Aaaaah! This is driving me mad. Monkey was on BBC2 and was preceded by The Water Margin - both Japanese takes on ancient Chinese tales. The chap in yellow in the second pic is the virtuous hero Lin Chung.
The water margin was partly voiced by Manuel (Andrew Sachs) I think?
Monkey was Friday night at 1900, I used to watch it before going out on the Razz....Water margin was Wednesday at 2130 or 2200....I used to watch it after MASH.....both were BBC 2....