Life Is Sweet

‘FORGET the biological clock and take a closer look at the one over the kitchen sink as it strikes nine. That’s the witching hour when women take over the TV.

‘And I didn’t get the part in Doctors’

After the introduction of Rosemary And Thyme, ITV now brings us one stop closer to the madhouse with Sweet Medicine.

The setting for this folly is a family-run medical practice in Derbyshire – think Peak Practice meets All Creatures Great And Small meets Doctors.

GP Nick Sweet (crazy name, crazy guy) is in a tizzy because his father has died, leaving his in charge of the family firm. Ooer, what to do?

Should he go to London? Should he take over the business? Should he go mad and run amok through the countryside, like in, er, Peak Practice?

You could tune into see, or you could just run the old series of Peak Practice backwards. The choice is yours.’

Posted: 4th, September 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Calendar Girls

‘AS a publicity stunt, the decision by members of Rylstone & District Women’s Institute to pose nude for their fund-raising calendar in 1999 was a stroke of complete genius, propelling them to international celebrity and raising a fortune for Leukaemia Research.

Doing the Full Monty?

It is a story that has now been immortalised in a film, starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters, which opens this week in the UK and is tipped to be a big success in the US when it opens there at the end of the year.

Tonight, BBC2 presents the true story behind the film, interviews with the stars and reports on what has happened to the 12 women who posed for the original calendar.

Coincidentally, over on ITV1 later this evening is The Full Monty, the film which Calendar Girls possibly most closely resembles, not just because it’s a British movie set in Yorkshire about taking your clothes off.

If you miss homeground: Calendar Girls at 7.30pm tonight, make sure you don’t miss the film, which manages to be both funny and touching in just the right measures.’

Posted: 3rd, September 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Shaker Not Stirred

‘MOST people’s vision of modern art and modern artists is obscured by a large dead shark pickled in foul smelling formaldehyde.

‘Over here, Maria’

There is also the small matter of Tray-cee Emin’s bed, adding a certain odour to the skewed view.

Tonight’s Grand Design Indoors (C4, 8:00pm) will not help you understand modern art any better, but it will enable you to know what kind of house Damien Hirst likes to spend his summers in.

That’s the thing about modern art – unlike old art, it pays the artist money while they’re still alive.

Damian and his wife, Maria Norman, are seen as they set to work establishing, creating and cogitating on their Shaker-style summer retreat in the grounds of their country home.

To those not in the know, Shaker means impoverished – think the set from TV’s Tenko, but with fewer design features.

So will Damian make a decent fist of it? Or will he just saw the whole thing in half and get plastered?

Watch and see…’

Posted: 2nd, September 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Too Blue Peter

‘IT is going a bit far to talk of The Curse Of Blue Peter, but it’s a good title under which to review the fall from grace of such stalwarts of the programme as John Leslie, Richard Bacon and Anthea Turner.

Shep’s coke habit was all too apparent

In fact, any title is a good one under which to chart the decline of the chocolate-loving Anthea, who these days is thankfully as absent from our screens as a few years ago she was omnipresent.

But we also get to dig out the old clips of Peter Duncan in a softcore porn movie, gasp in shock at Janet Ellis (mum of Sophie Ellis Bextor) becoming pregnant while not even being married and wonder how on earth Mark Curry ever has anything resembling a career.

For older viewers, we also relive the sacking of Christopher Trace in the 1960s for committing adultery on a Blue Peter trip to Norway (“Here’s one I laid earlier”) and the revelations that Valerie Singleton and Michael Sundin were gay.

Definitely not one to miss. Tonight at 9pm on five.’

Posted: 1st, September 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Clever Trevor

‘IT is hard on a Friday to find anything that touches Will And Grace (Channel 4, 9pm) for entertainment value.

Worth more than 10% of audience share

The entire concept of Restoration on BBC2 (9pm) is so painfully dull that the best thing would be to put the programme into one of the crumbling piles it features and send for the explosives.

Eyes Down on BBC1 (9om) is a tired formula from the off – the stale bingo hall serves as the hi-de-hi holiday camp.

So Will And Grace it is, and after that Trevor’s World of Sport (BBC1, 9:30).

This show is what British TV can do very well. While not exactly a sitcom, and not a drama, it sits comfortably between the two, reliant of good writing and talented acting for its appeal.

Paul Reynolds and Neil Pearson are perfectly cast as the sports agents – one with a heart the other a psychotic disorder.

Tonight’s episode features footballer’s Robbie Keane and Graeme Le Saux. And as any body who has even seen footballers attempt acting knows, their presence should garner a laugh.’

Posted: 29th, August 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Fat Chancers

‘TELEVISION is getting increasingly flabby round the midriff.

Rik is half the man he used to be

From Celebrity Fit Club to The Fattest Men in Britain, ITV has stared wide-eyed in wonder at the sheer size of the population.

This is a surprise, since the channel is also home to Fern Britten and Lisa Riley, two women who have not let their huge size prevent them from reaching the front of the showbiz buffet.

But tonight ITV asks us once more to gasp like a fat man chasing an ice-cream van as we watch 8-30 stoners (9pm).

The title suggests the chance to see scantily clad nubile young things showing off their more discreet tattoos to the camera and imbibing lots of pills.

We do get plenty of flesh. In the flesh stakes, each star of 18-30 Stoners possesses the approximate equivalent square inch of naked, quivering flesh as an entire beach resort in Greece.

The premise is that over a week, experts try to improve the specimens of fathood, moulding them into shape.

What shape depends on the mould. But the smart money is on a big round one.’

Posted: 28th, August 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

The Beeb’s Last Stand

‘WE’VE looked at the listings for a few of tonight’s TV shows in a national newspaper. And here are a few of those hilarious outtakes.

‘Where’s Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen when you need him?’

“This week, a team cleans a council flat where a man has died” (A Life Of Grime, BBC1 9:30). It’s a repeat.

“Tidying a Grade Two-listed house” (The Life Laundry, 8:000 BBC2).

Reading these programme biogs make you hope that there is some irony at play. Is this a joke?

No, it’s TV the way the BBC makes it.

Thanks to the Hutton Inquiry, the BBC is looking like an edgy broadcaster of dangerous things. And then you look at what it broadcasts for the other 99.9% of the time.

And once again the best show is found on FIVE, where Battlefield Detectives revisit the location of Custer’s Last Stand (8pm).

If this sounds dull, and a night with Dr Douglas Scott and Prof Richard Fox lacks appeal, read this, as found in the aforesaid paper.

“The men had been shot, stabbed, slashed, scalped, castrated and had their arms and legs cut off by the Lakota and Cheyenne warriors.”

Later BBC has a show about how this messy scene was all cleaned up.’

Posted: 27th, August 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Five Alive

‘CHANNEL FIVE has a problem.

The Beeb is still flogging a dead horse

Unlike the BBC, with its two main channels and two sister digital channels, and ITV with its relationship with Channel 4 and it’s own ITV2, it stands alone.

It has developed links with Sky – the tentacles of Rupert Murdoch’s empire stretching into the mainstream from out there in satellite space – but it is for the large part its own man.

The problem is that like any individual it has a range of tastes.

So tonight in among the imported American crime shows – CSI: Miami; CSI: Crime Scene Investigations; The Shield – there sits The Story of Art Deco.

Now we are not going to tell you that this is required viewing – just that it is on before Jennifer Lopez: The Story and after the news.

All we know is that this week the show comes back to Britain. Which suggest it’s been away, travelling the world like some 1930 David Dickinson, oohing an ahhing at antiques.

Meanwhile Channel 4 has repeats and some repeats of repeats; ITV has Carole Vorderman; BBC2 has a show about restoring decrepit church halls and monasteries – perhaps turning them into theme pubs – and BBC1 has Only Fools And Horses.

FIVE might not stick to the point, but it at least strives for originality. What of the rest? If Murdoch does take over, FIVE might be the best broadcaster out there.’

Posted: 26th, August 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Yanking Our Chain

‘WHEN Americans do sitcom, they set it in a lawyer’s office, in a fashion magazine or in a radio station and populate it with good-looking and successful (if somewhat neurotic) characters.

Say ‘No Cheese’

When Brits do sitcom, they set it in a holiday camp or in a bingo hall and populate it with a bunch of unattractive losers.

That would be all very well if the comedy was up to the standard of the best American shows like Seinfeld or Will And Grace, but it isn’t.

Faced with a choice (as you are at 9 o’clock tonight), do you opt for Eyes Down on BBC1, which stars Paul O’Grady (who is a far better drag stand-up than he is a comic actor) and is set in a bingo hall, or a 45-minute long episode of Will & Grace on Channel 4?

It is a rhetorical question because there is only one possible answer. Watch out for Sydney Pollack’s performance as Will’s father – it just shows how much better the Yanks are at doing sitcom than us.’

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

Class TV

‘TELEVISION loves confrontation and the Channel 4 series Masters and Servants gives it to us in spades.

‘Your wife’s head, sir’

This is not adult-orientated broadcasting of the type that used to earn a red triangle, but a show in the mould of the channel’s Wife Swap.

The premise is simple. Horribly simple. Two families adopt the positions of family above stairs and family below stairs. After an agreed period, the roles are reversed.

This is one of the nastiest shows on TV. The enjoyment can be added to by guessing and even betting at home on which character will cry first or hit another.

We have it on good advice that Susan does break down in tears. She’s married to builder Richard and studying psychology part-time.

This will keep us all laughing at the unfortunates on TV – and give the distraught Susan something to write her college thesis on.’

Posted: 21st, August 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

A Girl Thing

‘IF you have been reading the Sun recently, you’ll know that tonight is a very special night on The Bill.

Girls in blue

No, Reg Hollis isn’t about to find himself a girlfriend, but Debbie is about to rescue Juliet from a suspected rapist – and find herself caught in a passionate lesbian clinch.

Ever since Beth Jordache kissed Margaret on Brookside, TV producers have known that a bit of girl-on-girl action is the surest way to get a programme column inches in the tabloid press.

EastEnders quickly followed Brookside’s lead; Buffy ratings in the US went through the roof when Willow and Tara shared a kiss; and lesbian drama Tipping The Velvet monopolised the TV pages of the re-tops for weeks.

Whatever its appeal, lesbian sex on TV is a hit with viewers, most of whom one suspects are men living out their fantasies on the screen.

So expect record ratings for tonight’s visit to Sun Hill nick (which is, incidentally, fast becoming a retirement home for soap actors).’

Posted: 20th, August 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

The Old Black

‘IF David Beckham really were as black as he and his myriad advisors occasionally want him to be would he be such a big star? He’d play for England, he might even captain the side. But would he be seen as handsome, a figure to revere?

The chances are no. The one thing for sure is that the vitriol and hatred aimed at him after his dismissal in the 1998 World Cup finals would have been peppered with banana skins and monkey noises.

Football fans are not all enlightened urban types. There are many grounds in both inner city and provincial Britain where black players are treated badly. Black fans just do not go there.

The Colour of Football (BBC2 tonight at 11:20) scratches the glossy veneers of Premiership football to see what lies beneath.

People who see the national sport only through TV screens will be surprised at how few fans from ethnic minorities actually attend football matches.

With so many black players making the grade, why are there still a disproportionately small number of black supporters in the stands?

Set the video for this one.’

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

The Game’s Up

‘OLD quiz shows never die – they just come back with a BBC news presenter as the host.

”My name’s Clive Thomas and I’m reading the washing instructions on my wig”

And that is on why Monday nights on BBC2, we find John Humphreys taking on the Magnus Magnusson role (complete with Magnus Magnusson expressions) as the question master of Mastermind and Jeremy Paxman posing the questions on University Challenge.

Bamber Gascoigne would no doubt be turning in his old people’s home or wherever he has been stowed to discover that University Challenge has been taken over by people with even worse haircuts than the students – professionals.

It is the BBC2 equivalent of Celebrity University Challenge with tonight a group of journalists (a couple of whom may have once been allowed a brief outing on Question Time) against a group of meteorologists (none of whom, one hopes, was ever allowed to present the weather).

At least, though, they are better than the four stooges on tonight’s Mastermind, answering questions on English castles, TV comedy, British flora and fauna and Fairport Convention.

May the man or woman with the thickest glasses win…

‘

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

Smell-O-Vision

‘TONIGHT FIVE shows The Great Stink: The Profile of Victorian sewage engineer Joseph Bazelgette.

”Number 4 – Lily’s a bore…”

And no, since you ask, it is not fronted by Graham Norton, Gaby Roslin or Patrick Kielty. It should be, but it isn’t.

For a dose of irony on a Friday night, you must watch Will and Grace and the increasingly rare better bits of Sex And The City.

For something that you hope is ironic but fear is not, there is the new sitcom from Paul O’Grady. The Liverpudlian who dolls himself up as Lily Savage has been given his own series.

Problem is that whereas O’Grady as Savage can be funny and get away with bad jokes with bravado, O’Grady is simply a bad comic actor with an even worse script.

For added appeal, the show is based in a bingo hall. It’s called Eyes Down. We hear that in the first episode, Ray, the manager, has to work out how to control his staff.

And his cunning plan is to bore them into submission. This is another one for the Mr Bazelgette…

‘

Posted: 15th, August 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Greece Uncovered

‘ANYONE tuning into Club Reps tonight will not get to see exactly what the employees of Club 18-30 actually get up to while at work. For that, you will have to head out to Corfu or visit the Sunday Sport website.

Club Reps – the real story

Instead, ITV viewers tonight get to see a sanitised version of the pride of Britain drinking, puking and copulating their way round the birthplace of western civilisation.

This week, two American students get to witness for the first time the things that put the great in Great Britain as hordes of scantily clad women fall (quite literally in many cases) at their feet.

Elsewhere, Lee attempts a 150ft bungee jump and Natalie has a bit of trouble with her boyfriend, Stuart.

Coming as it does straight after Young, Posh And Loaded, this is one hour’s television that will make you want to stand to attention and belt out a verse or two of Rule Britannia. Not.

‘

Posted: 14th, August 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Case Closed

‘SUMMER is here and the curtains are twitching. Nina Simone made some beautiful music. Not that you’d hear it for the screaming sirens and din of coppers slamming car doors.

”It’s not quite The Bill though, is it?”

At least tonight we can get some semblance of plot as BBC1 calls to mind other songs of yesteryear and catches us all Watching The Detectives.

This show follows an entire criminal case from the actual crime to sentencing.

We get to see the victims, the villains, the relatives of both, the thief-takers (how coppers love to be called so) and the judiciary going about their business.

Tonight we are treated to the case of the rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl. Unpleasant it truly is.

It gets worse when the face and a name are put to the case, the victim revealed as Marion Crofts of Hampshire who was attacked in 1981.

The man who carried out this revolting crime is Tony Jasinsky, now languishing in

Her Majesty’s dungeons.

Not that knowing his guilt spoils the show. This is truly the acceptable face of reality TV.

‘

Posted: 13th, August 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Singing For Their Supper

‘SO who is winning the battle of the reality TV shows with BBC1’s Fame Academy going head-to-head with ITV1’s Pop Idol?

Simon Cowell’s ego is projected on the wall behind him

Simon Cowell, Nicky Chapman, Pete Waterman and Dr Fox attracted an average of 35.4% of the Saturday evening audience, peaking at 41.7% (or 6.3 million viewers).

On the other side, Cary Grant, Kevin Smith and Robin Gibb were watched by an average of 3.4 million viewers (26.6% of the viewing public), peaking at 4 million (34.3%).

Both broadcasters predictably said they were delighted with the figures, with the BBC claiming a narrow victory for the 15 minutes when the two shows were actually head-to-head.

The musicians may be better on Fame Academy, but Pop Idol is better television, especially during the auditions.

It may be car crash TV, but some of the wrecks that pass for singers have to be heard to be believed. Simon Cowell may be cast as Mr Nasty, but he is actually too kind to many of the young hopefuls who every week assault our eardrums.

‘

Posted: 12th, August 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Showbiz Agents

‘TONIGHT we lean into our sleeves and whisper ”Goodbye” to Spooks. The plots are absurd and the acting is as wooden as the scenery from the Sound of Music but it is oddly addictive.

The real Dr Kelly

Tom is the hero of the piece, and tonight in the series finale he’s going it alone, James Bond style.

Only Tom is no James Bond. He is keen and has a neat way of looking utterly blank when he’s spoken to, in a manner that says he’s listening and watching or just stupid, but he has little of Bond’s charisma and sex appeal.

The week’s nonsense begins with the discovery of a dead gangster. And by way of a clever twist, he’s slumped in front of the telly on which the film The Third Man is being shown.

That’s a film about spies and such like. And Spooks is a show about spies. Do you get it? Do you see? Tom would get it and see. That’s what he’s paid to do.

And tonight he sees the light at the end of the tunnel. His interview for another series is about to begin…

‘

Posted: 11th, August 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

US And Them

‘AMERICAN politics is much more exciting than politics over here, as the race for Governor of California proves.

God bless America

Not only is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s name on the ballot sheet to replace incumbent Gray Davies, but so are the names of pornographer Larry Flynt and porn star Mary Carey, star of films such as Asses In The Air 4 and Double-D Dolls 2.

What did we have? Oscar-winning actress Glenda Jackson was, of course, a minister in this Government for a while. Countdown regular Gyles Brandreth – he of the appalling knitwear – was briefly Tory MP for Chester.

And glamour model Jordan stood as an independent in the Stretford & Urmston constituency in the last General Election, polling a miserable 713 votes.

It’s not quite Arnie, Larry and Mary, is it? Although, we do of course have the noble Lord Archer, who was briefly a Tory MP from 1969-1974 in between becoming the first man to run a mile in under four minutes and carrying out the world’s first heart transplant…

‘

Posted: 8th, August 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Partial Recall

‘IMAGINE if the US President was a former Hollywood actor of little discernible talent who read his lines like a perfunctory robot and had a nice winter tan.

The bodybuilder politic

You need not stretch the mind too far, as anyone who saw Ronald Reagan’s performances over much of the 1980s will confirm. But what are the odds on lightning striking twice?

The new man who could one day we the King of Capitol Hill is Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Tonight Channel 4 profiles the life of the muscle-bound superstar in Arnold Schwarzenegger: Made In Britain.

This is a slightly odd title, given that Arnie was made in Austria by a team of genetic engineers, who incidentally also made the entertainment stars Twicky and Metal Mickey.

Further investigation reveals that Arnie did spend a period of his life in east London, which, apparently, played a big part in starting his bodybuilding career.

But a diet of mushy peas and jellied ells was never going to be enough to give him the body mass of a champion, so he left, ending up the USA, home of weight-gain food.

To see what else Arnie did, tune into the show at 9:00 tonight.

‘

Posted: 7th, August 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

A Dead Horse

‘EVEN a pupil at Summersdown Comprehensive would know that a dead horse can’t run, no matter how hard you flog it.

‘Is there anybody out there?’

So, it is no great surprise that the viewing figures for Fame Academy have so far been shocking, with only 3.2 million tuning in last Wednesday.

Tonight, the BBC is unlikely to fare much better as viewers get to choose which of the final six hopefuls will get the last three places in the house – and (for those who haven’t got one already) the chance to win a recording contract.

Cat Deeley and Patrick Kielty can enthuse all they like, but even they cannot hide the smell of rotting horseflesh.

Much better news on Channel 4 is the return of Teachers, the comedy that follows a group of pedagogues who prove to be comfortably more juvenile than their pupils.

In the first episode of the third series, the men are upset at the arrival of Lindsay, a larger-than-life female biology teacher who can drink them all under the table.

‘

Posted: 6th, August 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Police, Camera, Action

‘FOR TV producers, there is something utterly addictive about watching police go about their daily work.

‘Okay, let’s do that chase sequence again and this time make it look a bit more realistic’

It must be a similar thing for fans of Formula One – you watch the many dull bits hoping for the few snippets of absolute mayhem and carnage

Tonight, ITV launches Police! – a to-the-point title for a no-frills series about the law.

The opening issue shows officers in Milton Keynes on duty for an Eminem show in town. Will the music buffs respond to the singer’s tales of violence with some horror show of their own?

Later, police in Oldham oversee the final game of the season at Oldham Athletic.

Given that Oldham has been a hotbed of racial disharmony in recent times, and given the link between football and violence, viewers can expect to see a good punch-up.

And the producers must know their target audience – it’s not curtain-twitching Miss Marple wannabes they’re after, but lads and lasses who like Eminem and football.

Why else is it on at 11:00?

The message is clear: don’t bother going to the pub looking for a fight – stay in with a tin of gassy beer and watch it on telly.

If you must go out, do so between 8pm and 10pm, thereby missing Hotels From Hell, House Trapped, Package Holiday and the utterly hopeless Eustace Brothers.

Those shows are the real crimes – someone should tell the police.

‘

Posted: 5th, August 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

The Weight Is Over

‘WITH all the cooking programmes on TV at the moment, it was only a matter of time before we were given a show devoted entirely to dieting. And here it is – the imaginatively titled Do Or Diet.

Fat chancer

It could, of course, have been called Diet Another Day, Diet Hard (With A Vengeance), To Diet For, Live And Let Diet or any one of a thousand other bad puns.

Presented by (a fully-clothed) Gail Porter, Jay Hunt and Jamie Baird, the show tries to find ways to lose weight that don’t involve complete starvation, drinking revolting milkshakes or watching fewer cookery programmes.

First guinea pig is Bobbi Smedley, who must lose enough weight to fit into her designer wedding dress in three months’ time. The signs are looking bad – she might even have to take some exercise.

Alternatively, she could just turn over to ITV1 and catch Trisha, whose theme this morning is gluttony. As, we presume, in gluttons for punishment.

‘

Posted: 4th, August 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Good Grace

‘WILL and Grace is the best-written sitcom on TV at the moment. It is blessed with the one element that many British sitcoms lack: comedy.

A big and for Will and Grace

Unlike the hilarious Seinfeld, a show that was famously about nothing, Will and Grace is about love between a gay man and his female best friend.

That may well remind some of you of Gimme Gimme Gimme, the alleged sitcom in which a gay English man lives with his only friend, who happens to be a woman.

The key difference between the two is that element we have already touched upon: comedy.

Whereas Gimme Gimme Gimme hits the emergency button marked ‘SMUT’ whenever a laugh is needed, Will and Grace find themselves in situations that are comedic. This is situation comedy.

Tonight Will is caught out and Grace’s dishonest attempts to avoid jury service lead her into a terrible web of deceit.

If this were a typical English comedy, say one written by Frank Skinner and starring David Baddiel and someone who used to be in Hollyoaks, we could all imagine the plot in seconds.

But it’s not and we have to actually watch Will and Grace to see the comedy develop. Watch it tonight on Channel 4 at 9pm.

‘

Posted: 1st, August 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Young, Posh And Stupid

‘IT beggars belief that anyone would sign up for a programme called Young, Posh And Loaded in the first place – but, having been attacked in a nightclub after your first appearance, why on earth would you want to come back for more.

‘They don’t know about my crew’

But back she is – fledgling ‘It’ girl Donatella Panayiotou – and this time she’s desperate to break into TV.

So it seems is every young girl between 12 and 25, but Donatella’s sights are firmly set on Chelsea TV. The only trouble is that what she knows even less about football than she does about driving.

Then again, she did get given a £45,000 Mini for failing her driving test – and the only reason why her singing career never took off was because the publicity pictures weren’t up to standard.

Spared a reprise of last week’s embarrassment in which Tory minister Jonathan Aitken’s daughter Victoria attempted to show that posh girls can rap too, we are instead treated to Lord Raj.

This week, the Essex multi-millionaire takes up shooting and tries to decide which of the nine bedrooms of his mansion he is going to sleep in tonight…

‘

Posted: 31st, July 2003 | In: Celebrities | Comment