BLOGS
Why I Love...The Thick of It
- Posted at 4:05pm
- 20 October 2009
- by TomCole-RT
Armando Iannucci once explained the brilliance of Yes Minister: "[It was] more than a sitcom, it was a crash course in contemporary political studies - it opened the lid on the way the government really operated." The same could easily be said about his own political tour de force, The Thick of It, a manic exposition of the chaos and intrigue that are all part of modern day-to-day existence in Whitehall.
The Thick of It picks up where the political satires of the 1980s and 90s left off, to explore the relationships between ministers, their...
Why I Love...Curb Your Enthusiasm
- Posted at 4:35pm
- 13 October 2009
- by TomCole-RT
Picture this: you're at a Jewish dinner party toasting a couple renewing their wedding vows when suddenly an argument breaks out between two of the guests, one of whom is a decrepit octogenarian with a glass eye and the other a chiselled Californian-looking young man who's been droning on about himself for most of the meal.
The older gentleman, it turns out, is one of the lucky few to have escaped from Auschwitz with his life, while the younger fellow was a contestant on the reality TV series Survivor. For some inexplicable reason, the elder chap doesn't...
Why I Love...We Are Klang
- Posted at 3:50pm
- 27 August 2009
- by LauraPledger-RT
I want to talk to you about the Klangers. No, not the cute, knitted, whistling alien creatures. I mean the hapless staff of Klangbury Council.
For those of you who haven't seen their BBC3 show, allow me to set the scene. There's deputy mayor Greg (not-so-affectionately known as "Fat Gut Sparrow Legs"), played by an astonishingly tall actor with a mad gleam in his eye and an endearing tendency to corpse.
Marek, the goggle-eyed minister without portfolio - memorably described as looking like "a testicle on legs" - is frequently to be found clutching a soft toy of...
Why I Love...True Blood
- Posted at 5:55pm
- 20 July 2009
- by JackSeale-RT
They say you must learn the rules before you can break them. Alan Ball served his time writing Six Feet Under, a dry TV drama about how life is a long, slow rehearsal for death, and American Beauty, an achingly earnest film about middle-class angst. You'd expect his vampire drama to be pained, drained and pretentious.
It's not. True Blood is a lusty wade through our darkest desires; a salty mess where the supernatural mingles with explicit sex and violent death in the sultry Deep South; the sort of shamefully addictive titillation that's just what you...
Why I Love...The Backyardigans
- Posted at 1:20pm
- 15 April 2009
- by JackSeale-RT
A lot of kids' shows are clearly portrayals of mental visions, but the trips aren't always good. In the Night Garden viewers, for instance, suffer the ravings of Igglepiggle, a blue yeti adrift in the dark in a boat, whose hypothermic nightmare is to be trapped in a forest full of babbling freaks, struggling with an erratic transport system.
The Backyardigans (Nick Jr/TMF) is a brighter, hipper fantasy. Five computer-generated creatures hallucinate a cheery adventure, unconfined by time and space, until the munchies strike and they return home for a snack.
...Why I Love...Red Dwarf
- Posted at 4:04pm
- 06 April 2009
- by TomCole-RT
A long time ago (well, in 1988) on a sound stage far, far away, one of the funniest and most charming British sitcoms of all time was born. Yes, it's hard to believe that it's been more than 20 years since Red Dwarf first appeared, but 2009 sees the show's coming of age commemorated with the first official on-screen reunion since 1999.
I'm really excited by the prospect of watching some new Red Dwarf. Not because I've been anxiously awaiting the long-delayed motion picture (I haven't), but because it'll be great to see the show's...
Why I Love...The Big Match Revisited
- Posted at 5:50pm
- 24 February 2009
- by JackSeale-RT
The Big Match Revisited is merely a re-run of ITV's equivalent of Match of the Day from 30 years ago, shoved into ITV4's schedule as cheap archive filler. But it's an irresistible deluge of cute nostalgia, thrilling sport and charming unintentional comedy.
Assuming you can't remember 1979, the season we're currently reliving, you can enjoy games without knowing who wins - and savour a kind of football so different to today's that it could be from a foreign country where fancy dribbling is frowned on, cynical fouls and diving are rare, and organised...
Why I Love…Paul Merton in India
- Posted at 5:36pm
- 07 November 2008
- by TomLoxley-RT
Watching Paul Merton kick a man in the groin, combining the swift upstroke of a goose-stepping Basil Fawlty with the sort of profuse apologies offered by his wife Sybil, brought tears to my eyes. Of laughter.
What it did to the poor chap on the receiving end, goodness knows. Apart from confirm his near lunatic commitment to getting into the Guinness Book of Records by any means possible (and as the reigning holder of the "most kicks to the groin" record, clearly any means are acceptable these days to the record breakers' bible).
Merton is...
Why I Love...Horizon
- Posted at 4:50pm
- 04 November 2008
- by TomCole-RT
These days it's become par for the course for cultural commentators to get themselves into frightful strops about TV producers "dumbing down" their output and resorting to pumping out lowbrow dreck in order to claw in viewing figures. A good example of this phenomenon was the BBC's decision at the end of 2007 to reduce its in-house factual programme budgets - a move that went down like the proverbial lead balloon and had many broadsheet writers spluttering into their peppermint tea.
But the situation's not quite as bad as all that. True, programmes like BBC3's Me and My...
Why I Love...Natural Born Sellers
- Posted at 11:05am
- 08 October 2008
- by TomCole-RT
It's said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and if that's the case then the makers of The Apprentice have some very genuine fans in the people behind ITV1's Natural Born Sellers. To call Natural Born Sellers a cheap knock-off would be accurate, but it would also be doing the show an injustice. See, while The Apprentice has a bigger budget, better production values and Nick and Margaret, Natural Born Sellers has something extra: heart.
Initially, I wasn't too hopeful. Gone is the lavish pseudo-film stock of the Beeb's version. Gone is the fancy...
Why I Love...classic adaptations
- Posted at 4:20pm
- 18 September 2008
- by JacquelineWheeler-RT
Big books, big budgets, big productions. Adaptations of classic novels are probably better placed than any other type of screen drama to succeed, and in the months leading up to Christmas, there are always a couple nestling in the schedules.
This is because the English autumn, with its ancient and peculiar festivals, darkening evenings and foreboding skies is the perfect season for indulging in a bit of heavyweight literary escapism - ever so slightly lightened, of course, by the skilful cutting and trimming that takes 1,000 pages from print to screen.
These epic dramas are tautly...
Why I Love...Antiques Roadshow
- Posted at 3:47pm
- 01 September 2008
- by PaulJones-RT
Nice cup of tea? Hot buttered crumpet? Antiques Roadshow? Mmmm…don't mind if I do.
Yes, Antiques Roadshow is the epitome of Sunday-night cosiness. A toasty duvet of a television programme to wrap round yourself as the evenings draw in.
So why is the latest series being heralded by a TV trailer featuring sports cars and explosions, along with the implication that slinky new presenter Fiona Bruce is here to "sex up" the programme? What next, a breakbeat version of the theme tune?
I don't want Antiques Roadshow sexed up! I can't think of anything more inappropriate (well,...
Why I Love...Yes Minister
- Posted at 12:00pm
- 24 July 2008
- by TomCole-RT
"A sitcom," Chris Morris once said, "isn't usually the right tool for satire." Fair point, perhaps; after all, a show like My Family is about as sharp as a bag of marshmallows. But in the case of Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn's Yes Minister, we're dealing with a definite exception to that rule.
Yes Minister is not only a delight to watch but also a sharply observed, engaging and utterly iconoclastic look at the British political system. Instead of caricaturing the preposterous posturing that we're all privy to in the House of Commons, Yes Minister takes us behind...
Why I Love...Catherine Tate as Donna Noble
- Posted at 3:25pm
- 16 June 2008
- by LauraPledger-RT
I have to start by making a confession. I wasn't exactly chuffed when the news broke that Catherine Tate was to play the Doctor's new companion. Yes, I admit it, I joined countless other fans in a chorus of "What is Russell T Davies thinking?" I'd been unfortunate enough to catch a few minutes of Tate's comedy sketch show, and I couldn't see anything remotely funny about it. In Christmas special The Runaway Bride, I found her character, Donna Noble, brash, mouthy and annoying.
But as series four of Doctor Who progresses, I'm getting fat on...
Why I Love...Sex and the City
- Posted at 12:05pm
- 09 June 2008
- by JacquelineWheeler-RT
Whenever Sex and the City comes under attack for being silly and shallow, there's a female columnist ready to leap to its defence and list its feminist credentials. But the whole point of SATC is its shameless fascination with the things that make so many women tick - fashion, relationships and gossip - delivered with brilliant comic irony. SATC fans don't need a lecture in female morality and the evils of consumerism. Virtually every joke in the show points up the absurdity of lusting after designer shoes or dating totally inappropriate men. But in doing...
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