Television Themes

In parallel to his career as a booming-voiced comedic actor, Matt Berry has released multiple albums of 60s-flavoured proggy pop. Arguably the most idiosyncratic of the bunch, 2018’s Television Themes presented fourteen cover versions of the themes to ’70s and ’80s UK TV shows. A niche proposition perhaps and something of an eccentric move, but one that Berry plays with a straight face (an avid crate-digger, part of his reason for making the album was that many of the originals have long been deleted). Given the nature of the project it is sometimes hard to do the same. More often that not though, the fun is to be had from what Berry does with the source material. Plucking a Serge Gainbourg-like groove from the theme to Liverpool sitcom The Liver Birds, finding the inner Pink Floyd wig out in current affairs program World In Action and transforming the title tune to Ronnie Corbett’s Sorry into a dubbed out reggae skank. Entertaining on every count.