Nineteen, Ninety-Three, Three, Ninety-Nine - ITV (LWT) adverts, 1994

The Dwelling Place is one of approximately eight billion novels written by Dame Catherine Cookson about glum 19th Century Geordie and Geordie-adjecent persons, all of which would be much improved by an impromptu visit from the Bacon family. It's also one of a few dozen to be filmed by local heroes Tyne Tees, in 1994. Here's some adverts from its original broadcast on LWT.

First: Harry Enfield and that over-arch HHCL campaign for doomed BT rival Mercury, based on his old-timey sketches with Mr. Cholmondeley-Warner and Mr. Grayson. Here he's explaining Mercury's "Your Call" scheme where you can save money on the numbers you ring up the most. Featuring Jon Glover's Mr. C-W himself, possibly Carla Mendonca, and David Barber, the Fat Bloke. As usual for this campaign, it's extremely well-made, and quite funny, but fails miserably to convince you to switch to Mercury, or even give a particularly strong clear identity for the company itself, which is what it's supposed to do.

Then: Brian Cox (not the starman) is excited to tell us of a brand new car that's quieter than a weird, self-consciously arty and mannered representation of a library. It's the Opel Omega B, sold here under the Vauxhall marque. As was the Omega A, of course, as the Vauxhall Carlton. Who knows why they decided to change it. Either time.

Then, a "luxurious" blue-filtered advert about a naked lady applying skin cream. Utopian in a slighly unsettling way, as only beauty adverts can be.

Robin of Kensington has finally found the magic money tree! Too late now, unfortunately. Enn Reitel in chirpy-cartoon voice mode is on hand to explain that apparently the Daily Express is offering money for nothing and the chicks for free all week with its scratchcard thing, in association with the National and Provincial building society.

Then, a rugged outdoorsman wanders through an increasingly hostile landscape being attacked by stock footage in order to promote his jacket. Traditional John Lee Hooker-style blues was popular in advertising for a bit in the 90s. I'm not sure why. This is probably an American advert repurposed for Britain anyway.

Next: Thresher's Wine Shop. At pains to make themselves seem classy. As wine bar is to pub, Thresher's wants to be to off-licence. No idea if they managed it, but conclusions might be drawn from the fact that they don't exist anymore, except in-name-only as a sub-brand of a cornershop company called "Dave's Discount". Anyway, enjoy Phillip Pope apparently improvising the most irritating possible way to buy a bottle of wine.

That's the last advert, but before we return to Catherine Cookson's Eight Ace, a brief, definitively LWT branded trailer for The Knock, a cop-type series, except with Customs officers instead of cops. More interesting than that makes it sound, and it lasted for five series through the second half of the nineties. It even had Alex Kingston in it at one point.

adverts,