Tv
Now and again a sitcom gag lodges in the public mind. In 1974, Ronnie Barker, in Porridge, was reminiscing about Top of the Pops and its all-girl dance troupe, Pan’s People. ‘There’s one special one — Beautiful Babs,’ he says. Beat. ‘Dunno what her name is.’
Her name was Babs Lord. She attracted the attention of a young actor called Robert Powell, then in a long-forgotten thriller called Doomwatch, so he met up with her in the celebrated and notorious BBC Club at Television Centre; after 36 years they are still married. She also became an explorer, described as the...
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I am writing shortly before this week’s vote for Mayor of London, which makes it a good time to ask whether Boris is Mr Toad. Hidden away on Sunday night, after the wondrously acted but terminally bleak Vera (Brenda Blethyn can convey more with her squeaky mou noise than some actors manage with ‘God for Harry, England and St George!’), was Perspectives: the Wind in the Willows (ITV1). It was one of those perfectly judged programmes which makes you glad that television exists. Gryff Rhys Jones, who played Mr Toad at the National, was an admirable guide, like those custodians...
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Rest easy on your deckchair, Delingpole, for I come in peace. Your column is safe — from me, at least — because this week I have made an unpleasant discovery: your job is really hard, and I don’t know how to do it.
It’s not the watching that’s so hellish, it’s deciding what to watch. It took me two days just to plough through the listings, for Pete’s sake, with a sense of panic rising in my bosom. What sort of locum would I be if I missed the week’s televisual pearl? What if the hours, days and nights I...
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I spent the last week in America, and my hosts had 900-plus channels listed on cable, though some required payment, others were in Spanish, and many featured what can only be called niche programming, such as lacrosse from the high school. My hostess liked Chopped!, which is their version of MasterChef — less hectic though with more repulsive food.
But I liked the commercials, which I watched carefully since — even though our advertising industry regards itself as the world’s most influential — American styles will soon cross the Atlantic. One problem advertisers face is how to plug something that...
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By the time you read this it’s quite likely I shall be in mid-air on my long journey to Australia. I’m off on a month-long speaking tour to promote Killing the Earth to Save It (the Oz version of Watermelons) and I figured my flight might work out cheaper if I arranged to be travelling on Friday the 13th. Should my plane blow up or the door come off at 30,000 feet causing me to be sucked out of the aircraft or I succumb to deep-vein thrombosis you’ll know I made the wrong call.
This will be the longest stretch...
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If only there was an alternative ending to the Titanic story. We could use a change. ‘Phew, we almost hit that iceberg!’ Or, ‘Thank goodness the White Star Line made sure there were ample lifeboats for everyone on board!’ Or even, ‘So it’s true — this ship really is unsinkable, and tomorrow night we will be safe and well in a rat-infested tenement on the Lower East side shared with seven other families!’
But of course it’s not a story, it’s a myth. You might as well have a happy ending to Oedipus Rex. And in the same way we...
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