Frankie Howerd: Rather You Than Me
Rather like Morecambe and Wise (after their first BBC series) and Bruce Forsyth (before he got the Generation Game gig in 1971) its hard to imagine Frankie Howerd as ever being on his showbiz uppers. In the early sixties though, despairing of his closet homosexuality and lack of work he was thinking of packing it [...]
The Curse of Steptoe
Taking its cue from the 2002 C4 documentary; When Steptoe met Son and buying completely into the notion that Brambell and Corbett were as trapped/typecast and tragic on screen as off, this BBC4 biopic was a great hour of misery. Corbett never ever managing to fulfill his promising pre steptoe career as a talented stage [...]
Gavin and Stacey – Season 2, Episode 1
Well this is effectively a modern “Bob and Thelma” following the same classic UK sitcom wedding arc. Smiffy and Gavin (and Bryn) explore male friendship just as effectively as Bob and Terry. James Corden and Ruth Jones get all the best lines, probably because they wrote them. However, jokes about badminton lessons, the Elm Lodge [...]
Budget 2008: Statement by the Chancellor
Its hardly Alistair Cooke or AJP Taylor but the rarity of a full 5 minutes of prime time TV being filled with a middle aged man simply talking straight to camera with *nothing* else, had me reeling slightly. There’s a strange graphic of the red box opening and closing this annual tradition but the simplicity [...]
This Week
Only mentioned because in some crazed tribute to Modern Review; the guest list for this weeks show is Jade Goody, Martin Amis and Simon Mayo. Goody, who does a fair stab at holding her own with Andrew Neil, is trying to convince us that binge drinking is very very bad. Amis, for some reason is [...]
