21 October 2007
"I'M IN CHARGE"
Last night, it was off to Television Centre, courtesy of a Beeb PR, who'd very kindly sorted me out a couple of tickets to see a recording of Strictly Come Dancing.
And what a fantastic evening it was - albeit awfully long. We filed in at around 4pm, and finally left about 11pm. In between, a free two-fingered KitKat and a small orange juice - here's where your £2 billion shortfall can be found.
The atmosphere on the studio floor was unlike any other TV recording I've been to, more akin to sitting in a club. Andy Collins, alas, was on warm-up duty, but of course it was when Brucie pranced out (and he does prance - incredible for someone who's months shy of his 80th) the audience livened up. It's the first time I've ever seen the man strutting his stuff, and he was fantastic. Striking up the band for a song, wrenching a woman (in this case Mo from EastEnders) up for a dance, still cracking wise 30 seconds before the show went live.
Come transmission time (people still filing in mere seconds before), it was a privilege to witness the big BBC machine in motion - a crane camera swinging across the set; the steadicam operator sprinting onto the floor, frantically circling the dancers perilously close before legging it again; the sheer number of crew members, crouched within the audience, getting additional coverage of the action ...
Meanwhile, Bruce would trot on to the floor, do his piece to camera, then trot back to a pillar off set (chatting up a thrilled old lady on the way) to consult his scripts and the director. This was how he navigated through the show all evening, on and off again, occasionally exchanging words with the judges. Meanwhile, Tess mostly remained out of view, doing her backstage bit of business.
First show over, B and T recorded a couple of trails - one to be used later in the evening on BBC1 ("We'll say that bit together," Bruce said to Tess) - and then we broke for 40 minutes.
Back in the studio, to record Sunday's episode. First up was Andrea Bocelli and Katherine Jenkins with "Time to Say Goodbye". This was done without Bruce or Tess present. The audience were audibly appreciative when the director ordered a second go straight after the first performance because, honestly, it was electrifying in a way that doesn't translate to screen.
After that, a dress rehearsal of the whole show, Bruce continually taking the time to explain to the audience what bit was happening when. This meant we got to enjoy the spectacle of witnessing a bogus elimination (Dom's named picked out of the hat). Then Andy Collins again, promising "prizes" ... Pepping the audience up and, at 30 seconds to recording, telling everyone England had lost to South Africa. "Great!" moaned a crew member as the mood deflated.
Fairly quickly the show came to a halt following the opening sequence and a gag about "Did you watch the rugby?" necessitating an on-the-hoof rewrite from the leading man. As the crew reset, Bruce ensured we all knew what was going on. "I don't know, I have to be producer, director," he moaned. And then, squeezing past Penny Lancaster-Stewart on the steps, "Oh, you can help me any time!".
Less fluid an experience, the Sunday recording doesn't really compare to the live rush of the Saturday show, although it was still a thrill to see Forsyth's extra bits of business between takes ("Don't yawn, dear! Cor, I nearly fell into that! I don't know, you think you've got them in the palm of your hand ...").
And there it was, stop and start through to the final "keeeeeeep dancing!".
A few observations, then. While Tess didn't really interact much with the studio audience, Bruce seemed to consider it his personal responsibility to keep us happy. 50 people had been allocated as voters, in case the phonelines went down. The dancers were continually nipping into the crowd to chat to family. Shauna Lowry was sat a couple of rows away from me (so she's still alive). And the judges all had little cushions on their chairs.
And what a fantastic evening it was - albeit awfully long. We filed in at around 4pm, and finally left about 11pm. In between, a free two-fingered KitKat and a small orange juice - here's where your £2 billion shortfall can be found.
The atmosphere on the studio floor was unlike any other TV recording I've been to, more akin to sitting in a club. Andy Collins, alas, was on warm-up duty, but of course it was when Brucie pranced out (and he does prance - incredible for someone who's months shy of his 80th) the audience livened up. It's the first time I've ever seen the man strutting his stuff, and he was fantastic. Striking up the band for a song, wrenching a woman (in this case Mo from EastEnders) up for a dance, still cracking wise 30 seconds before the show went live.
Come transmission time (people still filing in mere seconds before), it was a privilege to witness the big BBC machine in motion - a crane camera swinging across the set; the steadicam operator sprinting onto the floor, frantically circling the dancers perilously close before legging it again; the sheer number of crew members, crouched within the audience, getting additional coverage of the action ...
Meanwhile, Bruce would trot on to the floor, do his piece to camera, then trot back to a pillar off set (chatting up a thrilled old lady on the way) to consult his scripts and the director. This was how he navigated through the show all evening, on and off again, occasionally exchanging words with the judges. Meanwhile, Tess mostly remained out of view, doing her backstage bit of business.
First show over, B and T recorded a couple of trails - one to be used later in the evening on BBC1 ("We'll say that bit together," Bruce said to Tess) - and then we broke for 40 minutes.
Back in the studio, to record Sunday's episode. First up was Andrea Bocelli and Katherine Jenkins with "Time to Say Goodbye". This was done without Bruce or Tess present. The audience were audibly appreciative when the director ordered a second go straight after the first performance because, honestly, it was electrifying in a way that doesn't translate to screen.
After that, a dress rehearsal of the whole show, Bruce continually taking the time to explain to the audience what bit was happening when. This meant we got to enjoy the spectacle of witnessing a bogus elimination (Dom's named picked out of the hat). Then Andy Collins again, promising "prizes" ... Pepping the audience up and, at 30 seconds to recording, telling everyone England had lost to South Africa. "Great!" moaned a crew member as the mood deflated.
Fairly quickly the show came to a halt following the opening sequence and a gag about "Did you watch the rugby?" necessitating an on-the-hoof rewrite from the leading man. As the crew reset, Bruce ensured we all knew what was going on. "I don't know, I have to be producer, director," he moaned. And then, squeezing past Penny Lancaster-Stewart on the steps, "Oh, you can help me any time!".
Less fluid an experience, the Sunday recording doesn't really compare to the live rush of the Saturday show, although it was still a thrill to see Forsyth's extra bits of business between takes ("Don't yawn, dear! Cor, I nearly fell into that! I don't know, you think you've got them in the palm of your hand ...").
And there it was, stop and start through to the final "keeeeeeep dancing!".
A few observations, then. While Tess didn't really interact much with the studio audience, Bruce seemed to consider it his personal responsibility to keep us happy. 50 people had been allocated as voters, in case the phonelines went down. The dancers were continually nipping into the crowd to chat to family. Shauna Lowry was sat a couple of rows away from me (so she's still alive). And the judges all had little cushions on their chairs.
19 October 2007
DRAGONS DONE
Having summarily dismissed all property shows from my viewing schedule last year, I am fearful that I'm now growing tired of Dragons' Den. It's not just that during this week's episode I was able to correctly predict when Evan's "In a bizarre twist" voice-over was about to commence, but I found it difficult to get at all interested in any of the pitches. Each one seemed to go on too long, and the concepts the visitors to the Den were proposing just weren't very inventive. In fact, by half way through I'd started reading the latest issue of Radio Times instead.
Mind you, I thought new Dragon James Caan was a smooth operator, but all in all is this yet another series that has outlived its shelf life?
Oh, and while I'm here, the result of The Restaurant was a travesty.
Mind you, I thought new Dragon James Caan was a smooth operator, but all in all is this yet another series that has outlived its shelf life?
Oh, and while I'm here, the result of The Restaurant was a travesty.
14 October 2007
THE JUBILEE LINE
Five years ago, Channel 4 was so miserable the only mention of its 20th anniversary came from Richard Whiteley on Countdown. Happily - presumably to cheer themselves up after a rather grim year - they're making much more effort in celebrating their silver jubilee, with More4 screening archive shows every night in October. For my money, the most intriguing so far was Friday's repeat of The Tube.
For all its legendary status, The Tube seems to have been distilled in recent years into just a handful of "greatest hits" - performances from The Jam or Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Paula talking about Sting's underpants and the story about Jools saying "fuck". That's why it was great to get a rare chance to see a whole 100 minutes of an episode, especially as when the show was actually running my idea of great music TV was Shakin' Stevens on Saturday SuperStore. It's kudos to More4 that they selected the final episode of the first series, first broadcast on 18 March 1983, which despite featuring a slowly-becoming-very-famous U2 as guests was in all other regards a completely bog-standard normal episode rather than an atypical special.
The biggest surprise, perhaps, was how little Paula Yates actually contributed to the programme - she can't have spent more than about five minutes on screen in the whole thing. Indeed, some of the items, including a brief interview with Bono, were instead presented by a man called Mike Everett, who was apparently supposed to have been a regular host but was unable to do so as he was in prison when it started. Meanwhile Muriel Gray's only role on the show was to introduce the hosts of Switch, the show that was replacing The Tube the following week ("Straight after The Addams Family!").
Oddest of all, though, was a very long film - 25 minutes, in fact - on the music scene in Northern Ireland, linked by a DJ from Downtown Radio and featuring performances from four or five local bands. You’d never see anything like that, in terms of length or style, on music TV these days, but it was clearly worth doing, as all the interviewees pointed out that Northern Ireland, at the time, basically didn’t have a music industry, with one or two tiny record labels operating out of bedrooms and one radio show. It's hard to imagine in these days of MySpace that bands could make their first ever national TV appearance and be completely unknown to all but about a dozen people in Belfast.
Of course the show itself turned out to be as shambolic as its legend suggests, with Paul Young just turning up for no reason and Jools trying to be as rude as possible (pronouncing "balcony" as "bollock-ony", which particularly amused Paula). Jeremy Isaacs said one of the things he liked most about The Tube was that Tyne Tees didn't just devote a studio to it but its entire building, and indeed there was a genuine sense of an event about proceedings that can only happen when it's the biggest thing in town.
The repeat was certainly an eye-opening watch and illustrates how fascinating it is to see a live show in its entirety many years on without all the contemporary stuff ("Straight after The Addams Family!") being edited out. Well done to More4 for some smart archive rummaging. Can we have a complete Saturday Live next, please?
For all its legendary status, The Tube seems to have been distilled in recent years into just a handful of "greatest hits" - performances from The Jam or Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Paula talking about Sting's underpants and the story about Jools saying "fuck". That's why it was great to get a rare chance to see a whole 100 minutes of an episode, especially as when the show was actually running my idea of great music TV was Shakin' Stevens on Saturday SuperStore. It's kudos to More4 that they selected the final episode of the first series, first broadcast on 18 March 1983, which despite featuring a slowly-becoming-very-famous U2 as guests was in all other regards a completely bog-standard normal episode rather than an atypical special.
The biggest surprise, perhaps, was how little Paula Yates actually contributed to the programme - she can't have spent more than about five minutes on screen in the whole thing. Indeed, some of the items, including a brief interview with Bono, were instead presented by a man called Mike Everett, who was apparently supposed to have been a regular host but was unable to do so as he was in prison when it started. Meanwhile Muriel Gray's only role on the show was to introduce the hosts of Switch, the show that was replacing The Tube the following week ("Straight after The Addams Family!").
Oddest of all, though, was a very long film - 25 minutes, in fact - on the music scene in Northern Ireland, linked by a DJ from Downtown Radio and featuring performances from four or five local bands. You’d never see anything like that, in terms of length or style, on music TV these days, but it was clearly worth doing, as all the interviewees pointed out that Northern Ireland, at the time, basically didn’t have a music industry, with one or two tiny record labels operating out of bedrooms and one radio show. It's hard to imagine in these days of MySpace that bands could make their first ever national TV appearance and be completely unknown to all but about a dozen people in Belfast.
Of course the show itself turned out to be as shambolic as its legend suggests, with Paul Young just turning up for no reason and Jools trying to be as rude as possible (pronouncing "balcony" as "bollock-ony", which particularly amused Paula). Jeremy Isaacs said one of the things he liked most about The Tube was that Tyne Tees didn't just devote a studio to it but its entire building, and indeed there was a genuine sense of an event about proceedings that can only happen when it's the biggest thing in town.
The repeat was certainly an eye-opening watch and illustrates how fascinating it is to see a live show in its entirety many years on without all the contemporary stuff ("Straight after The Addams Family!") being edited out. Well done to More4 for some smart archive rummaging. Can we have a complete Saturday Live next, please?
10 October 2007
THREE'S CONTINUITY - SLIGHT RETURN
Back in January, I suggested that BBC3 had the worst continuity announcers on telly, especially the hopeless Keiron Elliott. Almost a year on, he's still at it, and it looks like Family Guy is continuing to bring out the worst in him.
The second part of last night's double bill was a repeat of the episode in which Peter becomes friends with James Woods. Keiron therefore decided to announce this episode by saying "Brian gets a girlfriend, but Peter's OK because he's got Wood!" So amusing did Keiron think this line, he used it to introduce the double bill, then again over the end credits of the first instalment, then again to introduce the specific episode. Each time with the same dreadful giggly delivery.
Now there are many things wrong here. There's the fact that the BBC is introducing programmes with crappy juvenile double entendres of the type Finbar Saunders would consider a bit obvious. There's the fact they can do the same joke three times in 20 minutes. But mostly there's the fact it doesn't even make any sense, because he's not called James Wood, he's called James Woods! For heaven's sake.
The second part of last night's double bill was a repeat of the episode in which Peter becomes friends with James Woods. Keiron therefore decided to announce this episode by saying "Brian gets a girlfriend, but Peter's OK because he's got Wood!" So amusing did Keiron think this line, he used it to introduce the double bill, then again over the end credits of the first instalment, then again to introduce the specific episode. Each time with the same dreadful giggly delivery.
Now there are many things wrong here. There's the fact that the BBC is introducing programmes with crappy juvenile double entendres of the type Finbar Saunders would consider a bit obvious. There's the fact they can do the same joke three times in 20 minutes. But mostly there's the fact it doesn't even make any sense, because he's not called James Wood, he's called James Woods! For heaven's sake.
09 October 2007
"DREAMS OF SILVER SCREEN QUOTATIONS"
One of five's new imports, the David Duchovny starring Californication which begins on Thursday in a double bill with 30 Rock has attracted some average reviews. It's rather popular in Australia, although the reaction from some sections of the viewing audience has been interesting. They're calling it smut basically:
"Protestors are not backing down on their stance against the controversial Californication TV series, with dozens of demonstrators still gathering for weekly vigils. Demonstrators have been gathering outside Channel 10’s Sydney studios every Monday night, when the program is broadcast to a massive audience around Australia. Last night, protesters held candles outside the studios while saying prayers and singing hymns for anyone watching the show."
05 October 2007
BLUE, PETER?
So, Peter Fincham's resigned then. I'm shocked. The morning after the Queen furore, the man was busy carefully planting all the blame on RDF, determined to dodge the flak. Of course, what he should have done back in July was clearly laid out by Ian Jones.
In December 2005, Fincham was quipping that all he did was show up to press launches for programmes commissioned by Lorraine Heggessey. He never really did step out of her shadow, did he?
That said, he did sort out the BBC1 idents. Hippos. It's how we'll remember him.
In December 2005, Fincham was quipping that all he did was show up to press launches for programmes commissioned by Lorraine Heggessey. He never really did step out of her shadow, did he?
That said, he did sort out the BBC1 idents. Hippos. It's how we'll remember him.
01 October 2007
WHO WILL BE THE NEXT ... DYKE-OON?
If OTT ever created a show, it would be this one. Well, this one in principle.
Get Me The Producer starts on Channel 4, Monday 15 October. It features Greg Dyke (Grey Dyke!) overseeing an Apprentice-style challenge in which 12 people new to TV perform a series of TV production-related tasks, all hoping they'll be the one awarded a year-long contract with a leading indie (presumably Princess, who make this).
"Television?" snaps Greg. "It's all about ideas. Simple as that!". And then off we go. The iconography is all present and correct - opposing teams, white boards, water coolers, mentors. And fantastic non-sequitars ...
"Let's have a little fun being creative". "I hate losing ... I'm not allowed to play squash any more, put it that way. I can be quite - you know - violent". "Only hold the potato once ... chuck a banana in!". Plus, my favourite: "How interesting is seeing a chicken really going to be? For five minutes? On British television?"
Alas, in practise, it's a bit more Tycoon than Apprentice. Greg's holed up in Brick Lane, seemingly living in a flat above a library, where he's continually shuttling executive chairs around the office, and chewing on his spectacles. Described as an "education" commission by C4, it actually feels a bit like that - as though the reality show element is merely a fashionable fiction to get across messages about working in industry. But for all that, it's still enough to hook me.
"If you Google my name," says team leader Karen Seeberg, "you'll find out I was a James Bond girl. But I really don't want that held against me". In fact, if you follow her advice, the first thing you'll find is her vanity site - www.karenseeberg.com - and a spot of cracker barrel philosophy: "Life is like a wild tiger. You can either lie down and let it lay its paw on your head ... or sit on its back and ride it". Hear her roar!
Six weeks of this? Oh yes. I'm sold.
Get Me The Producer starts on Channel 4, Monday 15 October. It features Greg Dyke (Grey Dyke!) overseeing an Apprentice-style challenge in which 12 people new to TV perform a series of TV production-related tasks, all hoping they'll be the one awarded a year-long contract with a leading indie (presumably Princess, who make this).
"Television?" snaps Greg. "It's all about ideas. Simple as that!". And then off we go. The iconography is all present and correct - opposing teams, white boards, water coolers, mentors. And fantastic non-sequitars ...
"Let's have a little fun being creative". "I hate losing ... I'm not allowed to play squash any more, put it that way. I can be quite - you know - violent". "Only hold the potato once ... chuck a banana in!". Plus, my favourite: "How interesting is seeing a chicken really going to be? For five minutes? On British television?"
Alas, in practise, it's a bit more Tycoon than Apprentice. Greg's holed up in Brick Lane, seemingly living in a flat above a library, where he's continually shuttling executive chairs around the office, and chewing on his spectacles. Described as an "education" commission by C4, it actually feels a bit like that - as though the reality show element is merely a fashionable fiction to get across messages about working in industry. But for all that, it's still enough to hook me.
"If you Google my name," says team leader Karen Seeberg, "you'll find out I was a James Bond girl. But I really don't want that held against me". In fact, if you follow her advice, the first thing you'll find is her vanity site - www.karenseeberg.com - and a spot of cracker barrel philosophy: "Life is like a wild tiger. You can either lie down and let it lay its paw on your head ... or sit on its back and ride it". Hear her roar!
Six weeks of this? Oh yes. I'm sold.