April 2011 Archives

I bet Kate Middleton was watching tonight's Big Fat Royal Gypsy Wedding and seething with jealousy.

"Why oh why couldn't we hold our reception in an animal rescue centre, Mummy?" she no doubt said. "Buckingham Palace won't be nearly as much fun.

"And is it too late to add pink feathers to the horses that pull our carriage? Or stick 40,000 crystals on to my dress? Oh, and let's take the back off it while we're at it.

"I just want to look as good as traveller Mary. After all, I won't have her trouble getting down the aisle. Westminster Abbey was made for huge wide wedding dresses.

"And I worry we've only got 1,900 guests coming, not every single traveller in the whole of Britain."

I wish we'd got to meet Mary's prince charming, Paddy, who she called "the perfect man". Aah, bless. It looks like it was a real love match like Kate and William, not a marriage arranged after any nasty grabbing.

The outfits on the guests were astonishing, not least the mother of the bride who looked like a fluffy pink mermaid.

Dressmaker extraordinaire Thelma Madine said: "They want it to be perfect."

Well here's a tip - don't try to organise it in just three weeks. No wonder you had trouble finding a venue. But didn't that animal rescue centre scrub up well!

OH dear, it's not looking too good, is it? Is this really the best talent that we can muster?

The first episode of Britain's Got Talent was worth watching for Michael McIntyre and The Hoff, and to play the 'rubbish or good?' game where you have to guess what they're going to be like before they start.

But the acts weren't exactly inspiring.

A bloke who pops his eyes out is not something I enjoy watching.

I'm tired of dog and dance acts, I want something new. Mouth-organ-playing Mary was hilarious when she called Amanda Joanna Lumley, but sadly being a comedian wasn't her act.

NIne-year-old David Knight was fairly funny, but no-one was amazing. The only reason we thought the IT worker who sang with the guitar was any good was because it was such a surprise, dressed as he was in his 'sherbet leisurewear'.

And 53-year-old Stephen Hall wasn't a great dancer, it was just that we weren't expecting it, because he looked like a 60-year-old headteacher.

It was hardly a Su-Bo moment.

Similarly, Gay and Alan were sweet with their 'handbells are for life, not just for Christmas' message, but talented? Nah.

Oh, and don't think I didn't notice that you've bumped Selfridges and the Bullring from the opening credits. Why not show Birmingham now, if we're supposedly packed with so much talent?

If this is the best the series has to offer, I might stop watching now.

PS I was right about Sing If You Can. What a load of rubbish. Shame on you Dave Gorman for agreeing to appear on it, even Shaun Ryder had the grace to look embarrassed.

He was the man who put the maverick in TV detectives. DS Peter Boyd didn't play by anyone's rules, but he usually solved the case, so somehow he was allowed to run a Cold Case Unit for nine years.

And when one of his team dared to snitch on his unorthodox and reckless methods, she ended up dead. That'll teach her.

But even he couldn't really carry on after driving Assistant Commissioner Paul McGann to his death, and just walking away while he was shot by a gangster, played by brilliant actor David Bradley.

This was the final episode of Waking The Dead, a gripping if grubby tale of child torture and murder which ended in rather hurried and melodramatic style. Then there was an unemotional, brief farewell on Waterloo Bridge.

I'll rather miss Trevor Eve, and especially his scenes with Sue Johnston as Grace Foley. They made a good, if implausible, double act.

Let's just hope the BBC can replace Waking The Dead with a drama of similar quality.

I may be wrong - though I suspect I'm not - but Sing If You Can sounds like the worst programme to hit Saturday night telly since Graham Norton's Totally Saturday. Or The Whole 19 Yards. Or Tonight's The Night. Or even Phillip Schofield's It's Now Or Never, pulled after just one show.

Starting on April 16 on ITV1, it's a 'wacky' game show in which 'celebs' try to sing while not being put off by hilarious distractions like an erupting volcano or their chest being waxed.

For a start, it's presented by Keith Lemon, who I can't stand. And we're told that "some of the country's most popular TV and music stars will appear on the show".

So I'm expecting the likes of Take That, JLS, Paul O'Grady and Davina McCall to appear then, right?

Wrong. The Z listers assembled to make fools of themselves for money include Chesney Hawkes, Ray Quinn, Lisa Maxwell, Jonathan Ansell, Sinitta, Ricky Groves and Faye Tozer. Oh dear.

It should be renamed Watch if You Can. I'll set myself the challenge of watching for 10 minutes but then I fear I'll be forced to turn off.

I admit to getting a bit choked up at the grand finale of Big Brother last year.

We were saying goodbye to something that has been part of my telly viewing for 10 years. I'd loved it, I'd hated it, but I was rather sad to see it go.

We saw it off in fine style, though, and it felt like closure.

But now it's back, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about that.

It's still being made by the same people, so it ought to be as good. Except it's now on Channel 5, not Channel 4. And Davina McCall won't be hosting - it would be rather embarrassing for her to return after so much fuss was made of her departure and so many tears shed.

Other changes mean we're getting it in the autumn, not the summer, which I think is a major mistake. We have quite enough reality TV then what with Strictly Come Dancing, The X Factor and I'm a Celebrity.

Big Brother is what sees us through the wasteland of August when there's nothing but repeats on telly - although we are, apparently, getting a celebrity version then.

BB should also be on in the summer so we get lots of shots of beautiful young things sunbathing in bikinis and shorts. They'll have to be brave to do that on a nippy October morning.

I think the answer must be to move the Big Brother house Down Under, get Ant and Dec to present it and set the housemates challenges of learning to sing and ballroom dance. Now that would be the ultimate reality show.