Articles by Rob Buckley

About Rob Buckley
I’m Rob Buckley, a journalist who writes for UK media magazines that most people have never heard of although you might have heard me on the podcast Lockdown Land or Radio 5 Live’s Saturday Edition or Afternoon Edition. I’ve edited Dreamwatch, Sprocket and Cambridge Film Festival Daily; been technical editor for TV producers magazine Televisual; reviewed films for the short-lived newspaper Cambridge Insider; written features for the even shorter-lived newspaper Soho Independent; and was regularly sarcastic about television on the blink-and-you-missed-it “web site for urban hedonists” The Tribe. Since going freelance, I've contributed to the likes of Broadcast, Total Content + Media, Action TV, Off The Telly, Action Network, TV Scoop and The Custard TV.
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UK TV

Review: Doctor Who – The Christmas Invasion

28 December 2005 Rob Buckley 3 Comments

The Christmas Invasion
Did everyone watch the Christmas episode of Doctor Who? I know 9.4 million of you did, so fess up. What did you think? I actually thought it was rather good. A couple of embarrassing moments at the beginning, but other than that, I really enjoyed it.

Heresy though it seems to be these days, I didn’t like the first season of the new Whos. Christopher Eccleston was good at the intense and miserable stuff (QFS!) but couldn’t pull off the lighter stuff at all. He clearly thought it was all beneath him: certainly if you caught any of the Doctor Who Confidentials (what can I say? I’m a sucker for a behind-the-scenes documentary. I even listen to the audio commentaries on DVDs, sitting through all three of the Se7en voice-overs), you’ll recall him saying “he didn’t need to get out his Stanislavsky” for the role.

Most of the scripts were equally toe-curling and there was more than a hint of “Oh my God! They’ve given us a budget but we don’t know what we’re doing! Help! Help!” in the earlier episodes. Given that the exec producer, Russell T Davies, is more than capable of writing drama for children that’s also suitable for adults – as anyone who watched Dark Season or Century Falls in the early 90s can attest – it’s a surprise that he went with fart jokes, belching dustbins and slapstick as a way to bring the kids in. Still, what do I know? Look what the ratings were.

Anyway, as a result of all this childishness, I never bothered to make a date for most of the episodes.

‘The Christmas Invasion’, however, is probably the first of the new Whos that I would want to watch again. Everything worked. David Tennant, with toned-down London accent, was very good, maybe needing a little more gravitas at times, but excellent for the most part. The script was good, with no fart gags and no tiresome deus ex Piper at the end: the Doctor actually earned his victories this time round. There was also a darker edge to it that hinted at a more adult tone for the show.

The trailer at the end of the episode has made me eager for more, which is something I wasn’t expecting. Curses. I really don’t want to be a Doctor Who fan. Don’t do this to me!

Theatre

Otherwise Engaged

22 December 2005 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Otherwise Engaged

Just realised that I promised elsewhere that I was going to review Otherwise Engaged, a revival of the 1975 Simon Gray play, starring Richard E Grant and Anthony Head. I’ve been holding off on this one, much as I’ve held off reviewing Broken Flowers, on the general grounds that I didn’t know what to make of it. There are spoilers in it, so look away now if you don’t want to know what happens.

Continue reading “Otherwise Engaged”

BBC Four’s return to normality was just a blip

22 December 2005 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

My head’s in a whirl again. No sooner do I think that BBC Four has returned to a post-Christmas schedule of unwatchable crud, then they start to unveil things like Jonathan Ross’s Asian Invasion.

Say what you like about Jonathan Ross – I’ve probably said it already – but when it comes to films, he really knows his stuff. His 1980s Channel Four film programme, the Incredibly Strange Film Show, introduced a whole generation of British youth to Jackie Chan movies long before he became ubiquitous in Hollywood, and that was just one of its achievements. So a three-part tour of Asian cinema by Johnny can only be good.

While researching this entry, I came across an article in The Independent, which suggested that BBC4’s ascent into watchability may actually be a strategy by BBC4 controller Janice Hadlow. If it is, my hat’s off to you Ms Hadlow. It turns out you may be the only controller in British television who knows what she’s doing.

Music

Where’s the honesty in manufactured bands these days?

22 December 2005 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

You lose a Sugababe one day. You find another Sugababe the next day. It’s very easy to replace a band member who walks out when the band’s been assembled from a kit.

The original Sugababes
As the BBC reports this morning, only a day after the chavvy Mutya Buena declared she wanted to leave the aforementioned trio, the band’s management has found a replacement. Not bad going: I guess when your indentured help starts getting uppity, you need to have a plan in place to avoid losing a second of profit once she decides to up sticks.

What gets me is the reaction of the other ‘babes. Now, I’m under no illusions that pop stars have been some fount of honesty and truth for the last 50 years. But when did they start to talk like marketing drones?

“Our management introduced us to Amelle as someone they knew with an amazing voice, who looked great and, just as important, was already a big fan of the band.

”When we all met her, we instantly knew she was the only person to share the rest of the journey with us.“

Okay, that was Heidi Range, who had already been brought in to replace another departing Babe and had been in at least one other manufactured band beforehand; maybe she’s just infinitely pliable and willing to spout whatever the band’s communications officer sticks in front of her nose and everyone else’s conscience is intact.

But in an age when bands such as Keane hired their own branding consultant before they’d even signed to a record label, I can’t help but feel that a little charm and soul has disappeared from the whole business, not just the back office, to be replaced by people who really are in it only for the money and have the business studies degree to prove it.