No Flies On Fash

‘TONIGHT John Lydon of the I’m A Celebrity pack performs the series’ first publicly-voted Bushtucker Trial. Sadly, John Fashanu is illegible for it.

You said it

This is chiefly because the kung fu-ing footballer is now a bona fide celeb and, as such, has little or no need to put rats in his underwear. He has been there and done that – and so too have the rats.

Fash has moved onto bigger and better things, and can be seen on the satellite TV channel Bravo cajoling a football team named in his honour.

Fash FC not only boasts a celebrity manager and a TV following in the tens, but its pennant bears the forms of a lap-dancer, a few bottles of champagne and a Porsche sports car.

It also has its own website, on which tens of fans can bone up on the team’s bio (Martin Saffu has size 11 feet; Jamie Spanyol is a courier; and Ricky Dhillon has a fear of the Teletubbies).

It’s pretty clear that life has moved on since those days when Fash was so keen to be liked that he stuck his head in a vat of eels.

He might not have progressed up the celebrity lists – hovering somewhere between D and C – but he is on the telly.

And as Kerry McFadden and Darren Day would surely agree, that is more important than anything…’

Posted: 27th, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Famous Last Words

‘HMMMMMMM. Jordan is banned from taking her vibrator into the jungle with her for the third series of I’m A Celebrity… and her big-breasted fellow contestant Kelly McFadden is taken to hospital suffering from a panic attack just a day before leaving for Australia.

Kerry gets a lot of things off her chest

Does anyone spot the hand of a PR agency desperate to drum up a bit of publicity for the forthcoming show behind the recent tabloid stories?

Poor Kelly was apparently only let out of hospital hours before the flight took off after spending 36 hours in hospital for stomach pains.

‘I’m famous for being a bit of a loudmouth,” said the wife of Westlife porker Bryan, “and I believe in speaking my mind. Because of that, I got myself wound up that I’ll end up the most hated woman in Britain.”

Kelly, we hate to break it to you, girl, but you’re not famous for having a loud mouth, nor are you famous for having been a member of Atomic Kitten before they were famous nor indeed are you famous because of your husband’s indiscretions on his stag night.

If you’re famous for anything, it is the fact that you have the sort of chest that could refloat the Titanic.’

Posted: 26th, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

The Anti-Award Show

‘IT’S hard to know what to think of The Luvvies, a ceremony that bills itself as “the awards the stars don’t want.The truth is that any exposure, whether good or bad, is all grist to the celebrity mill – and the fact that Rhona Cameron, once a contestant on I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here is host is surely taking irony a bit too far.

The anti-award ceremony started really with The Razzies, an anti-Oscar ceremony in which gongs are handed out the worst films and worst performances of the year.

That is quite a noble enterprise in puncturing the whole Hollywood hype machine – and it at least gives Sylvester Stallone (voted the worst actor of the 20th Century) something to put on his mantelpiece.

But The Luvvies smacks of an excuse to broadcast yet another show of celebrity-dominated clips.

“It’s simply that most celebrities are no longer held in an unqualified reverence,” says producer Brent Baker. “There’s a feeling they’re no longer there for our worship, but for our entertainment and amusement.”

To see whether The Luvvies is either entertaining or amusing, however, you’ll just have to tune into ITV at 9.05pm and find out.’

Posted: 24th, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Not Mad About Alice

‘THERE are people out there who think that soap operas are a form of reality TV: the Queen Vic exists, as do Jack and Vera Duckworth and the farming folk in Emmerdale.

‘Anyone want to play Dungeons & Dragons?’

Of course, even the delusional like to place a limit on their other worlds. And just as Hollyoaks is clearly a fictional place populated by people who are only make-believe actors, Mad About Alice is false.

In the real world, this new BBC show could not possibly happen. Sure, a couple who are still clearly in love despite the fact they are no longer married can and does occur.

But could the couple in anyone’s wildest dreams be Amanda Holden and Jamie Theakston?

To dispel belief that he is anything but a former children’s TV presenter who got caught with his pants down in a den of vice, Theakston would have to be quite some actor.

And can we ever believe that Holden is a syrupy, good-at-heart girl whose peach-perfect dreams of love and romance are shattered by cruel men and a crueller life?

The only people who believe this could be remotely true are the casting staff at the BBC who are allowing their wildest fantasies to impinge upon their work.’

Posted: 23rd, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Dear Diaries

‘HAD Alan Clark never published his diaries, he would have disappeared into obscurity as evidence of Enoch Powell’s aphorism about all political careers ending in failure.

In this scene, Alan Clark is played by a homosexual actor

Nor would he have been mourned by many in public life – he was arrogant, an appalling snob, a racist, a serial adulterer, a terrible constituency MP and no better as a member of Government.

But the very qualities that made him such an odious figure in many ways in real life – his disregard for hoi polloi and his consequent lack of discretion – also make his diaries such an entertaining read.

Last week’s first episode of the BBC adaptation (starring John Hurt as Clark) attracted BBC4’s biggest audience ever – just over a million people – and made it the most watched digital channel at the time.

The series will be repeated for viewers without access to digital TV on BBC2 later in the year, but those who cannot wait should tune in at 10pm tonight to watch Clark swooning over the ankles of the Iron Lady herself…’

Posted: 22nd, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Fight Night

‘HERE’S a poser for you: if the BBC broadcast decent television on a Saturday night would people be less likely to go out and therefore less likely to start fights and cause mayhem in town centres?

Do not overinflate

Until Casualty is taken off air and Eamonn Holmes is deflated, we might never know the answer.

All we have is the resultant mess. And irony or ironies, the BBC has an hour-long show dedicated to Saturday night violence.

From 9pm to 10pm, you can sit back on your Lazy Boy sofa and see if you can spot ‘Mad’ Tony or local Speed Dealer Matt ‘The Talc’ in the assorted CCTV footage that now passes for genuine television programming.

The Beeb takes us on a typical Saturday night in a typical town, following binge drinkers as they pour out of clubs and pubs and beat each other senseless.

Some even end up in casualty – not as extras, but as bona fide patients. And with any luck, the BBC will send along Gaby Roslin to see how they are doing.’

Posted: 21st, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Pet Project

‘THERE is nothing that TV execs like more than a tried and tested format – and the success of Wife Swap has persuaded Channel 4 to flog this horse until there is no life left in the poor creature.

Also appearing on Pet Swap

So, we now have Boss Swap, which tonight sees Geordie car dealer Mike swap places with Bruce, a hard-nosed estate agent from south London.

Mike’s first contribution is to sack Bruce’s wife Debbie, while up in Newcastle Mike’s staff stop showing up for work in protest at Bruce’s management style.

All of which makes for interesting viewing and no doubt has the bigwigs at Channel 4 rubbing their hands in glee and dreaming up new variations on the same theme.

May we humbly suggest Pet Swap, in which sweet 80-year-old Mrs Higgins hands over her beloved pet budgerigar to “security executive” Billy Knuckles and gets his pit-bull terrier named Saddam to look after in return.’

Posted: 20th, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment (1)

Making Money

‘WE have little to thank the Nazis for. Their presence runs like a scar across history, sending a gelid shudder down the spine of any of us who have in any way been touched by their evil regime.

A face made for TV

But in purely televisual terms, the Nazis’ legacy has been enormous.

Entire TV stations are utterly dependent on the images the German war machine left behind. Just take a look at UK History’s output this week: Churchill; Weapons of World War II; and Seeds of War.

And TV executives love nothing more than a new angle on the last big war. So tonight Channel 4 brings us The Great Nazi Cash Swindle.

The show centres on a group of Jewish prisoners made to produce forged British banknotes by their German persecutors, on pain of death.

The plan was to drop the entire bundle on Britain; this would lead to spiralling inflation and unsettle the government.

It was a fiendish plan. And it might just have worked had it not been for a change of tack – the Germans used the cash to fund covert operations.

It makes for a gripping story, made no less so than by the testimonies of four of the forgers at the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.’

Posted: 19th, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Stuck In Second Gear

‘BRITNEY Spears was certainly not the first person to get married at the end of a drunken night out in Las Vegas – and she certainly won’t be the last.

‘Fancy a quickie?’

Critics said the 22-year-old had lost the plot, but the plot was of course straight out of Friends where Rachel and Ross tied the knot in Vegas after a night on the shandies.

If Britney wants some clues on what happens afterwards, she should tune in to Channel 4 tonight to the episode called The One After Vegas.

In fact, she should tune into Channel 4 or even E4 at pretty well any time of day or night and she is guaranteed to be transported to the sofa at Central Perk or to Chandler and Monica’s flat.

They say that in London you are never more than 10 feet from a rat; on Channel 4 (and its various siblings), you are certainly never more than 10 minutes away from an episode of Friends.

Before long they will have to start renaming the episodes. The One We Saw Last Week…’

Posted: 16th, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Tuff Cheese

‘THERE was a time when entertainers trod the theatre boards before stepping before a TV camera – they lived and died by the own material in front of an audience.

A rare sighting of Linda Barker

Now things are different. TV is first and last. Audiences are either ignored or billed as “LIVE”. Presenting is no longer something actors and comics do between their vocational jobs, but a bona fide career choice.

This shift is clearly in evidence on tonight’s TV line-up. On BBC1 at 7pm one of the old stagers, Bruce Forsyth, hosts a new series called Didn’t They Do Well.

Bruce has not aged all that well. But if for nothing else we should applaud his longevity and survival instincts. Even the title of this new gameshow owes its roots to a catchphrase of 20 years past.

On ITV at 9pm it’s more Challenge Anneka/Linda as With A Little Help From My Friends gets Phil Tufnell to build a cricket pavilion.

The people who present this show exist only on TV. Barker and Tuffers have no other raison d’etre. Tufnell was a likable enough chap who made the cricket crowd laugh, but he’s now a professional Phil Tufnell.

Linda Barker is used to working with wood and MDF.

In years to come will we watch Barkers, Tuffers and their celebrity kin hammer bits of old tat together and apply a veneer of paint. If it is, best get the TV a nice blanket and a warm drink and leave it to die in its sleep.

Bruce Forsyth is 107.’

Posted: 15th, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

In The Drink

‘YOU lishening carefully? No, you lishening really, really carefully? Cos I’ve got shomething really, really important to tell you.

Nine out of then drunks would marry Britney Spears

No, I’m not pished. I’ve jusht had a couple of little, weeny, little vodkas. Anyway, what was I shaying?

Yesh, there are a shocking, really, really shocking 3.8 million people in this country, that’s Britain, you understand, who are dependent on booze. Not me. I’ve jusht had a couple of shandies.

But one in 13 of the population ish an alcoholic. That’sh almosht one for every football team, although Arshenal used to have enough for the resht of the teamsh put together.

Anyway, there’s lots and lots and lots of people who really, really like their booze and more people die from drinking too much than from heroin, crack, ecstasy and methadone put together.

Which is a silly think to do with heroin, crack, ecstasy and methadone. Much better to take them on their own, you know. Not that I approve of drugsh. Of coursh, not.

Tonight Channel 4 presentsh Pished On The Job, which ish not something you’d ever catch me doing.’

Posted: 14th, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Who Ate All The Pies?

‘JUST when you thought television could not get any flabbier along comes another series of Celebrity Fit Club.

Vanessa had a bit of help in the ‘catch a peanut’ competition

And who are the unfit fat ones waiting to turn fat into fit?

Step forward, jump up and down the on the spot and gasp for breath, Alison Hammond, Freddie Starr, Jono Coleman, James Whitaker, Lowri Turner, John Forgeham and (a large roll with extra cheese on the drums) Vanessa Feltz.

Like you, we did not instantly know who many of these people are.

However, extensive research has revealed that Hammond was once on Big Brother, Starr is not what he nominally claims to be, Turner is a shorter female Paul Ross, Forgeham has a name that incorporates a cut of pig, Whittaker is the beetroot red royal correspondent, Coleman is a lardy Australian and Feltz is…

We leave the description of La Feltz open because she was recently on TV in conversation with Victoria Wood. The comedienne was talking about weight and Feltz was held up as some kind of victim of how cruel people can be.

As such, we have no truck with those who make fun of the woman. We can only say that Fetlz has hit upon the ideal way to look thinner: to cultivate a fatter peer group and immerse herself within them.

For those who cannot wait until tonight’s exercises, Vanessa has also released an exercise video, which is available in a discreet brown paper wrapping.’

Posted: 13th, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Garden Invaders

‘AFTER Robert Kilroy-Silk’s now infamous article in the Sunday Express, perhaps BBC2 should consider following up its programme What The Romans Did For Us (which tonight focuses on Hadrian’s Wall) with a similar series on What The Arabs Did For Us.

Always plant in area with direct sunlight

If Kilroy were in charge, there would not be material enough to fill a single 15-minute programme, but happily there are plenty of people with a better grasp of history than the now suspended talk-show host.

In fact, the unwitting result of the former Labour MP’s “unconsidered rant” has been an affirmation of exactly what the Arab world has given to the West – including mathematics, our alphabet and the first government.

”The entire resources concerned with medicine, science and knowledge were developed in the Arab world at a time when knowledge was denied and decried in the Western dark ages,” Middle East expert Professor Haleh Afshar said.

Instead, Kilroy has been banished from our screens, his programme taken off air and Garden Invaders broadcast instead.’

Posted: 12th, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Scraping The Barrel

‘IT is not the celebrities who are under pressure in tonight’s Celebrities Under Pressure, it is the poor viewer who will once again be called to recall where on earth they have come across the three “stars” of the programme before.

Terri was used to making a right tit of herself

To help: John Fashanu was a footballer, but is infinitely more famous not only for appearing as a defendant in a trial on match-fixing charges (of which he was acquitted) but also for his appearance on last year’s I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out Of Here.

Terri Dwyer is an actress, who used to play a character called Ruth Osborne in Hollyoaks before leaving the teen soap for bigger and better things. She appeared in Channel 4’s The Games last year, thus boosting her profile enough to win her a part on, er, Hollyoaks again.

And Ken Morley won brief fame as Reg Holdsworth in Coronation Street before he too started suffering from delusions of grandeur – and now is best known for appearing in advertisements for windows.

Not exactly the cream of the crop, but such is the way with celebrity programmes on TV these days that anyone who has ever appeared on TV, however fleetingly, has effectively secured a job for life.

Tonight, our terrible trio try to win prizes for a nominated family by playing hockey, trying to master a remote-controlled car and working in a takeaway (the latter being good practice, one imagines, for the job offers that lie ahead).

NB In some regions, the programme will be broadcast under a different title – Scraping The Barrel.’

Posted: 10th, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Brave New World

‘FIVE likes doing things in batches.

A bigger star than Joey from Freinds

You get a whole load of children’s telly in the morning, a wave of films in the afternoon and then, just before the next tranche of movies, you get something the other channels would not dare show.

Ok, this is being generous to FIVE, which unlike BBC1 or ITV1 has no big budget soap opera to fill the primetime slots. But at last it tries something original.

BBC2 has stuck with gardening for what seems like an age and Channel 4 has American sitcoms, repeats of American sitcoms and trailers for new series of American sitcoms.

FIVE has The Big Question With Ian Stewart. And the title of tonight’s big question is “How will the world end”. Not how will Friends end or how to end a cycle of fungal rot on your dahlias, but how will it all end.

After that, viewers get to see Moving To Mars: Dot Miles And Creative Sign. No we don’t know what the part after the colon means either, but doesn’t it sound interesting?’

Posted: 9th, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

The Big Questions

‘THE big question is how FIVE, the channel formerly known as Channel 5, managed to transform itself from a downmarket version of Live! TV into one of the most innovative broadcasters in the country.

”Why does Davina McCall have to shout all the time, eh, Steve?”

Certainly, no-one who tuned in in the early days (when we were urged to “Jack on” for the Jack Docherty show and “Jack off” for the soft porn movie that followed) could have forecast the direction the channel has taken.

This week, for instance, viewers have been urged to consider some of the big philosophical questions, aided by many of the country’s top thinkers – Stephen Hawking, Harry Kroto, Richard Dawkins and tonight Susan Greenfield.

Having pondered the origins of the universe, how life began and the purpose of mankind, tonight we explore our perceptions of ourselves in answer to the question Why Am I Me? before examining tomorrow how the world will end.

They may not be ratings winners, but they’re a welcome antidote to the countless home improvement programmes and reality TV shows that make up the rest of the schedule.’

Posted: 8th, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Guts & Garters

‘ALL the talk about the death of Princess Diana seems to centre on the belief that she should have died in some more dramatic and, dare it be said, romantic way.

Was the Fiat Uno driver actually Henry VIII?

A car accident is just so ordinary.

Perhaps if she’d have stepped on a landmine or been trampled by the crowd in the opening day of the Harvey Nichols sale, there would have been no need for conspiracy theorists to peddle their wares.

Indeed, years ago a royal like Di would have been lucky to have escaped the chopping block.

Or, indeed, something more infectious, noxious and altogether unpleasant, say a worm that ate her from the inside out or a virus that caused boils to break out on her skin.

To remind us how bad the blue bloods used to have it, the Discovery Channel is running a series called Royal Deaths And Diseases.

Chances are high that Di will get mention, but tonight’s issue is more concerned with the condition of Henry VIII’s insides.

It barely gives the plot away to tell you that Hal’s innards were as unappealing as his outers. And that Di was killed by a mechanic on a grassy knoll…’

Posted: 7th, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Di – Another Day

‘PRINCE Charles, James Hewitt, Oliver Hoare, James Gilbey, Hasnat Khan, Will Carling, Bryan Adams, Dodi Fayed… The surprise is not that tonight’s Channel 4 documentary Di’s Guys should be spread over two nights, but that it should be spread over only two nights.

Spencer For Hire

But this is, of course, not a prurient examination of Princess Diana’s often colourful sex life, but a serious look at her relationship with men and the sense of betrayal that pervaded her life from childhood right up to her death seven years ago.

Or at least that’s what the programme makers would have us believe. The title of the programme would suggest otherwise, as would the fact that it is in the 9pm slot, which has in the past featured such shows as Liz Hurley’s Brains.

After the mawkish outpouring of national grief in the aftermath of her death, Diana rather disappeared from our consciousness (no doubt partly because of our embarrassment at the collective nervous breakdown).

But she seems to have been making something of a comeback in recent months, aided by Paul Burrell and his horrible little book and the news that there is at last to be an inquest into her death.

We fear Di’s Guys won’t be the last programme of its type this year.’

Posted: 6th, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

To Sleep, Perchance To Dream

‘BARELY five days in and the optimism that accompanied the arrival of 2004 has all but evaporated.

Do Not Feed The Dumb Animals

Channel 4 has proven that 2003 was no fluke and is resolutely committed to broadcast some of the worst TV ever.

Rather than make anything entertaining, the Channel has chosen to pepper its schedules with formats. The latest format has Dermot Leary overseeing Shattered, a show about people staying awake.

It’s easy to spot the joke, and indeed the £100,000 first prize should go to some social leper who stays up to watch the entire run of this dross.

If any television executives at Channel Bore are looking in – through those square-rimmed glasses, no doubt – they should note that for drama, entertainment and sheer action nothing can beat the World Darts championship (BBC2).

This might be watered down version of the main event – since a rival World Darts show is broadcast on Sky – but it still raises a smile.

Which leads us to Channel 4’s next TV show format: Celebrity Pin The Tail On The Donkey. Dumb animals will be hurt, some quite badly. Not least the show’s presenter, Paul Ross – he’s the one in the tail…’

Posted: 5th, January 2004 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Travellers’ Tales

‘SOUTH African backpackers don’t only go on about how life back ‘home’ is soooo much better than it is in Blighty and how awful Britain is. Not always.

Some backpackers would do anything for cheap accommodation

Sometimes they break their diatribe against all things British to tell you about an adventure they had while in some paradise idyll.

Their preamble about Andre’s madcap sense of fun is less memorable than the denouement, when Hans, Andre’s best mate, is captured by local bandits and eaten – flag and all!

This story does not make it onto FIVE’s Backpackers’ Nightmares (8pm), but others do.

There are the stories of hotel fires, shark attacks, killer weather (hurricanes; whirlwinds; typhoons), terrorist bombs, robbers, burglars and muggers.

For the youth that stomp around the globe with a carbuncle strapped to their backs such tales foster a renewed sense of adventure.

For those that make it only as far as Britain’s big cities, the tales make good telling – as they pull pints of gassy bear…’

Posted: 23rd, December 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Trade Test Transmission

‘ANYONE would think we didn’t have enough exams in our life – tests at age 7, 11, GCSEs, A-levels, driving tests, eye tests and now BBC’s Test The Nation.

Now in its 143rd year!

Nominally, this is supposed to be a sort of national IQ test, but in reality it is a chance for the BBC to fill up two and a half hours of prime time with a review of the year – and call it public service broadcasting.

At a time when TV companies are receiving justified criticism for the amount of repeats being shown over Christmas, the BBC is taking things to a new level.

For instance, it has now taken to broadcasting BBC4 programmes on BBC2 and trying to make a virtue of it.

It’s not enough to make one Christmas special every tens years, market it as a national institution and then repeat it every Christmas Day for a decade.

And there is life after Only Fools And Horses…’

Posted: 22nd, December 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Walters, Walters Everywhere

‘TELEVISION has more Annual General Meetings than pretty much any other industry.

”It’s for my colossal humanity, you know”

These Soap Awards and Bafta Awards are routinely self-aggrandising affairs. Even the Oscars, the daddy of them all, loses all impact and pretence at entertainment as soon as Billy Crystal has finished his introduction.

Sure, the leading lady cries and thanks everyone for being there for her special day. And some ancient looking type appears on stage to collect a lifetime achievement award for ensuring the catering truck arrived on time.

But, as we say, it’s not all that entertaining.

And to compound this, there are Extraordinary General Meetings. These are called when something amazing and out of the ordinary has happened.

And tonight there’s one such shindig, and it’s in honour of Julie Walters. It’s called Julie Walters – a Bafta Tribute and it’s on BBC1 at 8:30. It’s on for an hour.

A better tribute to the actress would have been to write an hour-long show in which she could star and display her talents. What we get instead are her showbiz pals telling us how grrrreat Julie is.

Robert Lindsay actually pays tribute to her “colossal humanity”.

Talk about fat cats…’

Posted: 19th, December 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Who Judges The Judges?

‘THERE are certain jobs that, once you have got them, are almost impossible to lose. One of them is being a judge. In fact, no judge has ever been sacked for incompetence – and Mark Easton wants to know why.

”Maybe I would be better as a blonde”

We regularly hear stories of judges who are so far removed from the world that periodically sullies their courtroom that they may as well be sitting on the Appeals Court on Mars.

Remember the judge who didn’t know who Paul Gascoigne, then at the height of his fame, was – and, on being informed he was a footballer, inquired: “Rugby football or association football?”

That may not be incompetence as such, although one imagines that knowledge of the world around you is as valuable for a judge as knowledge of the law.

But there are plenty of examples dredged up on Channel 4 tonight of judges nodding off during trials and the like to make you wonder what exactly you have to do to get the sack.’

Posted: 18th, December 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Paws For Thought

‘SIEGFRIED and Roy are famous for two things. Firstly, they seem to have hair made of a substance not hitherto known on planet earth.

Do not try this at home

Secondly, they perform a magic act with white tigers, one of which gave his critical analysis of a routine by trying to sever Roy Horn’s head from the rest of his tanned and buffed body.

That is the interesting stuff. A lifetime’s work of entertaining the masses distilled into a folical and a set of flaying claws.

There is mp escaping the truth that it’s the painful bits that make the most memorable viewing and telling – just ask anyone who watched motor racing.

And tonight, FIVE gathers all these remnants of flesh into a show it likes to call: Extreme…Animal Attacks.

Meet the circus worker whose tiger ate his hand. See crocodiles bite. Watch an angry elephant exact a nasty revenge on her keeper.

This is better than the circus…’

Posted: 17th, December 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

The Ring Cycle

‘LORD Of The Rings was to no-one’s surprise named the country’s most popular book in BBC’s The Big Read, despite the fact that we would wager a lot of money than many of its supporters had never read a page of JRR Tolkein’s prose.

”Right. Now for those bloody hobbits”

The real reason for its sudden ubiquity is, of course, the film, the final part of which premieres in London tonight.

Now, you don’t have to be one of those whose cultural tastes have never developed much further than Harry Potter or Frodo Baggins to appreciate what a magnificent achievement this film trilogy represents.

It is, one suspects, a cinematic achievement that will stand the test of time, like some of the magnificent epics of yesteryear.

Liv Tyler’s dad might not have been able to stay awake throughout the film’s 200 minutes (and it will certainly test younger children’s attention span), but unlike so many films today it is not long for the sake of being long.

It is long because it takes time and space to conjure up the vastness of Peter Jackson’s vision of Middle Earth and the breadth of Tolkein’s imagination.

Join Jonathan Ross on BBC1 at 11.35pm as he reports from the post-premiere party.’

Posted: 16th, December 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment