An archive of blog entries about UK TV programmes and production.
You may love him, you may hate him, but Borat – aka Sacha Baron Cohen – is probably the most famous Kazakhstani in the world. He now has his own movie and there’s a trailer available for your delectation over on Yahoo!.
That picture’s probably made you go blind, though, hasn’t it?
Paul Abbott is a talented guy. He’s written episodes of Cracker, created Touching Evil and Shameless and has more awards than ITV has viewers (give or take). Russell T Davies thinks he’s a God.
Legions of journalists have huge respect for Abbott for creating State of Play, the outstanding 2003 serial that introduced the world to the now much-admired Life on Mars pairing of John Simm and Philip Glenister. Although it portrayed journalists as a lying, shifty bunch, willing to obstruct the course of justice for a good story, we forgave it that slight flaw because we were the heroes who saved the day.
Its depiction of life at a newspaper was actually pretty authentic, except for the bit where Simm is allowed to lay out the page and compose his own headline at the end of the final episode, which would never happen – although he did mess it up, thus demonstrating why reporters don’t get to touch Quark, normally. The bit about who owned the copyright on the story because Simm was on a freelance contract actually makes those of us who are self-employed all giddy with delight (seriously. There was an article in the NUJ newsletter The Journalist about it by one of my old tutors, Humphrey Evans).
If you haven’t seen State of Play, pick up a copy of it on 
Amazon. You’ll be impressed to see Amelia Bullmore in a straight role and Marc Warren (from Hustle and Doctor Who‘s Love and Monsters) having a crap time of it as the slippery Dominic Foy.
Despite all the plaudits, a sequel has yet to materialise. Hollywood is all set to adapt the original. Last year’s South Bank Show profile of Abbott said filming on the sequel was to begin last June. But three years on, still nothing. The last we heard was in an interview with John Simm in the Daily Telegraph in January:
…and there is talk of a second series of the excellent State of Play. “The last time I saw Paul [Abbott], he was so caught up in writing Shameless that he’d only managed one or two episodes of the next State of Play. God, it would be great to work with him again.”
I hate to say this, but I don’t care about another series of Shameless. How much more is there to say on the subject? I want more State of Play!
What with Stephen Fry backing out of writing a Doctor Who episode, I have to say: “Writers: get your priorities straight. Give us what we want!”
You almost certainly didn’t hear it here first, but Top of the Pops has been cancelled. It’s always sad to see old regulars go, but it had had a good life and it needed a rest.
It can always come back later as a retro thing. Wouldn’t you just love to see DLT or Peter Powell introing hit acts from the 70s and 80s making a comeback again?
Hell, while we’re about it, bring back the Golden Oldie Picture Show. I’m sure there’s a few songs out now that could have better videos done on the cheap for them by the Beeb.
UPDATE: DLT has just signed up with radio station Magic.
“Note to self: By episode ten, David and Billie will probably be knackered. Real risk of them appearing on top of Welsh parliament building with sniper rifles if I make them do more work. Plus not sure they can be at two places at same time, thanks to filming requirements of episode nine. Must come up with story that doesn’t involve Doctor or Rose. Hmm. How about story like Star Trek’s Lower Decks that focuses on other characters? Or like The Zeppo on Buffy? I love Buffy. I wish I was Buffy.”
From Russell T Davies’s “Production Notes: Doodles in the Margins of Time” © BBC 2007
Love and Monsters was quite a brave episode. You have to admire Russell T Davies for at least trying something new. A story that pretty much doesn’t feature the Doctor or his companions at all? Unheard of! (When was the last time? Yes, you there at the back. Mission to the Unknown, back in the Hartnell days? Well done!)
But does it succeed? Could it have ever succeeded?
Continue reading “Review: Doctor Who – 2×10 – Love and Monsters”
Caught my first few episodes of Deal or No Deal over the weekend. WTF? It’s such a bizarre show. I can understand the appeal for certain people – apparently market traders enjoy it because it’s more or less their job (ie guesswork combined with judicious decisions about when to back down) – but for the rest of us?
In case you’ve never watched the UK version, the rules are simple: you have a box, inside of which there is some money (or a sticky label with a number written on it, anyway). Then there are a whole load of other people with boxes, each with money/sticky labels inside. The contestant knows what all the numbers are on the labels, but doesn’t know which boxes they’re in. He or she then gets all bar one of these people to open their boxes in turn. Every so often, the ‘banker’ (for which read ‘a producer reading out numbers coupled with Noel Edmonds improvising dialogue’) rings up and offers an amount of money to the contestant if they’ll stop opening boxes. If you don’t take the money and run, at the end, you get whatever’s in your box .
In case you think you’ve missed something, you haven’t. It’s a game based entirely on random guesswork. I guess it’s like playing the lottery in that it’s just pure chance whether you get any money. In this case, the odds are considerably better. All the same, someone sat down and thought “How about a game show that’s all about opening boxes at random?” Someone Australian at that, since it’s an Australian format – you’d have thought an extrovert nation like that could have come up with something more dynamic, couldn’t you?
Oh well. I guess the thing is it’s gambling and if you’re a gambler (been there, done that, lost the T-shirt off my back), you’ll gamble on almost anything…
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