Lies and humiliation
Extras (BBC 1), Parkison: The Final Conversation (ITV), Sense and Sensibility (BBC 1), David Cameron's Incredible Journey (BBC 2), The Hidden Story of Jesus (Channel 4)
We said goodbye to Michael Parkinson and Andy Millman over Christmas. Andy Millman was the hero of Extras, whose finale went out on BBC1 on 27 December. This was what I think of as a sit-traj, a comedy with more misery than laughs. It was mainly about humiliation: Andy’s doll, based on his character in his grisly sitcom, is outsold by a Jade Goody doll that screeches racist abuse. A harridan from the Guardian (I genuinely have no idea which of my colleagues was meant) harasses him into admitting he’s been lying. The Ivy has no table for him. Schoolboys yell abuse at Darren, the world’s most hopeless agent. The real George Michael is shown cruising on Hampstead Heath and Andy points the paparazzi his way. Only Hale and Pace are more thoroughly humiliated. Maggie lives in a one-room flat and works as a cleaner. Finally, Andy realises he has become a monster, regrets it and goes off with Maggie in a cosy sentimental ending, very much like the finale of The Office. Which was kind, since it was the only cheery moment in the whole 85 minutes. It was all rather odd. Ricky Gervais himself seems to be loving his fame. Is he trying to tell us that inside every gloating celeb there’s a self-loathing nonentity trying to get out?
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Highbrow
January 3rd, 2008 11:43pmI have always thought Parkinson absurd, a grown man, who was allegedly once a serious journalist,asking sycophantic questions, doubtless enabled by an army of earnest researchers, of actresses and rock singers, whom he pretended to take seriously. His one service to the cause of sanity in public life was that, by pretending to take these hapless bimbos at their own face value, he induced them into displays of hubris which exposed their own absurd self-absorbtion to a grateful public. Helen Mirren was a prime example. If only one had only seen her in "The Queen" and not subsequently on Parkinson. One is reminded of Woody Allan saying that if he had his life over again he would do everything the same but would not have seen the film of "The Magus".Was Parkinson not just a canny businessman who jumped on the celebrity culture bandwagon, saw he was onto a good thing, lowered his standards and made a pile out of being lowbrow? In Blair's Britain, this is the way to a knighthood or the peerage.