TV Themes

Howard's TV Themes

Many people have sung Howard's choral and stage music; many more have seen him presenting Choir of the Year or his own Howard Goodall's Big Bangs/Organworks/Choirworks/Great Dates/20th Century Greats series on TV. Some people, however, are not aware that they know of Howard Goodall...

...Until, that is, his TV theme tunes are mentioned... The composer of the theme music to Blackadder, Mr. Bean, Red Dwarf, Q.I., The Catherine Tate Show and The Vicar of Dibley to name but a few, almost everyone can sing at least one tune that Howard has written.

Some other TV themes by Howard: Country Parish, Seaside Parish, Country House, 2.4 Children, The Thin Blue Line, The Adventure of English, 12 Books that changed the world, The History of ITV, The Great Music Show, Cardiff Singer of the World, Murder by the Book, The Borrowers, Chalk, A Time to Dance, The Lesley Garrett Show, Bernard and the Genie, Words and Pictures, Choir of the Year, The Gathering Storm, Howard Goodall's Organworks/Choirworks/Big Bangs/Great Dates/20th Century Greats/How Music Works.

The Red Dwarf page is here. A list of musicians and singers in the various sessions that made the Blackadder and Red Dwarf themes is here and various scores of the music can be found at the bottom of this page.

Howard composed the theme and all the incidental music for Mr Bean- the animated series, and the score for the film Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie. He co-wrote the theme for Johnny English.

Howard has also created the music for many a TV advert in the 80s and 90s, including Barclaycard, Tesco, Tetley Bitter, Dime Bar, Walker's Crisps, Cadbury's Time Out, Nintendo Game Boy, Pot Noodle, Sony Discman, Bradford & Bingley and Fuji Quicksnap.

Here Howard explains some of the challenges he has faced in writing TV and film music... "The bottom line of writing for a visual medium like TV or cinema is that you are a secondary, support service, not the main reason people come to it. The fact that audiences adore and remember great movie scores is a tribute to the brilliance of the individual composers concerned who have managed to imprint a personality and shape onto something that is essentially fulfilling quite a separate agenda. The fact that there are great scores for lousy movies and lousy scores for great movies must mean that those agendas aren't always in total concert with each other."

Towards the end of 1999 Howard completed the score for the film shown at the Millennium Dome's Skyscape venue throughout 2000 and later shown on Sky TV and the BBC, Blackadder Back and Forth.

The original brass and military band parts of the theme music for BLACKADDER GOES FORTH are now available direct from JUST BRASS. Email enquiries here.

Click here to read an article from The Guardian on Howard's TV composing career.

Click here to go to Faber Music who sell the Faber Book of TV Themes for piano, which includes Blackadder, The Vicar of Dibley and The Thin Blue Line. (With 13 other famous TV themes, a bargain at only £7.95!)

LIST OF MUSICIANS AND SINGERS WHO PLAYED OR SANG ON BLACKADDER & RED DWARF THEMES

Adder 1: Singer Simon Carrington, organ Alastair Ross, percussion Nigel Shipway. Adder 2: Singer Jeremy Jackson, electric organ Howard Goodall, guitar solo Ian Lawes or Tom Blades, oboe Sandra Mackay. Adder Christmas Special 1988: Singers Sally-Anne Marsh, Lydia Cumber, Natalie Cramer, Costandia Costi, keyboards Howard Goodall & Mark Stephens, percussion Nigel Shipway & Judy Webber, wind Keith Thompson, cello Lesley Shrigley-Jones, oboe Sandra Mackay, bass Lucy Hare. Adder 3: Singers Ritchie Pitts, Alison -'Where Love Lives' - Limerick, Lyn Kieran, percussion Nigel Shipway & Richard Marcangelo, oboe Sandra Mackay, cello Lesley Shrigley-Jones, accordion Gavin Povey, bass Robbie Burns, harpsichord Helen Ireland. Adder 4: the Band of the Third Royal Anglian Regiment. Blackadder Back & Forth: Singer Giles Underwood.

Red Dwarf: Singer Jenna Russell, organ Alastair Ross, percussion Richard Marcangelo & Nigel Shipway, guitars Ian Lawes & Tom Blades, bass Robbie Burns, keyboards Howard Goodall & Mark Stephens, trumpets Graham Russell & Martin Etheridge, trombone Richard Edwards, saxes Dave Roach & Somin Clarke, clarinet Lyn Hollman, violins Joyce Fraser & Rachel Upson, banjo & mandolin Nigel Woodhouse, viola Sally Parfitt, cello Lesley Shrigley-Jones and Dinah Beamish, oboe Sandra Mackay, double bass Lucy Hare, trombone (series 3) Lindsay Shilling.