Doctor Who And Toast of London
Mic Wright’s Remotely Furious: Dr Who.
YOU spotted a plot hole did you? And you think Stephen Moffatt can’t write women? Yeah. Alright. Take it to your Twitter account. Maybe write a blaaaaag post about how it annoyed you and how the (virtually) free entertainment has offended you. Throw in some of that half-arsed cultural theory you learned at university in there too, that’ll really make it sing.
There’s a famous Elvis best of… record called 50,000,000 Elvis Fans Can’t Be Wrong. The same principle applies to Doctor Who. The truth is that it is a children’s show but a brilliant children’s show that appeals to [CLICHE KLAXON] children of all ages. The Day of the Doctor, the much trailed 50th anniversary episode, was brilliant. Utterly brilliant. Just fun, fun, fun but with less sun, sun, sun and more fezs, big red baddies and Billie Piper as a cross between Rose Tyler and her horndog character in Secret Diary of a Call Girl.
The episode has Matt Smith and David Tennant bantering together, it had jokes, it had scares, it had action. It has lots of rubbish too – Elizabeth I was done a disservice and there were some utterly silly plot twists – BUT – and it is a BUT so big you’d need the Tardis’s roomy wardrobe space to store it – it was great entertainment. That’s what you want on a Saturday night and that’s what Moffatt has consistently delivered during his tenure. if you want to stroke your pretentious beard (ladies too) and show off about how clever you are go back to cranking one out over episodes of Homeland and The Bridge.
Another show from the big drawer marked FUN is Matt Berry’s Toast of London, a Boosh-esque comedy about London’s worst actor. Berry, along with co-writer Arthur Matthews (yes, the nicer half of the Father Ted writing team), have created a brilliantly skewed little show where the plot can reasonably include a beautiful black model having botched plastic surgery and becoming a Bruce Forsyth lookalike. Never stupid for the sake of it, Toast… gives us in the title character a figure who is almost Partridge-esque in his delusion and the viewer’s desire for him to succeed despite it all.
Berry is an astounding talent. A gifted musician, actor and writer, he’s the kind of polymath television needs. One who, unlike Stephen Fry, has yet to be seduced by the prospect of his own panel show or presenting every documentary he’s offered. Nor has he, like David Mitchell, prostituted his talent in dross just for a buck. Can Mitchell’s wedding have really been expensive enough to force him to continue to present The Unbelievable Truth and do every advert voiceover no matter how degrading? His stint voicing an animated toilet duck can’t be too far away.
_________
Posted: 27th, November 2013 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
