The 49ers

Jackie, Lynn, Sue

It’s interesting that in the current climate of reality television, a show which began forty-two years ago can show just how unreal those shows are.

What’s refreshing about 49 Up is the ordinariness of the participants. There’s no-one attempting to use their TV exposure for the purposes of vacuous self-promotion. What we get is an unique slice of British life and it’s the sort of programme that provokes discussion and makes one reflect on the passage of time.

The most memorable character for me has always been Tony, the lad who wanted to be a jockey but became a cabby. It was good to see him enjoying the good life in Spain and that things are working out well for him and his family. Tougher to watch was Jackie and she had a real bee in her bonnet with producer Michael Apted and was good that their frank exchange of views about the series was included.

A great piece of television, though it would have been good if the original show had been screened as a companion piece.

Tarnished Gold

ITV’s latest attempt to compete with Casualty is a strange affair. The Golden Hour spends so much time in flashbacks that it begins to irritate very quickly. The disturbing sight of a young boy being run over by a bus was gratuitously repeated umpteen times throughout the show, without doing anything to further the plot while, as is par for the course these days, the love lives of the regular cast took precedence over the medical drama.

Irony of ironies was seeing On the Buses legend Anna Karen’s character killed off in bus crash. Meanwhile the presence of Pooky Quesnel merely put in mind of the far superior Cardiac Arrest, which must be ripe for a re-run.

It would certainly be better than this tosh.

Come on down

Ant and Dec’s Gameshow Marathon got off to a cracking start with their tongue firmly in cheek version of The Price is Right. This is a cracking way to celebrate 50 years of ITV game shows and the celebrity contestants work far better than I thought they would. Vernon Kay in particular shone with his “I’ve had a wonderful night??? cliché perfectly timed.

It has to be said though that it’s the charisma of the cheeky Geordie boys that makes the show work so well and I look forward immensely to their take on The Golden Shot, one of my all time favourites.

I’m really enjoying the ITV celebration shows and the It’ll be Alright on the Night special was a nice touch.

On the plinth

What is and what isn’t art can be a very personal thing. I never been that enamoured with the school of thought that regards dead sheep as art or an unmade bed as a piece of greatness.

On the other hand, I really enjoyed Imagine this week and the inventive works of Marc Quinn. Marc has been catapulted in the public consciousness because his sculpture of Alison Lapper now adorns the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square.
The story of how this came about and of the prejudices that both he and Alison have to face made for illuminating television and certainly gave the story the depth that was so sadly lacking in some of the superficial reporting in our news bulletins.

At last

Heart broken

So we finally had the climax of the Alfie-Mo-Kat triangle and not before time either.

I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of the two episodes in which Kat confronted first Mo and then Kat. It was a prime example of what EastEnders is capable of when scenes are given room to breathe instead of being all over in less than thirty seconds.

Kat Moon has really earned her spurs as the Elsie Tanner of the modern times while Kacey Ainsworth has shown yet again just what a powerful actress she can be when blessed with a decent script.

It wasn’t quite up there with Sharongate as a show stopping moment but it was EastEnders approaching something like top form. It’s just a shame it took them so long to get there.

It’s time to light the lights

I had expected a few brickbats for leaving the likes of Morse, Frost and Cracker out of my personal ITV top fifty but it seems it was my omission of The Muppets that produced the most incredulity.

To put the record straight, I love Kermit and the gang so I was pleased they were included as Zippy and George counted down the puppet top ten on Channel Four.

It was a cracking trip down memory lane. I’d forgotten just how moth-eaten Hartley Hare used to look and it’s always good to see the likes of John Stapleton and Michael Parkinson having their feathers ruffled by Rod Hull’s Emu.

It was great to see Gordon the Gopher again too. Next time Fern Britton fancies time off from This Morning that should get Gordon back in to partner Phillip.

It’d be great.

Bye Bye Richie

The move of test cricket rights to pay TV means we’ve sadly heard the last of commentating legend Richie Benaud, though he did bow out on one of the finest test series of all time.

Richie made the game accessible to casual viewers while providing canny insight to keep the more dedicated fan happy to and one of last in a dying breed of broadcasting legends. He is to cricket what Dan Maskell was to tennis and Murray Walker was to motor sport.

Irreplaceable.

Some Richie classics:

"Captaincy is 90 per cent luck and 10 per cent skill. But don't try it without that 10 per cent."

"He's usually a good puller - but he couldn't get it up that time."

“That slow motion replay doesn't show how fast the ball was travelling.???

“His throw went absolutely nowhere near where it was going???

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