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Alan Partridge switches channels to Sky

admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 08:00:15 +0000

Steve Coogan moves character from BBC for two one-hour specials and TV adaptation of on-line series Mid Morning Matters

A-ha! His BBC tv career famously came to an end when he thrust a lump of cheese in his commissioning editor’s face. Now Steve Coogan’s most famous creation, hapless Norfolk DJ Alan Partridge, is changing channels to Sky.

Coogan will star as Partridge in two new one-hour specials as well as a TV adaptation of his on-line series, Mid Morning Matters. The shows will appear on Sky Atlantic as part of an output deal with Coogan’s production company, Baby Cow.

The BBC has been the home of Partridge since he started out reading the sports news on BBC Radio 4′s On The Hour. The last series of I’m Alan Partridge aired on BBC2 in 2002.

Coogan’s Sky Atlantic deal also includes Welcome to the Places of my Life, which will see Partridge take viewers on a tour of his beloved home county, Norfolk. A second Partridge special will feature the DJ being interviewed for a local book club by author Chris Beal, played by Robert Popper.

The specials will be executive produced by Coogan with his Baby Cow business partner Henry Normal and The Thick of It creator Armando Iannucci, who is also involved in bringing Partridge to the huge screen in a long-awaited film version next year.

Coogan said: “Alan has been off the TV for too long but he is even more excited than me about his chance to have a second bite of the cherry. Alan feels the second decade of the millennium is the right time.”

Mid Morning Matters, which aired on-line last year in an initiative funded by beer brand Foster’s, will be re-edited for TV in a six-part “special edition” with a second series next year. Partridge published his “autobiography” last year.

The Baby Cow deal also includes an animated children’s tale, Uncle Wormsley’s Christmas, narrated by Coogan, and a two-part look at Coogan’s 2009 standup tour in Australia and New Zealand.

A high-profile victim of phone-hacking, Coogan’s more recent tv appearances have been connected to his legal action against News International, publisher of the now-defunct News of the World, which he settled earlier this year.

Sky, not previously known for its homegrown comedy output, has been investing heavily in the genre of late with shows such as Stella with former Gavin & Stacey star Ruth Jones, and Trollied starring Jane Horrocks. Other new projects will star Kathy Burke, Julia Davis and Jack Dee.

Sky’s head of comedy Lucy Lumsden stated Sky Atlantic was “providing our ideal writer performers the space to feel creatively free”.

Launched last year, Sky Atlantic is home to the satellite broadcaster’s high profile US dramas including Game of Thrones, Boardwalk Empire and Mad Men, for which it purchased the rights after four series on BBC4.

The pay channel will also air West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin’s latest drama, The Newsroom, as well as Iannucci’s US comedy, Veep.

Normal, who is chief executive of Baby Cow, stated the company was “at the beginning of a great adventure”.

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Mentorn Media retains Question Time contract

robert — Thu, 17 May 2012 08:00:17 +0000

BBC1 current affairs programme will be made by London-based independent producer for another three years

Question Time producer Mentorn Media has retained the contract to make flagship BBC1 current affairs programme for another three years.

London-based independent producer Mentorn, a subsidiary of Tinopolis, has made Question Time since 1998.

David Dimbleby will continue to host the show from venues around the country when the new production contract begins in September.

Question Time last year switched production from London to Glasgow, with Mentorn Scotland picking up the contract.

Nicolai Gentchev continues as Question Time editor, with Hayley Valentine as executive editor for BBC Scotland.

The Mentorn Media chief executive, John Willis, said: “We’re absolutely delighted to secure the contract for a further three years. It’s well deserved recognition of the brilliant work of David Dimbleby and the Question Time team led by editor Nicolai Gentchev and executive producer Steve Anderson.”

Anderson said: “Mentorn has helped to make Question Time one of the most important programmes on British television. In the lifetime of the current contract, we produced the memorable editions on the MPs’ expenses row, Hugh Grant appearing on the night of the closure of the News of the World plus, of course, the appearance of BNP leader Nick Griffin, watched by nearly 10 million people.

“But politics has never been more fascinating and with a terrific new team in place, we are excited about how Question Time can enhance its reputation as the place where the public hold the decision makers to account.”

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Review: Sex, Lies and Rinsing Guys; Silk

Alina — Wed, 16 May 2012 08:00:14 +0000

‘Rinsing’ means getting something for nothing – and Danica is rinsing royalty

I’ve just purchased a gift on the world wide web for a woman named Danica Thrall. I got her a DVD of Crossroads – the 2002 film starring Britney Spears, I’m sorry to say, not the long-running ITV soap set in a motel near Birmingham, which was not on her Amazon gift list.

How do I know Danica? Well, I do not really, to be honest, but I went to her official website after seeing her on Sex, Lies and Rinsing Guys (Channel 4). I’m not sure why the programme’s called that – there is no sex involved, or lies, really. Danica makes it perfectly clear how it works: I purchase her stuff, and in return I get nothing, not even to meet her.

That’s why I figured it was OK, and also OK to admit to it. That’s certainly why I got her the DVD, and not the Jimmy Choo strappy sandals ($695) or the Apple iMac 21.5 inch desktop computer (£927.40). Still, even £9.99 is quite a lot to give someone I do not know and nearly certainly never will. Actually, I tried to get her a secondhand copy of The Female Eunuch (£1.48) but Amazon would not let me. It stated – in red! – that this item could not be shipped to Danica’s address (PO Box 57994, London W4 4QG, if you’d like to send her something too). Maybe she is put some kind of filter on, to block out inappropriate gifts.

We see her in the film going round a department store. She’s not shopping, though, she is just making a note of things she likes, which then go up on her wish–list, to rinse. That’s what rinsing means – getting stuff for nothing. Mugging, really; certainly the men who fall for it are mugs. Men like me. Look, there is a White Knight uni-directional tumble dryer (£143.72) on Danica’s list. She’s trying to rinse a dryer!

Danica is not the only rinser featured; you always need three, that is the rule for a programme like this. I’m not totally convinced it is a phenomenon, that there really is “a new breed of women” as we are told, but somehow they find a couple more. So there is Jeanette from Liverpool, who rinses a business-class trip to New York with lots of designer shopping thrown in from a guy, then rinses her hands of him when he starts wanting more than just to pay for things. Yes, Jeannette actually meets her men. As does Hollie from Nottingham, whose ideal rinse to date is a huskie named Simba. Hollie sells stuff she gets on eBay, with help from her mum, who must be very proud. I hope that poor Simba’s not going on eBay. Aw-roooo …

I’m sticking with Danica, though. Well, she is “rinsing royalty”, apparently, and I like to aim high. Plus I’m more comfortable with the not-meeting thing, it means I do not feel guilty, or dirty. Just a dufus, really. A tenner, for nothing! Not even a thank-you. You see, I tweeted her (@DanicaOfficial), telling her I’d got her the Crossroads DVD she wanted. And then – a bit cheekily! – I stated if she wanted to get me a gift back she could (I gave her the Guardian address, to be on the safe side).

Why the hell am I concentrating on nonsense like that when there is a new series of Silk (BBC1)? Well, sorry, but I thought it was more fun, and actually more interesting. Silk is quite good, for the same reasons it was quite good last series: exciting in court, a bit underwhelming outside. There’s something a bit two-dimensional and unsophisticated about the characters. Even the normally marvellous Maxine Peake fails to move; maybe she is simply miscast as a QC, which she now is.

Good (grim) eye-gouging though – not seen, just described, very graphically. Out vile jelly. Ouch.

Hahaha, Cardinal Burns (E4). I know I keep on about it, but it’s the funniest thing on, that is all.

TV review: 56 Up; Chatsworth

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 08:00:19 +0000

We only get snapshots of lives in 56 Up – but it’s more real than most reality TV

So we are reached 56 Up (ITV1) in Michael Apted’s extraordinary, bold series of films that follows its characters throughout their lives and spans an entire generation.

They’re middle-aged now. Sue is happier, more confident and relaxed than she has been. She’s got her Glen; she is got a job she adores at a university, though she never went to one herself; and now she is got amateur dramatics too.

Paul, the tiny boy with the worried look who was in care at seven and then moved to Australia, did get married, despite saying in 1964 he did not want to because a wife might make him eat something he did not like, like greens. I don’t know if his wife does – make him eat greens – but she does sort of eclipse her husband. That’s no bad thing. Seven Up!, reflecting the age it started in, was fairly male-heavy. Paul’s worried look remains, he still has issues with confidence, self esteem and expressing himself.

More troubled still is thoughtful Neil, though he is no longer homeless and wandering Scotland, as he was at 28. Now – some might state worse still – he is a Lib Dem councillor, in Cumbria. Still thoughtful, still troubled. And unsuccessful in finding love.

This is my third time with the Up series. Or is it my fourth? It’s hard to be sure because these are not so much events, like, say, World Cups (surely how most rational people mark the passing of their lives, no?). They’re windows – regularly spaced but looking on to something that is always moving and changing – the lives of Sue and Paul, Neil and Peter etc. It is actually a bit like having real friends, but friends you see only every seven years. As with real friends, some you are more pleased to see than others; some amuse you, others depress you. But like any actual people you have known, it can only be fascinating to meet them again – to see fortunes rise and fall, love come and go, children, grandchildren, divorce, new love, despair, loneliness. The posh get less posh, and vice versa; Scouse accents go, Aussie ones come; attitudes – to work and class and family – change. Hair, too, changes and goes. It’s a social history of this country, but more than that, it’s a show about these individuals.

It’s not perfect. There’s that lack of women – just four out of 13. And what probably looked like a very broad cross-section of society in 1964 now looks rather narrow. Pale, too. And a glimpse through the window every seven years cannot tell the whole story. These are snapshots. But it’s still a lot more real than most so-called reality television. More moving, too, and more important. It’s a big show about people and life, and there is not much as important as that.

Hundreds work there, including Heather the head guide, who spends a lot of time telling people they have to wear their backpacks on their fronts; and camp Andre who runs the farm shop (annual turnover £5.5m). There’s silver to polish, books to be dusted, litter to be picked up, all in time for the first visitors of the year … Yeah, all right, but what I really want to know is what is going on behind the scenes, who’s doing what with who. Why cannot it be more like Downton? What about the pants Andre finds in the cistern of one of the lavs? I’d like to have seen a thorough investigation into those. Less fussed about why the forks are laid points facing down.

And the whole upstairs-downstairs thing. Look, the Duke and Duchess are out dressed in hi-viz jackets, picking up litter with the proles. Such an indignity. It’s nearly as if there is no upstairs-downstairs anymore, and everyone just mucks in and mills about together on some sort of modern, middle class, mezzanine. Where’s the fun in that?

Veep season one, episode four: Chung

jessica — Mon, 14 May 2012 08:00:10 +0000

The series is coming together at last … or is this how they planned it all along?

SPOILER ALERT: This blog is for people watching Veep on HBO. Don’t read on if you have not seen episode three of the series. Here are the reviews of previous episodes in this series.

The vice-president’s office is worried that Minnesota Governor Danny Chung, a charismatic Chinese-American war hero, is a threat as a potential VP replacement if the president decides to ditch Selina Meyer at the next election. Meyer orders a staff member to produce a research file on Chung’s background. Meanwhile, Senator Doyle announces that he is withdrawing his support for Meyer’s plans for filibuster reform because of his anger at two representatives of the oil industry being put on the VP’s clean jobs commission by Meyer.

Preparing for an appearance on Meet The Press, Meyer is ordered by the White House to emphasise a hard line on immigration. Escorting Meyer to the interview, Meyer’s staff Amy and Gary are disconcerted to overhear her graphic sexual conversation with her lover, Ted. En route, Meyer learns from the research file that Chung is not an American citizen by birth, so is ineligible to be vice-president. After the Meet The Press taping ends, Meyer mentions Chung’s ineligibility to the show’s moderator, which is picked up by the studio microphone and is soon circulated along with what appears to be an anti-immigrant slur by Meyer.

As her remarks are circulated amid internal panic, Meyer is relieved to visit a hospital to meet survivors of an accident for the positive PR but is instead greeted with applause and cheers by locals concurring with what they take to be her anti-immigrant, anti-Chinese sentiment from the Meet The Press appearance. Chung then appears on tv and gives a hard-hitting press conference that he is in fact a US citizen, despite false smears on the internet.

Desperate to salvage her plans for filibuster reform, Meyer’s staff Amy and Dan have lunch with an anti-immigration Arizona senator and make pledges of support in return for his “pro-caucasian caucus” backing filibuster reform, which he accepts. Meyer leaves the office to meet her lover but not before her explicit phone sex chat with Ted is overheard by Mike McLintock, another member of staff.

Finally, after three episodes of over-long scene-setting and forgettable dialogue, Veep gets it together. The difference between episode four and the previous three is that here the situation provides the comedy and the pace, rather than some laboured one-liners straining to create atmosphere. On behalf of Armando Iannucci’s fans: phew. Also, what took you so long? I was just about to give up.

The idea that Meyer might have a threat to her position in the form of Chung livens things up perfectly, with the tension helped by Meyer herself throwing a few tantrums – “I am the vice-president of the United States, you stupid tiny fuckers,” she tells her staff at one point – in between cringe-inducing middle-aged Washington sex speak with Ted, her previously undisclosed lover (played by Andy Buckley, better known as David Wallace in The Office – US edition). “You tell Sargent Ted I would like him very much to drill me in my Oval Office,” is one such. Julia Louis Dreyfus carries off the smut well.

And Meyer finally bites back at Jonah, the overbearing, obnoxious White House aide, even though he is absolutely right that no one remembers or cares about Meyer’s previous political positions – a hint that she is prepared to ditch her political baggage as easily as the president could ditch her, if required. “That’s my girl, Olympic-style back flip,” murmurs Mike McLintock, approvingly, as she touts tougher immigration rhetoric on Meet The Press.

Even better, the series is moving into much more hazardous territory, with the Chung comments by Meyer – based on world wide web rumours – a direct reference to the “birther” controversy that Barack Obama has never been able to shake off, despite its ludicrousness, with Meyer’s re-mark that Chung “technically is not an American” opening up a similar can of worms. That, alongside the immigration positions Meyer is embracing, unleashed the ugly scenes at the hospital, with one person shouting “It’s the White House, not the Yellow House”. Although based on what I’ve seen, that is more like documentary footage than satire, unhappily.

Nonetheless, Veep is devolving into West Wing-with-swearing. Meyer is sucking up to the forces of darkness in order to make political gains. But in this episode at least it works, with the real-time sense of panic making a change from the cynicism for its own sake that stamped the earlier episodes. And that was part of the problem: when cynicism is cheerfully embraced by every character, it becomes all too knowing and jaunty to make a point.

Here though there was one vignette of some sophistication: at the hospital, Meyer’s staff telling the press that her meeting with parents was a “private moment” – right up until a physician announced that the patient was recovering, at which point the photographers were let loose, a situation that went toxic as the hospital’s TV simultaneously lashed up news alerts about Meyer’s slur against Chung (“Veep in deep” was the faux-CNN headline).

Why we could not have cut to the chase a lot faster is a mystery, and the series’s slow begin may take a while to mend. Despite the healthy viewing handover that Veep inherits from following Game of Thrones, it is still getting killed in the cable ratings by Mad Men. HBO is willing to make a long term investment, but Veep has shed a pile of viewers from the first to third episodes. Now we get to see if it can win them back.

Meyer: Did he do that thing? [stretches out arms in imitation of Chung] I do not know if we should hug him or crucify him. It makes me want to crucify him.

Chung: Can I sign a book for her? [starts signing]

VeepUS televisionUnited StatesRichard Adams
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Rewind radio: Saturday Live; James O’Brien; Front Row – review

chuck — Sun, 13 May 2012 08:00:08 +0000

The smooth Sian Williams was ill-suited to the quirky Saturday Live, while James O’Brien was charm personified

Saturday Live: (Radio 4 | iPlayer)

Saturday Live is a strange programme; which is, of course, the delight of it. Born out of John Peel’s Home Truths, which enticed Radio 4 listeners to reveal their own offbeat and wonderful lives, Saturday Live celebrates the small, the odd-bod, the hilarious; the unexpected brush with celebrity, the domestic left turn, the exceptional collection of something perfectly trivial. Its first presenter, the witty, quirky Fi Glover, made the show her own; when she left to spend more time with her kids, the witty, quirky Richard Coles proved an admirable replacement. Despite this, there have been rumours for a while that the BBC top brass is not completely happy with Saturday Live. That they are not quite sure what to do with the show. That is, they love it, but not entirely.

Of course, they are right: no show is perfect and SL can veer disturbingly towards the twee. But Gwyneth Williams’s tweaks did not change that. Instead, she announced an extension, to 90 minutes, and brought in Sian Williams as co-presenter. Who? you may say. Until recently, Sian was the co-host of BBC Breakfast. She’s a reporter and newsreader, and used to produce radio. So, very experienced. Quirky, however, Sian is not. And I’m not sure where her personality is located. Possibly in her dressing table. Perhaps she only gets it out on special occasions, like a posh brooch.

Thus it was with a faintly worried feeling that I tuned in on Saturday morning for the first of the new shows. Only to find that it was not Sian who got it wrong, it was the producers. David Cassidy was the huge booking. Who on earth thought he was a good idea? Didn’t anyone talk to the man beforehand? Cassidy, like 90% of all fading American megastars, was a death-defying, medal-winning, uninterruptable bore. From the moment he began, with some tedious waffle about “being a prisoner of the moment”, he killed the show stone dead. “Love,” he said, barging into someone else’s story, “is a universal language.” Rage is, too, dearest David.

The pre-recorded inserts were good, as ever, and it was nice to hear from the excellent JP Devlin, reading out listeners’ tweets and emails. But not, I suspect, all of them. The Radio 4 listeners must have been cursing at Cassidy as much as me. And I hope Devlin is not always going to be in the studio: his talent is far better highlighted in his on-the-road packages. He’s the single ideal vox pop interviewer on radio today.

Anyway, stupid David got me so cross that I nearly forgot Sian Williams. Which, perhaps, is the point. She managed to get in a few questions, such as “What sort of things were you saying to each other?”. This to a woman who’d fallen in love with a Moroccan waiter, which, frankly, is a joke goal utterly missed. Sian was anonymous, smooth, professional. She’s spent years being those things; why anyone thought she’d suit Saturday Live is, well, anyone’s guess.

Later in the week, on LBC, James O’Brien hosted a lively, shouty phone-in about the conviction of a group of Asian men of grooming underage girls for sex. He’s such a charmer, O’Brien, that after one caller ranted at him (wrongly) for picking on Muslims, she ended the call with a cheery “Thanks a lot. Byeeee!” Anyway, though the topic was unsavoury, to state the least, the show was the ideal I’ve heard: open and wondering in a way that few phone-in shows are.

Best radio noise this week: Damon Albarn’s portable record player. Oh, and his toy stylophone from Russia. And his fruit juice maker. He’s working hard, Damon, is not he, at the moment? Interviews everywhere, promoting so many different projects that it’s hard to keep track. John Wilson, of Front Row, managed to keep him in line, by letting him make uncommon sounds, both in his studio and upstairs in his den. Later, Wilson blended in the noise of Chelsea beating Barcelona. Lovely, lively audio.

RadioTalk radioDamon AlbarnMiranda Sawyer
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TV review: Episodes

sofia — Sat, 12 May 2012 08:00:15 +0000

Episodes is still irritating, but the second series appears to be getting funnier

The ideal jokes are not the in-jokes, but the good old-fashioned ones. Like Lapidus (John Pankow, who is also excellent) mouthing “I-1-2-4-Q” (or possibly something else) to his mistress over his blind wife’s shoulder while she drones on about the importance of saving honeybees. You cannot beat a bit of light mockery of the disabled, can you?

So, correction: I was totally prepared to hate this episode. The good news is … I didn’t. I actually liked it, rather a lot. In spite of itself.

Street of Dreams – review

robert — Fri, 11 May 2012 08:00:08 +0000

Generations have grown up with Britain’s longest running TV soap, but Corrie, the musical? Three years in the making and as ambitious as one of Liz MacDonald’s skimpy outfits, this epic production hopes to transfer a small-screen legend into huge arenas. Thus, the mocked up Coronation Street stage is the size of a road and there is an orchestra on the rooftops, where they have presumably been warned to watch out for passing trams.

The show begins like the 51-year old series, in grainy black and white. A massive TV screen shows classic clips while beneath them Coronation Street actors and actors playing Coronation actors’ parts trot across the stage. Confused already? “It’s fantasy. Like Simon Cowell’s sex life,” cries compere Paul O’Grady, even though the show’s current star Kym Marsh is eerily “realistic” as the young Elsie Tanner. The 1964 clip of Martha Longhurst feeling peeky in the Rovers is as harrowing as ever – “shall you tell her or shall I?” asks O’Grady, below, moments before she suffers a fatal heart attack. Alas, the poignancy is shattered by O’Grady’s “What can I do in a pub with a dead pensioner”. The subsequent quip “You’ve been written out love” draws knowing laughter, even though when he starts cropping up in the scenes as well, it starts to feel like Street Of Dreams is another car for the Scouse comic.

The show juggles poignancy and brass, hit and often miss. A scene between Iconic Elsie Tanner and Marsh’s repeatedly broken-hearted younger Elsie – “Save yourself, you should have got out while you can!” is unusually moving, even before Iconic Elsie turns into a Rovers Return Shirley Bassey and belts out I Know How It Feels as the screen lingers on the 1960s version’s tearful eyes. Conversely, a seance scene between Julie Carp as an angel and (yes) O’Grady is just daft.

This being at least partly rooted in real(er) life Corrie, the dialogue is wonderful, and there is nostalgic gold in old phrases like “chuckie egg”, and “fur coat with no knickers.” When Stan Ogden kisses Hilda and he asks, “Ugh, what does that lipstick taste of?” his wife ripostes “All woman, Stanley!”

Recent hit musicals Mama Mia! and We Will Rock You fitted the story around great songs (by Abba and Queen respectively). Here, there is not enough of either, even though the huge numbers get larger and bawdier and even pull in Salford tenor Russell Watson. It doesn’t get much camper than when Sean Tulley (singer Andrew Derbyshire, far too muscly to be Antony Cotton’s gay knicker machinist) dons butterfly wings and flies across the crowd. But the even the tram crash’s deafening song and flames cannot stop O’Grady from turning up again.

The real star here is the original series: the years of pain in Stanley Ogden’s face, young Bet Lynch’s tearful betrayal as her stage counterpart (also played by actress Julie Goodyear) defiantly sings Nowt A Bit Of Lippy Couldn’t Solve.

However, the most memorable scene sees stage and screen combine, as actor Brian Capron brings his darkly comic Corrie killer Richard Hillman to double life, along with tens more dancing Hillman multiples. “Don’t be scared!” Capron/Hillman tells screen Gail Platt to hoots of laughter. It’s just a pity that with so many versions of the serial murderer around, one of doesn’t quietly claim another victim and bump off Paul O’Grady.

From the archive, 10 May 1956: Labour calls the tune in political broadcast

jessica — Thu, 10 May 2012 08:00:16 +0000

Labour MP Kenneth Younger took to the radio airwaves with a parody of ‘Oh, dear, what can the matter be?’ in a 1956 party political broadcast

A new era in British politics has arrived. The Labour party, reading the portents of thin election meetings and fat queues at the music-hall, has taken to the guitar. Last night Mr Kenneth Younger, a former Minister of State, sweetened his party’s political broadcast on the eve of the municipal elections with a parody of “Oh, dear, what can the matter be?” sung in a amusing tenor voice and accompanied by himself on a guitar.

It is apparent that Labour, whose broadcasts in previous elections were accused of having lost the Battle of Slickness to the Conservatives, has decided to temper the earnestness of politics with the juke box.

The British local authority voter, settling down to his evening’s home entertainment and firmly closing the windows to cut out the sound of election meetings in the street, had no warning of what was to come. The Conservatives had a tv broadcast at 7.05pm and just 70 minutes after they had completed Labour was due to be heard on sound radio.

The Conservative Central Office film, ‘Neighbours,’ was the technically competent job one has learned to anticipate in their broadcasts. Mr Sandys talked about slums and housing, and the cameras showed us unpleasant rats and pleasant children. We had the inevitable human touch as Johnny regretted having to wash behind his ears even in his nice new bathroom.

There was a somewhat involved image with a set of scales as we were told the Facts of Life about housing subsidies and differential rents and then Mr Butler made an appearance to promise sober realism and value for money if we voted Conservative.

One hour and ten minutes passed, and those who had had enough of the Groves and the Burns and Allen show turned to sound radio to hear what Labour had to say. There was a flutter of voices, and nearly before you could state ‘Light Programme’ there was Mr Younger with his guitar.

Astonishment may have robbed most people of the power to grasp the import of the early verses, which had something unpleasant to state about Mr Butler. But Mr Younger poured musical scorn on the Tories:

After they won all their whacking majorities
They took a crack at the local authorities
Cut down their subsidies wrecked their priorities
It’s time that you told them to go

Macmillan’s new Budget comes straight from the gutter
We’ll all soon be solvent by taking a flutter
Who cares if the Bishops are now heard to mutter
It’s time that you told them to go

In the central section of the broadcast Labour local councillors sought to answer the Conservative tv points, attacked Lord Selborne’s speech (on Tuesday) on education, and made the serious arguments on the election.

Then more of Mr Younger, concluding:

If you put out the Tories your future is brighter
So rally to Labour and join in the fight sir
Vote Labour, vote left; you will be doing what is right, sir

Is The Apprentice just too much of the same?

sofia — Wed, 09 May 2012 08:00:53 +0000

We can see their next move as if they drew us a map. Isn’t it time Lord Alan made some serious changes to this tired format?

Back in 2005, Alan Sugar (he was then still a sir, not a lord) opened the first episode of the first series of The Apprentice by barking “I do not like liars, I do not like cheats, I do not like bullshitters, I do not like schmoozers, I do not like arselickers”. Eight years in, and it’s become thumpingly obvious that he doesn’t really care for change, either. Whisper it, but The Apprentice might be getting a tiny old.

The tasks are still variations on the same theme. The contestants are still united by their love of escalators, huge ties and moronic self-promotion. Around 60% of every episode is still made up of droolingly fetishistic skyscraper footage. Nick, god love him, still seems heroically determined to suck himself inside out by simultaneously pursing his lips and clenching his buttocks as hard as possible.

When they have happened, the format changes have been occasional and grudging. Margaret is now Karren. Sugar’s receptionist is no longer Frances. Sugar’s physique has become more lithe, while a deep X-shaped crevice has appeared on his face. The prize has changed a little. But that is about it.

Other shows of The Apprentice’s age have understood the need to adapt. MasterChef has grown in scale and ambition over the years. The X Factor has managed to plough through an entire fleet of judges. But The Apprentice is still there, same as it ever was, dementedly muttering “If it ain’t broke, do not fix it” to itself again and again. As a result, we are in the middle of what is perhaps its most stilted series yet.

You can see that some efforts have been made to shake things up this year, but they have all been as superficial as they are ineffectual. If this series will be remembered for anything, it’ll be its bizarre fixation with hipsterdom. There was that episode where all the candidates got to shout the word “upcycle” at a torrent of mimsying Brick Lane dimwits. There was that episode where all the candidates got to overcharge idiots for dinner from the back of a van in the name of the street food revolution. This week it’s street art. Next week it’ll probably be remixing Skrillex, or wearing carrot-leg chinos and Instagramming photos of ironic burlesque performers for their Pinterest boards.

But if Adam gets fired – it must only be a matter of time – what’ll we be left with? A handful of anonymous upstarts. More of the same tasks. A huge finish where the winner gets to dazzle us with a slightly altered nail file. At this point, that is not good enough. Let’s hope next year’s series has the guts to try something new while it still can.

But what do you think? Are you still excited by The Apprentice, or do you think it should be sent to the knackers’ yard? Leave your thoughts below.