Colin he would have already have assured his place in the Retro Hall of Fame (which is funny, because he has done sod all since). Supremely dodgy, utterly beguiling, the Junior Gazette's financial brain had more money-making schemes than Arthur Daley (and less money than the OxStu entertaining budget). Renowned for his enormous smarm and spiky hairdo he -- in common with our friends on the Cherwell -- was on the lunatic fringe of student journalism; but what a fringe! If something he did could go wrong it would. But then again, if everything went right there wouldn't be a story there...
28th Oct 1999