Jimmy Saville, Kenny Everett, miming artists and relaunches galore - we look back at 40 years of the original chart show

January 1 1964
First ever Top of the Pops is broadcast from Manchester, after a merciful name-change from the suggested "Teen and Twenty Record Club". It goes out at 6.30pm on a Wednesday, and sets the format which would be followed, with more or less tinkering, until this week: artists "performing" (this would prove one of the most flexible variables) in front of a live, young studio audience, culminating in a countdown of the week's singles chart. Acts include The Rolling Stones and Dusty Springfield, with a filmed contribution from the week's number one act, The Beatles, with I Want to Hold Your Hand. Presiding: Mr (later Sir) Jimmy Saville, DJ. In those days it had to be on BBC1; the second public station didn't open until April the same year.

1967
The show moves to London, to make it easier to get acts into the studio. The BBC's new youth radio station, Radio 1, forms strong links with the show from the outset, with star DJs such as Kenny Everett presenting. One legendary performance saw Jimi Hendrix miming Purple Haze while an Alan Price record played over the PA.

1968
Pan's People, a dance troupe used to fill the stage when that week's charting acts were not available, make their first appearance. They are not the first set of go-go dancers, but they are the most memorable, staying with the show for 10 years. Their versatility is legendary, even coping when having to cover for The Clash.

1972
The distinctive TOTP theme tune - a version of Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love - gets its first outing. Various other theme tunes and logos would be introduced over the years, but Whole Lotta Love remained the chart countdown backing for many years, and was reintroduced as part of a back-to-basics rework in 1998.

1973
The programme moves to Friday, briefly, but swaps back to Thursday after a ratings collapse. Future generations of TOTP producers will blithely ignore this elementary lesson from history at their peril. At the 500th show, Cliff Richard's performance is met with a mysterious shower of wigs. The Who's entourage - apparently not Cliff fans - had raided the props department.

1979
TOTP's finest hour, with viewing figures of 19 million. A strike over at ITV helps.

1981
In New Jersey, USA, MTV is born. The impact isn't immediately felt in the British isles, but it's the beginning of a process which will make TOTP if not obsolete, then at least no longer indispensable - as round-the-clock cable channels showing pop videos, and later the internet, mean that TOTP's weekly chart injection is increasingly available on demand.

1991
Producers admit - as most people have known all along - that acts usually mime, but promise that from now on the vocal track at least will be live. Other musicians continue to mime wilfully badly.

1994
Britpop should have been giving TOTP a shot in the arm, but all is not well. The beginning of the end is signalled by the introduction of TOTP2, a BBC nostalgiafest of old TOTP footage shown occasionally on BBC2. Presumably, this is meant to be a celebration of the long and rich heritage of the show. With hindsight, it looks increasingly like an unwitting admission that the only people who care about TOTP by now are over-25s hankering for the show's glory days. TOTP2 starts to spread across the schedules like a rash - by 2002 it has two weekly showings.

1996
The programme moves definitively to Friday evening, when self-respecting young people are out dancing and so on, rather than watching television. Inexplicably, this move fails to propel the show to new heights.

2003
TOTP goes out on the World Service for the first time. A major relaunch in December, masterminded by former presenter Andi Peters, aims to boost "editorial content" and initially boosts figures, but they quickly start to slide. Meanwhile, miming is acceptable once more.

2004
By May, the relaunched show is attracting just 2.6 million viewers, from 5.5 million for the relaunch special six months before. In November, the BBC announces that the show is leaving BBC1 for BBC2, in a Sunday night slot to move it nearer to the radio chart show, which now includes charts for downloads. While the chart show moves forward, there's still a suspicion that TOTP is moving towards an older audience, with the admission it will "combine some of the elements of TOTP2".

As chosen by ITV controllers (in alphabetical order)

1. Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway
2. An Audience With...
3. The Avengers
4. The Benny Hill Show
5. The Bill
6. Blind Date
7. Brideshead Revisited
8. Candid Camera
9. Cold Feet
10. Coronation Street
11. Cracker
12. The Darling Buds of May
13. Death on The Rock
14. Emmerdale
15. Family Fortunes
16. Footballers' Wives
17. Heartbeat
18. Hillsborough
19. I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!
20. Inspector Morse
21. It'll Be Alright on the Night
22. The Jewel in the Crown
23. Jimmy's
24. The Kenny Everett Video Show
25. Minder
26. The Muppet Show
27. The Naked Civil Servant...
28. Opportunity Knocks
29. Pop Idol -
30. Prime Suspect -
31. The Prisoner
32. Ready, Steady, Go!
33. Rising Damp
34. Seven Up
35. The South Bank Show
36. Spitting Image
37. Stars in Their Eyes
38. Sunday Night at the London Palladium
39. Survival
40. The Sweeney
41. This Is Your Life
42. This Morning
43. Tiswas
44. Tonight With Trevor McDonald
45. A Touch of Frost
46. Upstairs Downstairs
47. Whicker's World
48. Who Wants to be a Millionaire
49. The World at War
50. World in Action

Kenny Everett's horror movie may not be Citizen Kane, but it deserves its rescue from the vaults. Phelim O'Neill on how thousands of British films could soon be lost for ever

The recent discovery in Argentina of the more complete version of Metropolis highlights how easily a film can become "lost". For almost all the 81 years since Fritz Lang's masterpiece was released, the longer version has been talked about and searched for before being discovered, almost by happenstance, in a forgotten corner of the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires. If a film as well known and feted as Metropolis can seemingly disappear from the face of the earth, then what chance do movies that came nowhere near changing the face of film have of surviving?

The 1983 horror-comedy Bloodbath at the House of Death, starring Kenny Everett, might not be anyone's idea of a classic - and I'm certainly not attempting to compare it with Metropolis - but it does have as much right to be seen. Bloodbath is a silly, often corny and quite impressively gory spoof of the horror genre, mixing toilet humour with potshots at Alien, The Entity, Poltergeist, The Legend of Hell House and assorted Hammer films. The ongoing Scary Movie franchise treads almost identical ground - which is not to say Bloodbath is pioneering, but rather indicative of what was to follow. It's also the last British film appearance of horror legend Vincent Price, while Everett, whose massively successful TV and radio crossover career is still unmatched, still has his fans, as the repeats of his shows on digital TV channels show. So why has it taken until this month Bloodbath to get a DVD release?

Laurence Myers, who was called in to produce Bloodbath when its financing threatened to collapse, has a theory - and one that would most reasonably account for the film's disappearance. "It's a fairly terrible film," he says. "I recall showing it to [censor] James Ferman who thought it was fine and funny enough, but thought we were showing him the reels in the wrong order. We weren't - the film just doesn't make sense."

Also, the nature of film distribution was different in those pre-multiplex days. "We were dealing with single screens back then. There was always the next American blockbuster queuing up behind you. If your film didn't perform then they'd pull it to make way for something more profitable." Myers, now a leading theatrical producer, spent more than a decade producing and distributing films. His company, GTO Films, distributed arthouse fare such as Picnic at Hanging Rock, as well as delivering such dubious homegrown treats as the Glitter Band/Rubettes/Mud glam rock movie Never Too Young to Rock. He's not surprised Bloodbath has finally returned. "It's not the film I want on my headstone or in my obituary when I die, but it's not without fans. It doesn't matter if a film is regarded as part of our national heritage or some rubbish like that, audiences couldn't care less about that stuff. They either like it or they don't."

Bloodbath isn't the only worthwhile British film to have been lost. Even releases under the protection of major studios have not been guaranteed longevity. Films such as the edgy 1969 British thriller I Start Counting lie dormant in studio vaults, the lack of star power earmarking them as not worth the bother to release on DVD. Even Ken Russell's The Devils, which might not fit in with owner Warner Brothers' current image as purveyors of family-oriented Will Smith blockbusters, is unavailable. Films from the independent arena rely on small companies run by people passionate about film if they are to see the light of day again, because the focus group-led majors and quick-buck merchants have no interest. In the case of Bloodbath, the film's saviour came in the form of independent London-based DVD company Nucleus Films.

"Every day I am faced in my office by a wall of old VHS tapes," says Nucleus's Marc Morris, "I'm constantly asking myself: 'What here isn't available on DVD?' Bloodbath kept leaping out at me." For Morris, that was just the start of a process that's taken almost two years to see through. For the best quality on DVD, the movie should be sourced from a digital master struck from the original negative. Failing that, a new scan from an existing print. Copying the tape version struck for TV is a desperate last resort. Morris says: "There were no prints of Bloodbath to be found and it wasn't even sold to television so we had nothing to fall back on. The original negative had to be found."

That is the point at which many would-be distributors give up. All feature films name the lab used to process the final print in the credits. But, like any commercial operation, laboratories are not permanent fixtures in an unchanging world. Many go bust, change hands or have their assets split up. The longer the time elapsed since a film was made, the more obstacles mount up. Locating an individual movie can take a lot of detective work, and many labs employ a staff just to deal with tracking down the owners of negatives. "These rights may be passed down through families or companies as producers either pass away or get out of the business," says Morris. "Films may even be stowed away under their production title, one that may bear no relation to the one used when released into cinemas." Even when ownership can be verified, it can come with a hefty price.

"Storage fines," says Morris, shuddering at the mention of what has become the bane of the DVD company's life. "The labs store and preserve these films for decades in controlled environments. They're not charities and these things cost money. Many movie owners simply abandon the negative rather than pay hefty costs. If this happens the film is usually thrown out, a fate that's far too common." Bloodbath had accrued around £25,000 in overdue charges, and for a film with such limited marketability that price tag could have scuppered the whole endeavour. Fortunately Morris was able to haggle the amount down to a much more manageable figure when the lab realised that whatever he was offering would be the only money they'd ever see from the movie. Morris's offer was better than nothing, even if it was only marginally so. As a result, a near-pristine negative has been saved from destruction and the DVD of Bloodbath has a picture quality to rival its competitors on the shelves.

Back in 1983, Bloodbath at the House of Death was quite a well-known title, mostly for the wrong reasons. The production coincided with the aftermath of Everett's infamous "Let's bomb Russia! ... Let's kick Michael Foot's stick away!" outburst at the Young Conservatives' annual conference, so the film's title was regularly invoked in the press. Although his conference appearance did little damage to Everett's popularity with his fans, the media turned on him. The knives were out and well sharpened by the time Bloodbath came out, and its vitriolic critical reception still taints the film's reputation.

Today, it's virtually absent from film literature in print and on the internet. Even sites dedicated to Kenny Everett, Vincent Price or British films either omit it or give it a cursory mention, but how could they do otherwise when they've been denied the opportunity to see it? It's almost as if it had never been made. While some people might wish that were the case, it seems unusually unfair that a comparatively recent film boasting such familiar names as Price and Everett (as well as a slew of British comedy fixtures including Sheila Steafel, John Fortune, Barry Cryer and Pamela Stephenson) could just vanish.

It could and has happened to others. There are thousands of features and shorts stored in processing laboratories throughout Britain that have been deserted by their owners. They just sit there, accumulating dust and fines, until they are slung out or burnt. There could be some real classics in there, although the quality of the films is irrelevant; all films, even the bad ones, deserve the chance to be seen if requested. Otherwise, what's the point of them?

· Bloodbath at the House of Death is out now on DVD

Having obtained a copy of the little-seen 1984 film Bloodbath At The House Of Death, the cinema debut (and simultaneous swansong) of Kenny Everett, I have to report that it does little to enhance the reputation of the late disc jockey.

Not that it needs a great deal of enhancement. While John Peel is revered by music fans, Kenny Everett remains the dead DJ of choice for radio geeks. Thirteen years after his death, it is astonishing how often his name crops up on radio message boards - the most recent mention asking how Everett might fare if he were starting out today. Not very well, was the unsurprising verdict.

Terry Wogan's musings on his own start as a DJ in a recent Radio Times interview tend to confirm this dispiriting view. He sent in a tape he had forgotten to rewind to the quaintly named BBC head of gramophone programmes, who went to the trouble of spooling back the tape, listening and giving the King of Blarney a shot at announcing some records. These days, Wogan reckons, nobody would bother even picking up such a tape, let alone rewinding it.

But Wogan's gentle whimsy might have found a way on to the national airwaves in any era. Everett is a different proposition. He played with the medium, marrying vaudeville-style jokes with sound effects and home-made jingles he had put together on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He sounded nothing like the disc jockeys of the time - either dinner-jacketed David Jacobs types or mid-Atlantic Pete Murrays - pitching his act somewhere between the Goons and Tommy Handley.

Despite this oddness, and the fact no one knew who he was, he got his chance. When he made a tape of his doodlings, the BBC Light Programme (a forerunner of Radio 1 and 2) was interested enough to offer Everett, then barely into his 20s, a trial. Instead, the DJ opted for the pirate ship Radio London.

If your only knowledge of Everett is through his TV shows, I would urge you to have a listen to some of his radio work on the internet. The bloggers who describe him as a radio genius are not far wide of the mark.

Will there ever be another Everett? Almost certainly not. The chances of a national station taking a punt on an unknown these days are remote. Listening to Radio 2 on bank holiday Monday, I noted that Ken Bruce's stand-in was TV's Rob Brydon, while Steve Wright in the Afternoon was replaced for the day by Liza Tarbuck. When I was at Radio 2, between 1985 and 1996, I stood in quite regularly for Sarah Kennedy, Ken Bruce, and the late John Dunn, despite being a relative unknown without my own TV show or sell-out stand-up comedy tour. I could not see it happening now.

Producers these days, it seems, would rather hire a name they know that seems to fit in with the brand and may even get them a bit of press, than listen to a bunch of tapes or MP3s from hopefuls. Even a relatively low-profile set-up such as BBC London has chosen "celebrities" including Gary Kemp, Amy Winehouse's dad Mitch, and Toyah Willcox as summer replacements for Danny Baker.

It may be the disc jockey format of the 60s and 70s has run its course. Some of the BBC's most successful programmes, such as Chris Moyles and Russell Brand, are more or less speech shows, owing more to Americans such as Howard Stern than any British tradition. The camp, goonish Everett's influences, by contrast, were almost entirely homegrown.

Not that I expect many of you to take to the barricades in support of the British DJ. His or her demise is a small earthquake with few casualties, apart, I suppose, from aspiring presenters on campus or hospital radio. My advice to them: have a back-up plan.

Film will focus on unhappy childhood of DJ and comedy performer who died in 1995

He created a character called Cupid Stunt and told a filthy joke about Margaret Thatcher on Radio 2. But now the late Kenny Everett is in line for the latest in showbusiness establishment accolades – a BBC4 drama biopic.

The BBC is developing a 90-minute film called Number One in Heaven about Everett, who died of an Aids related illness in 1995 aged 50.

Written by playwright Tim Whitnall – best known as the author of hit stage play Morecambe, about comedian Eric Morecambe – the as-yet uncast biopic promises to focus on Everett's troubled childhood at his Catholic secondary school on Merseyside where he was picked on for his diminutive size and his effeminacy.

"He was so small it is hard to think of finding an actor who can play him," Whitnall told the Guardian. "It is possible he could be played by a woman in fact, which is something he may have appreciated. I knew him and I loved him – in fact the title refers to the moment I first saw him when he was dancing in Heaven nightclub."

Everett, born Maurice Cole in Seaforth, Lancashire, started his professional life as a pirate DJ for Radio London and Radio Luxemburg before joining Radio 1 in the mid 1960s. He befriended the Beatles and accompanied them on their 1966 tour of the US.

His TV work included stints for Thames TV from 1978 to 1980 and for the BBC between 1981 and 1988, where he is thought to have first coined the term "the Beeb" to refer to the corporation. Among his comic creations were the punk Sid Snot and the American chatshow host Cupid Stunt, whose catchphrase was: "It's all done in the best possible taste."

Regarded in the 1980s as a supporter of prime minister Thatcher, Everett once appeared at a Young Conservatives conference waving enormous foam hands and saying "Let's bomb Russia" and "Let's kick Michael Foot's stick away". However, friends of Everett now question whether he was in fact a supporter of the Conservatives.

The BBC confirmed that it is working on the film but declined to comment further. It is expected to be made by the BBC's in-house film department, where it will be overseen by BBC Films executive producer Jamie Laurenson.

Programme to feature archive clips of DJ's jingles, 'fiddly bits' and comedy characters, and will be backed by documentary

BBC Radio 2 will attempt the impossible on Christmas Day with a "new" Kenny Everett show 15 years after his death.

Kenny Everett's Christmas Selection Box will feature archive clips of Everett's jingles, "fiddly bits" and comedy characters including Captain Kremmen, Chris P Bacon and Rock Salmon, interspersed with classic and current chart hits.

Introduced by Paul Gambaccini, the station said songs had been chosen for the show that Everett "would have liked for their jolliness and tunefulness". It will also feature Everett's interviews with the Beatles and a duet with Harry Nilsson.

Gambaccini will also present a documentary about Everett and his hugely influential radio work for Radio 2 on Christmas Eve.

Gambaccini said: "Kenny Everett was the best of us. It was no surprise that the entire profession turned out for his funeral. All the radio stars of his time recognised his genius. 

"Kenny was a master of both preparation and spontaneity. He had both wit and technical skill. He loved both music and comedy. He was the only one of us who used the studio instead of just tolerating it. He was a wonderful one-off, a great presenter and a fine friend."

Everett, who was born on Christmas Day 1944, died in 1995. Both shows are being made by independent producer Howlett Media.

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Carols on Christmas Eve, Adam and Joe on Christmas Day and a selection of Kenny Everett on Boxing Day

Christmas Eve

If the festive spirit is still proving elusive, tune into Merry Christmas Morris Minor! (Radio 4, 11am), one of the sweetest radio offerings over the holiday. The Guardian's Martin Wainwright celebrates the car's 50th birthday in this affectionate tribute, which includes a rendition of Jingle Bells played on a chorus of Morris Minor Horns. That moment really is enough to melt even Scrooge's heart.

Scrooge pops up again in Marley Was Dead (Radio 4, 8pm), a ticklish spoof retelling of A Christmas Carol that begins with Jonathan Dimbleby introducing a starry cast including David Tennant and Ian McKellen but soon falls into disarray. Charlotte Green, Chris Evans and Richard Madeley make appearances too.

Radio 1 is doing what we'd all like to today: getting someone else to do the work. Guest presenters take over an hour on the station, with James Corden kicking things off at 7am, followed by Doctor Who's Matt Smith and Karen Gillan (8am) and Tinie Tempah from 9am. More serene, and a must-listen with a glass of something and a mince pie, is A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols (Radio 4, 3pm).

Christmas Day

There can be no finer cookalong company than Adam and Joe's Christmas Special (6 Music, 10am), though the gift fans will look for under the tree is a regular return for the pair. Other morning options as you multitask wildly include 5 Live's Chart of the Year (10am), with Richard Bacon looking at the year's 20 most talked about moments and Paul O'Grady (Radio 2, 10am) being grumpy about the whole festive malarkey but funny with it.

Two crackers after lunch: Pat and Margaret (Radio 4, 3.15pm) is a radio remake of Victoria Wood's bittersweet comedy about two sisters reunited after 27 years on a live television show. One is a toxic Hollywood star; the other works as a waitress in motorway service station. Sarah Lancashire and Imelda Staunton give knock-out performances here, but it's maybe not one to listen to with your siblings unless you all really get on.

Boxing Day

Kenny Everett's Christmas Selection Box (Radio 2, 5pm) is a treat for all radio fans: a new compilation of the maverick and hugely influential DJ's characters, jingles, "fiddly bits" and interviews on what would have been his 66th birthday. The programme includes excerpts from his time at Pirate Radio London, and features characters such as Captain Kremmen and Rock Salmon. It's all done, as his character Cupid Stunt would say, in the best possible taste.

Lots of cheering radio to counter the hangovers and leftovers today. Desert Island Discs (Radio 4, 11.15am) features Sandie Shaw, the barefoot 60s pop princess and Eurovision winner now turned psychotherapist, while on Private Passions (Radio 3, noon), the guest is Pamela Stephenson, the comedian and actor turned psychologist and Strictly Come Dancing star. She talks through her favourite music including performances by Lotte Lenya, Kiri te Kanawa and a Balinese frog song.

Liza Tarbuck's Christmas Wrapping (Radio 2, 1pm) guarantees rousing music and warm company from Tarbuck, the actor turned rather fine radio host, if the weather's not conducive to an afternoon walk.

Women changing direction continues as a theme in French and Saunders (Radio 2, 5pm), with the comedy duo tackling radio for the first time in the first of three specials blending music, chat and humour. There are some promising-sounding features in the show. Someone and Their Mum is self-explanatory and a fine idea: first guest is Miranda Hart and her mum.

If your mum's done all the work, settle her down for Words and Music (Radio 3, 10.45pm), a gorgeous selection of prose and poems about giving and receiving gifts read by Sheila Hancock and Scott Handy, while you do the washing up.

This mix of snippets from the DJ's programmes was an exuberant reminder of one of radio's true iconoclasts

Kenny Everett's Christmas Selection Box (Radio 2, Saturday) was a smart idea: a new mix of the DJ's shows from Pirate Radio London and the BBC, glued together with his favourite music. It was an exuberant reminder that Everett – who would have been 66 on Christmas Day – was a true radio iconoclast.

One thing jarred, though: the decision to include what presenter Paul Gambaccini described as "examples of recent music we think he would have liked". You get the idea, updating Everett and making sure the whole thing didn't sound too antique. But Coldplay? Would he have liked Coldplay? We don't know, and it seemed odd to try to guess.

That aside, this was a delicious kaleidoscope of elastic sound, with Everett stretching his voice as much as the technical "fiddly bits", and self-consciously deconstructing the art of radio at the same time as he performed it.

He regularly broke radio rules, playing classical music ("it's the stuff what souls are made of") alongside pop, as unheard of then as now. He relentlessly adopted silly accents, especially faux-posh and broad New York, and delivered every word and tune with a childlike glee. "You get a warm feeling deep within your doobry," he said of one track. You got that listening to this, too.

Biopic to chart rise of maverick comedian who became famous for characters such as Sid Snot and Cupid Stunt

He was one of broadcasting's most-loved entertainers – a maverick comedian who delighted radio and television audiences with his comic characters and a quick, sometimes controversial wit that more than once saw him lose his job.

Now Kenny Everett is to be celebrated on BBC4, with a 90-minute biopic that focuses on his relationship with his wife, singer Lee Middleton – they married in 1966 and separated in 1979 – and charts his rise from rebellious young DJ to rebellious household name.

The Best Possible Taste takes its name from the catchphrase of Everett's American chatshow host, Cupid Stunt, one of the performer's most famous comic creations alongside Sid Snot. Both characters feature in BBC4's film about Everett, who died in 1995 of an Aids-related illness.

Everett is played by newcomer Oliver Lansley, while former Coronation Street actor Katherine Kelly plays Middleton. The script is by Tim Whitnall, best known for writing the stage play Morecambe, about comedian Eric.

"Kenny Everett was a genuine original: wild and unfocused maybe, but also deliciously anarchic and always entertaining," said Richard Klein, the controller of BBC4.

"In many ways Kenny was a very modern celebrity, wearing his heart on his sleeve while coping with a complex life. Re-evaluating this talented and exuberant personality, enabling audiences to reconsider Kenny's undoubted impact and legacy, makes this a very BBC4 drama."

Everett's infamous appearance at a 1983 Young Conservatives' conference, where he shouted "Let's bomb Russia" and "Let's kick Michael Foot's stick away", will feature alongside tales from his radio career on pirate, commercial and BBC stations. The comedian also had hugely popular television shows on first ITV and then BBC.

There was more to Kenny Everett than his sexuality, but we didn't see it

Throughout his radio and TV career, Kenny Everett always gave the impression he was acting the part of Kenny Everett. The feature length, 90-minute biopic, Best Possible Taste – The Kenny Everett Story (BBC4), suggested he was also giving a performance in his private life, as he struggled to accept what to everyone who knew him – not least his wife, Lee – was blindingly obvious; that he was gay.

Only his close friends will know just how true this was. Tim Whitnall's script certainly never felt awkward, but viewing Everett's entire life and career almost exclusively through the prism of his sexuality began to feel limiting after an hour, as I felt that other interesting aspects of his character had gone awol. Everett was clearly a troubled, self-destructive personality regardless of his sexuality. Plenty of other entertainers remained firmly in the closet during the 60s and 70s without repeatedly torpedoing their own careers by getting sacked for breaking the rules.

Likewise, to attribute his excessive drug consumption to the pain of trying to maintain the pretence of being heterosexual – as this film implied by cosily ending at the point at which he came out – is to ignore the possibility that he was also a bit of an addict. And what were his politics? Was he the rightwinger who appeared at a Tory party youth conference and said, "Let's bomb Russia", or was he the leftie who got the sack for telling a dirty joke about Margaret Thatcher on Radio 2? Or was he just an attention-seeker who would say anything for a laugh? These were the questions that were being asked about Everett in the 80s and this film failed to answer them.

What got lost in all this was any real sense of what made him the star he unquestionably was. There are plenty of entertainers around now who have adopted Everett's more outrageous and eccentric schticks, but at the time he was a genuine one-off – someone who would frequently say the unsayable, wear the unwearable and who polarised opinion absolutely. For all its shortcomings, Best Possible Taste did have a good period feel, an even better soundtrack and in Oliver Lansley (Everett) and Katherine Kelly (Lee) two actors who were seldom less than mesmerising in the lead roles. Lansley's Sid Snot could have passed off as the Everett original and he threw himself into his character wholeheartedly, but it was surely unintentional that Kelly's portrayal of Lee's journey from 60s hippy chick to 80s suburban housewife was equally as involving as Everett's from inside to outside the closet.

Two years ago, the BBC picked up a Bafta for Welcome to Lagos, a documentary series made by those scratching a living on the margins of the Nigerian city, and Welcome to India (BBC2) follows pretty much the same successful format – the only difference being that this first episode followed the lives of two groups of slumdogs from two cities, Mumbai and Kolkata. I'm not sure the groups are quite representative of India as a whole, but there is something immensely liberating about a documentary that comes without the mediation of a hand-wringing, bleeding-heart western reporter and instead allows its characters to observe themselves entirely unapologetically and subjectively.

So here was Kaale sweeping the streets and dredging the drains in his daily search for particles of gold that have got lost among the filth, along with Rajesh and Savita dodging the police and the bulldozers in their illegal shabeen on the beach. Their resourcefulness and optimism were humbling, but even so I couldn't help wondering just how neutral a presence the camera had been. I know the film is meant to be counterintuitively feelgood but for Kaale and the rest of the crew always to have a smile on their faces and never to moan – not even once – about the hardship and inequality of their daily lives seemed extraordinary.

If this is indeed the prevailing ethos of the Indian urban underclass, then one can only admire the spirit that makes them truly believe they might one day, against all the odds, end up as millionaires with their children growing up to become doctors. And if so, then almost everything liberals such as me think we know about India is in urgent need of a rethink.

Hunted fails to follow in Homeland's footsteps, James Nesbitt returns as wisecracking surgeon Monroe, and uncomfortable truths surface about pop's past

Hunted (BBC1) | iPlayer

Monroe (ITV1) | ITV Player

Arena: The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour (BBC2) | iPlayer

Best Possible Taste: the Kenny Everett Story (BBC4) | iPlayer

Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile (ITV1) | ITV Player

Welcome to India (BBC2) | iPlayer

The new BBC drama series Hunted is a kind of private-sector version of Spooks (they're made by the same production company). It's as if the secret services had undergone free-market reform. Instead of people being deceived and killed for the good of the state, we see them being deceived and killed for the good of business.

Like Spooks, Hunted sticks firmly to a "one facial expression per character" rule. In the case of the lead character, Sam Hunter (the toothsome Melissa George), who works as a homicidal honey trap for a shadowy corporate espionage outfit, her single expression is a fabulous bee-stung pout that makes Angelina Jolie's seem a bloodless study in chastity.

The possibility can't be ruled out that the pout is not in fact a pout but a look of total bafflement, for the plot moved with enough speed and jackknife turns to leave most actors, let alone viewers, biting their cheeks with the effort to keep up. But who cares what unknown forces shaped her mouth into its magnificent moue? Let's just rejoice that it has been put to such generous use.

She pouted with her lover, a Tunisian terrorist she set up in a sting, and pouted with her real lover, a colleague who may have set her up to be murdered, and pouted when she fought, when she killed and when she was nearly killed herself. Having survived a bullet to the stomach, and played dead for a year, she returned to work out of the blue, pouting.

By writ of generic convention the shadowy outfit was located on an upper floor of an anonymous office block, all the better for Hunter's boss to stand staring out of a full-storey window while saying things like: "Every second I open my eyes each morning I consider the infinite variables of chaos that can occur during a working day, as I like to be one step ahead."

At least the boss – played by the excellent Stephen Dillane – was filmed standing with his back to the camera when he uttered that line, presumably to avoid the cruelty of maintaining a straight face.

Self-awareness remains the implacable enemy of dramas like this. It's rare to see a smile, and laughter is strictly the preserve of megalomaniacs. The only human interaction that isn't plot exposition is a kind of insouciant banter, in which everyone reaffirms his or her indifference to death and danger.

That's the major difference between Hunted and, say, Homeland. Both have high production values, both are capable of creating fiendishly clever plots, but whereas Homeland seeks to foreground character, Hunted relies on shorthand caricature. Thus the three villains on display last week were a macho Arab, an inscrutable psychopath and a cockney gangster-turned-businessman, holding their faces in such ways as to convey, respectively, machismo, psychopathy, and tasty geezerness.

But at least they boasted one expression. Hunter's estranged lover, whom she suspects of soliciting her murder, had to do without any expression, or indeed personality. Unmemorably handsome, he spoke in a kind of robotic home counties accent reminiscent of Tim Henman explaining a third-round defeat against an unheard-of underdog.

How George managed to keep her lips so perfectly puckered while listening to his lifeless drone must go down as one of the great feats of acting, or facial contortion, this year on television. All I can say is that, as far as the pout goes, I'm glued.

The second series of Monroe already looks like a distinct improvement on the first, which was essentially a six-part celebration of James Nesbitt's wisecracking charisma. I bow to no man in my admiration of the Irishman's talents and charm, but a neurosurgeon's operating theatre didn't seem the appropriate venue for his full-blown shtick.

That was the point, of course, the juxtaposition of comedy and tragedy, levity and brain surgery, jolly life and bloody death. But the point, once made, became repetitive and annoying, until you just longed for extended sequences of endovascular surgery – anything to escape the torrent of clever one-liners.

The solution was more backup, and it's arrived with Neil Pearson playing the new head of clinical services. Like Sarah Parish before him, he's meant to be the pragmatist to Nesbitt's maverick, except as his character said: "I don't want to play the straight man so you can shine all the brighter." If Monroe can avoid falling back into that trap, and not rely on the weekly false suspense of whether his patients are going to live or die, then it might just mature into good-quality cerebral entertainment.

When it was first shown, the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour film must have seemed as if it was the product of some wayward brain operation. And in a way it was, in so far as it was inspired by LSD. That would have been fine if the film had been screened at some groovy 60s happening, but as Arena: Magical Mystery Tour Revisited reminded us, it was premiered on BBC television on Boxing Day 1967.

There was no real script, let alone a plot, just slightly hallucinatory scenes of the Fab Four with punters, avant-gardists and wrestling midgets. As Paul McCartney recalled, for many viewers it was if "they'd been cheated out of their Christmas Special". Poor them, you might think, but these audiences ought to have developed a keen appreciation of the surreal. After all, they'd been watching The Black and White Minstrel Show for years.

Briefly heard interviewing John Lennon in the Arena film, Kenny Everett was the subject of Best Possible Taste: The Kenny Everett Story, the latest in a long line of BBC4 biopics about oddball characters from British showbusiness. The DJ came across as spoilt, insecure, manic, closeted and attention-seeking. But despite Oliver Lansley's staunch efforts, whatever it was that made Everett a huge star in the 70s and 80s never made it into the film.

Leaving aside Everett's self-consciously "zany" style, which never did much for me, it now seems strange that radio DJs ever occupied such dominant positions in the culture. Yet as was evident in Exposure: The Other Side of Jimmy Savile, they were so big they could get away with the most dispiriting of crimes.

The first BBC executive to employ Everett was Wilfred De'Ath. In Exposure, De'Ath recalled meeting Savile with a 12-year-old girl, whom, he said, Savile then took to bed. De'Ath said that he didn't want to talk to the girl because he didn't want to "demean" himself – although he had no problem talking to Savile.

According to several victims, Savile went on to sexually abuse girls in care, all the while being feted as a great charity worker. The BBC insists that it had no evidence of Savile's behaviour, but the shots of him grabbing and pawing 14-year-old Coleen Nolan on Top of the Pops back in the 1970s were enough to tell you that this was not a guy you'd leave alone with your teenage daughter. No one in power did anything because it was always someone else's teenage daughter.

'I sleep with sunglasses and lipstick by my bed in case of a fire and, if I put on weight, I just don't eat for a couple of days'

I see red hair, lipstick and lashes. I do my hair as if it is being blown in a convertible winging its way around Monte Carlo, and every day I dress as if it's the first day of my holiday.

My mother is English and my father was Greek. I am most like my mother, who never leaves the house without makeup and is always groomed. I sleep with sunglasses and lipstick by my bed in case of a fire. On two occasions when I have been filming, the hotel caught fire. I was able to put on my lipstick and sunglasses and bellow out the window: "Fireman, make an effort for those who've made an effort."

I'm not somebody who goes to the gym or sweats – too unpleasant – but I do seven minutes of exercise as many times a week as I can. I do 50 to 100 sit-ups, leg lifts and clenching exercises to keep things compact. I've never been a terribly slim person – I'm a UK size 10 or 12, depending on the top. So that's where I aim to keep myself and, if I put on weight, I just don't eat for a couple of days.

I'd never entertain Botox or fillers, because I know so many people who, in a certain light, look like a badly paved road. And Homer Simpson lips don't look good – they look dumb. But I'd entertain light surgery if the time was right. I wouldn't mind little darts around the face.

I am a happy person and I think laughter's the best way to keep young. You never see somebody laughing and think, "Oh, they look old."

• The Power Of Positive Drinking, by Cleo Rocos, is published by Square Peg.

Jimmy Saville, Kenny Everett, miming artists and relaunches galore - we look back at 40 years of the original chart show

January 1 1964
First ever Top of the Pops is broadcast from Manchester, after a merciful name-change from the suggested "Teen and Twenty Record Club". It goes out at 6.30pm on a Wednesday, and sets the format which would be followed, with more or less tinkering, until this week: artists "performing" (this would prove one of the most flexible variables) in front of a live, young studio audience, culminating in a countdown of the week's singles chart. Acts include The Rolling Stones and Dusty Springfield, with a filmed contribution from the week's number one act, The Beatles, with I Want to Hold Your Hand. Presiding: Mr (later Sir) Jimmy Saville, DJ. In those days it had to be on BBC1; the second public station didn't open until April the same year.

1967
The show moves to London, to make it easier to get acts into the studio. The BBC's new youth radio station, Radio 1, forms strong links with the show from the outset, with star DJs such as Kenny Everett presenting. One legendary performance saw Jimi Hendrix miming Purple Haze while an Alan Price record played over the PA.

1968
Pan's People, a dance troupe used to fill the stage when that week's charting acts were not available, make their first appearance. They are not the first set of go-go dancers, but they are the most memorable, staying with the show for 10 years. Their versatility is legendary, even coping when having to cover for The Clash.

1972
The distinctive TOTP theme tune - a version of Led Zeppelin's Whole Lotta Love - gets its first outing. Various other theme tunes and logos would be introduced over the years, but Whole Lotta Love remained the chart countdown backing for many years, and was reintroduced as part of a back-to-basics rework in 1998.

1973
The programme moves to Friday, briefly, but swaps back to Thursday after a ratings collapse. Future generations of TOTP producers will blithely ignore this elementary lesson from history at their peril. At the 500th show, Cliff Richard's performance is met with a mysterious shower of wigs. The Who's entourage - apparently not Cliff fans - had raided the props department.

1979
TOTP's finest hour, with viewing figures of 19 million. A strike over at ITV helps.

1981
In New Jersey, USA, MTV is born. The impact isn't immediately felt in the British isles, but it's the beginning of a process which will make TOTP if not obsolete, then at least no longer indispensable - as round-the-clock cable channels showing pop videos, and later the internet, mean that TOTP's weekly chart injection is increasingly available on demand.

1991
Producers admit - as most people have known all along - that acts usually mime, but promise that from now on the vocal track at least will be live. Other musicians continue to mime wilfully badly.

1994
Britpop should have been giving TOTP a shot in the arm, but all is not well. The beginning of the end is signalled by the introduction of TOTP2, a BBC nostalgiafest of old TOTP footage shown occasionally on BBC2. Presumably, this is meant to be a celebration of the long and rich heritage of the show. With hindsight, it looks increasingly like an unwitting admission that the only people who care about TOTP by now are over-25s hankering for the show's glory days. TOTP2 starts to spread across the schedules like a rash - by 2002 it has two weekly showings.

1996
The programme moves definitively to Friday evening, when self-respecting young people are out dancing and so on, rather than watching television. Inexplicably, this move fails to propel the show to new heights.

2003
TOTP goes out on the World Service for the first time. A major relaunch in December, masterminded by former presenter Andi Peters, aims to boost "editorial content" and initially boosts figures, but they quickly start to slide. Meanwhile, miming is acceptable once more.

2004
By May, the relaunched show is attracting just 2.6 million viewers, from 5.5 million for the relaunch special six months before. In November, the BBC announces that the show is leaving BBC1 for BBC2, in a Sunday night slot to move it nearer to the radio chart show, which now includes charts for downloads. While the chart show moves forward, there's still a suspicion that TOTP is moving towards an older audience, with the admission it will "combine some of the elements of TOTP2".

As chosen by ITV controllers (in alphabetical order)

1. Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway
2. An Audience With...
3. The Avengers
4. The Benny Hill Show
5. The Bill
6. Blind Date
7. Brideshead Revisited
8. Candid Camera
9. Cold Feet
10. Coronation Street
11. Cracker
12. The Darling Buds of May
13. Death on The Rock
14. Emmerdale
15. Family Fortunes
16. Footballers' Wives
17. Heartbeat
18. Hillsborough
19. I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!
20. Inspector Morse
21. It'll Be Alright on the Night
22. The Jewel in the Crown
23. Jimmy's
24. The Kenny Everett Video Show
25. Minder
26. The Muppet Show
27. The Naked Civil Servant...
28. Opportunity Knocks
29. Pop Idol -
30. Prime Suspect -
31. The Prisoner
32. Ready, Steady, Go!
33. Rising Damp
34. Seven Up
35. The South Bank Show
36. Spitting Image
37. Stars in Their Eyes
38. Sunday Night at the London Palladium
39. Survival
40. The Sweeney
41. This Is Your Life
42. This Morning
43. Tiswas
44. Tonight With Trevor McDonald
45. A Touch of Frost
46. Upstairs Downstairs
47. Whicker's World
48. Who Wants to be a Millionaire
49. The World at War
50. World in Action

Kenny Everett's horror movie may not be Citizen Kane, but it deserves its rescue from the vaults. Phelim O'Neill on how thousands of British films could soon be lost for ever

The recent discovery in Argentina of the more complete version of Metropolis highlights how easily a film can become "lost". For almost all the 81 years since Fritz Lang's masterpiece was released, the longer version has been talked about and searched for before being discovered, almost by happenstance, in a forgotten corner of the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires. If a film as well known and feted as Metropolis can seemingly disappear from the face of the earth, then what chance do movies that came nowhere near changing the face of film have of surviving?

The 1983 horror-comedy Bloodbath at the House of Death, starring Kenny Everett, might not be anyone's idea of a classic - and I'm certainly not attempting to compare it with Metropolis - but it does have as much right to be seen. Bloodbath is a silly, often corny and quite impressively gory spoof of the horror genre, mixing toilet humour with potshots at Alien, The Entity, Poltergeist, The Legend of Hell House and assorted Hammer films. The ongoing Scary Movie franchise treads almost identical ground - which is not to say Bloodbath is pioneering, but rather indicative of what was to follow. It's also the last British film appearance of horror legend Vincent Price, while Everett, whose massively successful TV and radio crossover career is still unmatched, still has his fans, as the repeats of his shows on digital TV channels show. So why has it taken until this month Bloodbath to get a DVD release?

Laurence Myers, who was called in to produce Bloodbath when its financing threatened to collapse, has a theory - and one that would most reasonably account for the film's disappearance. "It's a fairly terrible film," he says. "I recall showing it to [censor] James Ferman who thought it was fine and funny enough, but thought we were showing him the reels in the wrong order. We weren't - the film just doesn't make sense."

Also, the nature of film distribution was different in those pre-multiplex days. "We were dealing with single screens back then. There was always the next American blockbuster queuing up behind you. If your film didn't perform then they'd pull it to make way for something more profitable." Myers, now a leading theatrical producer, spent more than a decade producing and distributing films. His company, GTO Films, distributed arthouse fare such as Picnic at Hanging Rock, as well as delivering such dubious homegrown treats as the Glitter Band/Rubettes/Mud glam rock movie Never Too Young to Rock. He's not surprised Bloodbath has finally returned. "It's not the film I want on my headstone or in my obituary when I die, but it's not without fans. It doesn't matter if a film is regarded as part of our national heritage or some rubbish like that, audiences couldn't care less about that stuff. They either like it or they don't."

Bloodbath isn't the only worthwhile British film to have been lost. Even releases under the protection of major studios have not been guaranteed longevity. Films such as the edgy 1969 British thriller I Start Counting lie dormant in studio vaults, the lack of star power earmarking them as not worth the bother to release on DVD. Even Ken Russell's The Devils, which might not fit in with owner Warner Brothers' current image as purveyors of family-oriented Will Smith blockbusters, is unavailable. Films from the independent arena rely on small companies run by people passionate about film if they are to see the light of day again, because the focus group-led majors and quick-buck merchants have no interest. In the case of Bloodbath, the film's saviour came in the form of independent London-based DVD company Nucleus Films.

"Every day I am faced in my office by a wall of old VHS tapes," says Nucleus's Marc Morris, "I'm constantly asking myself: 'What here isn't available on DVD?' Bloodbath kept leaping out at me." For Morris, that was just the start of a process that's taken almost two years to see through. For the best quality on DVD, the movie should be sourced from a digital master struck from the original negative. Failing that, a new scan from an existing print. Copying the tape version struck for TV is a desperate last resort. Morris says: "There were no prints of Bloodbath to be found and it wasn't even sold to television so we had nothing to fall back on. The original negative had to be found."

That is the point at which many would-be distributors give up. All feature films name the lab used to process the final print in the credits. But, like any commercial operation, laboratories are not permanent fixtures in an unchanging world. Many go bust, change hands or have their assets split up. The longer the time elapsed since a film was made, the more obstacles mount up. Locating an individual movie can take a lot of detective work, and many labs employ a staff just to deal with tracking down the owners of negatives. "These rights may be passed down through families or companies as producers either pass away or get out of the business," says Morris. "Films may even be stowed away under their production title, one that may bear no relation to the one used when released into cinemas." Even when ownership can be verified, it can come with a hefty price.

"Storage fines," says Morris, shuddering at the mention of what has become the bane of the DVD company's life. "The labs store and preserve these films for decades in controlled environments. They're not charities and these things cost money. Many movie owners simply abandon the negative rather than pay hefty costs. If this happens the film is usually thrown out, a fate that's far too common." Bloodbath had accrued around £25,000 in overdue charges, and for a film with such limited marketability that price tag could have scuppered the whole endeavour. Fortunately Morris was able to haggle the amount down to a much more manageable figure when the lab realised that whatever he was offering would be the only money they'd ever see from the movie. Morris's offer was better than nothing, even if it was only marginally so. As a result, a near-pristine negative has been saved from destruction and the DVD of Bloodbath has a picture quality to rival its competitors on the shelves.

Back in 1983, Bloodbath at the House of Death was quite a well-known title, mostly for the wrong reasons. The production coincided with the aftermath of Everett's infamous "Let's bomb Russia! ... Let's kick Michael Foot's stick away!" outburst at the Young Conservatives' annual conference, so the film's title was regularly invoked in the press. Although his conference appearance did little damage to Everett's popularity with his fans, the media turned on him. The knives were out and well sharpened by the time Bloodbath came out, and its vitriolic critical reception still taints the film's reputation.

Today, it's virtually absent from film literature in print and on the internet. Even sites dedicated to Kenny Everett, Vincent Price or British films either omit it or give it a cursory mention, but how could they do otherwise when they've been denied the opportunity to see it? It's almost as if it had never been made. While some people might wish that were the case, it seems unusually unfair that a comparatively recent film boasting such familiar names as Price and Everett (as well as a slew of British comedy fixtures including Sheila Steafel, John Fortune, Barry Cryer and Pamela Stephenson) could just vanish.

It could and has happened to others. There are thousands of features and shorts stored in processing laboratories throughout Britain that have been deserted by their owners. They just sit there, accumulating dust and fines, until they are slung out or burnt. There could be some real classics in there, although the quality of the films is irrelevant; all films, even the bad ones, deserve the chance to be seen if requested. Otherwise, what's the point of them?

· Bloodbath at the House of Death is out now on DVD

Having obtained a copy of the little-seen 1984 film Bloodbath At The House Of Death, the cinema debut (and simultaneous swansong) of Kenny Everett, I have to report that it does little to enhance the reputation of the late disc jockey.

Not that it needs a great deal of enhancement. While John Peel is revered by music fans, Kenny Everett remains the dead DJ of choice for radio geeks. Thirteen years after his death, it is astonishing how often his name crops up on radio message boards - the most recent mention asking how Everett might fare if he were starting out today. Not very well, was the unsurprising verdict.

Terry Wogan's musings on his own start as a DJ in a recent Radio Times interview tend to confirm this dispiriting view. He sent in a tape he had forgotten to rewind to the quaintly named BBC head of gramophone programmes, who went to the trouble of spooling back the tape, listening and giving the King of Blarney a shot at announcing some records. These days, Wogan reckons, nobody would bother even picking up such a tape, let alone rewinding it.

But Wogan's gentle whimsy might have found a way on to the national airwaves in any era. Everett is a different proposition. He played with the medium, marrying vaudeville-style jokes with sound effects and home-made jingles he had put together on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. He sounded nothing like the disc jockeys of the time - either dinner-jacketed David Jacobs types or mid-Atlantic Pete Murrays - pitching his act somewhere between the Goons and Tommy Handley.

Despite this oddness, and the fact no one knew who he was, he got his chance. When he made a tape of his doodlings, the BBC Light Programme (a forerunner of Radio 1 and 2) was interested enough to offer Everett, then barely into his 20s, a trial. Instead, the DJ opted for the pirate ship Radio London.

If your only knowledge of Everett is through his TV shows, I would urge you to have a listen to some of his radio work on the internet. The bloggers who describe him as a radio genius are not far wide of the mark.

Will there ever be another Everett? Almost certainly not. The chances of a national station taking a punt on an unknown these days are remote. Listening to Radio 2 on bank holiday Monday, I noted that Ken Bruce's stand-in was TV's Rob Brydon, while Steve Wright in the Afternoon was replaced for the day by Liza Tarbuck. When I was at Radio 2, between 1985 and 1996, I stood in quite regularly for Sarah Kennedy, Ken Bruce, and the late John Dunn, despite being a relative unknown without my own TV show or sell-out stand-up comedy tour. I could not see it happening now.

Producers these days, it seems, would rather hire a name they know that seems to fit in with the brand and may even get them a bit of press, than listen to a bunch of tapes or MP3s from hopefuls. Even a relatively low-profile set-up such as BBC London has chosen "celebrities" including Gary Kemp, Amy Winehouse's dad Mitch, and Toyah Willcox as summer replacements for Danny Baker.

It may be the disc jockey format of the 60s and 70s has run its course. Some of the BBC's most successful programmes, such as Chris Moyles and Russell Brand, are more or less speech shows, owing more to Americans such as Howard Stern than any British tradition. The camp, goonish Everett's influences, by contrast, were almost entirely homegrown.

Not that I expect many of you to take to the barricades in support of the British DJ. His or her demise is a small earthquake with few casualties, apart, I suppose, from aspiring presenters on campus or hospital radio. My advice to them: have a back-up plan.

Film will focus on unhappy childhood of DJ and comedy performer who died in 1995

He created a character called Cupid Stunt and told a filthy joke about Margaret Thatcher on Radio 2. But now the late Kenny Everett is in line for the latest in showbusiness establishment accolades – a BBC4 drama biopic.

The BBC is developing a 90-minute film called Number One in Heaven about Everett, who died of an Aids related illness in 1995 aged 50.

Written by playwright Tim Whitnall – best known as the author of hit stage play Morecambe, about comedian Eric Morecambe – the as-yet uncast biopic promises to focus on Everett's troubled childhood at his Catholic secondary school on Merseyside where he was picked on for his diminutive size and his effeminacy.

"He was so small it is hard to think of finding an actor who can play him," Whitnall told the Guardian. "It is possible he could be played by a woman in fact, which is something he may have appreciated. I knew him and I loved him – in fact the title refers to the moment I first saw him when he was dancing in Heaven nightclub."

Everett, born Maurice Cole in Seaforth, Lancashire, started his professional life as a pirate DJ for Radio London and Radio Luxemburg before joining Radio 1 in the mid 1960s. He befriended the Beatles and accompanied them on their 1966 tour of the US.

His TV work included stints for Thames TV from 1978 to 1980 and for the BBC between 1981 and 1988, where he is thought to have first coined the term "the Beeb" to refer to the corporation. Among his comic creations were the punk Sid Snot and the American chatshow host Cupid Stunt, whose catchphrase was: "It's all done in the best possible taste."

Regarded in the 1980s as a supporter of prime minister Thatcher, Everett once appeared at a Young Conservatives conference waving enormous foam hands and saying "Let's bomb Russia" and "Let's kick Michael Foot's stick away". However, friends of Everett now question whether he was in fact a supporter of the Conservatives.

The BBC confirmed that it is working on the film but declined to comment further. It is expected to be made by the BBC's in-house film department, where it will be overseen by BBC Films executive producer Jamie Laurenson.

Programme to feature archive clips of DJ's jingles, 'fiddly bits' and comedy characters, and will be backed by documentary

BBC Radio 2 will attempt the impossible on Christmas Day with a "new" Kenny Everett show 15 years after his death.

Kenny Everett's Christmas Selection Box will feature archive clips of Everett's jingles, "fiddly bits" and comedy characters including Captain Kremmen, Chris P Bacon and Rock Salmon, interspersed with classic and current chart hits.

Introduced by Paul Gambaccini, the station said songs had been chosen for the show that Everett "would have liked for their jolliness and tunefulness". It will also feature Everett's interviews with the Beatles and a duet with Harry Nilsson.

Gambaccini will also present a documentary about Everett and his hugely influential radio work for Radio 2 on Christmas Eve.

Gambaccini said: "Kenny Everett was the best of us. It was no surprise that the entire profession turned out for his funeral. All the radio stars of his time recognised his genius. 

"Kenny was a master of both preparation and spontaneity. He had both wit and technical skill. He loved both music and comedy. He was the only one of us who used the studio instead of just tolerating it. He was a wonderful one-off, a great presenter and a fine friend."

Everett, who was born on Christmas Day 1944, died in 1995. Both shows are being made by independent producer Howlett Media.

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Carols on Christmas Eve, Adam and Joe on Christmas Day and a selection of Kenny Everett on Boxing Day

Christmas Eve

If the festive spirit is still proving elusive, tune into Merry Christmas Morris Minor! (Radio 4, 11am), one of the sweetest radio offerings over the holiday. The Guardian's Martin Wainwright celebrates the car's 50th birthday in this affectionate tribute, which includes a rendition of Jingle Bells played on a chorus of Morris Minor Horns. That moment really is enough to melt even Scrooge's heart.

Scrooge pops up again in Marley Was Dead (Radio 4, 8pm), a ticklish spoof retelling of A Christmas Carol that begins with Jonathan Dimbleby introducing a starry cast including David Tennant and Ian McKellen but soon falls into disarray. Charlotte Green, Chris Evans and Richard Madeley make appearances too.

Radio 1 is doing what we'd all like to today: getting someone else to do the work. Guest presenters take over an hour on the station, with James Corden kicking things off at 7am, followed by Doctor Who's Matt Smith and Karen Gillan (8am) and Tinie Tempah from 9am. More serene, and a must-listen with a glass of something and a mince pie, is A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols (Radio 4, 3pm).

Christmas Day

There can be no finer cookalong company than Adam and Joe's Christmas Special (6 Music, 10am), though the gift fans will look for under the tree is a regular return for the pair. Other morning options as you multitask wildly include 5 Live's Chart of the Year (10am), with Richard Bacon looking at the year's 20 most talked about moments and Paul O'Grady (Radio 2, 10am) being grumpy about the whole festive malarkey but funny with it.

Two crackers after lunch: Pat and Margaret (Radio 4, 3.15pm) is a radio remake of Victoria Wood's bittersweet comedy about two sisters reunited after 27 years on a live television show. One is a toxic Hollywood star; the other works as a waitress in motorway service station. Sarah Lancashire and Imelda Staunton give knock-out performances here, but it's maybe not one to listen to with your siblings unless you all really get on.

Boxing Day

Kenny Everett's Christmas Selection Box (Radio 2, 5pm) is a treat for all radio fans: a new compilation of the maverick and hugely influential DJ's characters, jingles, "fiddly bits" and interviews on what would have been his 66th birthday. The programme includes excerpts from his time at Pirate Radio London, and features characters such as Captain Kremmen and Rock Salmon. It's all done, as his character Cupid Stunt would say, in the best possible taste.

Lots of cheering radio to counter the hangovers and leftovers today. Desert Island Discs (Radio 4, 11.15am) features Sandie Shaw, the barefoot 60s pop princess and Eurovision winner now turned psychotherapist, while on Private Passions (Radio 3, noon), the guest is Pamela Stephenson, the comedian and actor turned psychologist and Strictly Come Dancing star. She talks through her favourite music including performances by Lotte Lenya, Kiri te Kanawa and a Balinese frog song.

Liza Tarbuck's Christmas Wrapping (Radio 2, 1pm) guarantees rousing music and warm company from Tarbuck, the actor turned rather fine radio host, if the weather's not conducive to an afternoon walk.

Women changing direction continues as a theme in French and Saunders (Radio 2, 5pm), with the comedy duo tackling radio for the first time in the first of three specials blending music, chat and humour. There are some promising-sounding features in the show. Someone and Their Mum is self-explanatory and a fine idea: first guest is Miranda Hart and her mum.

If your mum's done all the work, settle her down for Words and Music (Radio 3, 10.45pm), a gorgeous selection of prose and poems about giving and receiving gifts read by Sheila Hancock and Scott Handy, while you do the washing up.

This mix of snippets from the DJ's programmes was an exuberant reminder of one of radio's true iconoclasts

Kenny Everett's Christmas Selection Box (Radio 2, Saturday) was a smart idea: a new mix of the DJ's shows from Pirate Radio London and the BBC, glued together with his favourite music. It was an exuberant reminder that Everett – who would have been 66 on Christmas Day – was a true radio iconoclast.

One thing jarred, though: the decision to include what presenter Paul Gambaccini described as "examples of recent music we think he would have liked". You get the idea, updating Everett and making sure the whole thing didn't sound too antique. But Coldplay? Would he have liked Coldplay? We don't know, and it seemed odd to try to guess.

That aside, this was a delicious kaleidoscope of elastic sound, with Everett stretching his voice as much as the technical "fiddly bits", and self-consciously deconstructing the art of radio at the same time as he performed it.

He regularly broke radio rules, playing classical music ("it's the stuff what souls are made of") alongside pop, as unheard of then as now. He relentlessly adopted silly accents, especially faux-posh and broad New York, and delivered every word and tune with a childlike glee. "You get a warm feeling deep within your doobry," he said of one track. You got that listening to this, too.