Windmill

Windmill was a British television series, usually shown on Sunday lunchtimes on BBC2, which ran from 26 August 1985 to 3 April 1988, presented by Chris Serle, its name taken from the BBC television archives being housed at Windmill Road in West London at the time. It was one of the first shows fully to exploit the potential of the BBC's archive, showing during its run hundreds of television clips from the 1940s to the 1980s, always based around a specific theme. Among the many shows represented were The Morecambe and Wise Show, Monty Python's Flying Circus, The Sky at Night, Whicker's World, Nationwide, Doctor Who, Steptoe and Son, Blue Peter, and the original 1950s Watch With Mother series. A number of clips were also shown from the television newsreels of the late 1940s. Weekly features included a regular "Comedy Classic", always fitting with each episode's theme, and "All Your Own Work", which featured films made in the past by members of the public (often those included in earlier BBC series such as Caught in Time and Everybody's Doing It). Each edition also featured a studio guest, who would pick their favourites from the archives and whose own appearances would usually also be shown; Richard Stilgoe, for example, chose a clip from Jack Rosenthal's play The Evacuees, fitting in with the episode's "Childhood" theme, and a clip from his own series And Now the Good News was shown. From 4 December 1988 the series was replaced by Boxpops, another archive-based series but much faster-paced and pop-orientated with no studio presenter. Episode guide