BLOGS
Gory dramas
- Posted at 1:30pm
- 26 November 2008
- by AlisonGraham-RT
Pass me that gown and those wellingtons will you, please, I'm about to watch some telly. While you're at it, a pair of goggles might not go amiss. How about protecting the living room carpet with a few old newspapers? And some plastic sheeting on the sofa, maybe?
I'm making a fuss, because watching mainstream dramas recently has had what I can only describe as a certain abattoir dimension. Blood, dear readers, is everywhere. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that, but when did things get so very, very gory, with extreme, graphic, gagging violence?
No...
Stay in for X Factor, Lead Balloon and more…
- Posted at 5:30pm
- 21 November 2008
- by AlisonGraham-RT
I've developed a minor fixation with the X Factor choreographer Brian Friedman, the man with the impeccable eyebrows and the assiduously tended beard-ette; the man who doesn't have a good word to say for anyone.
In those little video inserts in every show, Brian is very fond of conjuring up doom-laden scenarios for the ill-dressed X Factor contestants before they come pattering on to the stage. "If Daniel/Rachel/JLS/whoever loses confidence, they will fall headfirst into a vat of boiling oil/spiral into the deepest pits of Hell/be dragged across hot coals by evil elves."
It's...
Spooks v Little Dorrit
- Posted at 1:35pm
- 13 November 2008
- by AlisonGraham-RT
Recently, and rather regretfully, I expressed to a close colleague my lack of interest in Little Dorrit. Not because there's anything wrong with Little Dorrit, but because I'm not a Charles Dickens fan either in print or on television. I had the same problem with the much-lauded Bleak House adaptation.
This is possibly down to a formative brush with the indigestible Hard Times, which after the third reading made me want to go out and buy a mill to exploit the lower classes just as soon as I could afford my first loom.
After making...
The Bill's DCI Jack Meadows
- Posted at 1:10pm
- 05 November 2008
- by AlisonGraham-RT
I realise that confessing to My Secret TV Crush means that it will be My Secret TV Crush no longer. But The Bill's 25th birthday would seem to offer the perfect time for me to step daintily into the limelight to declare my devotion to Detective Chief Inspector Jack Meadows.
Of course, I must make it clear that Meadows doesn't come close to The One, that most perfect of men, Scott from Thunderbirds (I'm still here, Scott, just waiting for you to call). But, until the glorious day when I seize the overnight bag I've...
A Touch of Frost
- Posted at 5:20pm
- 23 October 2008
- by AlisonGraham-RT
We're all doomed. Nothing to do with the global financial meltdown, but with Kerry Katona. The gurning former Atomic Kitten, who appears to labour under the illusion that she's a much-loved public figure, is currently screeching her way through her latest TV ad campaign for a certain frozen food supermarket chain.
With her "friend", the shrieking Katona is seen lurching through the serried ranks of mega-freezers, both alighting gleefully on new products. And - this is the point where the world tilts off its axis - her friend picks up a box and announces, "Look, this is new:...
Little Britain USA
- Posted at 4:05pm
- 16 October 2008
- by AlisonGraham-RT
Can you hear that sound? It's the final nails being hammered into the coffin of Little Britain with the truly dismal Little Britain USA.
It's pitiful stuff, something I say more in sorrow than in anger (though I am a little bit angry). I've loved Little Britain since it began life on Radio 4 and the first BBC TV series remains one of my all-time comedy favourites, a treasure-trove of fantastic characters and some brilliant catchphrases. So thank you, Matt Lucas and David Walliams.
But it's instructive to look at the progression of Little...
Twiggy's Frock Exchange
- Posted at 3:50pm
- 09 October 2008
- by AlisonGraham-RT
I'll start this week's column with an admission - there's a strong chance I missed quite a bit of Twiggy's Frock Exchange (Tuesday 7 October, 8:00pm, BBC2) because I had my fingers in my ears AND my hands over my eyes.
It was a painful and excruciating hour of witlessness that made me embarrassed for womankind. I wouldn't blame a single man watching for thinking that we are all squealing ninnies who would lop off an ear lobe for a chance to own a Matthew Williamson dress.
Mr Williamson himself actually appeared on the show, during...
Inspector Morse
- Posted at 2:27pm
- 25 September 2008
- by AlisonGraham-RT
You have to hand it to the people at ITV3 - they've taken their inestimable back catalogue of aged detective dramas, and fashioned a whole "season" out of them. And just in case you think they've got a nerve in bombarding us with creaky whodunnits for no particular reason, the channel shoehorns in that magical word "awards" to make it appear just a wee bit more shiny and up to date.
Actually, I'm being mean here, because the Crime Thriller Awards season (Mondays, ITV3) is great fun if you're a crime nerd like me. I can...
Place of Execution
- Posted at 6:15pm
- 18 September 2008
- by AlisonGraham-RT
I don't have any time for people who witter on about there never being "anything worth watching" on the telly. The statement itself is rubbish and what makes it worse is that it's generally uttered by bores who add the all-important rider: "…apart from Newsnight and The West Wing. Oh, and I LOVE The Sopranos. And have you seen The Wire - it's brilliant…"
What they are really saying here is "push off, peasants, watch your soaps and your X Factor and your Strictly Come Dancing. I am...
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
- Posted at 5:25pm
- 11 September 2008
- by AlisonGraham-RT
My school years left me with many varied legacies, including an almost pathological adoration for clean, fresh stationery (ah, the smell of a crisp new notebook!) and passionate dislikes of turnip, cauliflower, prunes, cheese sauce and Thomas Hardy.
The latter really wasn't Hardy's fault, but being force-fed Far from the Madding Crowd at 14 just wasn't a good idea. Its many layers and subtle nuances were lost on a group of restive teens in an unpleasant comprehensive in a nasty part of northern England. The tale of a bucolic romance involving a manipulative beauty and her inability to...
The Children
- Posted at 11:50am
- 05 September 2008
- by AlisonGraham-RT
An awful lot of attention has been focused on Lost in Austen, ITV1's middling fantasy drama about a 21st-century woman who steps through her bathroom door into her favourite novel, Pride and Prejudice.
Not that there's anything bad about Lost in Austen - it's frothy and has some smart lines, but it's a bit "meh" as Americans say, and it's obvious a mass audience hasn't been won over: viewing figures for Thursday's first episode weren't terribly good at 3.8 million (though Lost in Austen has the misfortune to be placed bang up against the BBC1 juggernaut...
Mutual Friends
- Posted at 12:25pm
- 29 August 2008
- by AlisonGraham-RT
I've spoken to quite a few people, friends and colleagues, about Mutual Friends (BBC1, 9:00pm, Tuesdays). Not that there's anything particularly odd about this, as of course we talk about telly most of the time. But what has marked out my Mutual Friends conversations is that none of them has been instigated by me. Rather, people have sought me out to ask if a) I'd watched it and b) whether I'd enjoyed it before letting me in on their thoughts.
For the record, I think Mutual Friends is a strange mixture - it's not quite a drama,...
Curtain down
- Posted at 5:00pm
- 21 August 2008
- by AlisonGraham-RT
It's my favourite ever scene in the wonderful Channel 4 comedy series Peep Show, and it involves flatmates Mark and Jeremy's increasingly desperate boredom as they sit through a performance at the theatre:
Jeremy (yearning to escape): "When do we get to go out?"
Mark (equally restless): "As far as I can make out we get to go out for a bit in an hour, then we have to come back for two hours."
Jeremy: "You're kidding! I think I'll die."
Mark: "If this was on television, nobody would be watching."
Jeremy: "Oh...
The Tudors
- Posted at 5:15pm
- 14 August 2008
- by AlisonGraham-RT
Call me shallow but I love The Tudors, not for the mucky bits, of which there are many, but for the jewellery. There's a crown Queen Anne wears that I really, really want. It's a pearl-laden thing of beauty; of course I have no particular use for a crown, but the sheer joy of ownership would be immense.
And I was in raptures as the unfortunate Catherine of Aragon (Maria Doyle Kennedy), who has done little except look glum in a series of big hats, was ordered by Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) to return...
Harley Street
- Posted at 3:30pm
- 07 August 2008
- by AlisonGraham-RT
Every once in a while the RT Bonekickers Re-enactment Society takes a little break. We have to, for the sake of our sanity. There are only so many times we can run around the office, pretending it's a secret tunnel, while breaking off to exchange choice bits of dialogue. (Sadly, health and safety regulations currently forbid us from pursuing our devotion to its logical conclusion - carelessly setting fire to precious artefacts).
I'm president of the society, so I get to choose said dialogue, and my favourite line so far (and, let's face it, there's an embarrassment...
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