TV & Radio Category
Television and radio programme reviews, trailers, highlights, twilights and cinema news. Also the neglected gems from years past.
Big Brother Talent Spotting
“BIG Brother signs up Jade again,” says the Sun.
But – wait a mo – this Jade is not Jade Hoody but Jade Eden.
She is one of the housemates who have, as the Mirror notes, “excelled in the world of sport, arts, music and politics”.
Two of the contestants list their talent as “circus act”. One, Liam, has a talent for “business”. Jade’s talent is that she is a “beauty queen”.
Where is the real talent, you cry?
Where is the callow youth who can find a public toilet?
Where is the young woman who can play tennis and date Cliff Richard?
Where is the musician who can play the spoons – both sorts?
Where is the writer of the UK’s first Pet soap opera?
Where is the UK’s new Dame Vera Lynn?
Posted: 3rd, January 2008 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment (1)
Big Brother Celebrity Hijack
“CELEB BIG BRO CRISIS.”
The Daily Star’s Tabloid New Generator comes up with a story. News is that the new Big Brother series is in “meltdown”. (See Big Brother in chaos.)
This year’s show is called Celebrity Hijack. It features a dozen agonists, “who each have an exceptional talent”. As do we all.
The talent is cajoled by Big Brothers, celebrities of the caliber of Joan Rivers, Christine Hamilton and John McCririck.
The front-page “fear” is that the celebrities will be more entertaining than the contestants.
But such things are best left unplanned.
Indeed, the Star’s headline generator may care to invert the headline and fret about the celebrities being as unentertaining as the contestants…
Posted: 31st, December 2007 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (2)
Catholic Tony Blair’s Private Life, A Mass Of News
TONY Blair has converted to Roman Catholicism. “Why now,” asks the BBC’s 10’clock news?
Firstly, says the reporter, “Anything in the prime minister’s life can cause huge attention, huge fuss and Tony Blair wanted to avoid that”
Tony Blair converts is the lead news item on the TV news; “Tony Blair joins Catholic Church” is the lead item on the BBC news website.
So why did he convert now..?
Posted: 22nd, December 2007 | In: Politicians, TV & Radio | Comments (29)
John Darwin: Live From Panama City
JOHN Darwin is the lead story on the BBC’s 6 o’clock news bulletin.
That the story of a man who claims to have no memory of the past five years is the main news item is testament to this country’s media.
The BBC’s Duncan Kennedy is live from Panama City, where Mr Darwin’s widow now lives.
“We’ve only just arrived ourselves,” says Mr Kennedy live from Panama City.
And of Mrs Darwin? Says Kennedy live from the scene: “We don’t know her exact location tonight.” He tells us that she “may be with friends”.
More live news later…
John Darwin is missing here and haunting here
Posted: 5th, December 2007 | In: TV & Radio | Comment (1)
Gemma Atkinson Lock Lips In The Celebrity Jungle
NEWS that the Daily Star is among the tens of people still watching goings on in the I’m A Celebrity jungle reaches the paper’s front page.
“JUNGLE GEMMA’S LESBIAN SHOCKER,” says the paper. “And it’s all caught on camera.”
Chances are this encounter occurred at night, and readers should expect grainy images similar to those that exposed pop acorn Peter Andre’s amour for Jordan.
But this is the full colour affair. Indeed, a film has been made of Gemma’s clinch with Jamie Winstone, daughter to “movie hardman” Ray Winstone.
Jaime is not in the jungle (that’s Chris Biggins) but she is in a new film with Gemma called Boogie Woogie. And in one scene Gemma and Jaime kiss.
“Afterwards I felt a bit ‘Ooww’ and when I got home I felt a bit abused,” says Gemma.
Catch Gemma on tonight’s show where she will be eating a crocodile’s penis and kangaroo’s testicles…
Posted: 21st, November 2007 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (3)
You Decide What A Big Brother Star Is Good For
CHANELLE Hayes is for hire. The Big Brother star emeritus will appear in a Star reader’s place of work for one whole day. Free.
“It’s bound to turn your mates green with envy if you walk in with the 20-year-old beauty on your arm,” says the paper. And greener still when you invite her to sit down at your work pod, log her into your PC put her typing, filing and tea-making skills to the test.
Chanelle is advised to give this on-the-job training scheme her all, and help to answer the question: What is a reality TV star good for?
Your suggestions please. Best reply wins Chanelle, or cash equivalent…
Posted: 15th, November 2007 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (5)
Blue Peter’s Little Luvvies Are BBC Winners
“BLUE PETER USES CHILD ACTORS FOR ‘WINNERS’,” announces the Sun. “Blue Peter…plunged into a new scandal.”
Stage-school mums will be keen to point out that child actors are winners, by definition. And if they are to be the new Michael Barrymore, Jordan or Billie Piper, they have to begin somewhere.
And what more fitting place than the revamped Blue Peter sofa where the little luvvies are chatting with TV impressionist Jon Culshaw.
Viewers had been invited to enter a contest – pull a face to look like a Frank Spencer – and earn the right to meet Culshaw. But one winner noticed that two of the others were from drama agency, doubtless recognising them from crowd shorts of Ready Steady Cook and the BBC’s news bulletin “Life in Darfur”.
A Blue Peter spokesman says staff would be sent on a “trust course”.
But we admire their thinking outside the box and marvel at how the programme makers invited children to pretend to be winner in a contest to meet a man who pretends to be Tony Blair.
Posted: 9th, November 2007 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (3)
Feeling For Gemma Atkinson And Janice In The Celebrity Jungle
WITH just three days to find out who Gemma Atkinson is, the Star once more features the I’m A Celebrity agonist on its cover page.
“GEMMA I WANT FUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE,” announces the front-page headline as Gemma gamely invites the blind and partially sighted to see if they can identity her by the power of touch.
“After eating croc willy Gemma will be up for nookie!” says the Star. Such is the way of celebrity that Gemma Atkinson’s personal life is now the stuff of tabloid sensation, and many would prefer not to know.
But the Star is fearless in its pursuit of truth. As is the reliable Daily Sport, which leads with “WE FIND BLOKE WHO JANICE HASN’T BONKED.”
Janice is I’m A Celebrity’s Janice Dickinson, Coronation Street’s goby seamstress.
“BUSHF#@%ER MORE LIKE!,” says the Sport’s headline approvingly. “Sex mad Janice will chew ‘em up and spit ‘em out.” As we say, she’s the goby one…
Posted: 9th, November 2007 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Here: A Tabloid Guessing Game
I’M A Celebrity Get Me Out Here is all set to begin. And the Sun issues a challenge to budding tabloid writers: Can you name all of the celebrities?
The paper’s front page is a forest of faces, some almost familiar, some less so.
Jobbing Chris Biggins is easy to spot, although if he were to remove his feature glasses, there is no small chance he would look like “John Burton Race” or “Katie Hopkins”. And is “John Burton Race” the infamous provincial solicitors practice, the one forever locked in a bitter war for local business with “Anna Ryder Richardson”?
Fred Fairbass or Craig Fairbass. Is Marc Bannerman the celebrity chef, for surely there must be one in the group?
As ever with the tabloids, when one organ dares try the different, another should spoil it. And the Mirror leads with news of the “secret” I’m A Celebrity line—up.
There are pictures of the “CELEBS”. And looking through the faces and biogs we realise that these can’t be the real contestants, but mere stooges, part of a PR stunt to make the genuine celebrities appear, well, genuine when they swing into the jungle.
Janice Dicksinson? Ingrid Tarrant? As if…
Posted: 8th, November 2007 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (12)
I’m A Celebrity…Get Me In: New Celeb Show Starts Soon
ANORAK is always on the look-out for the latest celebrity, and await the onset of TV’s I’m A Celebrity..Get Me Out Of Here! with great excitement.
Becoming the face of own-brand supermarket ketchup is not for the faint of heart and the Star leads its news review with: “JUNGLE VICE GIRLS SHOCK – Celeb hooker joins Ant & Dec.”
Ant (left) & Dec (right) are the show’s presenters. And the vice girl is a “busty blonde” who once took part in a “mile-high romp with a Harry Potter star”.
She’s called Lisa Robertson, and is known to Ralph Fiennes as the stewardess-cum-prostitute with whom he inspected the Qantas in-flight facilities.
Ms Robertson is said to be in “frantic” discussions to feature on the show. Although her presence could give lie to the notion that the celebs are roughing it and not enjoying some pampering when the cameras are switched to manual…
Posted: 7th, November 2007 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
Big Brother’s Chanelle Is A Hit
“CHANNELLE BOTTLED IN CLUB ATTACK,” announces the Star’s front-page headline. “BB babe run for her life”.
“I was terrified I was going to be blinded,” say Chanelle Hayes, slightly sweaty from her appearance Jumpin Jak’s, one of Halifax’s premier nightspots (VIP Q-Jump for Hen Parties). She is on stage. A bottle is thrown from the crowd.
Chanelle escapes. But she is prepared, dressed in clean knickers (first pink, then black). Whether hit by a bottle or a bus, Chanelle will be able to maintain the standards she has set herself…
Posted: 30th, October 2007 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment (1)
Big Brother’s Chanelle Hayes Aims For The Tops
BIG Brother’s Chanelle Hayes has a question she’d like to ask Daily Star readers: “Wanna see my boobs on Page 3?”
The puzzler appears on the Star’s cover, and feature Chanelle dressed in a blue bikini and stood in water. Her fingers are grappling with the sides of her briefs, suggesting that the wrong answer will see them pulled down.
The Star does not do that kind of thing, only topless shots. A bottomless Chanelle has more chance of appearing in less family publications and medical journals.
In any case, her question is undone by the front-page news of a Chanelle “EXCLUSIVE” on the paper’s Page 38. As most Star readers know ‘38’ is a number different to ‘3’. It is more. And to emphasise this we turn past a picture of topless Sophie and Malene on Page 3 to Page 38, whereon a knickers and bra-clad Chanelle tells us: “My new boobs will be fit for Page 3.”
The Star then asks its readers to vote on: “Should Chanelle pose on page 3.” The implication is that Chanelle will only be fit for Page 3 after her breast augmentation, for which plastic surgeons are “lining up”.
So don’t vote now, dear reader. Keep your powders dry. Wait until Chanelle is fit for purpose and then vote. And vote often…
Posted: 25th, October 2007 | In: TV & Radio | Comments (3)
JK Rowling: Dumbledore Is Gay – Harry Potter Unsure
BIG news on the BBC: “Dumbledore is gay,” says JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books.
“The audience gasped, then applauded, ” notes the BBC. Says Rowling: “I would have told you earlier if I knew it would make you so happy. Falling in love can blind us to an extent.” Dumbledore was “horribly, terribly let down” and his love for Grindelwald was his “great tragedy”.
Gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell repsonds: “It’s good that children’s literature includes the reality of gay people, since we exist in every society. But I am disappointed that she did not make Dumbledore’s sexuality explicit in the Harry Potter book. Making it obvious would have sent a much more powerful message of understanding and acceptance.”
How true. If we can have adults reading children’s books in public, then why not a fictional gay wizard? It’s groundbreaking. (Dumbeldore’s Iranian roots are well documented.)
A spokesman for gay rights group Stonewall adds: “It’s great that JK has said this. It shows that there’s no limit to what gay and lesbian people can do, even being a wizard headmaster.”
But not a real gay headmater. That would be disgusting…
Posted: 20th, October 2007 | In: TV & Radio | Comments (25)
Chanelle Hayes 1: Victoria Beckham 2
CHANELLE Hayes is preparing to tell Star readers about her fight with “SMELLY Victoria Beckham.
The Big Brother star emeritus is getting ready. We see her dressed only in her knickers and bra (matching) and pulling up a pair of fishnet stockings.
Inside, spread over the Star’s centre-crease, Chanelle is “Chanelle No.1”. She is launching her own perfume. Called Simply Chanelle, the scent features top notes of used hankie, fresh tissue and bottom notes of out-the-box PVC.
“I’m really pleased with it,” says Chanelle. “I chose the name and chose loads and loads of different samples.”
And, of course, Chanelle hopes she will beat smelly’ Posh’s own signature odour. The two women look a little alike, and it is hoped that the addition of branded scents will help one and all differentiate between the two. And stop David Beckham from making a terrible mistake…
Posted: 11th, October 2007 | In: Celebrities, Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (15)
Tabloid Quote Of the Day: EastEnders
SAYS executive producer Dierderick Santer in the Mirror: “There was a phase in EastEnders when it became a bit too accelerated and bit unbelievable.” Yeah, a bit unbelievable…
Posted: 9th, October 2007 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (3)
Unforgivable: Oh For The Smell Of P Diddy
WHAT does P Diddy smell like? Clue: the P stands for..?
14 says: Diddy recently launched Unforgivable, his new fragrance for women.
Ads featuring Doodles Diddy biting, pawing and groping attractive young women caused so much controversy that even MTV refused to air the racy TV commercial unless Diddy agreed to make edits to tone it down.
Of course, Diddy refused. No one tells Diddy what to do.
The toothy mogul mumbled something about the type of women he had in mind when he “created” the fragrance. “She’s strong, she’s into fashion, a woman who’s sensual and passionate, and a quiet woman. A woman who picks the words she chooses carefully, and when she speaks she says what she means.”
Interesting how Diddy goes to so much trouble describing the way he prefers women to communicate. I can just hear him, “Shhh, quiet down ‘lil lady. Here’s some money, why don’t you go shopping for something sexy and when you come home, I’ll grope you in the hallway. Run along now, and don’t come home until you’ve piped down.”
Diddy has built his empire around one main thing: Diddy.
Posted: 8th, October 2007 | In: Celebrities, TV & Radio | Comments (2)
Strictly Come Dancing: In For A Penny
STRICTLY Come Dancing contestant Penny Lancaster is in the Sun.
“We hope there will be another one,” says Penny. “We’re planning on it and hopefully after Strictly Come Dancing we’ll start trying again.”
The BBC’s leading pro-celebrity ballroom show is set to run for a number of weeks, giving Penny’s husband Rod Stewart ample time to get himself in shape for the big push.
“I’m happy to wait until next year to try for a baby,” says Penny. “My aim is to get all the way to the end of Strictly Come Dancing so I can learn all the routines.”
Rod is in the hearing aid beige years and having sired many children may well need a new angle, something Penny’s rumba may provide…
Posted: 4th, October 2007 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (2)
GMTV Fined And Makes Challenging TV
“GMTV has been fined £2million for cheating its viewers out of £20million,” says the Sun.
Is this?
a) Good value
b) France
c) Kerry Katona
Don’t, bother calling in because GMTV has removed all premium rate services from its broadcasts.
The show’s creatives have been working overtime to dream up a filler to replace the popular phone-in slot.
As a result we can exclusively reveal that viewers are invited to count the hair on presenter Andrew Castle’s top lip and, in the interests of fairness, extend the same courtesy of his co-host Fiona Phillips.
The best answers go into tie-breaker with the winner working out how much money GMTV made from its “PHONE-IN FIX” (winners were picked before the lines had closed) given that around 25million callers, paying up to £1.80 a time, had no chance of winning. And that 130,000 viewers have had their money refunded.
Get counting now…
Posted: 27th, September 2007 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (7)
Big Brother’s Chanelle Hayes Stalks The Stalk On MySpace
BIG Brother’s Chanelle Hayes is fearful, as the Star reports in “MY CYBER STALKER TERROR”.
But Chanelle will not be cowed by one lone manic who not only logs onto her MySpace page but posts messages up to ten times a day.
Here she is in the national press, wearing a shiny top of a material usually reserved for bed covers in seaside boarding houses. One hand is on her hip. Her chest is pushed out further. She is defiant.
But she has hired a minder, in case the stalker takes things a step further and posts 11 or even 12 messages on her weblog.
And it might get worse. As a source says: “Even in Los Angeles, Chanelle had several blokes who started following her every move.”
Thankfully, these men did her no harm, and most have been traced to the photographic department of the Star newspaper.
But you can never be too careful…
Posted: 25th, September 2007 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comment
Ross Kemp’s Gangs: Cavernous Underpants And A Nine
ROSS Kemp is still hard. Kemp, the estranged Mr Rebekah Wade, Sun editor, is the presenter of Sky TV’s Gangs.
And today Kemp’s been given two pages to say in his own words just how hard these gangs are.
“The Mask Man reached into his underpants and pulled out a Colt .45,” leers the headline.
That’s some weapon. Kemp is impressed. Hard not to be.
In his search for hard men, Ross has met rapists, murderers and assassins. He has found himself sharing a beer with a multiple murderer.
“In St. Louis, US, I met this very big, scary guy wearing a frightening plastic mask.”
Who is the masked man? And is he hard?
“Dark, angry eyes gleamed through elongated slits that curled up and back into a teardrop shape,” says Kemp. “He looked both sinister and surreal, a figure from a horror movie involving chainsaws.”
He has a chainsaw down his pants, as well. Now that is hard. It might even be stupid.
Kemp calls this masked man Mask Man. The man in the mask reaches into “cavernous underpants” and pulls out “my nine”.
Ross is impressed. He has seen all manner of hard men. But this is something else. Mask Man works the slide and chamber and “cocked” the hammer.
“Mask Man reached down into the vast and roomy reaches of his underpants yet again and this time drew out a round block of brown heroin about the size of a pub ashtray.”
Ross considers the lump. “I’m no expert,” he says, “but I suspect this was a real bargain.”
“Your nine’s your best friend, man,” says the Mask Man’s sidekick, known as Scarf Man, for reasons that need little explanation.
He says he has “bigger toys”.
Ross Kemp is hard.
Posted: 18th, September 2007 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (8)
Rupert Murdoch’s Gangs: Ross Kemp And Rebekah Wade
ROSS Kemp is a hard man who likes to hang out with other hard men. These are hard men. They may ever get harder when they have met with Kemp.
“Ross Kemp operates at 100% efficiency,” says one Ross Kemp website. “Ross Kemp believes all forms of transportation should have tank tracks in order to be effective.” And “Ross Kemp is unable to remember or pronounce the word ‘fear’.”
It may be the truth. It may not be. It’s hard to know where truth and fiction diverge in Ross Kemp’s life. Hard. Like Ross.
Ross is married to Rebekah Wade, the Sun’s editor. And in keeping with the masses, Ross is known to appear in the paper.
Today, Ross is in a piece entitled: “A kid stuck and AK47 in my face while high on drugs.”
This is truth. This is the hard truth. The Sun’s Oliver Harvey says the gun was so close to Kemp’s snout he could “smell the metal”.
Before Kemp is a bevy of Brazilian gangsters. They are high on cocaine. “Scared?” says Kemp.” Of course I was.”
Scared what you’d do to them, eh Ross, who met the gang not in a parking lot in Elstree but in Rio de Janeiro. Brazil.
This is all part of Kemp’s Gangs TV series. You can see it on Sky One, the channel owned by Rupert Murdoch, who owns the Sun, who employs Rebekah Wade, who is married to Kemp. Such is the way of the news.
Gangs is the show in which Kemp goes around the world looking for trouble.
Says Kemp: “I’ve had more experience in the past four years meeting these gang members than I did in ten years filming EastEnders. One’s a fake world and one’s real.”
And sometimes it can be hard to spot the difference. Really hard.
Posted: 17th, September 2007 | In: Tabloids, TV & Radio | Comments (6)
X-Rated X Factor
“THIS is gobsmacking.”
Words used by one “TV insider” in reaction to the news that Simon Cowell’s X Factor TV show is populated by “randy twin lads”.
Twins Jordan and Ryan are two parts of the band Ghostt.
They are said to have been dating two sisters from a girlband that also – get this – features on the X Factor.
Rightly this is front-page news. And the tin lid is placed squarely upon the scoop when we learn that when the boys swapped places Naomi and Leah had no idea.
Says a stunned Leah of Pop ensemble Chance Sisters: “I’m not denying anything. I was seeing Ryan and then Jordan started flirting with me and I didn’t realise it was him. He ended up staying the night. All I’ll say is that the twins are very difficult to tell apart.”
But nothing happened. the X-Factor keeps a clean house. The story goes that Ryan/Jordan arrived in Leah/Naomi’s room after he had heard screaming. She had seen a spider/locust. And he/she stayed for hours to chat and such.
“It’s quite funny really,” says Jordan/Leah/Noami/Ryan/Simon.
Indeed…
Posted: 10th, September 2007 | In: TV & Radio | Comment (1)
Big Brother Secret Sex Rooms
A “HIDDEN room” and a Big Brother “SEX SECRET”.
The Star operates at the vanguard of investigative journalism. And it has pictures.
We can now confirm as fact that Ziggy and Chanelle have partaken in “nights of red hot lust”.
And we can say with little doubt that Davina McCall has “arranged a steamy snog between winner Brian Belo and Amanda Marchant”.
Bit Brother now operates as mating rooms, reality TV’s joy division wherein wannabes can mingle with likeminded people and produce a generation of wide-mouthed, tit-jutting screamers.
Test tubes provided…
Posted: 5th, September 2007 | In: TV & Radio | Comment
American Idol: Jordin Sparks Controversy
AMERICAN Idol is over for another year. The tears, the joy, the talent and the, er, did we mention the tears?
But there is talk of a fix. Tabloid Baby investigates:
JORDIN Sparks is the new American Idol.
After a bloated two-hour show whose highlights included a performance by an 80-year-old man, a human beatbox duet, the indelible memory of Ruben Studdard singing “Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds”, and the lower half of Kelly Clarkson’s body, the questions this morning are whether Jordin, a 17-year-old Christian and anti-abortion crusader, will use her new role to spread her controversial agenda– and whether Idol producers played a little in-joke by having Jordin sing background on the Beatles’ “She’s Leaving Home”– a song about a girl sneaking out of the house to have an abortion.
And there will be debate today about whether Jordin’s victory was in the cards from the beginning, even before judge Randy Jackson predicted that the winner would have “curly hair.” We direct you to an article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that followed the Seattle audition episode– Jordin’s first appearance on Idol:
Seattle Post Intelligencer
January 19, 2007
On TV: Seattle’s ‘Idol’ auditions: Hurt so good
By MELANIE McFARLAND
P-I TELEVISION CRITIC
…”Idol,” in turn, gave us a young, bright, charismatic, pretty contestant who looks so much like the show’s idea of the total package that she could be a ringer….
…One shining star stood out: 16-year-old Jordin Sparks from Glendale, Ariz. She’s beautiful, has a smile that can light up L.A., and tore apart Celine Dion’s “Because You Love Me.”
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!
Seeing her is supposed to drive home the reason we keep running back to “Idol.” Young, ambitious and undiscovered, she embodies the dream of “Idol,” the idea that someone with small but bright embers of talent can, within the space of a few months, shoot from obscurity to superstardom.
Except that’s not exactly the case with this young woman.
Out of nowhere, Abdul says she recognizes Sparks’ name– and Sparks reveals she is the daughter of former New York Giants cornerback Phillippi Sparks. What a coinky-dink!
And that’s not all! Jordin Sparks has an exhaustive Wikipedia page, where you can find out interesting facts such as: She was the Coca-Cola Rising Star in 2002. Coca-Cola, of course, being “Idol’s” major sponsor. She also appeared in “America’s Most Talented Kids” in 2004, toured with Michael W. Smith and sang in Alice Cooper’s Christmas show. Winning “Arizona Idol” netted her a Ford Fusion and a trip to Seattle. Wonder if she had to wait in line?
Fix?
Posted: 25th, May 2007 | In: TV & Radio | Comments (3)
Anorak On Radio 4
I’M on Radio 4 in a moment, talking about Madeleine McCann and EastEnders. Who knew those two things were related? Tune in…
Listen here:
Posted: 23rd, May 2007 | In: TV & Radio | Comments (14)
