Charlie Brooker's Screen Burn

by Charlie Brooker

  Elsewhere, on the evidence of episode one alone, it’s hard to know what to make of Happiness (BBC2), Paul Whitehouse’s midlife-crisis comedy-drama. There’s precious little happiness, and only brief smatterings of (genuinely funny) comedy in it, but there is plenty of angst. Whitehouse’s character spends most of his time looking miserable and staring mutely into the middle distance; an entirely visual catchphrase that on the face of it seems unlikely to prove as popular with Joe Public as saying ‘Brilliant!’ or ‘I’ll get me coat!’ although if you look out the window you’ll see it’s already caught on and simply everybody’s doing it. Brilliant!

  Switch Off Now [24 March]

  I’m not afraid of flying. I’m afraid of unflying. I’m afraid of that rare moment when an aeroplane malfunctions and is instantly transformed into a mode of transport approximately 200 times less secure than a Disprin canoe; a chillingly efficient air-to-ground death missile intent on delivering you and your fellow travellers straight to the heart of splatsville, no matter how loudly you scream into one anothers’ ears.

  Praise be, then, for the back-of-the-seat in-flight entertainment system. What better to distract a nervous passenger from the manifest impossibility of air travel than a nine-inch LCD display screen blasting a non-stop carousel of gurglesome blockbusters and over-lit sitcoms into the eyes?

  Granted, it isn’t perfect – last year I was subjected to the thrill-a-minute submarine actioner U-571 (plot: men find themselves trapped within claustrophobic metal tube; many die) at 30,000 feet, and there are also regular interruptions when the captain comes over the intercom to say we’re passing over Nova Scotia at a rate beyond reason and the starboard engine’s just gone up like a bonfire – but on the whole that screen is a godsend. It shuts out real life until you’re safely on the ground.

  In other words, TV has the same properties as Valium. And if you watch Counterblast: Switch Off Now (BBC2), you could become convinced it also exhibits characteristics of heroin, nicotine, cocaine, alcohol and crack, blended together to form the single most addictive, destructive drug the Western world has ever seen, one that’s painlessly administered through the eyeball, leaves no visible scars and is killing society dead.

  TV-as-drug metaphors are nothing new, but anti-TV crusader David Burke, presenter of this persuasive ‘televisual essay’ (a phrase that would make him puke bullets) prefers to adopt Kurt Vonnegut’s position: that our beloved gogglebox holds much in common with the lead pipes that poisoned the ancient Romans, sending them slowly round the twist. In the course of this single half-hour programme he aims to convince you to switch off your TV set and go out and do something less boring instead for the rest of your life.

  He does this in a manner familiar to anyone who’s read Allen Carr’s Easy Way to Stop Smoking – by systematically debunking commonly recited myths about television: that it’s educational, relaxing, a friend to the lonely, that it binds the nation together while providing a window on a wider world, that it entertains our kids and makes our daily lives more interesting, that it’s ‘just another medium’ and finally that, yeah, sure, most shows are rubbish but since I only watch quality programming, I’m all right, yeah?

  Not according to Burke you’re not. With a combination of statistics, persuasion and simple logical reasoning, he puts a convincing case for the outright elimination of television; I won’t reveal his methods here – you’ll have to tune in, or scour around for a copy of his excellent book Get a Life, from which the bulk of this broadcast is lifted verbatim. Besides, you might agree with him, thereby putting me out of a job. In fact, ignore the guy. He’s a liar.

  Concise, compelling and refreshingly opinionated, Switch Off Now further benefits from the hilarious use of archive clips displaying TV at its most goonish and moronic; presented out of context, alongside facts about homicide, depression and alienation, they start to look very sinister indeed. He even makes the Teletubbies feel like something out of Brave New World (Junior Edition).

  By the end you’re likely to have agreed with at least 70 per cent of what Burke says. But you probably won’t switch off (and you definitely won’t follow his recommendations to the letter and crack your box in the face with a sledgehammer the moment the credits start to roll).

  Why? Well, the unfortunate irony is that Burke sets about attacking the mere existence of television in such a vastly entertaining manner your initial reaction is simply to sit there and wish shows like this were broadcast more often – programmes that actually reaffirm TV’s ability to inform (not educate) and entertain, as opposed to sedate and oppress. In fact, I could quite happily watch David Burke telling me to switch off the box for the rest of my life.

  The single hole in his argument is this: maybe some of the audience, who aren’t all staring at their boxes from within pits of lonely isolation, enjoy their addiction – particularly when there’s opinionated, thought-provoking stuff like this on. They should give him his own series.

  They didn’t.

  ‘Don’t let someone else make decisions for you’ [31 March]

  Outrage! This week’s Top Ten (C4) deals in banned records, and is linked, wonderfully enough, by veteran pantomime dame John Lydon, who’s been stuck on ‘sneer’ since 1977 and isn’t about to snap out of it now. Before introducing the first entry, he treats us to a mini-lecture on censorship, which naturally he’s opposed to. ‘Don’t let someone else make decisions for you,’ he commands us, thereby causing logical short circuits nationwide.

  Wafting towards old age, Lydon still has the most weirdly affected delivery since Frankie Howerd – he overemphasises every word, sometimes using audible italics; it’s like listening to a man sarcastically reading aloud from a poorly translated instruction manual. As usual, that now-familiar range of accusatory facial expressions, ping-ponging between camp Kenneth Williams outrage and the boggle-eyed mesmerisms of a cheap stage hypnotist accompany his vocal performance. Whenever he tires of looking askance with an eyebrow aloft, he simply leans forward to peer through the lens as if trying to read an insult scratched on your forehead in letters one millimetre high.

  The countdown itself contains few surprises – Frankie Goes to Hollywood turn up, as do Gainsbourg and Birkin, the Sex Pistols (naturally), Madonna, NWA and the witless 2 Live Crew. The recent surfeit of clip shows lends a slightly overfamiliar air to proceedings – the ‘Relax’ ‘legend’ was covered in I Love the Eighties a few weeks ago, for instance – but this is still immensely watchable, not least because most of the contributors have something of interest to say, for once.

  Accompanying the music are clips from self-consciously controversial videos, from the calculated visual outrage of ‘Smack My Bitch Up’ (Drugs! Nudity! Violence! Dull twenty-something media tossbores calling it fantastic!) to the loveless S&M tinkerings of Madonna’s ‘Erotica’ promo (as arousing as watching Metal Mickey being jerked off by a calculator). Yawn, yawn, yawn – most ‘shocking’ videos are more irksome than upsetting, akin to teenage Marilyn Manson fans who like to think they’re undermining us all by getting their eyelids pierced. Incidentally, someone should tell them they’ve picked the wrong idol: Manson pops up tonight, like a ghost-train skeleton, but by far the most disturbing sight of the evening is the contemporary footage of Shane MacGowan, who looks like he’s accidentally banged his face against a tree 657 times in a row.

  Immediately after the X-rated Top Ten, there’s a look at another corrupting influence on our youth, and one that coloured my teenage years more than music ever did. Thumb Candy (C4) may be billed as an exploration of ‘the history of video games’, but it’s far from comprehensive, concentrating heavily on the early years of arcade gaming at the expense of latter-day amusements – PlayStations barely warrant a mention, Doom and Quake don’t figure at all, and Sega have been airbrushed out completely. In fact, this feels more like the opening salvo of a potentially superb three-part series rather than a one-off; my guess is the makers had a lengthier run in mind. Still, until someone comes along to
give gaming the full Nazis: A Warning From History treatment, this will do.

  Thumb Candy won’t tell unashamed games dweebos anything they don’t already know, but they’ll find it hard not to get a kick out of seeing the creator of ‘Pac-Man’ recounting the game’s genesis. And while it may not cover everything, what is there has been admirably researched: they’ve even managed to track down Matthew Smith, author of legendary Spectrum titles ‘Manic Miner’ and ‘Jet Set Willy’. Smith made a fortune overnight, blew it almost as quickly, then went a bit funny and ran away to live in a commune in Holland.

  As a gawky teen I was so astounded by the brilliance of ‘Manic Miner’, I used to sit and watch the demo-mode loop over for hours on end, pausing only to go to the toilet or stare at the ceiling and sigh hopelessly about the girls in my class, most of whom were out having fun with older boys who didn’t waste their evenings watching a pixilated miner leap over a thistle. Smith may have wrecked my adolescent love life, but for introducing Miner Willy to the world, he deserves to be immortalised on Trafalgar Square’s spare plinth. The campaign starts here.

  Come Out With Your Hands Up [7 April]

  The first thing that hits you about Meet the Popstars (ITV) is the screaming. It’s truly hysterical: either the audience really loves Hear’Say or a man has just chased them into the studio with a hammer.

  Yes, you thought you’d seen the last of Popstars, but it seems The Man ain’t through with us yet. Welcome to a watered-down cross between This Is Your Life and Summertime Special, hosted by Davina McCall, a woman who’s become omnipresent to the point where you no longer notice she’s actually there, like a clock on the mantelpiece that your ear filters out after two weeks of constant tick-tocking. She really is ubiquitous: last week I glanced in a mirror and was astounded to discover she wasn’t hosting my reflection.

  Not long ago, Davina was easy to warm to: she was dry, clever, strong. Now she just stomps about shouting about how great everything is. It’s as though her brain’s been spooned out and replaced with a rotating glitterball. Come on, McCall – we know you’re in there. Come out with your hands up.

  Anyway, back to the show in question, and Hear’Say in particular. Reviewing the first edition of Popstars back in January, I wrote, ‘The final line-up is likely to consist of five fresh-faced interchangeables called Sarah, Sandra, Lorraine, Simon and Tom, and it’s going to be [hard] to get wound up by them, in the same way that getting annoyed by S Club 7 is a bit like waving your fist at a Lakeland Plastics catalogue.’ And sure enough, while it’s easy to snort at the mechanics behind them, Kym, Noel, Danny, Myleene and Suzanne themselves are proving infuriatingly hard to fully despise. Funny-looking bunch, though. Noel’s head distinctly resembles an obscure computer game character called Dizzy, a cheerful cartoon egg who appeared in a string of budget platform games in the late 80s. And then there’s Danny.

  Picture Danny in your mind’s eye for a moment. Knead some mental plasticine around and ah! there he is! He really is astonishing to behold, isn’t he? Each separate component of his head appears to be engaged in a no-holds-barred fight for your undivided attention. I’d leap to my feet and applaud whether he sang through it or not.

  Just as well, too, since for the duration of Meet the Popstars everything – absolutely everything – is greeted with thunderous clapping. The sight of the band’s mums walking onstage to show off old baby photos triggers deafening applause, while each musical number the band performs provokes mounting hysteria, despite the fact that most of the time they’re belting out covers – ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ (‘Beerrridge Ovah Ter-Ruh-Huh-Bulled Wahahderrr Mmmyeah’), ‘Monday Monday’, and a dreadful version of ‘Boogie Wonderland’ that sounds like a fairground ride dying in its sleep. If Hear’Say came on and kicked a dog to death, they’d receive the most roof-raising ovation since Live Aid.

  There’s also weeping. Tears of pride and joy, dripping from the eyes of proud relatives and acquaintances, prodded on to yap about the flabbergasting loveliness of each band member in turn. The greater the flood of tears, the louder the applause from the crowd. Blub, clap, blub, clap: it’s a new form of hand-operated lawn sprinkler.

  The only participant who doesn’t sob is ‘Nasty’ Nigel Lythgoe, off shooting the British version of Survivor in Borneo. Davina and the band chat to him via satellite and pretend it’s live: chinny reckon.

  Since his dalliance with tabloid fame, Nigel’s lost weight and that grim haircut’s disappeared (it now vaguely resembles an orderly bird’s nest). He looks less like Admiral Ackbar and more like a million dollars: at least until he smiles, at which point he reveals a grin like a second-hand mah-jong set.

  Song lyrics aside, Hear’Say themselves don’t say much. They’re just sort of there. Instead of Meet the Popstars, they should’ve called it ‘Look! Look! LOOK AT THEM! THEY’RE FAMOUS!’ That or ‘Grin Orgy’.

  ‘They’re like bits of rope, only angrier’ [14 April]

  Snakes! They’re like bits of rope, only angrier. Snakes are feared by millions because a) they’ve been demonised by the entertainment industry, which portrays them as emotionless predators, and b) they look weird and awful when they try to swallow eggs.

  Oh, and c) they kill about 100,000 people a year. Snake popularity is currently at an all-time low, and with westerns also out of favour there’s a lack of decent serpentine roles in contemporary cinema.

  No one would have cared about the outcome of Lars Von Trier’s Breaking the Waves if it had starred a pair of grass snakes. You’ll never see a puff adder share the star billing in a kooky Meg Ryan rom-com. I did once glimpse a snake enjoying a romantic clinch on the front of a video, but that was in an Amsterdam shop window which doubled as a kind of pornographic zoological triptych (as far as I could make out – and I didn’t stare for more than a couple of hours – the only animals that didn’t appear anywhere amongst that menagerie of lurid video sleeves were giraffes and coelacanths).

  But I digress. Most people despise snakes but Australian maniac Steve Irwin adores them, and in Deadly Spitting Cobras (ITV) he scours the African countryside on his hands and knees in a bid to prove it, grabbing gigantic cobras by the tail and cheerfully dangling them in front of the camera as they jerk about trying to kill him.

  Only dimly aware of Irwin’s existence prior to watching this programme, I am now an instant fan. Visually, he’s a cross between Bill Hicks and a mad baby, all podgy cheeks and boggling eyes, his little round head bursting with joyful awe at the sheer wonder of it all. Then there’s his gesturing – hands flying this way and that like a pack of startled crows. Animated? He makes Ainsley Harriott look like a lead bench. Kids must love him, although whether a man who deliberately provokes dangerous beasts for a living makes a suitable role model is open to question.

  Still, who could combine childlike enthusiasm with suicidal bravery to such effect? The greater the threat posed, the happier Irwin becomes and the more compelling the result; it’s like watching a circus clown pirouette across a minefield. In these days of pofaced I’m-cooler-than-my-subject-matter TV-presenter bummery, it’s both rare and refreshing to see someone getting really stuck into an activity they genuinely love on TV, even if it does involve a cobra spitting acrid venom directly into their eyes.

  ‘Cor, look at that! Right in me face!’ Irwin says, indisputably impressed as an angry cobra scores a direct hit. These lethal creatures squirt poison at potential enemies in an attempt to blind them; each snakey throatful has the potential to permanently damage Irwin’s vision, while a bite itself could kill – but he’s loving every minute. ‘What a grumpy lil’ snake,’ he says, venom dripping from his face, gleefully re-approaching a creature that’s not so much grumpy as coldly homicidal. ‘Isn’t he a beauty?’ Boom: another faceful. ‘Woo hoo!’

  Woo hoo? His bravery is remarkable, but what’s truly astonishing is the way he’s also capable of imparting solid zoological facts while in mid-wrestle. Even as he mops stinging poison from his face with one
hand and snatches the tail of a lurching cobra with the other, Irwin maintains a constant level of lively and informative patter, pausing only to grin from ear to ear, or suddenly leap backward and concentrate extra hard for a moment when it looks like the damn thing might actually kill him.

  In summary then: Steve Irwin is David Attenborough gone horribly right. I’d pay good money to watch him shoot a documentary in a violent urban environment, grabbing muggers by the ankle and cheerfully pointing out where their knife is. Hang on: that’s Crocodile Dundee, isn’t it? Ah well.

  A Pastel Sketch of a Lonely Duckling [21 April]

  Sadism isn’t simply wrong, it’s also fun to watch. You know it’s true. Nastiness trumps niceness every time. That notorious scene from Reservoir Dogs where Mr Blonde maltreats a policeman wouldn’t be half as famous if instead of slicing off an ear and dousing the unfortunate cop with petrol he’d handed him a Lion bar and started kissing his legs. No, the reason it lodged in the collective unconscious was that half the cinema audience was thinking: ‘Oh! How awful! How vicious! Perhaps he’ll slice his nose off next! That’d be cool! Woo hoo!’

  British TV was remarkably slow to pick up on the viewing public’s limitless appetite for cold-blooded spite, but following the success of Big Brother, Popstars and The Weakest Link – all three of which relentlessly milk the sadogasmic thrill of watching everyday schmoes being shat on – they’ve suddenly grabbed hold of the concept of competitive cruelty with the delirious enthusiasm of an otherworldly Dobermann plunging its fangs into a choirboy’s throat.