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South Wales location hunting: Gavin & Stacey

Barry Island

Awright there, blog reader? Awright?

After a week away on a “gym and spa” holiday in South Wales, I’m back and raring to write. After a couple of days staying not too far away from (unbelievably) Port Tennant in Swansea, we spent the rest of the week in Cardiff.

I’ll tell you something for nothing: you can’t move for stars in Cardiff. If I wasn’t bumping into Rusty T down on Cardiff Bay at every available opportunity, I was being stalked – stalked, I tell you – by Simon Callow.

All I have to say on that is this: Callow, you might be a Commander of the British Empire, have starred in movies like Amadeus and Four Weddings and a Funeral, have appeared in Doctor Who as Charles Dickens, and been Tom Chance in Chance in a Million, a delightful 80s sitcom that has left me with premature pronoun droppage to this very day, but no! That does not give you a right to follow me to breakfast, lunch and certainly not the gym while I’m on holiday.

Anyway, after a minor spot of Torchwood location hunting on my last visit, we did some Gavin & Stacey location investigation this time with a trip to Barry and Barry Island. Pics after the break.

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US TV

Download the pilot episode of Chuck for free

Chuck

Chuck is starting on Virgin One soon and as a shiny offer, they’re letting people in the UK download the pilot episode (which I reviewed a while back) for free from iTunes until midnight on Monday 7th April. It’s about 500MB so make sure you have broadband.

Incidentally, just noticed you can buy episodes of Gavin and Stacey series two as well. If you don’t have Freeview, now’s your chance to own a slice of quality!

Review: Gavin and Stacey – Series 1

WARNING: If you are married to a blonde woman from South Wales who’s lived in London for a while and has lost her accent and started talking like an English person, you might find that after exposing her to this DVD for two or more episodes, she exhibits certain behaviours. Her accent might return; she might start saying "lush", "by here" instead of "here" or "whereto" instead of "where"; and she might start calling you with "Oh! Rob!" These effects can last anything up to three days or more, during which SHE WILL BE UNAWARE SHE IS DOING ANY OF THIS. It’ll be very endearing though.

Gavin And Stacey

The thing about award-winning comedy shows is that no one’s going to watch them if you stick them on a network primarily devoted to Two Pints of Lager and shows like Can Fat Teens Hunt?.

Had we known there was a show called Gavin and Stacey in which a blonde woman from South Wales meets, falls in love with and marries a dark-haired guy from SE England, we’d have watched every single episode and repeat from the very first moment – it’ll be the closest we get to a biopic on Hallmark. Instead, it’s not until the second series (which is brilliant) that we found out about it. Heaven knows how those awards people came across it.

Although BBC3 will no doubt be repeating the first series again approximately five times a day (seven times a day if it wins any more awards) once the second series finishes, we decided – as might you, gentle reader – to give that first series a go by buying it on DVD. If you are considering it, here’s a handily timed reviewed to help you decide whether to spend your hard-earned money or not. Although it’s only £8 on Amazon – bar-gain!

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Audio and radio play reviews

Review: Doctor Who – Brave New Town

Brave New Town Thank Christ for that.

For quite some time, I’ve been wondering if there was ever going to be another, truly decent Eighth Doctor and Lucie story. Certainly, this season’s have all been a bit on the wrong side of completely terrible.

But finally, we have a good ‘un. Yey.

Might I, at this point, just say: “Heads and tails, heads and tails, heads and tails. Heads and tails, heads and tails, heads and tails?”

Yes, the rumours are true. The living legend Derek Griffiths is in this one. All hail Derek Griffiths.

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