Not as easy as you might think
[via Brad Sucks]
David Baddiel turns intellectual again
A chance to be in the audience, too.
The Book Quiz is a new BBC4 panel game about literature in which two teams of book-loving guests face questions on all things literary, from classic works to the contemporary works we’re all reading and talking about.
This will be an informed, entertaining panel game aimed at the tv audience who already enjoy programmes such as QI, Late Review and Have I Got News For You.
Hosted by David Baddiel, the guest panellists include Joan Bakewell, Simon Hoggart, Daisy Goodwin, Toby Young, Val McDermid and India Knight.
If you would enjoy this stimulating and lively quiz, then apply now!
The show will record at The ITV London Studios, SE1 9LT near Waterloo Station, London on Saturday 21st and Sunday 22nd April. The studio doors will open at 2pm & 6pm on the Saturday and 1pm, 3.30pm & 6.30pm on the Sunday. Minimum age limit is 16 years old.
You can apply for tickets by calling 020 8684 3333 or apply online at http://www.sroaudiences.com where you’ll find details of all the shows for which we are booking. Tickets for all of our shows are FREE.
Well, he is one of the few stand-ups around with a doctorate in Victorian literature…
Tuesday’s post-Easter news
Everyone have a nice Easter? Not too many hot cross buns, I hope.
Doctor Who
- The Shakespeare Code (which I still haven’t watched. Sorry) got ratings of 6.8 million, peaking at 8.1 million
Film
- Details of the Scanners remake
- David Goyer’s also working on a Green Arrow movie
- Jackie Chan has a reality TV show
Radio
- Lauren Laverne quits XFM [free registration required]
British TV
- HBO and the BBC are teaming up to film plays, starting with Caryl Churchill’s A Number starring Tom Wilkinson and Rhys Ifans
- Will Ferrell would love to be on Extras
US TV
- Spoilers for the second season of Kyle XY
- Brit Stephen Moyer’s found himself a new pilot, after losing Company Man
- Drive is mostly green-screen work
- Traveler is finally going to air on May 30
- Why 30 Rock has been renewed and Studio 60 won’t be
- A US version of British show Top Gear is being developed
- Andy Barker PI has been cancelled
US TV
Review: The Tudors
In the US: Showtime, Sundays, 10pm ET/PT
In the UK: Not yet acquired for some reason
There are all sorts of debates in historical circles about what constitutes history. While most historical education dwells on dates of battles, treaties, coronations and so on, is that really what history is about? Does that undervalue women’s contributions, for instance? What about the history of small things like the food we eat or how we actually lived?
TV networks such as BBC, HBO and Showtime have all decided that a very important part of history is being overlooked. With shows such as Rome and now The Tudors, they’ve attempted to redress the balance. They want us to remember the history of shagging.
The importance of mood in analogies: The Matrix
When Se7en scriptwriter Andrew Kevin Walker picked up his Empire award for best screenwriter (or something similar), his acceptance speech mentioned how he’d been aiming to win the vote of manic depressed students with his script and this was proof he’d succeeded.
I think the Warshawski brothers were aiming for the same thing with The Matrix. As you might recall, Agent Smith takes Morpheus to one side and says that he’s worked out that humans are viruses, because we grow without limit, etc. This was his rationale for wanting to wipe us out.
Surprisingly (or perhaps unsurprisingly), this chimed with a load of teenagers, who thought they’d been given some higher truth. Pseudo-intellectual sci-fi movies will do that to you.
However, I do feel that Agent Smith drew an incorrect conclusion. All he correctly determined was that a species of animal will expand without limits if there aren’t checks on it from natural predators, etc.
We aren’t viruses, my friends. We’re bunnies.
I can’t help but feel that would have ruined the mood, having a psychotic bunny-hater as an enemy. I’m sure you could argue about Smith’s mindset leaping to the best analogy his computer-generated mind could hit. But all the same, I think it would have been fun.