Comedy Spotlights - Dave Allen

Dave Allen (Real name David Tynan O'Mahony) was an Irish comedian who enjoyed much career success throughout the 1960s and 1970s, before seeing a re-emergence during the early 1990s.

I first encountered Dave Allen during his careers second wind in the early 90s, when ITV aired a show named simply "The Dave Allen Show".
Immediately his comedy style struck a chord with me, as opposed to the alternative comedians of the time whose comedy mostly seemed to revolve around juvenile fart gags, slapstick and explaining how bad they were at relationships, Dave would sit and tell clever and engaging anecdotes about everyday occurances, all while calmly smoking a cigarette and sipping from a glass of what everyone assumed was whisky (most of the time, it was actually ginger ale).

In many ways his style was similar to another favourite of mine, Bob Monkhouse, insofar as that his stories were witty and were not prone to flights of fantasy or absurdity,  but at the same time they, like the comedy stylings of Monkhouse and Billy Connolly, were based on ordinary, every day observations.

It was only in later years, starting with the BBCs airing of "The Unique Dave Allen", that I learned something of this mans career, which stretched back to well before I was born, and was still as funny now as it had been back in the days when Dave was the BBCs number 1 comedy draw, and, somewhat different to the stuff I was used to from 1990s BBC comedy, which centred mainly on quick sketch style comedy such as "The Fast show" and "Harry Enfield & Chums".


Allen began his television career with an appearance on "New Faces" in 1959, which quickly saw him being snapped up to host pop music programs, due to his good looks, quick wit and his sense of dress. Prior to this, Dave had been a regular on the club scene and for a time worked at Butlins where he fleshed out his own style.
His big break did not come courtesy of the BBC however, instead, his first exposure to full time TV comedy came courtesy of Australian television, where while on tour there in 1963 he accepted a request to be the front man for a live American style chat show, his exposure and popularity soared as the show, titled "Tonight with Dave Allen" proved to be a big hit.
6 months into the gig however, he earned a ban from Australian TV when during an interview with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, he repeatedly ignored the producers signal to wind up the chat for a commercial break, eventually shouting at the producer to "go off and masturbate somewhere".
This of course wasnt well received by TV executives and the show was pulled form the schedules, however after a few weeks, the ban was quietly repealed as Daves popularity amongst viewers showed that they weren't really bothered about him swearing on television.

He returned to the UK in 1964, and after working almost continuously on the stage and making occasional TV appearances, he eventually secured a place on the Val Doonican show, which led to him getting his own show, which had a similar format to his Australian TV outing, in 1967.

The BBC came calling in 1968 and saw Dave begin the first major and continuously successful part of his career in Britain in the form of "The Dave Allen Show". In a change to his usual routine, the program saw him begin the format which would remain virtually unchanged for the rest of his career, as the Dave Allen show was a mix of sketch comedy sandwiched in with his familiar story telling, here the sketches would always relate to the monologue bits in some fashion.

For this portion of his career, his monologues would usually comprise of material relating to his life and upbringing as a catholic in Ireland, more often than not poking fun at the rituals and dogma of the catholic church, but also on its bizarre effects on peoples lives. Dave, who identified as an Atheist for most of his life, attracted much anger from christian viewers, who regarded his material to be offensive and blasphemous, doubly so during the sketch comedy elements where he would often dress as various religious figures such as priests and even on occasion as the pope himself, and would perform ridiculous and farcical routines mocking the church and all its trappings.
Much of Allens material from the late 60s through to the late 70s was based around religion in some form, not always Catholicism either, he also mocked Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Protestants mercilessly, prompting round after round of complaints to the BBC, who staunchly defended him, mainly because they received very high viewing figures off the back of his shows.
Religion was not his only source material though, he would also point out the absurdities of politics, including many jabs at controversial subjects such as apartheid, he would comment on the battle of the sexes, the concept of marriage and having children, on peoples working lives and sexual problems, he would comment on social inequality, social taboos and idiosyncrasies relating to stereotypes.
As many have pointed out, and many comedians that emerged during the 1980s have admitted, Dave Allen inspired many of the 1980s "Alternative" comedians insofar as he, unlike many of the popular "Club circuit" comedians of the time, such as Bernard Manning etc, eschewed racist, sexist and just downright offensive material.

During the 1980s, Dave began to fade from the spotlight, being seen as somewhat of a relic of a bygone age when people such as Ben Elton, Rik Mayall, Lenny Henry etc were all beginning to be popular amongst the youth audience, however Dave still continued to work for the BBC on a semi regular basis, producing comedy shows such as a series simply titled "Dave Allen", but also he began to act in more serious roles, namely in the works of playwright Alan Bennett.
Dave finally fell out with the BBC when in 1990, the 10pm airing of one of his shows on BBC 1 attracted a hitherto unheard of number of complaints from viewers about the amount of offensive language featured in the show, mostly his liberal use of the word "fuck". Dave laughed the complaints off, however the BBC, who had stood with him throughout the myriad complaints about his material over the years, had changed somewhat during the late 1980s, becoming far more politically correct and concerned about not causing offence in any way to any of their viewers (this policy has led to the BBC making some of the most bizarre choices over the years). Thus, they chastised the man who had brought in many viewers and been behind a lot of the most successful comedy shows the BBC had produced up to that point. The incident was even brought up in parliament and MPs debated over the use of swear words on television and whether there should be tighter censorship rulings.
Dave left the BBC in disgust later that year, going into semi-retirement, returning to screens briefly in 1993 to front a series for ITV which was similar to his usual monologue/sketch comedy, however after this his appearances on television become sporadic, however it did mark a change in his material, which became more observational based comedy, concentrating on social commentary about how the world was changing and how he was finding things becoming increasingly difficult as he got older.
He eventually returned to the BBC in 1996 for a 6 episode series titled "The Unique Dave Allen" in which he spoke about his life and career in comedy whilst linking to sketches and routines from his earlier work with the BBC, although he ruled out a full time return to TV as by this time, he was in his 60s and had had enough of the atmosphere in TV land.
He made various one off appearances in TV specials and on chat shows throughout the remainder of the 1990s and in the early noughties, as well as making a few live stage appearances, but by this time, many people had never heard of him and, mainly due to Daves dislike of "repeats", had never seen any of his earlier material, so he was seen as something of a strange curiosity in the comedy world.

Dave Allen died peacefully in his sleep in 2005, leaving behind his wife of 18 months, 3 children from his first marriage, and, 3 months after his death, his wife gave birth to his third child.

Pilot erroR - "Dafuq?" shows.....

Something a little different, but still within the spirit of this subject matter.
Sometimes, a TV show will be made, and indeed aired, which really shouldn't have been for one reason or another. More often than not, these shows will be pulled from schedules and archived, never to be shown in full again, and only referenced in the odd documentary here and there. Suffice to say that said shows are never given a second series either, and it makes you wonder sometimes as to exactly who gave the green light for these shows to be paid for by TV networks....leading viewers to wonder "what dafuq did I just watch?".


Heil Honey, I'm Home! (Noel Gay TV/Galaxy Channel - 1990)

Probably one of the more well known "dafuq?" TV moments. "Heil Honey, I'm Home!" was a 8 episode series that aired in the early days of what would go on to be called Sky Television.
The premise of the series was that Adolf Hitler and his wife Eva Braun were living in an apartment block with Jewish neighbours, and the shows humour, if you could call it that, was derived from a combination of Hitlers anti-semitic rantings, usually followed by him being outsmarted by the Jews in some fashion.
One episode aired at 9:30pm on the 30th of September 1990 before Galaxy channel (the station on which it was broadcast), quickly removed it from the viewing schedule, due to the massive number of complaints received from viewers who cited it as being tasteless, crass and anti-semitic amongst other things.
The writer and creator of the series, Geoff Atkinson, stated it was his intention to examine the process of the pre-war appeasement of the Nazis in an entertaining manner, so he decided the best way to do this was to create what he called a "farcical sitcom which lampooned American style 50s sitcoms in a satirical manner".

Viewers, and the board of executives at BSB didn't find it funny, and to date, the series has never been shown in full or released for home consumption.

World Series of Dating (BBC Three - 2012)

BBC Three had been trying, with a questionable degree of success, to recapture the BBCs dominance over the comedy genre, a position which BBC 2 had enjoyed for many years throughout the 1990s, but had fumbled and lost to SKY and Channel 4 as the millennium came and went.

One show which the Beeb hoped would be successful was "World Series of Dating", being as it had fly on the wall elements mixed in with a kind of quiz show atmosphere.
The premise of the show was that 6 men would attempt a "speed date" with 6 women, with the winner of each episode being decided by two faux-American accent sporting commentators who would make quips "in the style of" American sports commentators. During the various rounds, points would be awarded and penalties would be given by a man dressed as a baseball umpire.

Quite honestly, having personally watched a few episodes of this series whilst waiting for family guy to come on,  i really, really, really fail to understand what BBC Threes controller was thinking when they gave the green light for this show. Quite literally there was not a single laugh to be had from anything said or done on screen while this show was taking up space on the schedules, with the male contestants visibly uninterested in what they were supposed to be doing, and the female contestants either looking bored or revelling in the attention they were getting from strangers, all while two dickheads with dodgy fake accents talked about their own supposed sexual prowess etc.

After one production run of a dozen episodes, most of which were shunted to post midnight airing slots, and scathing reviews, the show vanished, never to be heard from again.

Show Me The Funny! (ITV - 2011)

ITV has always had a bit of a "hit and miss" relationship when it comes to stand up comedy. On the one hand, shows such as the "An Audience with...." series allowed many successful British stand up comedians to get an hours worth of airtime on a Saturday night prime time viewing slot, whereas ITVs numerous attempts to make a successful copy of the hit US Show "Saturday Night Live" have always been doomed to failure due to their over reliance on unknown or unpredictable alternative comedians.
"Show Me The Funny!" was an attempt to marry up stand up comedy with a fly on the wall type "documentary/journey" series, with he premise that 10 unknown (although this was most certainly NOT the case as it turned out) stand up comedians would compete for a place in the live final to be held at Hammersmith Apollo, with one of the unsuccessfuls being voted off each week by a panel of judges. The grand prize for the eventual winner being that they would receive a nationwide tour (backed up by the two runners up) and a DVD released before Christmas 2011.
While the concept was new and had the promise to be somewhat interesting, the main problem was that for a show which was centred on comedy...it wasn't actually that funny.
The majority of the shows hour long episodes, which ran over 7 weeks during the summer of 2011, focused mainly on the "journey" of the contestants, as they were taken to a new place each week and then expected to come up with a new 5 minute long routine based on their experiences of that week, in essence, limiting their material to purely observational and anecdotal comedy.
By week 3 viewing figures for the series had plummeted to almost nil, as viewers weren't interested in watching what was supposed to be a comedy program which featured little to no comedic content, other than from heavily edited down sets shown at the end, before the judges voted someone off.

The show was eventually won by the Irish/Iranian comedian Patrick Monoghan, who by the time he won, had already performed several times at the Edinburgh fringe festival, and had received several comedy awards.

The show was, understandably, not picked up for a second series.

Australia's Naughtiest Home Videos (Nine Network, 1992)

Produced as a spin off to the show "Australia's Funniest Home Videos", the show attempted to show some of the more "risque" clips sent in by viewers which would not normally be shown by the more family orientated version.
The story goes that on the night of transmission, the Director of Nine Network, Kerry Packer, was out to dinner with friends when he spotted the show on a television, and was so offended by what he saw, he rang the station up immediately and told them to "get that shit off the air now!". The show went to a commercial break at the halfway mark, and was then hastily replaced by a repeat of an episode of the American sitcom "Cheers".

Osbournes Reloaded (Fox - 2009)

Hoping to cash in on the success of the Osbournes previous docu-drama show, as well as the somewhat reknewed interest in variety shows, this strange program had members of the Osbourne family presenting a musical variety program.
After one episode had aired, reviews were scathing, causing many Fox affiliate channels to either shelve the show or play the remaining 5 episodes of the series in late night slots.
Fox themselves never aired any of the remaining shows.

Married...For Life (ITV - 1996)

The US sitcom "Married...with Children" had garnered a cult following in the UK (where it was most affectionately called "The Bundys" in our house and the homes of several friends) however in 1996 ITV decided to try and make a British version of the show. This concept had previously been successful in the form of "The Upper Hand", which was a British remake of the American show "Who's The Boss?", so, what on earth could go wrong?....
Starring Russ Abbott as "Ted Butler/Al Bundy" and Hugh Bonneville as "Steve Hollingsworth/Steve D'Arcy", the series lurched through seven painful episodes which saw gags from the original series "Britishified" and failing miserably, as well as the other members of the "Butler" household having little to none of the dynamic that the members of the "Bundy" family had in the original.
The series got shunted around as is the norm with these things, before never being mentioned again...but ITV didn't learn their from their mistake of trying to "Britishify" American sitcoms.....

Days Like These (ITV - 1999)

An attempt by ITV to remake the successful American sitcom "That 70's Show" which took the basic premise and characters and transplanted them from 1970s Wisconsin to 1970s Luton.
Needless to say, it lost a lot of what had made it funny in the transatlantic journey, with many jokes being recycled from the original, albeit with some slight name changes to link it to 1970s Britain, and one big mistake in making the character "Rasmussen" into an extremely racist stereotype of east European people.
Originally airing in a prime time Friday night slot, the show was quickly moved to a less conspicuous graveyard slot, before vanishing altogether with only 10 of the 13 filmed episodes being shown.

Minipops (Channel 4 - 1983)

A rather bizarre program which came about after a novelty music album, the titular "Minipops" was released featuring preteen children singing versions of popular songs was released in 1982.
Consisting of 6 30 minute episodes, the show featured children aged between 5 and 10 singing and dancing along to various pop songs.
Although initial viewing figures were somewhat encouraging, it soon dawned on the public, critics and network executives alike that the concept of a show featuring preteen children dressed in provocative clothing and singing various adult themed songs was somewhat disturbing, and soon enough, the show was quite rightly being described as a "paedophiles dreams come true".

The show was not renewed for a second series.

Treasure Island In Outer Space (1987)

"Treasure Island In Outer Space" (aka "Space Island", "Il pianeta del tesoro" and "Der schatz im all") was a five part 1987 mini series (later edited together to make a 120 minute TV movie) co produced by the Italian state TV company RAI and German TV company ProSieben.

The story basically takes the classic Robert Louis Stevenson book "Treasure Island" and transplants it into a futuristic sci-fi setting.

I first saw this series some time in the early 90's when it was cut down into 30 minute episodes (Each episode as standard is 90-100 minutes) and shown as part of ITV's summer holiday kids programs.
I do not know if this series has ever been repeated on British television (unlikely in this day and age due to the sometimes graphic violence presented on screen, after all, we are dealing with pirates here...YAAAAHAAARRRGH!), but since I saw it in my misspent youth I have never seen it anywhere since except online.  
Being more inclined towards science fiction than fantasy, I really enjoyed this series and really enjoyed watching it again when I found it on youtube, even if the series and its special effects now look extremely dated and a bit "bargain basement", although the miniatures work on the space ships is still somewhat impressive.  
Essentially, the story, like the book itself, is a coming of age type tale, and is narrated by an older Jim, telling most of the story in the first person as he makes discoveries about the people around him.


The story begins in the year 2300, Jim Hawkins Is a 12 year old boy who lives with his mother on a small island south of the great city and spaceport of Roma-napoli on the Italian coast, where his home doubles as a navigational beacon for incoming space craft and as a boarding house for weary travellers. Jim finds the atmosphere stifling and his only real diversion from his usual chores around the house is talking with their longest resident, space conductor (navigator) Billy Bones (Ernest Borgnine). Bones is and old man who seems to have entered retirement after a youth spent exploring space, who now spends most of his time reminiscing and drinking a soluble alcohol based liquid drug called "drukk".
One day, Bones is visited by an imposing black man named "Black dog", who appears to terrify Bones as soon as he lays eyes on him. As the two men have a private conversation (Bones sends Jim away, but he cant resist ear wigging at the window) It is revealed that Bones and Black dog used to be part of the infamous space pirate Captain Flints crew, and that Black dog has spent a lot of time and effort tracking Bones down in order to reclaim something which Black dog says belongs to all of the crew now that Flint is dead. Bones refuses to hand over "the map", and a fist fight breaks out between the two men, resulting in Bones recieving a serious knife wound to the stomach and Black dog fleeing into the night.
Jim tries to help Bones by offering to call the local surgeon, Dr. Livesey, to tend to his wound, but Bones refuses and asks Jim to get him a large glass of drukk.
After Bones has recovered somewhat, he sneaks out and buries something in a secluded area, unaware that Jim has followed him. When he begins to struggle due to his wound, Jim comes and helps him activate a radio beacon. Bones eventually explains that the radio beacon is actually a message intended alert his friend Arrow to come and see him. Later that night however, Black dog returns, accompanied by a blind man named Pew and a group of thugs. Bones barricades himself in his room as Pew and his gang search the house, with Pew making cryptic statements and threatening to kill everyone he comes across until Bones hands over the map. Jim manages to call for assistance using the beacons distress transmitter, which calls a customs service helicopter to them. The thugs attempt to flee in their own helicopter, and Pew is killed as he falls from the rope ladder as the helicopter flies away.
Bones is still in his room and is screaming in pain, so Jim ignores his protests that he doesn't need help and calls for Dr. Livesey. While they wait for him to come, Jim manages to get Bones (who is in a state of delirium) to explain what has happened.
Years ago, Bones served under Captain Flint. On one of their pirate raids, they captured and looted a massive cargo ship called  the "Bender", whose holds were full of precious metals and gems. With far too much loot to safely carry or fence all in one go, Flint ordered the crew to set course for an isolated planet.
When he got there, Flint and four other crew members took the treasure down to the surface, but after a week, only Flint returned. Flint had Bones draw up a map containing the coordinates of the planet and gave a series of cryptic clues as to where it could be found, and promised his crew that should he die before the stuff can be fenced, they would all receive a share of the treasure. Bones reveals that the object that he buried was in fact the map, and that the other men were all part of Flints old crew who were wanting to seize the treasure for themselves.
Dr. Livesey arrives and does what he can for Bones, but Bones ultimately dies, as Livesey observes that his insides were heavily damaged from a combination of being addicted to drukk and from exploring alien worlds without wearing a space suit or breathing mask (apparently a common complaint amongst space conductors).
Jim tells Livesey and his mother about what Bones told him before he died, and even recovers the map from its hiding place. Livesey suggests taking the map for Squire Trelawney, a local prominent citizen and owner of a company which builds robots and computers, to take a look at.
Trelawney is enthusuastic about finding the treasure, and proposes that they go into space to find it before the pirates get it, but, being as the map belongs to Jim, he says they wont do anything unless he agrees they can take it. Jim thinks long and hard about it, and decides they can take the map, but only on the condition that they let him come along on the journey, as he sees this as an opportunity to escape his boring life at home and explore space, reluctantly, Trelawney agrees and says Jim can come along and serve as their cabin boy.
Trelawney contacts a man named Captain Smolett and charters him to hire a ship and crew for their journey, as according to the cryptic clues on the map, the treasure can only be found on a certain day of the year, where "the hammer falls", so they need to leave as quickly as possible as their time is running out. Smolett charges "Long John" Silver (Anthony Quinn) , a tavern owner in Roma-napoli and former space explorer, to fill out the crew. Jim meets with Long John, who insists that he simply calls him "Silver". Jim is frightened when he thinks he has caught sight of Black dog in Silvers tavern, but Silver brushes it off and says he doesn't know who Black dog is and that they get all sorts in there. He is revealed to be lying when later he meets with Black dog in secret and tells him to keep out of the way until they board the ship.
Silver takes Jim into Roma-napoli to buy supplies, and then manages to lose him in the crowd of people in the market. Jim manages to find his way back to the space port and boards their ship, the Hispaniola, just before departure.
On board the ship, Jim runs across Black dog, who is serving on the crew, along with Silver and many others who were once members of Flints crew. He alerts Captain Smollet and Dr. Livesey to this fact but they tell him not to worry as many of the crew members have served on many ships at one time or another.
As they make the journey, Silver and the other crew members begin plotting to steal the treasure once they get to their destination, and swear an oath on the "Black mark". Silver has to reign in some of the more violent members of the crew who want to mutiny as soon as they get underway, and instead suggests that they instead wait for an opportunity to dispose of the captain, the squire and the doctor quietly.
Jim overhears this plotting but says nothing as he is threatened by Black dog and some of the other crew.
The opportunity to carry out their plan arises when after they have made the jump through hyper space to their destination solar system, they run across the damaged hulk of a spacecraft, which Captain Smolett insists that according to the laws of space travel, they are obliged to board and search for survivors, and then move the ship away from the shipping lanes so that it doesn't cause any accidents.
Smolett, Livesey and Trelawney, along with Trelawney's android manservant John, board the ship but find no survivors. Silver sets it up so that their tether line will detach and leave them with no way of returning to the Hispaniola before the hulk is blasted into a nearby star. Jim manages to sneak away and goes across to the hulk to warn them, thereby thwarting Silvers evil plan, but gets trapped in some pipes. Smolett sets the ships engines to fire in five minutes and the group makes their way back to the Hispaniola, unaware that Jim is aboard. Jim just manages to free himself and escape just before the hulks engines power on and take the ship away to its doom, and rejoins the Hispaniola.  
They arrive on the planet and land, but then the crew stages an open mutiny and lock the captain, the squire, the doctor and all crew still loyal to Captain Smollet in the brig, before, like a bunch of ravenous wolves, they leave the ship to go hunt for the treasure, without really knowing where it is.
Using a bit of ingenuity, the loyal crew manage to escape, but Jim is separated from the rest when he accidentally takes the wrong passage as they escape through the ships air vents.
The others simply think Jim has gone on ahead and leave the area, eventually finding an abandoned settlement that has power and running water, but no radio, which they barricade themselves inside.
Jim meanwhile manages to find his way up to the ships flight deck and inadvertently kills the man left behind to guard the ship, causing him to fall on the controls and set the ship on a short preprogramed course which takes it out over the sea and back again at regular intervals. Jim abandons ship and heads back to shore, where he eventually falls asleep.
Meanwhile, the pirates, led by Silver, try and fail several times to break into the compound where the Captain and others are hiding, but are kept at bay by Dr. Liveseys duelling pistols (a gift given to him earlier by Squire Trelawney, even though Smolett insisted that no weapons be brought aboard his ship), wielded by himself and Trelawney, resulting in the deaths of several of the pirates.
Silver offers a truce in exchange for some food and water, as they have discovered the Hispaniola has gone and there are no food or water sources in the swamps surrounding them, Smolett refuses and the pirates once again attempt to attacks, but are repulsed.

Jim wakes up in a bed on board what appears to be a crashed luxury space liner, and is greeted by the sight of a dishevelled looking man who introduces himself as Benjamin Gunn. Ben Gunn was one of the men who originally served with Flint, and who returned to the planet after they left in search of the treasure, but was marooned there by his business partners when they failed to find it. In the years he has spent along he has quietly gone somewhat mad, but made a decent enough life for himself there, spending every day searching for the treasure, as the space liner has ample supplies of food and drink available in its store rooms. He offers Jim some champagne (as that is all he has available to drink) and some caviar (which is all he has available to eat), but Jim gets drunk and passes out, when he wakes up, Gunn has put him back where he found him in the swamps.
Jim manages to find his way to the encampment, but finds the pirates seemingly burying bodies. Silver finds him and understands that Jim is upset about his friends being killed but he insists that there was nothing they could do to avoid it. In truth, Smolett and the others managed to get away with some help from Gunn, although John the android was killed in the process, the graves Jim sees are in fact the bodies of the pirates that Trelawney and Livesey killed during the attacks on them.
Jim heads back to Gunns place and finds his friends waiting for him, they then leave and manage to find the Hispaniola and reclaim it for themselves, and with some help from Gunn, they manage to figure out where the treasure is hidden. 
The pirates meanwhile have been piecing together some of the clues and have set off themselves to try and find it first, however as they travel, it becomes obvious to Silver that the others have no intention of sharing any of the treasure with him, as he begins to lag behind due to problems with his prosthetic leg, so he quietly slips away and makes out to find Smolett and Jim.
Smolett and co manage to find the treasure, which is buried in a shallow lake at the exact point where a hammer shaped rock casts its shadow at dusk on a certain day, Silver finds them and begs forgiveness, and after helping them fight off a final pirate attack, they let him leave the planet with them, stranding the remaining pirates behind.





As the series is no longer available to buy on DVD, you can watch it HERE 
(Note:- some portions of the individual episodes are in German, but these are only the recaps, everything else is in English)

My take on the whole "Jimmy Savile" thing

Unless you've been in a coma these past two months you will have undoubtedly heard of the numerous allegations surrounding the (now deceased) Sir Jimmy Savile relating to his alleged "misconduct" in regards to his relationships with children, stemming right back from the mid 1950's right up until sometime in 2006.

All of the media furore stems from the program "The other side of Jimmy Savile", broadcast on the 3rd of October 2012 as part of ITVs "Exposure" series of documentaries.

The program itself garnered infamy even before its broadcast simply because unlike the other programs shown thus far in the series (with subjects including mistreatment of the dead and bereaved by funeral directors, unethical payments made by British businesses to foreign governments etc) , it was heavily promoted both on TV and in the newspapers.

In the program, many women who were in their teens during the 1970s recount their stories of how during various encounters with Savile (in the course of his TV or charity work) they were physically or sexually molested, including further allegations naming other famous faces who have at some point been associated with either the BBC or with Savile himself.

The broadcast of the program was followed the next day by an absolute media circus in which nearly all the tabloid newspapers began printing further accusations made by both participants in the program as well as new people who have "come forward" to tell their stories.
as a result, many other accusations have "come to light", such as Saviles alleged molestation of young boys as well as girls, and Savilles alleged molestation of corpses while working as a volunteer at various hospitals, finally culminating in a statement released by the NSPCC today (19/10/2012) in which they state that based on the current evidence, Jimmy Savile could possibly be the most prolific child sex offender in British history.

But lets take a step back here, as thus far, the only evidence that is available has been statements made by people about events that may or may not have happened over a quarter of a century ago, coupled with a lot of hearsay and gossip from both current and former employees of the BBC who were around in some way during Saviles time working on programs such as "Clunk-Click", "Top of the pops" and "Jim'll fix it". None of this evidence can be easilly corroborated, simply due to the amount of time that has passed, and the fact that Savile, as well as many other people involved in what is believed to be a massive BBC "cover up" have in fact died in the mean time.
The furore is so big that the BBC has had to launch its own internal inquiry into whether a cover up does indeed exist and who exactly was involved in it, which has been "helped along" by testimonies from people like Esther Rantzen, who also appeared on the ITV Exposure program stating that she knew that soemthing was going off due to "rumours" that were apparently rife within the BBC, but said there was "no-one whom she could voice her concerns to".

Lets sort this one out now, Esther Rantzens assertion that there was no-one she could talk to about it is rendered questionable due to the fact that from 1969 until they were married in 1977, Rantzen had an eight year affair with Desmond Wilcox, who from 1972 until 1980 was the BBCs head of General features, and thus was in a position to have followed up the allegations back then, but yet for whatever reason, didn't. This also ignores the fact that at any time the suspicions could have been reported anonymously to the police (who always take a dim view of any allegations of child molestation) for them to have investigated, but no, Esther decided to remain quiet until after Savile was dead, despite her huge amount of work on setting up the "Childline" charity in the mid 1980s and generally being an active campaigner for the protection of children and children's rights.

What we are seeing thus far is nothing more than what has become known in recent times as "Trial by media", which very rarely ends in justice for anyone involved but it always helps to sell a few thousand newspapers, it is also helped along in this case by the fact that a bizarre quirk in British law means that anyone wishing to make allegations against someone who is no longer alive can do so completely free from the worry that they may face criminal prosecution if they are found to have lied or distorted the truth.
Although thus far the bulk of allegations have been made against Savile himself, there have been one or two other names crop up in connection with him, for example the former pop star turned convicted paedophile Paul Francis Gadd (aka Gary Glitter) and comedian Frederick Leslie Fowell (aka Freddie Starr).

In relation to the accusations made against Freddie Starr, Karin Ward, the same person whom is also making accusations against both Savile and Gary Glitter,  states that at the age of 14, she was invited to London to attend the recording of an edition of Saviles "Clunk-Click" program after which she was invited to a party in Glitters dressing room. She states that while attending this party she "saw Glitter having sex with an underage girl while Savile watched", and she was then later "groped by Starr, who then humilated her by calling her a titless wonder (referring to her small breasts) when she rebuffed his advances".
Starr himself originally denied having been on the Clunk-Click program, but then was later found to be wrong as a short video excerpt from the show came to light showing Starr and Karin Ward on the program which was originally transmitted in 1974.
Starr countered this by stating that he had simply forgotten he had appeared on the program, as he has been rather prolific on TV and radio since the early 1970s, and simply couldn't remember a single appearance on a show made nearly 38 years ago. In an interview on ITVs "This Morning" program, he requested that the police contact him in order for him to answer any questions they have, and pointed out the fact that Karin Ward had made several contradictory, and in some cases, untrue statements about him in the interim period, such as changing the story concerning their meeting, and also stating that Starr "reeked of booze", despite being teetotal, this was later changed to state that he "reeked of the same cologne that [Wards] stepfather wore, and she hated her stepfather. He also highlighted how easy it was for people who work in TV to forget people they had met briefly by pointing out to presenter Phillip Schofield how he himself had famously denied ever having met racing driver James Hunt, but then was found to have met him during the course of his career.

So anyways, as Savile died in October 2011, it is hardly likely that any kind of inquiry into his alleged escapades will ever find out what really went off, due to the fact that he cant be questioned due to him being dead and buried for nearly a year, it is my belief that yes, there is something in the allegations of child molestation, but the majority of them may not be true, for example, he is alleged to have molested teenage girls in his various visits to the Duncroft Approved School for girls (basically, a kind of prison for "wayward" teenage girls, in the same way as troubled males were sent to a "Borstal"), and at the Haut de la Garenne childrens home in Guernsey during the 1970s, but yet after investigations carried out by both Surrey police (in 2007) and Guernsey police (in 2008) he was released without charge under the grounds of insufficient evidence.
Police are currently following over 300 lines of enquiry and state that there is a potential for there to be over 200 associated victims, but on a daily basis more and more people are "coming forward" with stories linked to Savile AND others.

The majority of the accusations against him have this bizarre feeling of untruth, and seem mainly to be based on peoples opinion of him as being rather "creepy" or "weird" in some way. This is certainly understandable, for example, by the time he began presenting "Top of the pops" in 1964, he was already 38 years old, but yet dressed and behaved a lot "younger", its akin to the embarrassing feeling of having your dad turn up at a party and then attempting to dance and talk with your friends.
Throughout the 70's and 80's he was regularly ridiculed by both the general populace and the press for wearing tracksuits during the majority of his appearances (which one of his current accusers states he did so that he could quickly drop his trousers in order to facilitate sexual encounters, and not because he was generally associated with advocating exersize and a healthy lifestyle, as well as the fact that he had stated he wore them because he found them comfortable) , as well as having his eccentricisms mocked by impressionists, comedians and satirists, and yet while all this was going on, he was still one of the most respected TV personalities in Britain, and remained so until after his death, despite the fact that over the years people made various accusations about him in one way or another.

Another thing I note is that, as I stated earlier, anyone with concerns could report them anonymously to the police, It seems rather odd that all of a sudden people are "giving up their right to anonymity" and coming out of the woodwork to say things, all of them no doubt receiving generous fees from the various newspapers, TV news companies and documentary makers for their various appearances.
The other questions that need to be asked of them are "why now?" and "what do you hope to get out of it?", although I'd wager that deep down, the answer probably lies in the millions of pounds sat in the bank accounts of the various charities associated with Savile, which recently received a boon thanks to the sale of many of Saviles personal possessions at a widely publicised charity auction, which raised an additional £320,000 for their coffers. I mean, after all, no legal action can be taken against Savile himself, on the account of him being deceased, so if money isn't the object, what use will smearing the name of a dead man have?, other than to discredit the various charities associated with him.
Sure, it'd be nice if the truth, if it even exists, comes out, but along the way, I'm sure there will be many cheques and envelopes filled with cash change hands, and if it turns out there was no cover up, or indeed anything for Savile to be held accountable for, at least the newspapers will have no reason to worry about any impending legal action, well, unless that is they continue publishing names of people who are still alive and end up having to explain it away in court.