July 2008 Archives

Roxy Mitchell prepares to marry next week in EastEnders in a strange lace confection with a large bustle.

Never mind her pregnancy bump, she should be asking: "Does my bum look big in this?"

Of course, satorial worries pale into comparison when you consider she's marrying psycho Sean, but it made me think about the awful dresses which soap nuptials have given us in the last few years.

I mentioned Jacqueline Pirie in an earlier blog, and she had one of the strangest Coronation Street wedding dresses ever when she married Mike Baldwin. It cost a bomb but looked atrocious, bizarrely covered in bunches of grapes. She even had grapes in her hair.

And then there was Cilla (pictured lower down), who can always be relied upon to raise the chav factor on any occasion. When she became Mrs Battersy-Brown, she wore an horrendous nylon affair with huge flowers. At least she covered up her legs, unlike her bridesmaid Yana.

Sorry if you've had the bad taste to wear these frocks in real life. That actually happened to a friend of mine, not that Lucy has bad taste. She saw her (really nice) wedding dress on the cover of magazines modelled by Coronation Street's Claire when she married Ashley.

It was obviously a popular model with TV prop departments, as it was also sported by Olivia Colman in the Channel 4 comedy Peep Show, in the ill-fated wedding between Mark and Sophie which ended just after they exchanged vows.

As Lucy says: "I'm glad I got married first, otherwise it wouldn't have been a surprise when I walked down the aisle in it! I was not impressed at seeing my beautiful dress being dragged through some late-night comedy show."

Has anyone else out there seen their clothes appear on TV?
 

The Midland musician who played sax on Britain's best-loved Christmas hit reveals how members of the band were almost arrested - after being mistaken for alcoholic down-and-outs.

Nick Pentelow, son of Emmerdale actor Arthur, was a founder member of Roy Wood's Wizzard and had a starring role in the group's worldwide hit I Wish It Could Be Christmas Everyday.

But while filming a Top Of The Pops Christmas special at the BBC Shepherds Bush studios, he ran in to the long arm of the law.

"The trouble with TOTP was that you weren't allowed to play your instruments," says Nick, now 57, as he prepares for a series of reunion gigs in the Midlands.

"We all had to mime, and we were bored stiff. If you watch a video of our performance, you'll see that I don't even put the sax to my lips.

"My mate Mike Burney, who also played sax in the band, and I reckoned we'd had enough. We were fed up of standing round doing nothing. It wasn't the real thing, and it was hot under the studio lights.

"So we dragged on old greatcoats over our crazy stage clothes and sneaked out to the off-licence. We picked up a bottle of cider and went to sit on the green nearby. We were dying of thirst.

"It was only when a policeman asked what we were doing that we realised the green was full of vagrants, knocking back booze out of bottles in brown paper-bags. He thought we were old drunks."

The pair explained to the sceptical cop that they were in a famous pop group, and had to get back to the studio to finish their song.

After leaving Wizzard, Nick played alongside the likes of Roger Chapman, BB King, Albert Collins, Steve Gibbons, Gary Moore, and even worked in the Far East with a Japanese pop band called Dreams Come True.

Now, saxmen Nick and Mike have teamed up again in a six-strong R&B band called Old Horns, which also features former Wizzard keyboard player Bob Brady. "It's like a family reunion," says Nick.

"People forget that Wizzard dabbled in jazz. Sure, they had all the pop hits but listen to the b-sides and album tracks and you'll hear Roy and the rest of us experimenting with jazz, rhythm and blues.

"We've taken our name from the Old Horns pub in Great Barr. It seemed apt for a band of old sax players!"

Catch Old Horns live at Birmingham United Services Club this Friday July 25, at Pavilion Blues in Shenstone on Saturday July 26, and at the Kings Head at Aston Cantlow, near Stratford-upon-Avon, during the afternoon on Sunday July 27.

Is there anything more frightening on TV at the moment than the trailer for the new series of Dragons' Den?

Forget the Daleks, children will be hiding behind the sofa at the sight of these grimacing millionaire entrepreneurs.

Of course they're meant to be scary, but that's during the programme when they're firing questions at the hopeless people who come in with harebrained business ideas.

We're used to seeing the likes of Theo Paphitis looking stern and grumpy. It's their sinister smiles during the trailer which I find impossible to watch.

They're supposed to be bearing down on someone they like the look of, while grinning inanely in a menacing fashion.

If this is them trying to be nice, I'd prefer them to go back to being nasty.

Stop it now, it's truly terrifying!

FORGET Sir Michael Caine, Bob Hoskins, Miss Piggy and all the other screen legends I've interviewed.

This week I met a real TV icon.

Sooty.

Admittedly he wasn't too forthcoming in spilling the beans about his racy life, the time he squirted Cherie Blair with his water pistol or his love triangle with Soo and Sweep.

He was as silent as ever, which made the phone conversation a little difficult. Fortunately his companion, Richard Cadell, was able to reply on his behalf.

Amazingly, our furry friend turns 60 next week.

I wish I knew his anti-ageing secret, as there's not a wrinkle on him and he's as bright yellow as ever.

Read this Sunday's Mercury to discover what Sooty (and Richard) had to say.

I've also been chatting to Michael Buerk, who appeared on Celebrity MasterChef this week. His appearance wasn't quite as disastrous as he'd led me to believe. In typical self-deprecating style, he'd told me he was a hopeless cook who had only ever made scrambled eggs on toast before, yet he seemed to be chopping and slicing wtih the best of them.

He told me the worst part of filming the BBC1 show was continually having to stop cooking to tell the cameras his thoughts on how he was getting on.
"That really got on my tits," said Michael, using language he never used while reading the Nine O'Clock News.

He also revealed an interesting fact about reality shows - that celebrity contestants get paid the same amount no matter how far they progress in the competition.

Michael was relieved to go out in the first round, especially as he pocketed the same "substantial" fee as the finalists who endured hours more blood, sweat and tears in the kitchen.

It hardly seems fair, does it? I almost feel sorry for these poor, hard-done-by celebs.
Only almost, mind.

I loved the last episode of Doctor Who, but I feel a little cheated.

We were short on deaths to the tune of one.

They kept going on about a prophecy which decreed that one of the Doctor's friends would die. But no-one did.

Donna having her memory wiped was heartbreaking but doesn't constitute a death.

Rose was safely returned to her parallel universe and even got to snog her own pet Doctor - aah! So no harm befell her.

Martha was fine, despite trying to blow up the world, and of course Captain Jack is indestructible.
We didn't even see Davros perish and I'm sure he somehow managed to escape.

I'm glad they all survived, but where does that leave us? Does this mean we never have to bother believing in a Doctor Who prophecy again?

WHAT a disappointment Lee McQueen has turned out to be.

He was so heroic on The Apprentice, with his gentlemanly manner, chiselled cheekbones and gift of the gab.
You could see why Sir Alan Sugar chose him as the winner.

But then he went and blew it all by calling in sick on his first day in his £100,000 job.

What a wuss!

He said he had "flu-like symptoms", which all women know is code for Man Flu, ie a bit of a cold.

His rival Claire Young would never have called in sick. This feisty girl would have to have her head falling off before she failed to show.

Even then she'd have probably struggled in, claiming it was only a flesh wound. She's not nicknamed The Rottweiler for nothing.

It's not the first time Siralan, as fans call him, has been let down by his apprentice. Maybe he should choose more carefully.

In the second year, he should have gone for Wolverhampton's Ruth Badger instead of Michelle Dewberry, who got pregnant and then left the company after only a few months to set up her own business.

Other reality TV shows have also yielded disappointing winners.

The likes of Leona Lewis and Girls Aloud are rare. It's far more usual for shows like Popstars and The X Factor to produce flash-in-the-pan successes like Steve Brookstein, Shayne Ward and One True Voice.

Whatever happened to last year's winner, Leon Jackson?

Or how about Alex Parks and David Sneddon, winners of the BBC series Fame Academy, who are now anything but famous? Will we still remember Britain's Got Talent winner George Sampson in a year's time?

Here's hoping Lee McQueen doesn't turn out to be such a failure.

Whatever happens, at least he can still entertain at parties with his dinosaur impression.

Now that's what I'm talking abaaaht!

A RED hat was my secret weapon in my bid for TV fame.

And if you watch the latest episode of Midsomer Murders very closely, you'll be able to spot it.

For all of five seconds.

My "starring" moment in the hit ITV1 drama comes on Sunday, when I play a guest at the wedding of DCI Tom Barnaby's only daughter Cully.

A year ago I spent two hours standing in a muddy field next to the A40, along with the other extras, waiting to be called to the set. It was hardly glamorous and played havoc with my heels.

Finally we were taken by minibus into the pretty and posh village of Denham in Buckinghamshire, whose church had been turned into St Mary's in Midsomer Parva for the day.

I spent an hour sitting in a pew, getting a little bored. The most exciting part, when some action acting was called for, was when we stood up (several times) for the bride's arrival.

Altogether the congregation had seven rehearsals and 10 takes, while the bride walked down the aisle FIVE times.

And all for a scene which takes up about 30 seconds of screen time, right at the end of the episode.

Barnaby (John Nettles) is busy solving three murders, which means he's late arriving at the church with Cully.

The guests are getting fidgety as we wonder what the hold-up is, and gossip about how Barnaby's first sidekick, Gavin Troy played by Daniel Casey, has returned for the big day.

You can see me in the background when his current sidekick, Sergeant Ben Jones, goes over to chat to Troy.

You might have seen more of me if Nigel, the extra in front of me, hadn't made a big acting deal of looking for his phone. He insisted on standing up and patting all his pockets, while I inwardly fumed he was getting in the way of my chance of fame.

Actress Emma Cunniffe, who plays a new love interest for Sergeant Ben Jones, also annoyingly blocks my shot at one point. How dare she!

Don't blink, or you'll miss me.

But I still think wearing the hat was a great move.