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In View - The Month in Television |
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Chris Perry presents the first part of this month's special double-edition...
IN VIEW - The Month in Television
by Chris Perry
April 1996
After Adrian's impressive prose on the state of television for March, you can suffer my shambolic utterings in a rip-roaring rollercoaster of opinions running resolutely towards the sign that cheerfully informs you that there are roadworks ahead and you forgot to fix the brake.
April was the month that confirmed that The Bill always begins at 19:59 (official - from the Central TV transmission suite) to annoy people who set VCRs on the timer... ...and steadily got worse. Suffering a car crash actually gave me an opportunity to watch television. A chance to muse over the popularity of Father Ted, which still baffles me, whilst praying that Eddie Izzard decided to leave Have I Got News For You and join the cast of Married For Life, which did not cross the Atlantic with the same style or humour of its American counter-part. Since I have avoided Married For Life, having seen episode one, I can honestly say that it would have suited Eddie's love of pink mini-dresses and dark eyeshadow.
A short meal break of plain pancakes (with a hint of liver) finds me digesting another adventure of John Neil as he unravels Circles of Deceit. These one-off TV films are a positive delight to brighten any Bank Holiday and 'Kalon' was suitably implausibly-plausible. I also admired the courage of Simon Cadell who looked so ill and yet worked so hard on-screen. His pain was obvious and we will sadly miss him. Hi-de-hi. Whilst critics and audience alike were browbeaten by the pace and plot of Band of Gold series two, I remained impressed but not surprised. Kay Mellor's first series was promoted as a thriller about a nineties Jack the Ripper. However, to many the murders were incidental to the frank, realistic portrayal of life on the game. A high-court QC could not have presented a better case for legalising prostitution. What mother wouldn't sell her body to feed her starving child? The twist at the end with the ladies acquiring legal jobs was an added bonus, but Kay Mellor soon proved with series two that society is too quick to condemn people for their past. With the exception of Collette coincidentally being Rose's daughter I have found both series entirely realistic. In fact, they could have been more extreme. At the risk of offending Mary Whitehouse, I work with prostitutes daily and I cannot point at a single action in the TV series that could not happen in real life. Frightening, isn't it? Band of Gold was over too soon and enough plot threads remain to make a third series.
Embarrassing moments in television are not uncommon and Fantasy Football League continues to abandon football in favour of fantasy in a league of its own. Danny Baker and Susan Tully have both fared particularly badly this season, both in team selection and on the sofa. Danny Baker extolled the glories of eels and then promptly choked on one! Every 'fat bloke with similar facial expressions' has been trundled out to ridicule the DJ/TV presenter, whereas Susan Tully was terrified to say anything in case she answered Frank Skinner's assertion that Daniella Westbrook "had more pricks than a hedgehog!". Her team did not even get a mention. My personal favourite guest has been Nick Owen who confirmed my belief that he is wasted on morning television. He has a wicked sense of humour and doesn't mind letting his hair down. All credit to the guests who are weekly exposed to good-natured ridicule and it's nice to see Patrick Mower making a cameo appearance. The season will soon be finished and Angus Deayton looks set to win.
Unlike his new series of Have I Got A Load of Rubbish To Talk About Whilst Disregarding The News, which suffers not from the loss of the funny Paul Merton, but more from the addition of Eddie Izzard who has spent two programmes cheerfully failing to answer anything and instead whines that the questions are too hard. Maybe his sense of humour is too esoteric for me, maybe it is fashionable to laugh at pretentious 'comedians' who tell the punchline without a joke, because it is perceived as a radical form of formalism, unseen since Salvador Dali died? Frankie Howerd could milk a audience, Victoria Wood and Jo Brand have got a lotta bottle, but Izzard remains unfunny to me as does his gimmick of wearing female clothes and make-up. Danny La Rue does it so much better.
The return of Bugs has not delivered the announced-promise of greater characterisation, but I am not complaining. It is still highly entertaining and a welcome piece of escapism. Opposite on Saturday evenings, La Plante Productions continues to try and convince its viewers that The Governor is a well-researched piece of drama that mimics life in a high-security UK prison. Unfortunately, it is shot in Ireland and its research could (I assume) be based upon the Eire prison service because it bears no resemblance to the UK Prison Service at all. It seems that security at Barfield is less than would be required to run an open class 'D' UK nick. The season finale saw an entire wing of Category A prisoners escaping over two walls carrying shotguns, having fled a high security internal Secure Unit. No one saw them leave, there were no cameras, dogs or officers on duty it seems - except Governor One, Helen Hewitt, who happens to drive up to the main gate just as an inmate climbs over the wall in front of her! I enjoyed the drama, but it has created a public misconception of the truth by giving itself labels of being 'researched' and this misconception will lead to further losses of confidence in the prison system. It should be remembered that only 3% of the UK prison population are Cat A.
Finally, good to see Neville Lytton at work upon his newspaper column once more, whilst Marker Enquiries reaches its concluding episodes. The adventures of Frank Marker have delighted my satellite receiver for nearly seven months, though all the episodes made in monochrome were missing from UK Gold. Thank goodness that Kaleidoscope shows them annually or I could get quite aggrieved at their loss.
Copyright © Chris Perry 1996. All Rights Reserved.
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