Thora Hird, 1911-2003

Video March 15, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Sadly, Dame Thora Hird has died at the age of 91.

The well-loved character actress will be remembered for her high culture triumphs, including her memorable appearance in an Alan Bennett Talking Heads monologue and the touching ITV drama Lost For Words, in which she played a stroke victim.

She also dabbled in the world of lowculture, with similar success. Many TV sitcoms in the 1980s were instantly forgettable, but we still have a soft spot for Thora’s turn as Captain Ridley in the Salvation Army sitcom Hallelujah – especially the opening sequence, which featured a cheerful Thora marching down the street with her pals from the Sally Army band.

We will also remember her for a long-running role in Last of the Summer Wine and, of course, her legendary stairlift adverts – the back pages of the Saturday newspapers will seem empty without them.

Dame Thora – we salute you.

Uncategorized

Countin’ every single minute

March 15, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Well, maybe not every SINGLE minute, but we are going to attempt a totally live, blow-by-blow account of Reborn In The USA.

Watch in horror and delight as it unfolds here over the next hour-and-a-bit…

20.59: Breathless with anticipation.

21.01: Titles. Getting excited now. Davina enters, pointing.

21.02: Yadda, yadda, yadda.

21.04: David Van Day pretends to feel sorry for Sonia. Retch. Therese looks worryingly like Christine Hamilton.

21.05: Leee John looks fetching in a beret. Gina feigns embarassment about her dress from last week.

21.07: Gina G is first. What will she be wearing? Erm, not very much. Sings first note out of tune. Good work.

21.08: Woman wearing hairnet nods approval. Davina inspects Gina’s arse to check she is wearing pants.

21.11: On the bus, Van Day says he is sorry Sonia has gone home, and laments about the ‘blip’ in his career. But! Sonia is lying in wait for them at their destination. Stick it up ‘em, Sonia!

21.14: She’s such a trooper! Dollar look like they’ve woken up in a bath of ice to find a kidney has been stolen when they realise what has happened.

21.15: It’s Haydon! Fwooorgh.

21.16: Haydon’s vest wins contest. Everyone else disqualified.

21.18: Sonia’s going to give Van Day a piece of her mind after the ads. Hoorah!

21.23: It’s Sonia’s husband! They’re sooooooo cute.

21.24: Dollar reveal ridiculous conspiracy theory about Sonia’s publicity-seeking ways.

21.25: Michelle Gayle’s in the kitchen on the bus. Memories of Hattie Tavernier come flooding back.

21.27: Temporarily blinded by Michelle Gayle’s teeth.

21.28: Backing singers completely drown out rest of song.

21.29: She was quite good, but any more and we would have fallen asleep.

21.30: Dollar are rehearsing. Van Day is fucking awful. He’s hitting all the wrong notes, then trying to blame it on Therese, who is actually right. Therese makes several pointed comments about how there are two of them, not just one. Perhaps she will stab him with a jagged shard of a shattered Mirror, Mirror 12″.

21.32: We don’t care about Peter Cox. Sorry. He sounds like he’s doing karaoke with a bad PA – which, we suppose, is not far off the mark.

21.36: Tony Hadley buys porno mags. Is the sight of Therese and Elkie first thing in the morning not enough to spur Little Tony into action?

21:38: Davina claims Elkie Brooks has had 15 hit albums. Can you name six of them? Or even one of them?

21.39: Elkie’s When Will I See You Again has got that ace 1970s piano backing track that we love. She can go through just for that.

21.41: Davina embarrases gay audience member by getting him to admit he fancies Peter.

21.46: Tony Hadley’s up now, singing If You Don’t Know Me By Now. He looks and sounds exactly like you remember him, and this is strangely comforting.

21.48: Davina’s shouting again. Make her stop. Leeeeeeeeee John is next, singing falsetto. Falsetto is dangerous. We wish he was wearing something more interesting – possibly some kind of pirate’s outfit.

21.51: The ‘talent’ are unhappy with their digs. David hears news from home that Sonia has been slagging off Dollar on her website. They call Sonia ‘desperate’. Pot. Kettle. Black.

21.55: Van Day: “Sonia thinks I’m a nasty piece of work. There’s no evidence to support that.” Well, actually…

21.57: Sonia is staying! We feel sorry for Dollar now. That’s how fickle we are.

21.58: And she’s about a million times better than last week. Go Sonia!

21.59: Sonia’s official website is now cheering when you log onto it! Not that they want to rub it in or anything …

22:03: Exciting developments! Sonia’s official site has leaked how the show ends. If you don’t want to know, stop reading NOW!

Right, for the rest of you: “In tonights thrilling and improved installment of ITV1′s ‘Reborn In the USA’, Sonia not only won the vote but came through the next singing contest leaving Elkie Brooks and Gina G to next weeks vote for Survival.”

22.05: Peter Cox gets the most votes. Pop is dead.

22.07: Well, that’s that. We’re sure Elkie and Gina won’t be slugging it out in the tabloids over the coming week, but you never know. Whatever happens, you know you’re going to read about it here.

22.14: PS – Mark Shaw is now talking about his time on the tour on The Salon. He is being interviewed by those nice but freaky twins.

2013 UPDATE: The Guardian TOTALLY stole that whole liveblog idea from me.

Hubble bubble

Video March 14, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

It’s the end of another eventful week in Crossroads.

Dave, TV’s most unlikely adulterer, is still knocking off Tracey behind Oona’s back. We hope that, when his infidelity is exposed, Oona uses the Friday night karaoke as a forum to damn the deceitful pair, in song.

Meanwhile, Betty is concocting a love potion, which looks like something the McWitch would have produced in Rentaghost, coming as it does in a comedy cauldron that belches green smoke.

Elsewhere, Rocky’s evil twin has arrived, played by the same actor in an ill-fitting wig, Angel has been shagging the handyman in the basement, and barmy Beena has built a shrine to Ryan in her bedroom.

This stuff is pure dynamite, and how they can even think of taking it off is a mystery to us.

Incidentally, our obsession with Kate’s shot in the opening credits has taken a sinister turn. We realised yesterday that when she does her big toothy grin, we can’t help smiling along with her. We’re thinking of buying a clipboard and a nice burgundy trouser suit for extra authenticity. Say a prayer or something.

Music

Get those tills not ringing

Video March 14, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Shania Twain’s new single, Ka-Ching – out this week – is a scathing analysis of our society’s buy-now-pay-later spending culture.

Shania is angry that we’re all greedy, and run to the shops all the time to spend money on things we don’t really want or need.

lowculture quite agrees, and our economising will begin this weekend when we go into town and don’t buy her stupid single. We might try to save even more money by not buying her album either.

2013 UPDATE: No idea what I was on about here – I fucking love this song.

Of all the things we were ever planning for …

Video March 13, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Can you pinpoint the exact second you realised that last night’s Coronation Street was going to be the best soap episode ever?

For us, it was when we realised that Richard planned to gas himself, Gail and the kids to death to a soundtrack of the You And Me Song by (wait for it) The Wannadies.

And how brilliant was that underwater stuff? Awards all round, we think.

The TV drama was shocking enough, but there was much more to come this morning, as anyone who bought the Daily Star will know.

If anyone had told you this time last year that topless pictures of Helen Worth, alias Gail, would be splashed across two pages of a tabloid newspaper, you would probably have laughed in their face, and then been sick.

But there they were, in full glorious colour. We will never see their like again (hopefully).

lowculture has had a smashing day going round the office flashing the pictures at people and watching the look of horror spread across their faces – that’s got to be worth 25p of anyone’s money.

Sweet memory, please come back to me

Video March 10, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

According to newspaper reports, poor little Sonia has fled back to the UK in shame after finding herself at the bottom of the heap after the first Reborn in the USA. She’s been given a couple of days to think things over and decide whether she wants to stay in the competition.

We hope she decides to give it another go. Admittedly, it wasn’t the best performance of her career (that remains her triumphant Eurovision-nearly-winning version of Better The Devil You Know), but Dollar were much more annoying – Therese even sang a line about singing out of key out of key.

Dollar are also moaning to the press about how Gina G only got the most votes because she had the cheek to wear a revealing dress that flashed her arse – a tactic which, of course, has never before brought a fading artist major, career-reviving success.

This dreadful pair must be stopped. Do the right thing and text vote sonia to 83200, or call 09011 155 402.

Although the idea of them only getting through by default if Sonia pulls out also has a certain perverse appeal.

UPDATE: Hoorah! Sonia is feeling much better and has rejoined the tour. Turns out she didn’t fly home after all. The sympathy vote is surely hers for the taking.

Say it ain’t so!

March 10, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Sadly, the rumours are true. Crossroads is fucked.

Fan site Planet Crossroads has posted this statement from producers Carlton TV:

“Crossroad returned in March 2001 and has run for nearly two years. Unfortunately, despite working with ITV to develop a new, distinctive style for the show, viewers have not warmed to Crossroads in sufficient numbers. ITV has taken the decision to end transmission in the summer.

“It is disappointing to all those people who have worked and been involved with the show and, of course, those who have become fans of the new Crossroads.”

thecustard reports that producer Yvon Grace informed the cast and crew of the decision on Friday night. Production ends in three weeks’ time, leaving enough episodes to run for another couple of months.

Life without Jane Gurnett’s grinning mug leering at us at 5pm each day from inside a big gold heart scarcely bears thinking about, but we will go on, somehow. In the meantime, lowculture’s logo will be black for a suitable mourning period.

• How do you think Crossroads should end? Suggestions, please – click on the comment link below (if it’s even there – SquawkBox are having server problems that are outwith our control)

Music

H, Claire in ‘not dropped’ shocker

Video March 8, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Don’t ask us what we were doing at the official H&Claire website, but we were. Anyway, it contains this message, dated March 3:

“Hey there!

“Hope you’re all well :o) Sorry to have been out of touch for so long. We have noticed a lot of misinformed speculation on the message board lately which seems to be upsetting some people. For the record, we are currently taking a break but we are still with WEA Records and you guys will of course be the first to know what we’re going to be up to next. So keep it here!”

Well, that’s all right then.

2013 UPDATE: Liars! They never released anything else.

Music, TV

Gareth vs camp dancing

Video March 7, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

Since the sad demise of Steps, there’s been something lacking from the world of pop – ie camp-as-tits dances that we can all do when we’re visiting provincial gay nightclubs at the weekend.

Happily, this situation has now been rectified – and nobody is more surprised than us that our saviour has turned out to be Mr Gareth Gates.

We’re talking, of course, about the video for Spirit in the Sky, which would be fantastic if it didn’t have those krazy Kumars being ‘amusing’ in the background.

Our favourite move is that one where his hand’s up by his face and he’s moving it to and fro. It’s made us see the boy in a whole new light, so we’ve decided that his throwing to the pop dogs can be postponed indefinitely.

Meaty goodness

March 4, 2003 Paul Lang Leave a comment

After all the wailing and gnashing of teeth following Maxine’s demise in Coronation Street, it was fantastic to see Fred and Ashley perform a comedy scene last night.

Boris, the little-seen assistant from Fred’s butcher’s shop, called at Ashley’s demanding the night off to take his girlfriend to the pictures, so Fred stepped into the breach to see to a troublesome leg of lamb, saying:

“It would be wonderful to get my hands mucky again.”

For one heart-stopping moment, we thought we was going to say it would be wonderful to get his hands on some meat again but, alas, it was not to be.

He returned a short while later enthusing about how he had thoroughly enjoyed “the feel of a good ‘eavy cleaver slicing through a beast”. Ahem.

lowculture