Loathed. Reviled. Pilloried. Ridiculed. And for what? For being a dopey-faced, fat-tongued TV chef. Say what you like about Jamie Oliver, in the light of recent allegations regarding other TV personalities, there’s no denying he’s ultimately harmless. His idea of a ‘coke-fuelled threesome’ is a glass of cola followed by a bacon, brie and avocado sandwich, and the only time you hear him growling ‘You know you want it’ is when he’s holding a hunk of steaming roast lamb up to camera.
Yet huge swathes of the population despise him. Well, it’s time for me to ’fess up: I don’t. Oh, I grind my teeth at the supermarket commercials just like everyone else, but I can’t get furious with him personally for the same reason I can’t wholeheartedly despise Alan Titchmarsh. Commercial whoredom and irritating tics aside both possess genuine skill and are capable of communicating it. Titchmarsh and Oliver are responsible for inspiring thousands of people to actually get up and do something that improves their lives. It’s all very well to sit there and sneer, but when was the last time you inspired anyone, huh? Well? Oliver’s clearly been stung by the sheer volume of animosity he generates, which is probably why his new series Jamie’s Kitchen (C4) feels almost like an apology, an attempt to make the public at large reassess their hatred for the Roy Hattersley lookalike-in-waiting. It’s a reality show in which he sets about establishing a non-profit restaurant staffed by underprivileged youngsters, largely funded with Oliver’s own cash. They should’ve called it ‘Jamie’s Penance’.
And that’s not all: aware that the only people who actually think he’s ‘cool’ are the sort of home-counties women who think Dawn French is cutting-edge, Jamie sets about alienating them with calculating efficiency.
His secret weapon: bad language. Fifteen seconds in, every Middle England mum’s favourite cheeky chappie opens his mouth and starts spitting out a wasps’ nest.
‘Fuckin’ shit,’ he blurts, tossing a burnt slice of toast across the kitchen. ‘I’ve fucked it up. Fuckin’ bollocks.’ The air remains blue throughout the programme: I counted six uses of the f-word, several ‘shits’ and ‘bollocks’, and a solitary, yet heartfelt, ‘wanker’.
See? He’s human! I can picture the spin-off recipe book – ‘Jamie’s Fuckin’ Kitchen’. ‘Here’s a recipe I call “Shit-Hot Spag Bol” – 1lb minced cow bollocks, 2 onions, garlic, a tin of fucking tomatoes and a pissload of spaghetti. And if you don’t like it, you’re a c***.’
Once you’ve got over the swearing, the next surprise is the way the show tackles Oliver’s public perception head-on: included is a sequence in which he visits Xfm to be jovially humiliated by breakfast host Christian O’Connell.
‘He’s absolutely loaded,’ O’Connell tells his audience. ‘He’s come in here today wearing gold lamé trainers and trousers made from poor people’s skin.’
Next week in ‘Jamie’s Penance’: the pudgy chef dons sackcloth and flagellates himself with a piece of knotted rope while shouting ‘I’m a stupid c***’ over and over again. Probably.
My Growing Obsession with Davina McCall [9 November]
Remember Manimal? It was an enjoyably appalling 1980s action series starring Simon MacCorkindale as an explorer-adventurer blessed with the peculiar ability to mutate himself into various animals at will, largely notable for its American Werewolf-inspired transformation scenes, in which MacCorkindale’s flesh would unconvincingly contort itself into exotic zoological shapes. A ludicrous premise, of course, and as the series went on, the writers clearly became desperate to shoehorn in the animal action: in one sequence a woman fell in some quicksand, prompting Manimal to transform into a snake and allow himself to be used as a length of rope in order to drag her out. I, Claudius it wasn’t.
I only bring it up because of Popstars: The Rivals (ITV1), and more specifically my growing obsession with Davina McCall, who appears to have been halted midway through a Manimal-style transformation into a crow. Or maybe it’s a raven. So far I’m not sure, but with any luck she’ll have completed the transition by the end of the series, and will introduce the finale perched atop a telephone wire, ruffling her feathers and dropping silvery crap on the stage (entirely fitting, since the Popstars stage is the nation’s premier showcase for silvery crap).
In case you think I’m merely being fanciful, tune in and consider the evidence for yourself: the makings of a beak are clearly visible, rudimentary black plumage seems to be emerging from her scalp and, most damning of all, her voice patterns are starting to closely imitate an insistent, grating caw.
Speaking of which, is there a single more annoying racket than Davina’s nasal caw (apart from the singers themselves, that is)? It doesn’t help that ITV appears to employ some kind of secret CIA sound-compression technology throughout the entire Saturday evening schedule, which turns every noise into a white-hot shard of solidified tinnitus. Listen to a burst of applause and it’s like having a rapid-fire nailgun unloaded into your ear, and when Davina starts SHOUTING, which is something she does at the end OF EVERY SENTENCE, it starts to sound less like an ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMME and more like a bizarre torture method straight out of THE IPCRESS FILE.
Her technique is to speak quickly and quietly, then suddenly break into a caustic bellow – the audible equivalent of someone using capitals and multiple EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!!! in a humorous e-mail in a desperate bid to underline their point.
‘Welcome to another edition of Popstars. THE RIVALS!!!!’ (Decibel level: Concorde crashing into a saucepan factory).
‘Singing live on stage… IT’S JAVINE!!!!’ (Decibel level: Jupiter exploding above a foghorn convention).
Well, enough is enough. It’s time for us to have a whip-round and buy Davina a gag. A nice Burberry one with comfortable flock lining, because we wouldn’t want her to suffer. We can have it delivered to her nest in time for Christmas; all she has to do is peck through the gift wrapping and get someone with hands instead of wings to help tie it in place. And BINGO!!!! Peace on earth.
Next, we should organise a Yuletide boycott of the Popstars singles, on the grounds that It Simply Won’t Do for our nation’s grand pop heritage to be repeatedly violated in this manner. With the Popstars and Fame Academy singles jostling for position, this year’s Christmas Top 10 is going to look and feel like a musical interpretation of the Argos catalogue.
Where’s our Culture Minister when we need him? Nailing proclamations to the walls of the Tate Modern, you say? Quick: someone phone Lemmy and get him to re-release ‘Ace of Spades’ so we can buy it in protest and have a decent Christmas No. 1 for a change.
In fact, phone anyone: I’d rather see ‘Star Trekkin’ back in the top slot then have to digest another load of this oleaginous crap along with my turkey and stuffing.
There’s still time. There’s still hope. Together, we can save Christmas.
Judge John Grumpybones [16 November]
DVDs are good, aren’t they? Not if you’ve only got a video recorder, obviously, but if you’re that much of a Luddite you can always entertain yourself with spinning tops or lutes or something while the rest of us enjoy slam-bang entertainment in pin-sharp digital crikeyvision.
As a medium, DVD is ideally suited to the nimble repackaging of hulking great TV series. In the sepia-tinted VHS era, if you bought a box-set containing the entire series of The World at War, you’d walk out of the shop looking like someone lugging a coffin around in a carrier bag. Now you can fit it in the palm of a slightly exaggerated hand. It’s intrinsically satisfying.
In fact, buying entire series on DVD is so addictive, I can’t pass a megastore without picking up a 200-episode epic. I already have more digitised footage than I can possibly watch in my lifetime: some good (Band of Brothers, Our Friends in the North, Reggie Perrin), some variable (Sapphire and Steel, Tales of the Unexpected), and some plain dull (I, Claudius).
I’ll buy anything. I’ve currently got my eye on a compilation called ‘The Complete Ceefax’; it’s got an 18-year running time, Dolby surround, a director’s commentary
and 500 deleted scenes (including a hilarious incident in which ‘John Selwyn-Gummer’ was mis-spelt as ‘John Winky-Bumpoo’).
Anyway, the ultimate proof of the new format’s victory over VHS arrived this week: my review copy of Judge John Deed (BBC1) came on DVD. All well and good, but it also means I can’t tape over it, and in this case that’s a disadvantage.
Judge John Deed? Judge John Grumpybones, more like: he spends so much time frowning, you’d think he was doing it on commission. I thought he was supposed to be ‘the fun judge’, the womanising wildman of the judicial arena, but on this tedious evidence, his gavel’s gone limp. And in the absence of a compelling storyline, there’s nothing left to do but marvel at the way the crystal- clear DVD image emphasises the tininess of Martin Shaw’s eyes: I swear each one’s a single pixel in size.
One thing the BBC wouldn’t send me was a preview tape, disc, or zoetrope strip of the Robbie Williams Show (BBC1), which is a terrible shame because I was looking forward to heaving a copy into a gigantic burning bin, thereby doing my bit for the overall advancement of mankind.
Williams appears to be doing Elvis’s career in reverse: first he got fat, then he went through his Vegas period (courtesy of his odious Albert Hall extravaganza, also broadcast by the BBC), and now he appears to be tackling the 1968 comeback special. With any luck this means he’s about to be usurped by some cheeky young lads from Liverpool, but somehow I doubt The Coral are up to it (if they can ditch the ‘unlistenably awful’ shtick, they might be in with a chance).
Lord Potato Dauphinoise of Grand Guffawing Castle [23 November]
Corsets. Repression. Whopping-great stately homes. Yes, the costume drama season is upon us again: time for the annual heavy snowfall of royalty cheques onto Andrew ‘Adaptation’ Davies’ doormat. And this year he’s going to need a snowplough to clear them away: he’s already banged out Tipping the Velvet for BBC2, and this weekend he’s got two new epics leaving the starting gate – Doctor Zhivago (ITV1) and Daniel Deronda (BBC1). I’m all in favour of encouraging good writing, but really, that’s just taking the piss.
And I don’t know about you, but I find it impossible to get excited at the prospect of yet another sumptuously adapted classic. At the risk of sounding like a furrow-browed philistine, aren’t they all the bloody same? Boy meets girl and struggles with stiff social mannerisms – then in episode three he rips his shirt off and everyone thinks he’s a sex king. A bit of fainting, ruffled ballgowns and pleasant scenery, a quick burst of tragedy, and a nice happy ending. The average episode of Quincy is less predictable.
Daniel Deronda in particular ticks all the usual boxes.
1) Brattish heroine? Check: she’s a spoilt heartbreaker called Gwendolyn who has toffs crawling over themselves just to touch the hem of her ballgown.
2) Handsome young gent? Check: Daniel Deronda himself, who’s essentially just a posho Nathan bumming about on a gap year. ‘I want to find my own way in the world,’ he explains to Edward Fox. ‘I want to travel … find out how other people live, understand their philosophies’ – probably quite an original move in the 1860s, but today he’d simply be following in the footsteps of 10 billion other overprivileged Barnabys who’ve spent an idle summer smoking dope on Thai beaches or photographing kneeless beggars in Calcutta (then hotmailing the snaps to the Tobys and Susannahs back home) before settling down to university and a lifelong career in frictionless boredom.
3) Cold-hearted bastard with designs on aforementioned heroine? Check: he’s called Henleigh Grandcourt, which is just about the poshest name anyone could possibly have, short of Lord Potato Dauphinoise of Grand Guffawing Castle. His chat-up lines may come straight from John Leslie (‘Do you like danger?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Good.’), but do people like this ever actually have sex? I only ask because I once overheard a pair of poshos going at it hammer and tongs in a hotel bedroom, and it was hilariously funny, particularly when she shouted ‘Oh, Gerald!’ at the moment of climax – I can’t imagine anyone being able to shout ‘Oh, Henleigh!’ without immediately putting themselves off. Or throwing up. Or both.
Anyway, back to the subject at hand: Daniel Deronda. Don’t get me wrong. There are surprises along the way – not least the remarkable Mr Lush, Henleigh’s sinister assistant, who closely resembles Lemmy from Motorhead and therefore doesn’t look quite right in a boater – and it IS undeniably entertaining, but … well. Isn’t it time we called a five-year sabbatical on costume dramas and spent the money on more contemporary offerings? Oh, and please don’t anyone argue that Daniel Deronda is ‘still relevant to a modern audience’ – you can bang on about that till you’re blue in the face: fact is, he’s still wearing a waistcoat and prancing through ballrooms.
Yes, less of that and more modern drama please. The money saved on costumes alone could fund a few extra hours of the next Our Friends in the North. And – ahem – let’s not just concentrate on grisly crime epics either (Waking the Dead, Silent Witness, Wire in the Blood … how many more lives?).
What we want is surprise. And there’s little surprise in a corset. No, really.
It isn’t impossible. There’s a new series of the BBC’s excellent secret-service shocker Spooks currently in production – that’s more like it. Now all we need is our own West Wing. One that, for once, isn’t set in the west wing of Tossington Hall.
‘This is not something we can test’ [30 November]
Last year he proved under laboratory conditions that Jesus Christ had the face of a Crimewatch e-fit. Now, Jeremy Bowen turns his attentions to Moses (BBC1) and embarks on another quest for truth.
Of course, Moses doesn’t quite warrant an entire series on his own – he simply wasn’t as cool as Jesus. Nonetheless, he had the decency to do a reasonable number of interesting things, like floating down the river in a basket and holding conversations with flaming bushes, so there’s just enough for Bowen to investigate in an hour-long special. Thank you, God.
The show opens, hilariously, with our Jeremy wandering through a CGI recreation of the parting of the Red Sea and asking whether any of this actually happened. He then wisely switches focus and starts tackling the easiest questions first – such as did Moses really get lobbed in a basket and bunged in the Nile?
Apparently, yes. Well, OK, maybe. Academics and theologians are on hand to explain that people often did rid themselves of unwanted offspring by sending them down the river. It must have looked like an infant armada – if you were a bit of a bastard, you could amuse yourself by standing on the banks of the river trying to sink passing baskets with rocks.
And was Moses rescued and raised by a Pharaoh’s wife? Possibly. That could happen, argue the experts. Not very likely, argue the sceptics. Shhh, reply the experts.
Having ‘established’ that these things might have happened, the programme hits shakier ground as it examines the claims regarding Moses’ adult life. Take the whole ‘burning bush’ incident, in which God spoke to Moses via a flaming shrubbery, and told him to set his people free. Helpfully, Jeremy points out that ‘this is not something we can test’, before explaining that loners wandering around the desert often undergo strange religious experiences, so hey, it could’ve happened. What he fails to mention is that hearing the voice of God isn’t an experience confined to ancient loners in the desert – he’s also been known to tell Bradford lorry drivers to kill prostitutes. Whoever this God guy is, he’s clearly got a penchant for mischievous prank calls.
The programme goes on, explaining how the biblical plagues might have happened, and skirting around the whole parting-of-an-ocean issue by pointing out that it’s based on a mistranslation – he actually led his people across a Reed Sea, not the Red Sea. As in a sea of reeds. As in a swamp. Not quite as impressive, but it’s feasible.
Ultimately, Jeremy decides that whether you believe the story of Moses is true or not comes down to a question of faith, thereby rendering the entire investigative process somewhat redundant.
Still, it passes the time, and if
the BBC wants to give me a load of money, I’m quite prepared to travel the world trying to discover whether Sherlock Holmes really wore those hats or if ‘Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory’ was a documentary.
Sleigh Bells A-Shinking [7 December]
Christmas is coming. The shops are full of gibberish and you can hear sleigh bells a-shinking in the background of every commercial on television. Even the ones for Anusol.
And, in TV land, they’re doubtless putting the finishing touches to the traditional ‘feast of entertainment’ we’ve come to expect: even as we speak, somewhere in a Soho edit suite, someone’s checking shots of French and Saunders pulling funny faces in a Tipping the Velvet spoof. The BBC will have shot special ‘Yuletide’ versions of those ‘dancing’ continuity links (my money’s on a troupe of snowmen pirouetting round a Christmas tree), ITV should be dusting down their copy of Die Hard 2, and Channel 4 will have taken delivery of a set of Mark Kermode intros to a mini-season of Mexican wrestling movies.
In fact, everyone in television is so busy concentrating on the annual climax, they’ve neglected to fill this week’s schedules with anything approaching decent programming. Take a look through this week’s Guide and you’ll see what I mean – it’s like gazing at the shelves of a particularly threadbare Poundshop, one that sells nothing but bootleg ‘Bobb the Bilder’ toys and Pop Idol wrapping paper.
Here are the highlights: Alistair MacGowan’s Christmas Big Christmas Impression At Christmas (BBC1) – a repeat from last year; Time Flyers (BBC2) – that’s a bunch of archaeologists sitting in a helicopter looking at the ground; The World’s Greatest Oil Rigs (C5) – does exactly what it says on the tin; Scalpel Safari (C5) – people travelling to South Africa for plastic surgery followed by, yes, a safari; and Extreme Ironing (C4), a documentary which purports to follow ‘the progress of the UK team at the Extreme Ironing World Championship in Munich’ but, disappointingly, turns out to be a none-too-hilarious joke stretched out for an entire hour.
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