Sunday, April 06, 2008
How to get ahead in advertising
SMOKING! Mad Men, BBC Four, 10pm
A few weeks ago, lowculture heralded the arrival of Mad Men on BBC Four. The fantastic news is that there's still time to get on board with this show as it moves pretty slowly and is really only just starting to warm up scandal-wise. Please don't let that slow-moving thing put you off though, it's meticulous in a completely great way.
So what’s been happening? Increasingly, we have been tantalisingly drip-fed hints about Don’s secret past. Most shockingly, he’s not even called Don! And tonight we begin to find out why he was so keen to sever all ties with his real identity, that he gave his brother loads of cash to bugger off for good.
While Don is the main Mad Man, curiously, the most watchable character is pathetic Pete Campbell. This can largely be attributed to the fact that he possesses the arrogance, incompetence and shiny T-zone normally associated with the kind of individual who pops up on The Apprentice. Observing poor Pete struggle through life is a joy to behold and we wonder whether there will be any evidence of lingering tension between he and Peggy resulting from their first-episode shag.
Of the ladies, there is of course the fantastic Joan (pictured); she of pointy boob and pro-sexual harassment bitchy put-down. Tonight the pointy boobs are the subject of some dodgy one-way-mirror workplace perving. Meanwhile, Peggy shocks everyone by actually demonstrating that she possesses a modicum of intelligence.
Even if you can’t be bothered following the storylines, why not just appreciate how fantastically cool everyone looks? Check those sharp suits, hats, tidy hair, pipes, cool specs, skin tight pencil skirts and full skirted shirtdresses. It also makes you wonder what sort of insane world have we created where chain-smoking at your desk, getting pissed before meetings and disappearing out of the office whenever you fancy a bit of affair-sex is grounds for dismissal, rather than a signifier of career-progression.
By Kellie :: Post link
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Friday, January 25, 2008
The Spice is Right
GIRL POWER! Spice World: The Movie, BBC Four, 8.30pm Labels: BBC4, Spice Girls, TV
There are those, such as F Dunkin Wedd, recipient of this week's Letter of the Week in the Radio Times, who think that BBC Four is descending into some kind of populist hell of late, and will probably view its decision to screen Spice World: The Movieas part of its pop music season as a sign of the apocalypse, but we'd like to stand up and applaud such a decision, because in our humble opinion, there is always a need for a channel that's as willing to screen a silly but brilliant pop movie as it is to screen Victoria Coren's History of Corners (even if the latter was just a BBC Four spoof included in Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, but let's be honest, it was completely on the nose as spoofs go). It shows a very healthy open mind and lack of pretension, to our way of thinking. Also, the fact that they're choosing to screen such a movie on lowculture's fifth birthday cannot be a coincidence - it's obviously some kind of loving tribute to us, which we wholeheartedly appreciate.
It's easy to poke fun at this film, of course, but there's also much in it that's worthy of approval: Victoria Beckham emerging as a surprise comic talent, the girls' willingness to send up absolutely everything about themselves, Torchwood's Naoko Mori in a random bit-part as their heavily-pregnant friend, and of course some brilliant pop music piped in at regular intervals. It's hardly Citizen Kane, of course, but then it was never meant to be, and we do have to ask who the bigger fool is here: the person who goes to see Spice World expecting to some harmless fun, or the person who goes to see Spice World to point out the many reasons why it will never win an Academy Award for Best Picture. (We once spoke to someone who grouched that the scene where the girls are attempting to jump over Tower Bridge in the Spice bus, only for the shot to be changed to a deliberately crude and childish model shot made out of loo rolls with the toy bus being pulled on a piece of string, was "obviously cheap and fake", thereby missing the entire point. And seriously: if you're too dumb to understand this film, what's to become of you?)
Besides, it's easy enough to paint this as a cinematic masterpiece if you want to. It was a brave directorial decision to cast such obviously unskilled actors in the main roles. The wanton jettisoning of all known conventions of plot, storylining and continuity are extremely bold and daring. And the final concert scene at the Royal Albert Hall is a masterful flight of fancy. But we don't need to be ironic about it, because we know this movie is great, and the fact that it's being screened on a "clever channel" like BBC Four, on our birthday, no less, is obviously a complete validation of our viewpoint. Hooray!
By Steve :: Post link
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Wednesday, January 02, 2008
No strings attached
ARE GO! Thunderbirds Night, BBC4, from 7.00pm Labels: BBC4, Thunderbirds, TV
First of all, lowculture would like to wish everyone a very happy New Year, and we hope that you all saw 2008 arrive in suitably debauched fashion. If, like us, you awoke yesterday morning with a defiant headache and wondered precisely what you'd done the night before to make the vision in your left eye go so blurry, you're probably hoping that the holiday spirit would last a few days longer, to give you a bit more time to settle back into your normal routine. Happily, it would seem that BBC4 agrees with you, since tonight they have forsaken their usual erudite documentaries in favour of something far more lowculture-friendly - a whole evening of programmes about Thunderbirds. Hooray!
Obviously there is a documentary in the middle of all of this - at 9.10pm, focusing on everything one could possibly want to know about the show and Gerry Anderson - and the BBC archives have provided an edition of Mastermind where the show was one of the specialist subjects to serve as a coda to the evening, but around these there's puppetry aplenty, all presented in glorious Supermarionation. (And just to clarify, that's not the latest Mario game due to arrive on the Nintendo Wii.)
There's a double bill of the show in question to kick off at 7pm, followed by an episode of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons, and as an added bonus, a previously unseen episode of Stingray at 10.10pm. It might seem a little quaint by our modern tastes, but at least being able to see the strings helps us to understand why the acting is so wooden, which is something that we still have trouble explaining when we watch Hollyoaks. (Nothing like a cheap, wholly predictable and slightly unfair joke to get the year started as we mean to go on, eh?)
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Wednesday, December 19, 2007
The King's Christmas Message
Labels: 2007, BBC4, Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, christmas, review of the year
CURMUDGEONLY! Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, BBC4, 10:35pm
Now as you should all know by now, Charlie Brooker is regarded as some kind of deity by lowculture and as such, it is your loyal duty to watch this show tonight (or at least try and catch one of the many repeats that are on over the next few weeks).
This special edition of Screenwipe has been billed in some quarters as a Christmas special, and others as a review of the year. So we don't know whether it'll be old 'Chuckles' reminding us of the TV highs and lows of the past year (although he's covered phone fakery, advertising, reality TV, talent shows, rolling news and yoof TV in the series proper already, so goodness knows what else is left), a preview of the festive fayre that awaits us, or, perhaps more likely, a combination of both. LC fave Aisleyne will no doubt crop up to, to the delight of the many 'Caisleyne' lovers on the board.
What we do know is, Voyage of the Damned aside (and the annual treat from new LC icon The Queen, of course, gawd bless ya, maam), this is the most essential thing on TV this festive period and anyone who doesn't watch will be demoted back down to 'slabface'.
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Wednesday, December 12, 2007
On the Road to Nowhere?
Labels: 1957, BBC4, Jack Kerouac, Russell Brand on the Road
JOURNEY! Russell Brand on the Road, BBC4, 9pm
Now we all know how we feel about the TV cliche about people being 'on a journey'. So we can imagine how you might feel about hearing this is another show about going on a journey. However, this involves a literal journey. With roads, and cars and whatnot. So that's all right then.
Our second BBC4 programme of the week (we're going to be renamed highculture if we're not careful), Russell Brand on the Road, is part of BBC4's 1957 week. And well, it's as good a theme week as any, we guess, although we'd much prefer a 1987 theme week (T'Pau! Neighbours! Mel and Kim! Get Fresh!).
Anyway, this little show sees Brand and a Radio 2 colleague attempting to recreate Jack Kerouac's journey from the book On the Road. We'd love to say this book changed our lives, as we are meant to, but we read it in 2003 on a day trip to Scarborough, and whilst we enjoyed it at the time, we have stronger memories of the oldskool tea room we visited than the book itself.
Nevertheless, it should be a fun watch, and as Steve reminded us yesterday, as it's BBC4, we will learn something. Perhaps we might even learn how Brand managed to fit in doing this alongside his autobiography, radio show, stand up tour, Guardian columns and being the fourth most ubiquitous person on TV in 2007 (just a little ahead of Noel Fielding and a little behind Myleene Klass, John Barrowman and Adrian Chiles).
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Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Folk off
MUSIC! Flight of the Conchords, BBC4, 9.30pm Labels: BBC4, Flight of the Conchords, TV
We're fairly certain that the entire point of BBC4 is that every programme should teach us something. Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, for example, taught us that shouting at the television is not the behaviour of a crazy person, but indeed the only rational response in an otherwise loony world of pointless reality shows and sexed-up news. The lessons we learned from Flight of the Conchords are a little less obvious, perhaps, but they're still there: we learned that doing a convincing New Zealand accent is harder than you'd think (our attempts keep accidentally veering into South African), and that numbers are extremely important when you're in a band.
The importance of numbers came up once before when the duo inadvertently tripled their fan base (in other words, it was Mel plus two new girls), and tonight it turns out that three is, as was previously suspected, a crowd when the ever-clueless Murray hires a bongo player to join the band. Bret and Jemaine are furious, obviously - although when they give him a chance, it actually looks like he might be doing the band some good after all. He's certainly a charmer, that Todd.
Other important numbers today (it's a bit like Sesame Street, isn't it?) are 12 and zero, meaning that this is the twelfth episode of the series and there are zero remaining, so we will have to face a Conchord-less Tuesday for the foreseeable future. Frankly our Tuesdays just aren't going to be the same without the surprisingly sharp pop pastiches, the many failed attempts at forming relationships with women, the deputy cultural attachés who double as hotshot band managers, and the ever-present sense of barely acknowledged homoeroticism. We're going to go and listen to 'If You're Into It' and cry a few salty tears, while wearing a plaid shirt and a nonplussed expression, as our tribute to New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based rap-funk-folk duo. They're going to be missed.
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Monday, December 03, 2007
Style and repeatribution
CLASSIC! David Renwick Night, BBC4, 8.00pm onwards Labels: Alexei Sayle's Stuff, BBC4, David Renwick, If You See God Tell Him, Jonathan Creek, Love Soup, Mark Lawson Talks To..., One Foot In The Grave, repeats, TV
Repeats, repeats, repeats. Where would the multi-channel age be without them? While repeats are useful for all sorts of things, such as getting that quote from that thing you just have to transcribe onto imdb.com or use as a title heading on your blog slightly less wrong, it hasn't escaped most people's attention that the majority of repeats on the BBC's digital-only channels are the same programmes that were on four hours ago. Can't the airtime be put to better use than this? After all, the BBC has a staggering archive with a wealth of quality material that could be rediscovered, and surely there's only so many times you have to watch that episode of Spendaholics or The Real Hustle or Dog Borstal?
Well, for some time now BBC4 has been seasoning its schedule with jewels from the corporation's past - albeit mainly of the classic documentary/classic drama variety - but tonight the fourth (BBC) channel gives us a hefty dose of comedy repeats like what they used to have in the goode olde dayse as it pays tribute to the great David Renwick, Master of tight plotting, King of not particularly dislikeable characters nonetheless having quite horrible things happen to them and Secretary-General of managing to have sad bits in comedies without drowning the punchline under a tidal wave of sentiment. First up is, of course, a Classic Repeat! of a repeat of That Episode Of One Foot in the Grave Where Victor And Margaret And Mrs Warboys Spend A Bank Holiday In A Motorway Traffic Jam Staring Up A Horse's Arse. I don't believe it!, etc (sorry). 
There's an Event Repeat! at 8.30pm, with the first showing of Renwick and Andrew '2point4 Children' Marshall's black comedy If You See God, Tell Him since 1993, when lowculture remembers it causing A Bit Of A Fuss for one reason or another. Richard Briers plays cheery pensioner Godfrey Spry, with Adrian Edmondson as Gordon, his long-suffering nephew, and Imelda Staunton as Gordon's wife Muriel. A nasty accident leaves Godfrey with a 30-second attention span and, as a consequence, an unshakable belief in the claims of advertisements, leading to increasingly erratic and disturbing behaviour (including a home autopsy in the final episode, but unfortunately you won't be seeing that tonight). Definitely worth tuning in for the spoof advertisements (as far as we remember), or if you're interested in seeing the sort of thing people enjoyed being offended by and complaining about fourteen years ago.
There's a Welcome Repeat! for a second series episode of Jonathan Creek at 9.15pm, from the days when Caroline Quentin was still in it and the seemingly impossible crimes hadn't quite reached the stage where they were basically being carried out with teleporters and time machines and stuff. The late, great Bob Monkhouse guest stars as an odious theatre critic who, having rubbished Jonathan's work in a scathing review of Adam Klaus's magic show, finds himself dependent on Jonathan's skills when a valuable work of art goes missing from his home. There's also a funny bit with a treehouse, if for some ridiculous reason the lure of impossible crimes and windmills and a glimpse of Caroline Quentin back when she played characters who were actually interesting isn't enough for you.
10.05pm (tidy scheduling, BBC4!) sees a Recent Repeat! of the first episode of Love Soup, Renwick's excellent/frustrating series following the separate lives of Alice (Tamsin Greig) and Gil (Michael Landes) as they repeatedly fail to find love or to cross paths at all, despite being absolutely perfect for one another. The opening episode sees Alice trying to sell her flat and Gil accidentally destroying his neighbours' marriage, with the rest of the series being repeated over the next couple of weeks in anticipation of the soon-to-be-aired brand new completely rejigged second series, apparently chopped down into half-hour chunks and, crucially, without any Michael Landes in it at all. Which sort of makes the constant trials and missed opportunities peppered throughout the first series even more depressing, really. OH WELL.
There's also a look at the career of David Renwick through the eyes (and mouth) of David Renwick at 11.05pm in Mark Lawson Talks to David Renwick, which nobody will be surprised to learn is an hour-long interview with David Renwick by none other than Newsnight Review's ringmaster Mark Lawson, and then the evening winds down with a Vintage Repeat! of an episode of Alexei Sayle's Stuff, Sayle's late 80s/early 90s sketch show, largely written by himself, Renwick and Andrew Marshall. And, conscious of the fact that the Lawson interview sticks out of the schedule like a sore thumb for being a Brand New Programme! in an ocean of (very good) Repeat!s, BBC4 do their bit for consistency and show it again at 2.35am, thus rendering it as dog-eared as the rest of the brilliant line-up. Any chance of a Steven Moffat night next month, BBC4?
By Nick :: Post link
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Monday, October 22, 2007
Fanny pack
SAUCY! Fanny Hill, BBC4, 9.00pm Labels: BBC4, Fanny Hill, TV
Good morning, everyone! So, did everyone have a great weekend? Disappointed about the rugby result? Sickened by the absolute dearth of talent on display in the first live show of The X Factor, but still nursing a slightly embarrassed liking for the unashamed cheesiness of Same Difference? Yes, that just about sums ours up too. But now it's another week, and lots more fine television for us all to talk about. Hooray!
We're going slightly more upmarket today (not too much, don't worry) with some historial lowculture, since you surely can't get more low, culture-wise, than the first ever smutty novel, Fanny Hill. Well, in this day and age you probably can, but try to think about the seedy Georgian citizens, reading it by candlelight with their cheeks flushed, and how it was probably the nearest they got to Nuts magazine. In a nutshell, it tells the story of Fanny, who moves to London and falls into the world of prostitution, but through being a wily sort, manages to turn the vices of her clients to her advantage. There's quite a lot of sex in it, as you might imagine.
It's been adapted for TV by Andrew Davies, well known for drawing out the sexier side of even the most repressed classic novels, so this should be a proper bodice-ripper. Plus it's got Alison Steadman as a madam with Samantha Bond as her rival, which has us squeeing with delight even before we deal with Hugo Speer as one of Fanny's many "benefactors". So, essentially we can watch a romp, and yet because it's on BBC4 we can be sure we're probably learning something at the same time. We just hope there won't be a test at the end.
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Tuesday, October 02, 2007
There's nowt so queer as folk (music)
COMEDY! Flight of the Conchords/Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, BBC4, from 9.30pm Labels: BBC4, Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, Flight of the Conchords, TV
Tuesday is at risk of becoming our absolute stay-at-home, don't-answer-the-phone television treat night. Or it would, if we hadn't just ruined that by signing up for an evening class. But since you don't really need to know about our daily schedule (and if we explained it in too much detail some internet shyster might try to rob us when they know we're going to be out), we'll get to the point, since Tuesday night now means two things: Flight of the Conchords and Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe directly afterwards. Both series started last week, and perhaps we should have warned you about them then, but now having seen an episode of each, we just feel more informed of their brilliance.
Flight of the Conchords, for the unfamiliar, follows the eponymous duo, billed as "formerly New Zealand's fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo", as they attempt to make a (slightly shorter) name for themselves in New York. Hampered by their manager-slash-New Zealand Deputy Cultural Attaché Murray, who last week memorably attempted to film their new video on his mobile phone, and in possession of a fanbase of exactly one, they have their work cut out. There are some nice moments of the standard sitcom variety, but the real kick lies in the songs. Last week Bret and Jemaine duetted on the heartfelt ballad 'I'm Not Crying' when Bret's former girlfriend Sally broke up with Jemaine, including memorable lyrics such as "these aren't tears of sadness because you're leaving me / I've just been cutting onions / I'm making a lasagna / For one" and "I'm not upset because you left me this way / My eyes are just a little sweaty today".
Following that, the man who needs no introduction (though we'll give him one anyway), the wondrous Mr Charlie Brooker, patron saint of all those who yell angrily at their televisions. (We must invite him around to watch Hollyoaks with us.) Last week's show featured an analysis of the current crisis of trust in TV, and how even old favourites such as Cash in the Attic are LYING TO US. We especially liked it when he used The X Factor as an extended example, because it was almost like looking into our own heads. We don't know what he'll be getting riled up about this week, but whatever it is, we'll almost certainly be in stitches. So there you have it: the best hour of television this week, for our money.
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Wednesday, September 05, 2007
A gay play for today
GAY! Consenting Adults, BBC4, 9.00pm Labels: BBC4, Consenting Adults, TV
Not so very long ago, Channel 4 came over all queer and had a short season of gay-themed programming to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Homosexual Reform Act, which legalised bumming amongst 21-and-overs in the privacy of their own homes, and without which this website would probably be a grubby little backstreet website in a dirty overcoat rather than the spangly wonder that it is today. Perhaps unfortunately, C4 chose to mark the occasion with the drama Clapham Junction, which didn't go down very well (fnar) on the boards at all, due to it sort of implying that all gays are scumbags who conduct lives of unfulfilled misery and various other things that made the Daily Mail go "see? We were right all along."
Now it's BBC4's turn, not because they were slow off the bat, but because they've chosen to mark the 50th anniversary of the publication of the Wolfenden Report, which is what lead to the decriminalisation of homosexuality in the first place (yep, it took ten years. Frightening, eh?). John Wolfenden, chairman of the committee into the report, considered homosexuality "an abomination", but in an interesting turn of fate, his own son Jeremy was gay, thereby creating one of those classic clashes of the private and the public life that tend to make quite good TV dramas.
Needless to say this will probably be significantly less shocking than Channel 4's effort, since that's not really what BBC4's about, but early reports suggest it won't entirely be shying away from the televised-bumming side of things, which is good, yes? Plus there's an impressive cast including Charles Dance, Samantha Bond, Mark Gatiss and David Bamber, and in what we suspect will be pleasing to a certain sector of the audience, Sean Biggerstaff, who played Oliver Wood in the Harry Potter movies, as Jeremy. Just don't let the side down by watching this with a pile of Kleenex next to you or anything, eh? This is serious television, remember.
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Friday, August 17, 2007
Fry day
ERUDITE! Stephen Fry Weekend, BBC4, from 9.00pm Labels: BBC4, Stephen Fry Night, TV
We wouldn't be the first people to suggest that Stephen Fry be given official national treasure status (we're still trying to find out who decides such things so that we can make some sort of official approach), but the closest thing we'll be getting for now is BBC4 devoting a weekend's worth of airtime to mark his 50th birthday. That's fairly nifty, actually. We're trying to get Living to mark our 30th in a few years time with a personally-selected Charmed marathon, but as yet they're not returning our calls.
But back to the matter in hand - it's a weekend of two parts, with tonight focusing on some highlights from his career and tomorrow giving him a chance to play scheduler by picking some of his favourite shows, and the whole thing's interspersed with some documentaries about his life and career. This provides the bonus of giving you that slightly smug feeling you get from watching BBC4 and therefore knowing that what you're watching is fairly highbrow, but at the same time knowing that it should all be fairly entertaining and not too taxing on the old noggin. It is the weekend, after all. We work hard enough on our TV viewing during the week, if only in summoning the sheer strength of will to not hide behind the cushions during that Sarah Jessica Parker perfume ad.
Tonight we can look forward to A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Blackadder Goes Forth and The Young Ones, and topping the whole thing off with those memorable scenes of Sir Stephen boffing Jude Law in Wilde. Many happy returns!
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Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Spin when you're winning
POLITICS! The Thick Of It: Spinners and Losers, BBC4, 9.00pm Labels: BBC4, The Thick Of IT, TV
The Thick of It is one of those programmes that we always have noble ambitions to watch and broaden our intellectual wingspan, but never quite get around to because we usually discover there's a Tru Calling marathon on the other side, and we end up going to bed feeling a bit ashamed of ourselves. So we find ourselves making the same resolution to watch it tonight, and hoping we actually go through with it this time.
Our only experience of the show so far has been a couple of isolated incidents at work with people coming up to us and saying "d'you know, you look just like that guy off The Thick of It" (after some painstaking research and some further questioning, we discovered that the guy in question was Chris Addison and we concluded that the comparison was not meant offensively), but we do know a large section of people who swear it's the best thing on television, and they are people whose opinions we value considerably, so there's a lot riding on us actually enjoying it when we finally get to see it.
Anyway: from what we've gathered, the Christmas special ended in disarray when the prime minister resigned (topical!), and this follow-up covers the behind-the-scenes folk running around trying to find a successor while churning out as much spin as possible. Please be absolutely sure that you tune in to the right show and that you don't end up accidentally watching the news instead, because there's a good chance the two could end up looking quite similar.
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Wednesday, May 09, 2007
What Jessie did next
CULTURE! Miss Marie Lloyd: Queen of the Music Hall, BBC4, 9.00pm Labels: BBC4, Miss Marie Lloyd Queen of the Music Hall, TV
Yes, we know that we promised last week that our brief foray into high culture would be over as soon as it began, so why are we pointing out stuff on BBC4 again? Well, we could hardly let Jessie Wallace's transition into Proper Acting go unnoticed, could we? (And no, A Class Apart doesn't count).
It's odd, actually. We remember the days when you could be as popular as anything in a soap opera, but unless you were incredibly lucky (or Sarah Lancashire), you were inevitably screwed when you tried to throw off the shackles of your four-to-five-nights-a-week character and convince the unforgiving British public that you could play other roles too. Now, frankly, casting directors everywhere appear to be getting alarmingly open-minded, with even Hollyoaks not being the career death knoll that it used to be (which is good, because we hope that one day Roxanne McKee will break free of the rut they've thrown her character into and land herself a role in something that's more appreciative of her considerable acting chops).
Anyway, Jessie Wallace is off to an excellent start by getting cast in a BBC4 drama in the first place, because that's about as far from appealing to your key EastEnders fanbase as it's possible to get, we should think. However, we feel that we should deduct some points for her playing a larger-than-life cockney sparra with an outrageous and complicated love life. Doesn't seem like much of a stretch, after all. However, there will be singing, and period costume! We're convinced to tune in for that alone. And if this trend continues, we look forward to the biographical drama of Gustav Klimt, late at night on Channel 4 starring Richard Fleeshman.
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Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Murder most awesome
SMART! Who Killed Mrs De Ropp?, BBC4, 9.00pm Labels: BBC4, TV, Who Killed Mrs De Ropp?
Okay, we have a confession to make - the above programme is not lowculture, not by any definition we know. It is, however, very good indeed because we've seen it, and given the choice between drawing your attention to this show or writing about Hollyoaks or The Apprentice for the umpteenth time, well, it was a no brainer. So please excuse this brief foray into high culture and we promise to return to your regularly scheduled bunkum as soon as possible.
You might have spotted that BBC4 is doing a series on the Edwardians, which has so far included Sue Perkins getting a bit grumpy about having to eat Edwardian-sized portions of food on a train, and will next week include everybody's favourite cockerney sparra Jessie Wallace as Marie Lloyd, star of the music hall. This one's a little more offbeat, though: it's based on three short children's stories by Edwardian writer Saki (stay with us), who was sort of an early forerunner to Roald Dahl, about three children who use their imaginations to come up with fiendish and horrific ways to off their mean-spiritied and humourless guardian, Mrs De Ropp.
The whole thing is very surreal and haunting, and the visuals are amazing. And it stars Gemma Jones (Bridget Jones's mother in the films, for the unfamiliar) as Mrs De Ropp, and Ben Daniels as Saki. We realise that there's probably not a lot we can say to actively talk you into watching this, other than giving you our assurance that we absolutely loved it to bits, but we just thought we'd put the word out there.
Tomorrow: lesbian crack addicts write a children's musical! Possibly.
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Monday, February 26, 2007
The Brooker prize
GOING! Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, BBC4, 10.00pm Labels: BBC4, Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe, TV
Should we be worried that two of the best shows on TV at the moment are shows that essentially point out to us how bad TV is? Harry Hill's TV Burp is the highlight of our Saturday viewing, and its more bilious older sibling Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe is officially the only good thing about Mondays at the moment. Except this is the last episode in the series, so we're going to have to go back to hating Mondays again. Bah.
Obviously it's not really that possibly for us to say what's going to be in tonight's episode since it's essentially a great big retrospective of the big issues in telly this week, and nobody knew what those were going to be when the listings got written, and try as we might, we still don't have the ability to look into the future. However, if previous form is anything to go by, this should be a hoot. Just be careful of approaching this show if you have a sacred TV cow of any kind, because you may find extremely mean things being said about it. Mean but true things, mind.
We'll miss this a lot when it's over, but at least we won't have to feel quite so shameful about our not-secret-any-more total addiction to Hollyoaks. Charlie has a habit of making us feel very very bad about things like that.
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