Looks Unfamiliar: Grace Dent – We Fed A Lot Of These People After Midnight

Magic Smile by Rosie Vela (A&M, 1986) - listen to Grace Dent chatting to Tim Worthington about it in Looks Unfamiliar.

Looks Unfamiliar is a podcast in which writer and occasional broadcaster Tim Worthington talks to a guest about some of the things that they remember that nobody else ever seems to.

Joining Tim this time is author, restaurant critic and broadcaster Grace Dent, who’s refusing to eat anywhere that doesn’t remember Magic Smile by Rosie Vela, a mystery clown who appeared on the television from nowhere, the BBC’s 1986 Domesday Project, Puddles In The Lane by Alan Parker, ITV stunt cycling show BMX Beat, BBC Scotland summer holidays children’s programme The Untied Shoelaces Show, gritty ITV teen drama Going Out, eighties backing vocalists extraordinaire The Fabulous Wealthy Tarts, eighties video shop favourite Wacko and That’s Life! trying to whip up a bit of panic about raw kidney beans. Along the way we’ll be recounting Phil Redmond’s ascent to superstardom in the Netherlands, gauging The Beastie Boys’ impact on social statistic analysis, betting on a pay-per-view smackdown between Esther Rantzen and Delia Smith, and finding out just how many people it’s possible to fall out with over a black and white portable television.

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The Untied Shoelaces Show (BBC Scotland, 1982=84) - listen to Grace Dent and Tim Worthington talking about it in Looks Unfamiliar.

Domesday Detectives (BBC1, 1986) - listen to Grace Dent and Tim Worthington talking about it in Looks Unfamiliar.

BMX Beat (ITV/Border, 1984-87) - listen to Grace Dent and Tim Worthington talking about it in Looks Unfamiliar.

A Mystery Television Clown - listen to Grace Dent and Tim Worthington talking about it in Looks Unfamiliar.

About Grace

Grace Dent is a writer and broadcaster. You can find Grace’s columns for The Guardian here and get her book Hungry here; Grace also presents the Comfort Eating podcast which you can find here along with the tie-in book here. You can follow Grace on Bluesky at @gracedent.bsky.social.

Buy A Book!

There’s lots more about The Untied Shoelaces Show, BMX Beat and tons of other thrillingly baffling instances of obscure low-budget regional eccentricity in The Golden Age Of Children’s TV, available in all good bookshops and from Waterstones here, Amazon here and directly from Black And White Publishing here.

If you enjoyed this then you’ll enjoy Can’t Help Thinking About Me, a collection of columns and features with a personal twist. Can’t Help Thinking About Me is available in paperback here or from the Kindle Store here.

Alternately, if you’re just feeling generous, you can buy me a coffee here. If it’s an especially good one I might even write a review of it.

Further Listening

You can find another appearance by Grace on Looks Unfamiliar talking about Woolworths’ Christmas ads, The Weekenders, John Peel’s Festive Fifty, Sky Star Search, Snub TV, Chas’n’Dave’s Christmas Knees-Up, Peter And The Test Tube Babies and The Max Headroom Broadcast Signal Intrusion here. You can also find Grace on The Golden Age Of Children’s TV talking about Bagpuss here.

Grace also appears in The Best Of Looks Unfamiliar alongside Deborah Tracey on Five To Eleven, Joanne Sheppard on Matchbox Fighting Furies, Lucy Pope on Barcode Battler, Mitch Benn on O.T.T. and Ben Baker on the 1990 Bullseye Christmas Special, which you can find here.