Sarky cuties Sue Perkins and Giles Coren took a colourful gallop through medieval dining in the latest in their fun but slightly inchoherent series Supersizers. In the pointless medical at the beginning, moody Sue is diagnosed as melancholic, and famously easy to rile Giles is diagnosed as choleric. Sub-editors round the country may have high-fived at that point.
Still, no-one could accuse them of not getting stuck in. Sue munches on a whole lemon. They try falconry. Sue's sugary pilchards end up in the fire, she decides that all of the food has made her sad and has to brush her teeth with a twig. Sue whips Giles's knackers with a leather strap while he's praying. Martin, the chef, has to try all their food before they eat it ('Martin, are you dead yet?' asks Sue), before doing a cut and shut with a piglet and a cockerel to create a cockatrice, a mythical beast I was obsessed with as a kid.
Lots of interesting facts and mangled history: animals have anglo saxon names, and meat has norman names because after the invasion anglo saxons couldn't afford to eat it. Sue goes in search of the truth behind the damsel in distress, but disappoints a Rapunzel-hunting Giles with her assymetric bob. Giles has a go at jousting despite being scared of horses, then goes on a crusade through the restaurants of the Edgware Road, where he gets his reward in pepper. They do the Canterbury Tales on a National Express coach.
The thing I'm never that fussed about in these shows is the food. I could watch Sue talk about more or less anything, she's fantastically entertaining. As a matter of fact I used to work with Sue in Sherratt and Hughes bookshop in Croydon Whitgift Centre in the late 80s, and she was absolutely as she appears on Supersizers - quick-witted, absurd and very dry. She's going to develop into a classic English eccentric. And Giles, well, he's so pretty I could watch him do anything and quietly swoon. His dad was ace, and let's hope Coren junior follows in his footsteps and blossoms into a wizened old wit. They're pretty wee things now, but I have a feeling that it's not till they're old that they're going to really make sense.
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Monday, 22 June 2009
Sunday, 21 June 2009
Balls on Sunday
BBC1 on a Sunday. Hope Springs followed by Casualty 1909. One is a hilarious and far-fetched comedy drama with some of the funniest performances on television, and the other is a disturbing look into the primitive dilemmas of an almost unrecognisable age. Sadly they're not the way round the makers would have wanted.
Hope Springs thinks it's an outrageously funny and twisty-turny contemporary comedy thriller, but is in fact a pointless mess wasting the talents of a great cast playing characters who are utterly unlike real people. I really wanted to like it, because the idea of a prime-time comedy thriller in the tradition of Hamish Macbeth starring Jamie from The Thick of It really appealed, but there's no tension and none of it is remotely believable. It's like a League of Gentlemen side project remade by Hollyoaks.
Casualty 1909 returns the serve of ITVs The Royal Today, only to watch it fly screaming over the heads of the crowd due to the hilarious histrionics of the actors and the clunking schools television issues and lessons of the ridiculous script. Every effort has been made to represent 1909 as exactly the same as 2009 but with cholera and pillbox hats. The female characters are so absurdly modern that you can't imagine suffrage or feminism were ever necessary, so equal are they to the men in the hospital. Mr Dean, the coke-addled evil head doctor, is just absurd: he's part Johnny Depp in From Hell, part Paul Whitehouse in the Fast Show saying 'me, in a hospital full of nurses, with my reputation?'. This week the coked up young ham manages to turn a simple testicular operation into a gangrenous amputation thanks to the use of a now-banned anaesthetic called stovane. Good subject for drama, but sadly in context of this show the lesson felt as easy to take as the dangerous anesthetic. How We Used To Live, the brilliant schools history programme that ran for over decade, was much creakier – I cannot fault the production values of Casualty 1909, which go a long way to hide its many faults – but then HWYTL was made at a fraction of the cost and the cynicism.
Hope Springs thinks it's an outrageously funny and twisty-turny contemporary comedy thriller, but is in fact a pointless mess wasting the talents of a great cast playing characters who are utterly unlike real people. I really wanted to like it, because the idea of a prime-time comedy thriller in the tradition of Hamish Macbeth starring Jamie from The Thick of It really appealed, but there's no tension and none of it is remotely believable. It's like a League of Gentlemen side project remade by Hollyoaks.
Casualty 1909 returns the serve of ITVs The Royal Today, only to watch it fly screaming over the heads of the crowd due to the hilarious histrionics of the actors and the clunking schools television issues and lessons of the ridiculous script. Every effort has been made to represent 1909 as exactly the same as 2009 but with cholera and pillbox hats. The female characters are so absurdly modern that you can't imagine suffrage or feminism were ever necessary, so equal are they to the men in the hospital. Mr Dean, the coke-addled evil head doctor, is just absurd: he's part Johnny Depp in From Hell, part Paul Whitehouse in the Fast Show saying 'me, in a hospital full of nurses, with my reputation?'. This week the coked up young ham manages to turn a simple testicular operation into a gangrenous amputation thanks to the use of a now-banned anaesthetic called stovane. Good subject for drama, but sadly in context of this show the lesson felt as easy to take as the dangerous anesthetic. How We Used To Live, the brilliant schools history programme that ran for over decade, was much creakier – I cannot fault the production values of Casualty 1909, which go a long way to hide its many faults – but then HWYTL was made at a fraction of the cost and the cynicism.
Saturday, 20 June 2009
Stop me if you think you've heard this one before
Chris Packham: not just the Billy Idol-haired dreamboat of my youth, not just Bill Oddie's eminently superior replacement on Springwatch, but evidently a man of great wit, ingenuity and guile. Fifteen minutes with him, I wouldn't say no.
Thursday, 11 June 2009
The inspirational teacher
Some people are lucky enough to have had an inspirational teacher at school. Mine was Carol Kay. She was my English teacher for my O levels, and introduced me to the works of Oscar Wilde, the First World War poets, Jane Austen and Shakespeare. At Addington High, a very rough comprehensive (second worst in Croydon, I think it's being closed now for failing) there weren't many kids who were interested in learning, but I was the swot of all swots, encouraged by the miraculous English department to care about books and words rather than football and knives. We remained really good friends after I left: I exceeded expectations by not getting anyone pregnant by the age of 14 or ending up driving a white van and she went on to run a few big schools and set up a massive education business alliance scheme in Southwark. When she died last year Gordon Brown wrote a tribute to her work which was read out at her funeral. Carol Kay was pretty damned extraordinary.
Mary Portas reminds me of Carol Kay. She sounds a lot like her, she shares the same dry wit and blunt ability to say anything to anyone without fear. When I hear Mary Portas wander into some terrible boutique in Doncaster and berate the manager with a gesticulatory 'And I looked in the window and I thought, this is bloody rubbish' I can hear Carol talking about teachers who get up there and 'do a Shirley Bassey: they do the teaching but no-one cares if anyone's doing any learning'. Mary Portas is inspirational. Unlike those empty experts like billionairess Kirsty Allsopp or disgustingly cynical George Clarke who waft in and out with no hard nosed sense of the realities of life, Mary Portas gets people to make difficult decisions, doesn't soft soap them and isn't all about the cheesy 'Kevin McCloud moment' (you know, that excruciating bit at the end where he comes out of a house he's slagged off from beginning to end and starts eulogising like he's turned into Dylan Thomas).
This series has taken her out of her comfort zone of hard-nosed business and had dumped her into the woolly world of the charity shop: Save the Children in Orpington to be precise. The big problem Mary Portas seems to be having with charity shops is that people apparently don't go into them because they're untrendy. I don't understand this. I love charity shops, half of the stuff in my flat is second hand, but then I'm a mid-century modernist and if it's got sputnik legs or leather elbow patches then I want it and I WILL HAVE IT. And I'm constantly lugging carrier bags of books down to my local Red Cross shop. What kind of nutter doesn't love a good rummage in a charity shop?
There's some cracking moments. On a training day, Lila, the shop's resident joker takes to the stage to sell the features and benefits of, well, no-one was quite sure what it was. 'What is it? It looks like a dildo. You know, I've always wanted one of these. I've wanted one for twelve long years...' A room full of elderly ladies are crying with laughter into their winter knitwear.
Mild mannered Graham, who hasn't worked since being made redundant as a football coach two years before has applied for the shop manager position, but he takes 'hands off' to a whole new level. Mary goes at him as if he's a top flight manager over a rather poor Christmas window display, and before she knows it the area manager has come down on her like a ton of bricks. She's pitched it all wrong, he's upset, she's upset, the whole thing's a fuck-up. But she doesn't give up, though god knows she must be tempted.
The design consultant from Conran in her cape showing the extremely old ladies of Orpington Save the Children refit mood boards of 'drama and colours' was one of the funniest things I've seen on TV for ages. But then it all falls apart again. Old ladies understandably start resigning over the cost of the refit, and when it's done they find the shop cold, dark and drab. Brenda hates the orange shelves. Mary is depressed that she hasn't brought the staff with her. And head office expect big numbers back. Then they make a grand in two hours. Maybe this superbusinessbrain is on to something...
In a nearby shop she chats to another manager who, after saying she never has anything designer to sell came across a £1000 Jimmy Choo bag in her stockroom, and sold it for £200 to a woman who 'just had to have it' (oh god, it's me a with a £10 melamine coffee table), which leads Mary to declare, 'I hate saying I'm right, but I so often am.' And you know what, she is. This is the best business programme on telly since John Harvey Jones created the genre. Looking at the state of the cabinet and the inability of anyone to make decisions it's inspiring to see Mary passionately arguing about a nearly bankrupt country and business in crisis. At least she seems to care. It's a shame she's taken on charity shops where her energy and passion a little misplaced. She should be in Westminster. Fuck Gordon Brown, it should have been Carol Kay for PM, but I'd settle for Mary Portas.
Mary Portas reminds me of Carol Kay. She sounds a lot like her, she shares the same dry wit and blunt ability to say anything to anyone without fear. When I hear Mary Portas wander into some terrible boutique in Doncaster and berate the manager with a gesticulatory 'And I looked in the window and I thought, this is bloody rubbish' I can hear Carol talking about teachers who get up there and 'do a Shirley Bassey: they do the teaching but no-one cares if anyone's doing any learning'. Mary Portas is inspirational. Unlike those empty experts like billionairess Kirsty Allsopp or disgustingly cynical George Clarke who waft in and out with no hard nosed sense of the realities of life, Mary Portas gets people to make difficult decisions, doesn't soft soap them and isn't all about the cheesy 'Kevin McCloud moment' (you know, that excruciating bit at the end where he comes out of a house he's slagged off from beginning to end and starts eulogising like he's turned into Dylan Thomas).
This series has taken her out of her comfort zone of hard-nosed business and had dumped her into the woolly world of the charity shop: Save the Children in Orpington to be precise. The big problem Mary Portas seems to be having with charity shops is that people apparently don't go into them because they're untrendy. I don't understand this. I love charity shops, half of the stuff in my flat is second hand, but then I'm a mid-century modernist and if it's got sputnik legs or leather elbow patches then I want it and I WILL HAVE IT. And I'm constantly lugging carrier bags of books down to my local Red Cross shop. What kind of nutter doesn't love a good rummage in a charity shop?
There's some cracking moments. On a training day, Lila, the shop's resident joker takes to the stage to sell the features and benefits of, well, no-one was quite sure what it was. 'What is it? It looks like a dildo. You know, I've always wanted one of these. I've wanted one for twelve long years...' A room full of elderly ladies are crying with laughter into their winter knitwear.
Mild mannered Graham, who hasn't worked since being made redundant as a football coach two years before has applied for the shop manager position, but he takes 'hands off' to a whole new level. Mary goes at him as if he's a top flight manager over a rather poor Christmas window display, and before she knows it the area manager has come down on her like a ton of bricks. She's pitched it all wrong, he's upset, she's upset, the whole thing's a fuck-up. But she doesn't give up, though god knows she must be tempted.
The design consultant from Conran in her cape showing the extremely old ladies of Orpington Save the Children refit mood boards of 'drama and colours' was one of the funniest things I've seen on TV for ages. But then it all falls apart again. Old ladies understandably start resigning over the cost of the refit, and when it's done they find the shop cold, dark and drab. Brenda hates the orange shelves. Mary is depressed that she hasn't brought the staff with her. And head office expect big numbers back. Then they make a grand in two hours. Maybe this superbusinessbrain is on to something...
In a nearby shop she chats to another manager who, after saying she never has anything designer to sell came across a £1000 Jimmy Choo bag in her stockroom, and sold it for £200 to a woman who 'just had to have it' (oh god, it's me a with a £10 melamine coffee table), which leads Mary to declare, 'I hate saying I'm right, but I so often am.' And you know what, she is. This is the best business programme on telly since John Harvey Jones created the genre. Looking at the state of the cabinet and the inability of anyone to make decisions it's inspiring to see Mary passionately arguing about a nearly bankrupt country and business in crisis. At least she seems to care. It's a shame she's taken on charity shops where her energy and passion a little misplaced. She should be in Westminster. Fuck Gordon Brown, it should have been Carol Kay for PM, but I'd settle for Mary Portas.
Wednesday, 10 June 2009
How To Look Bad Naked
Oh, Embarrassing Bodies. Feels like I'm having fifties gay aversion therapy: shots of studly Christian intercut with pus, eczema and surgery. Might as well show me pictures of him stripping and then give me electric shocks to my ... nether regions ...
Then we're watching him sleep. Aw. A test for sleep apnea apparently. I worry about that as I have snoring that could weaken the foundation of a house, and unlike Dr C I am not some super fit stud-muffin. I fit the sleep apnea target market of male, over forty and overweight (well, just).
My heart reaches out to the people on Embarrassing Bodies. Hilda, with psoriasis on her poor feet, is a case in point. It looked incredibly painful but her steroid cream did the trick – which is more than it ever did with my Dad, who was plagued with the psoriasis of almost Singing Detective proportions for much of his life.
What really annoys me though, despite my fondness for Dr Christian's perfect form, is that the doctors are all so attractive. Some poor guy turns up with pus oozing from his scalp, or a hairy woman with a polycystic ovary plonks herself down on the plastic chair, and there before them is an outrageously groomed and glossy doctor to make them feel much more self-conscious about their problem. Still, I guess it takes a certain kind of exhibitionist to show their prolapse on prime time. After all, the subtext is How To Look Bad Naked.
Then we're watching him sleep. Aw. A test for sleep apnea apparently. I worry about that as I have snoring that could weaken the foundation of a house, and unlike Dr C I am not some super fit stud-muffin. I fit the sleep apnea target market of male, over forty and overweight (well, just).
My heart reaches out to the people on Embarrassing Bodies. Hilda, with psoriasis on her poor feet, is a case in point. It looked incredibly painful but her steroid cream did the trick – which is more than it ever did with my Dad, who was plagued with the psoriasis of almost Singing Detective proportions for much of his life.
What really annoys me though, despite my fondness for Dr Christian's perfect form, is that the doctors are all so attractive. Some poor guy turns up with pus oozing from his scalp, or a hairy woman with a polycystic ovary plonks herself down on the plastic chair, and there before them is an outrageously groomed and glossy doctor to make them feel much more self-conscious about their problem. Still, I guess it takes a certain kind of exhibitionist to show their prolapse on prime time. After all, the subtext is How To Look Bad Naked.
Saturday, 6 June 2009
Nooooo!!!
Margaret can't quit! She just can't!
Oh, she has.
Off to study ancient papyrus. Obviously. Maybe I'll hang about in the British Museum in the hope I bump into her in the Egyptian room.
Oh, she has.
Off to study ancient papyrus. Obviously. Maybe I'll hang about in the British Museum in the hope I bump into her in the Egyptian room.
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
I love BBC4
But then I'm exactly the kind of arty, pretentious bumboy it's aimed at.
Tonight it had the most brilliant documentary, Meet the British, entirely constructed from archive footage of public information films from the fifties to the eighties, many aimed at educating those tricky foreigners in the ways of the British. From shots of London Airport crawling with little state of the art propeller planes where soon Concorde would be roaring to outrageously sexist shots of wives being stupid in jazzy prints this was compelling and beautiful stuff, a really terrific bit of research by Jeff Simpson, who, best of all, forbade the usual smug, cliche-ridden voice over that ruins all of these sorts of things (cf that recent gardening documentary on BBC2, How Britain Got the Gardening Bug). I hope there's more of these lined up, I could watch this sort of sad, absurd, faded film all day.
And it was followed by We Need Answers, the new Shooting Stars-esque game show awkwardly hosted by the usually adorable but somewhat out of his depth Mark Watson, pitting two celebrity experts against each-other with surreal audience questions on their specialist subjects. It was a shambles and fell to bits a bit at several points, but the low-fi Open University nature of the show allowed that as part of the format. There was an overuse of music and singing, but I still rather liked it, especially Tim Key's pompous turn as the question-master in his remote controlled armchair, looking like a cross between the Buggles and Cyril Fletcher, and a deadpan Alex Horne's rubbish powerpoint clunking along amusingly in the background.
Now there's Murray being particularly brilliant in Flight of the Conchords, with his worrying friendship obsession ('we could hang out like friends in that programme Friends about friends'), and crazed Mel's song about her even more worrying dreams. [YELLOW PAGES VOICE] Good old BBC4...
Tonight it had the most brilliant documentary, Meet the British, entirely constructed from archive footage of public information films from the fifties to the eighties, many aimed at educating those tricky foreigners in the ways of the British. From shots of London Airport crawling with little state of the art propeller planes where soon Concorde would be roaring to outrageously sexist shots of wives being stupid in jazzy prints this was compelling and beautiful stuff, a really terrific bit of research by Jeff Simpson, who, best of all, forbade the usual smug, cliche-ridden voice over that ruins all of these sorts of things (cf that recent gardening documentary on BBC2, How Britain Got the Gardening Bug). I hope there's more of these lined up, I could watch this sort of sad, absurd, faded film all day.
And it was followed by We Need Answers, the new Shooting Stars-esque game show awkwardly hosted by the usually adorable but somewhat out of his depth Mark Watson, pitting two celebrity experts against each-other with surreal audience questions on their specialist subjects. It was a shambles and fell to bits a bit at several points, but the low-fi Open University nature of the show allowed that as part of the format. There was an overuse of music and singing, but I still rather liked it, especially Tim Key's pompous turn as the question-master in his remote controlled armchair, looking like a cross between the Buggles and Cyril Fletcher, and a deadpan Alex Horne's rubbish powerpoint clunking along amusingly in the background.
Now there's Murray being particularly brilliant in Flight of the Conchords, with his worrying friendship obsession ('we could hang out like friends in that programme Friends about friends'), and crazed Mel's song about her even more worrying dreams. [YELLOW PAGES VOICE] Good old BBC4...
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