Muriel Young

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (June 2007)

The tone or style of this article or section may not be appropriate for Wikipedia.
Specific concerns may be found on the talk page. See Wikipedia's guide to writing better articles for suggestions.(December 2007)

Muriel Young (1928-2001) is a legend in British television.

Starting out as an actress, she co-starred with Rex Harrison in "The Constant Husband" and was also in The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan (1953). She carved a career for herself as an attractive and talented leading lady.

In 1955, as the first ITV company Associated-Rediffusion was gearing up to launch, she intended to attend an actors' audition at the company, but mistakenly went to an announcers' audition instead. This took her career in a new direction; she was instantly hired and announced for A-R on September 22, 1955, the opening night of commercial television in the UK.

In 1954 she married Cyril Coke, a television drama director.

Muriel worked as a presenter and interviewer for regional programmes on Granada Television and Southern Television, and as a disc jockey on Radio Luxembourg, but was probably most famous for her work as a presenter of children's programmes for Associated-Rediffusion and Rediffusion London between 1959 and 1968, working alongside Wally Whyton and Bert Weedon, and featuring the puppet characters Pussy Cat Willum, Ollie Beak and Fred Barker.

- Willum did not open his mouth and spoke by whispering in the ear of a presenter.

- Ollie had a tiny beak which simply opened and shut as he "spoke".

- Fred was a further advance in that he had a full-sized mouth to "speak" from.

The popular format thus created lasted for many years, under various titles: Lucky Dip, Tuesday Rendezvous, Five O'Clock Club, Ollie and Fred's Five O'Clock Club and Five O'Clock Funfair.

In the late 1960s and 1970s, Muriel Young became a staff producer of pop programmes for Granada Television, with such shows as Lift Off With Ayshea, Get It Together, the Bay City Rollers show Shang-a-Lang, The Arrows Show and Marc, starring Marc Bolan. She also devised the Granada children's series Clapperboard. In the 1980s she produced music programmes for Channel 4. She was sometimes a panellist on the influential ATV talent prgramme New Faces.