Television
Under the radar
Evan Davis clearly has a great sense of humour.
24-carat self-indulgence
After watching Troubadours (BBC4, Friday) for about ten minutes, I was close to gibbering with rage.
Poverty porn
British poverty is normally a subject for comedy, rather than documentary.
The glory of Rory
I watched Rory McIlroy win the Open Golf last weekend (it was on Sky, so there was no Peter Allis and his reminiscences of clubhouse banter past; to my surprise, I missed him).
Stuff of legend
A few years ago, my at-the-time-quite-impoverished screenwriter friend Jake Michie told me about this brilliant new children’s TV series he’d dreamed up about the Knights of the Round Table.
Righteous anger
Can a documentary ever be as entertaining as a fictional feature film? And, if it can, does that mean it cannot be a serious contribution to public debate?
Princely war
The Duke at 90 (BBC1) was another engagement in Prince Philip’s ongoing war against the media.
Is he a genius?
You’ll forgive me, I hope, for coming back so soon to the subject of Adam Curtis, the first part of whose All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace was so ably dissected by Simon Hoggart last week.
Big Brother Beeb
For the past few weeks, unnoticed by all but the most sharp-eyed critics, BBC1 has been running a Celebrate Communitarianism season.
Cartoon counselling
The Trouble with Love and Sex (Wednesday, BBC2) was extraordinary and quite successful.
Farewell, Sarah Jane
There’s a brilliant moment in the 1975 Doctor Who storyline The Ark In Space when Sarah Jane (Elisabeth Sladen), on a vital mission to save Earth from the evil insectoid Wirrn, gets stuck in a ventilator shaft.
Laid-back fantasy
This is how heavily Game of Thrones (Sky Atlantic, Monday) is being promoted: the preview discs came with a big, wider than A4, stiff-backed glossy book containing pictures of the actors and the settings, plus a glossary and a guide to the programme’s fantasy land — more than any lonely schoolboy in his bedroom could wish for.
Carry on camping
Britain’s Next Big Thing (BBC2, Tuesday) is another reality show in which members of the public risk humiliation for the chance of brief success and even briefer fame.
Cultural surrender
When I was a teenager I used to upset my father by telling him I thought it would be really glamorous to die young in a car crash.
Personal grooming
I found myself among a group of young people the other day, and they were talking with much hilarity about The Only Way Is Essex (ITV2, Sunday and Wednesday).
Our island story
I vividly remember the moment when I saw my first black person. It was December in either ’68 or ’69, so I would have been three or four at the time, and my father’s works had arranged some kind of coach outing to meet Father Christmas. Seated near me was a black child a bit older than me, and I recall gazing fascinated at the blackness of his skin and noticing that it had white blotches on it like a mirror image of the dark freckles and moles on my skin. ‘Daddy, what are those white things?’ I asked, pointing at the boy’s skin. ‘Pigment,’ my father explained.
Apocalypse now?
The BBC’s Horizon is, amazingly, almost 50 years old and this week, in its The End of the World? Guide to Armageddon (BBC4, Thursday), it looked back at some of its scariest predictions.
Triumph of the West
If at the beginning of the 15th century you’d had to predict who was going to dominate the world for the next 500 years, the answer would surely have been China.
The real thing
I had prepared myself for another rant at Comic Relief, a grisly occasion on BBC1 in which every year parades of slebs preen themselves on their good works.
Shameful bias
So you’re the leader of the Netherlands’ youngest, and now second-most-popular political party — and the reason you’re doing so well so soon is that your policies strike a chord with many Dutch.
The human factor
Successful programmes often become bloated, and MasterChef (BBC1, Wednesday) is headed that way.
Grandfather’s footsteps
In the good old days, when Hackney still had a proper swimming pool, I used to do lengths every morning with an old boy called Bob.
Grown-up viewing
Sky’s new channel, Atlantic, kicked off this week with two big shows: Boardwalk Empire, which is set in 1920 and is about gangsters, and Blue Bloods, which is set in the modern day and is about a family of New York law enforcers.
Wasted talent
Just before Christmas, a TV production company asked whether I might be interested in appearing in a zappy new live and topical political series they were soon to launch on Channel 4.
Reality check
Horizon (BBC2, Monday) asked, ‘What is reality?’ and didn’t really have an answer.
