US TV

Last Man Standing: four episodes are missing!

Remember Last Man Standing? It was a BBC3 show that sent a load of athletic men round the world to pick fights with foreign tribes. It was actually quite good, despite the description, mixing anthropology, reality show and sport, all in one.

Keep your eyes peeled because series two is coming to BBC3 this September, as far as I can tell, and will feature boxing fire-fighter Wole from London, submission wrester and traffic Cop JJ from Florida, Devon kite-surfer Murray, elite American rugby player Jarvis from San Diego, modern pentathlete Ed from London and soccer player Joey from Chicago. No doubt all those sports will stand them in good stead when they compete in "Guatemalan piglet spinning" or whatever they end up doing. You can see some pictures of the new team above and on the BBC3 web site.

The show is also a co-production with the US Discovery Channel, it turns out, which calls it for the purposes of political correctness and linguistic homicide Last One Standing. The interesting thing though is that the first series of Last Man Standing was only eight episodes long, while Last One Standing is 12 episodes long: the UK is missing four episodes featuring Kraho log running, Andean ice racing, Pencak Silat and Vanuatu canoe racing.

Now, if you recall, Jason was crowned the winner of the first series of Last Man Standing by the other contestants because it was a draw over the eight episodes. Did those extra four episodes change things? Fortunately not, since the leaders all won an extra event each. However, there was no crowning in Last One Standing, strangely enough: it was all for sport.

No word on whether they’ll ever show the final four episodes in the UK on BBC3, so keep your eyes open if you have the Discovery Channel. There’s also no word on how many episodes will be in the second series, either. Keep your fingers crossed – unless it interferes with the piglet spinning of course.

Today's Joanna Page

Today’s Joanna Page: Bye Bye Harry

 

Today’s Joanna Page is Bye Bye Harry, a British road movie released in 2006, of which she was the star, and that you will never have seen. Ever. Until now.

We’ve been jumping all over the place chronologically, here, so let’s recap the inexorable career rise of Ms Joanna Page. After leaving RADA in 1999, she went straight to the National Theatre for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. She continued to do well in the theatre, with roles in a series of medieval mystery plays, The Mysteries, As You Like It, What the Butler Saw, Aladdin, Doomsday, Camera Obscura, and Billy Liar (with Ralph Little), among others.

The world of film beckoned, too, with bit parts in Miss Julie and This Year’s Love, and larger parts in From Hell, Very Annie Mary, Love Actually, and Gideon’s Daughter.

And on tele, there were important roles in David Copperfield, The Cazalets, The Lost World, Ready When You Are Mr McGill, Making Waves, Mine All Mine and To The Ends of the Earth. She even found time to fit in a few radio plays and a music video in all that, too.

So by 2005/6, a starring role in a movie looked inevitable. Indeed, in his review of The Mysteries for The Independent, right at the start of her career, Robert Butler prophetically wrote, "As Eve, Joanna Page looks as if (now she’s eaten that apple) she will be the love-interest in a movie very soon."

And then it arrived: No Snow which soon became Bye Bye Harry. She’s the female lead – arguably the lead. It’s a British road movie, a ‘dark’ rom-com by experienced comedy writer Graham Alborough . It’s got noted director Robert Young at its helm. It’s got two of the country’s biggest rock stars in supporting roles. And when it was released, it featured at the country’s leading film festival. 

So why haven’t you heard of it until now? And why had you probably not heard of Joanna Page until Gavin & Stacey?

Problem is, I’ve been linguistically tricky. See, although I said it was a British road movie – and indeed it is, according to the British Council – I pulled a fast one. The bulk of the financing came from Germany and Slovakia. When I said "the country", the country I actually meant was Germany, the rock stars I mentioned were Bela B Felsenheimer and Til Schweiger (very big in Germany), and the film festival I mentioned was the Berlin film festival. 

And it’s never been released anywhere else. Not France, not Belgium, not the Netherlands. It’s certainly never been shown in Britain. And although you could get a version dubbed into German on rental in Germany, you couldn’t get the original English language version until two weeks ago – on import from Amazon.de

So without fear of contradiction, may I present for your delight the very first, most comprehensive, most definitive and probably very last English language review of Bye Bye Harry aka Liebling, wir graben Harry aus.

Continue reading “Today’s Joanna Page: Bye Bye Harry”

UK TV

Review: Personal Services Required 1×1

 

In the UK: Channel 4, 9pm, Wednesdays

Fact: "One in three families use some form of domestic help". This sounds like one of those statistics like "93% of people in Middlesbrough wear Etruscan snoods" that is obviously made up but because it involves some numbers, people blank it out and go "Really? Well fancy that."

One in three families? Across the whole country? Are we including paper boys in this or something?

Anyway, whatever the number, some people have to hire domestic help. How do you go about doing this? In the real world, the obvious answer is to use some form of domestic agency, like you might find in Yellow Pages, that carefully vets all its employees, ensures they have decent qualifications, no criminal record problems, experience and a personality that doesn’t make you want to hire Freddie Krueger instead.

But this isn’t the real world (or even The Real World): this is Channel 4. More importantly, this is Channel 4 post-Wife Swap. What we want is conflict and if that involves introducing some employers who have the management style of Hitler to some potential employees with the skills of Frank Spencer and the attitude to life of a Big Brother contestant, so be it.

Continue reading “Review: Personal Services Required 1×1”

Moonlight: my powers are strong, but not that strong

I got this email yesterday from someone who read my season finale review of Moonlight:

I would just like to say that i think you should make more programs of moonlight because the program was such a big hit and it was such a thrill to watch.I am disappiont that you have ended the program and you should consider making a lot more.

yoursfaithfully

xxx (name removed to protect the innocent)

I’m not exactly sure how this (probably quite young) person got the idea from my review that I’d decided to cancel Moonlight, using my vast, vast powers, or that I made it. Was it my sentence structure?

But for them and anyone else who gets the impression from my TV reviews that I actually make the programmes I’m reviewing, I’d just like to point out that I don’t. I don’t cancel them either. I certainly didn’t cancel Moonlight: that was CBS.

And really, if anyone’s going to bring Moonlight or any other cancelled TV show back, I’m probably not the right person to do it. I’m gratified that people might think from my reviews that I’d make really great TV programmes, but I suspect I wouldn’t. At least, not with my current budgets.

Let that be an end to the matter.

For Marie: The Adventure Game Vortex

Any article on The Adventure Game would be incomplete without mentioning the Vortex. But video footage is rare – otherwise The Adventure Game wouldn’t be a ‘Lost Gem’ – so there wasn’t a clip available at the time I wrote the article. But I did promise Marie I’d try to find one for her.

Anyway, I managed it. Yey me.

Here’s David Yip and Madeleine Smith braving the Vortex, while the ‘mole’, Lesley Judd, shows her true colours and tries to evaporate them. It’s from the second series so there’s no green cheese roll to help them – and David Yip has unwisely given back the ham sandwich he was offered before entering the Vortex room…