All New Shooting Stars
The once yawning gap between the peerless silliness of Reeves and Mortimer and their obvious antecedents Morecambe and Wise is closing fast: the first episode of Shooting Stars went out fifteen years ago, which is nearly half as long ago as the 28-million viewer everest of the 1977 Christmas Show (if you get a move on you might still catch Paul Merton’s excellent tribute to M&W here). And in those fifteen years they’ve got closer in other ways too.
Even this brand new show—which preserves the format of the original unchanged—now seems as innocent as an Ernie Wise play—in comparison, I suppose, to the rest of contemporary TV comedy—which needs to be ‘edgier’. In this rather melancholy documentary about Shooting Stars it’s clear that the BBC executives who commissioned the show back then really did hope they were investing in the new Eric and Ernie. It didn’t really work out - they’re still a minority taste (and half the population will never sit down to watch the same show ever again). I wonder if it still could.
Crooked House
This is only available for a couple more days but it’s worth it. BBC4 gives us a reminder that you don’t need a big budget to frighten your audience, however jaded by CGI they may be. In this spooky drama by Mark Gatiss there are hardly any special effects, just a clever script and your imagination.
At first this seems just an entertaining throwback to those portmanteau films that stuck a few ghost tales together, added some kind of sinister, squinting narrator and hoped for the best – but the modern story that links everything together here turns out to be properly terrifying.
Can’t say much more without spoiling it – just watch it quick, and don’t answer that knock at the door…
Sighthill Stories
I posted a message on Twitter the other day (feel free to follow me, I’m @clara_mac) saying that anyone who worked in education not moved by this film should leave the profession, now. I stand by that, but Sighthill Stories is more than a film about a school. It’s about communities and change - but it’s never po-faced or worthy. That’s because the kids tell the stories. And these kids have stories to tell.
I must have watched this programme about four times now, partly because it’s brilliant and partly because it expires on Wednesday (grrr…). I know it’s short notice, but do yourselves a favour and download it, especially those readers not in Scotland, who will probably never have the chance to see it. I really hope that it does get shown again on network telly for everyone to enjoy, because every town will have stories like this - I’m just glad that Glasgow had the chance to tell theirs in such a wonderful way.
Between the Lines - Railways in Fiction and Film
Only two days left. Watch it. Quick! (Thanks Matt)
Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe
Brooker takes a week off from putting the boot into TV inanity to interview five top TV writers—the writers of shows like Doctor Who, Shameless, Hustle, The IT Crowd and Peep Show—about writing. How they got into it, how they get going in the morning, how they come up with characters and names and so on.
Brooker’s respectful—even humble—with the writers and, in turn, they’re frank and disarmingly modest about the process: about the endless cups of tea and the fear and the drudgery of the first draft but also about the elation of seeing the finished product and the compulsion to write.
It’s really inspiring TV and, for anyone who’s ever attempted to write anything (and that’s, like, everyone now, right?), it’s really encouraging and of genuine practical use. I know for certain that professors of creative writing everywhere will be pirating this wholesale so they can put the video on and nip out for a smoke without feeling guilty. Absolutely superb TV.
London to Brighton in four minutes
A TV classic, these little films pop up on BBC4 from time to time, in far better quality than the youtube versions. Good to see iplayer access for them.
Outnumbered
I don’t agree with Rod Liddle about much but his views of the the first series of Outnumbered
“An exquisitely middle-class, middle-aged domestic situation comedy set in north London – maybe Crouch End or Tufnell Park – and starring one of those bloody stand-up comics who now festoons every network, it really should be hated before it is even seen…but Outnumbered is very funny indeed: despite its current bout of self-flagellation, the BBC still knows how to make people laugh”
pretty much nails it. Just look at the screen grab above for confirmation of the former.
The set up for this episode which is about parents struggling with the outcomes of banning their kids from using the TV and computers on a Sunday. “Spongebob is educational because it tells you how to make crabby patties and what goes on under the seas” pleads the youngest daughter when its taken away wasn’t far off my ludicrous attempts to impose a weekday Wii ban. I mean what’s the bloody point ?
The kids especially Daniel Roche who plays 8 year old Ben are astonishing, I can’t quite bring myself to take my eyes of Clare Skinner (Life is Sweet scarred me for life), and incredibly you might even warm to the sympathetic portrait of a confused 40something parent by Hugh “Now Show” Dennis.
Best sitcom of the year, alongside the underrated The Cup and Gavin and Stacey of course.
* This is one of those “stacked” series on iPlayer so if you’ve missed em you can go back and watch episodes 1 and 2 as they’re available longer than just yer 7 days.
Infra
A TV show called “The Royal Ballet World Premiere” is going to be a hard sell for a lot of people, but there’s far more to this than you might think. Sure, it’s based around a piece of contemporary dance, shown in full, but the first half hour shows how it was created - a collaboration between choreographer Wayne McGregor, artist Julian Opie, and composer Max Richter.
It’s amazing to see how quickly (and how late) the elements are put together, with items still being changed 4 days before the premiere. It’s also nice to see some of the supporting artists, and seeing how they work - the lighting designer, the choreologist (and the first time I’ve seen Laban notation being used). Everyone’s so passionate about their professions, and how they all come together to make something new, and special.
In terms of the choreography, there’s something interesting in how a vocabulary of movement is first developed with the dancers - who aren’t used to working with such an evolving piece, nor are used to this range of movements. Wayne McGregor is interested in their muscle memory - as ballet dancers, they’re etched with the previous works they’ve performed, and so the piece is more balletic than I’ve seen in a lot of contemporary dance.
Shopping for England
What a lovely, fascinating, useful programme. Proper scholarship (from Mica Nava, a clever historian who was once, in the distant past, my boss for a short while), great stories and really interesting and relevant insights into the translation of Britain from 19th Century manufacturing powerhouse into 20th Century shopaholic paradise.
The two big names featured were both Americans but, between then, transformed Britain: FW Woolworth and Gordon Selfridge. The sad part is that Selfridge lost everything and died a bitter onlooker and Woolworth’s, already long gone in the US, looks like it’s about to do the same here, which makes me wonder what’s going to happen to the amazing Woolworth Archive featured in the programme (and to its passionate honorary archivist, Paul Seaton, who is an IT manager at the firm).
Puffin Island
Puffins are brilliant. They live up to their nickname of the clowns of the sea: I think they might even beat toucans and penguins to top comical bird status. It’s impossible to watch them here – bobbing on the waves, zooming about underwater, enjoying a clifftop party – without a smile on your face. That’s really all the reason you need to watch this ten-minute documentary about a puffin colony on Skomer Island off the Pembrokeshire coast – which is just as well, because the “humorous” narration is pretty tiresome. Still, we do learn some vital puffin facts: for instance, their offspring are called pufflings, and they sneak into rabbit warrens because they can’t be bothered to dig their own burrows. Funny and clever.
