Alison Graham on House - Radio Times, June 2006

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Alison Graham on House - Radio Times, June 2006

The essentially frivolous nature of my personality is always confirmed for me when I look at other people's office walls.

These are the office walls of serious people with serious jobs; thus they are plastered with charts, targets, strategies, campaigns. Important things.

And my office wall? There's nothing but a huge, head-and-shoulders publicity shot of actor Hugh Laurie in all his stubbly, tousled loveliness as Dr Gregory House.

I've got used to him by now to the point that I shall shortly start wishing him good morning. His effect on others to whom he is not so familiar, however, is fascinating. They trip in with some urgent request, stop dead in their tracks as they catch a first glimpse of those aquamarine eyes, then take an involuntary little step backwards before a hand flutters to a heaving breast. And that's just the men. You should see the effect he has on the women.

It's the kind of picture that, if you hung it from a gantry on the M18 at Sheffield, traffic would be backed up all the way to Goole. Transfixed female motorists would probably get out of their cars and walk towards it, arms outstretched, jaws sagging in wonder. The hard shoulder would be full of smiley ladies-of-a-certain-age, thanking an unseen deity for giving them, at last, someone lovely to play with; an attractive, middle-aged TV hero who's flawed and brilliant, funny and rude, and, best of all, not some mewling, supposedly sexy adolescent who's barely old enough to stop using crayons.

Now some of you, I know, will think that all of this is very silly, but come on, you've got to allow us House-ettes our fun. You've got your World Cup, we've got our startlingly handsome, ill-tempered, remorselessly unsympathetic, blackly funny fictional TV doctor. At least we don't attach idiotic little Hugh Laurie flags to our cars (though come to think of it, that might not be such a bad idea). And we don't inflict Gary Lineker and Alan Hansen on the rest of you, droning on about House's extraordinary diagnosis of that ailing jazz trumpeter in episode nine of series one.

But the brilliance of House and what makes it currently the best drama on TV, isn't down solely to Hugh Laurie. Well, not really. No, it's the writing. It's just so startlingly good. There was a time when American dramas were dismissed for being safe and politically correct to the point of madness.

Oh how things have changed. While our own, for the most part, limp po-faced dramas are so keen not to offend a single soul they just die in puddles of dullness, House is fearsomely, outrageously offensive. And funny. And perfect.

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Now take a look at our full House guide.

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