Theme Time: The Word - 808 State

Ah yes it's time to look at that enfant terrible of Channel 4 in the 1990s, The Word

Love it or hate it, you cannot deny how influential and important The Word was. It's almost twenty-five-years since the last episode aired and yet almost everything The Word pioneered has now become absorbed by other shows and accepted into the mainstream.

Remember 'The Hopefuls' those shameless glory hunters who gave up their dignity by eating worms and sheep testicles (among other more disgusting stunts) because, as they would each gamely say to camera "I'll do anything to be on TV" Remember how offended and disgusted people were? They're all fairly quiet now when watching celebs eat the very same thing as part of an I'm a Celebrity bushtucker trial aren't they?

It wasn't just gross stunts though; The Word provided a platform for some of the best music of the day (often breaking new bands) and some brilliantly candid, off-the-cuff interviews with famous figures from the world of music, acting, sport and the arts, and the kind of through-the-looking-glass exposes of the weird and wonderful life in America that Louis Theroux would later mine. It was The Tube via a kind of X-rated Tiswas - perfect for the laddish, baggy, grungey, britpoppy 1990s.

Described by Wikipedia as 'a mayhemic mixture of pop music and teen attitude' The Word was must-see post pub viewing on a Friday night for some 49% of the viewing public at that time. It ran from 1990 to 1995 and featured presenters such as Amanda de Cadenet, Mark Lamarr, Dani Behr, Hufty and Katie Puckrick, the one constant being it's main presenter, Mancunian motormouth Terry Christian whose book, My Word, is an eye-opening, candid and funny read of his time with the show.

The theme tune was entitled Olympic, provided by Madchester's own 808 State.

Some full episodes of The Word are available on YouTube, whilst a series of compilations can be viewed on All 4. They're well worth watching, whether you simply fancy a bit of nostalgia or whether you just want to see some cutting edge tele before it become so diluted. Chris Evans was only just around the corner, and he had obviously been paying attention.

Tonight's Tele Tip: Derry Girls

I was remiss not to mention that last week's tele tip was This Time with Alan Partridge (which continued last night with an even better second episode and, for what it's worth, the show that precedes it, Warren, starring Martin Clunes is worth a watch too) and I was  further remiss not to tip readers off to the new series of Fleabag which also started last night, but I'm not going to make the same mistake now - as Derry Girls returns for a second series on Channel 4 tonight at 9:15.

The show recently received the highest Derry accolade of all; a mural painted on the side of Badger's Bar, Orchard Street, Derry.

Watch it!

Silly Rachel Riley's Own Goal

Recently Rachel Riley, best known for picking vowels and consonants and adding numbers up in various skimpy dresses on Countdown (yeah, it's still going!), decided that she should be the one to stamp out antisemitism in the UK - or more particularly, the perceived antisemitism in the left of politics.

Taking to twitter she has smeared everyone from Jeremy Corbyn, Ken Loach and - most bizarrely of all - Noam Chomsky, as being promoters of antisemisitm. 

This stance last night afforded her the ultimate accolade of being interviewed about her position by Channel 4 News anchor and Riley colleague (and "swinging dick", according to Lucy Porter on yesterday's Richard Herring podcast) Krishnan Guru-Murthy. It should have gone swimmingly - expect Riley fell at the first hurdle.

When asked by Guru-Murthy what her Jewish identity was, Riley - this staunch fighter of A/S remember - replied; "You wouldn't know, I don't look like a typical Jew, or anything like that" (you can see it here) before conflating Jewish people with Israel.

Oh dear. I'm sorry Rachel but that really is not Numberwang. In fact that is, by IHRA definition, A/S of itself.

The great Michael Rosen, a voice of sanity in the open sewer that is the A/S debate (or, to give it it's proper term, the establishment and trendy wendies stick-the-boot-into-the-left moan) on social media, was quick to point out Riley's error, demanding to know what facial or body characteristics a 'typical Jew' may possess. I doubt she will respond.

Out On Blue Six: The Beautiful South, and Tonight's Tele Tip

Here's a classic from the great Paul Heaton and my hometown St Helens' own Jacqui Abbott,

You can see more of Heaton and Abbott tonight in the Channel 4 documentary, Paul Heaton: From Hull To Heatongrad, a documentary this very blogger was briefly asked to help out with earlier this year. It should be a good watch (and, if you ask me, a long overdue appraisal of one of the UK's finest songwriters) but, if you're not a night owl you might want to set your TV planner - it's on a ten past midnight!

End Transmission

The Interrogation of Tony Martin (2018)

It was 20 August 1999 when 55-year-old Norfolk farmer Tony Martin decided to take the law into his own hands. Coming across two burglars in his home, the appropriately named Bleak House, Martin armed himself with a shotgun and proceeded to fire at the intruders, wounding one and killing the other, a 16-year-old boy called Fred Barras. When the police subsequently arrested him for murder, the case understandably took a nation that believes that an Englishman's home is his castle by storm. It was perhaps the last great British cause célèbre of the last century, dominating the media with countless front pages and tabloid editorials, with protests outside court as people leapt to Martin's defence, and politicians weighing in with their two pennies worth both for and against his actions. 

Writer/director David Nath has a solid track record as both a documentarian for Channel 4 and a dramatist. The People Next Door, The Watchman and Unspeakable are examples of the latter, and The Interrogation of Tony Martin is no exception. This is a verbatim drama, scripted from the actual police interview recordings, set almost exclusively within the four grey walls of the interview room. It is also largely a three-hander, focusing on Steve Pemberton as Martin and Daniel Mays and Stuart Graham as his interrogators. 

Fresh off the back of an impressive live broadcast of Inside Number 9 to mark Halloween last month, Pemberton is pitch perfect as Martin, imbuing his grey gammon featured middle aged man with a perceived lifetime of injustice simmering away behind bitter eyes. His performance takes in just a handful of days after the incident; from the bewildering statement of a man arguably in shock to a combative, pompous and remorseless self-appointed defender, not just of his home, but of the letter of the law itself. Through it all Mays and Graham are patient, dogged and painstaking as they attempt to uncover the truth behind these erratic statements.

I suppose enough time has gone by to make the ins and outs of this case less known in some audiences mind, but for those of us who remember it only too well, The Interrogation of Tony Martin does little to alter our view of the events. If you weren't even born or old enough to recall it, then I'm sure you'll be gripped and surprised to see the drama play out. I don't want to spoil it for you, but the fact remains that Martin's version of events were not as clear as he would have the world believe and it was only right (in my view at least) that he was successfully prosecuted for murder.

Nath's film does however provide some context to Martin's actions and his frame of mind. Despite his protestations in the interview that he is 'not strange', all the evidence points to the contrary; he dismantled the top and bottom of his staircase to create a hazard for potential intruders just like the pair who arrived at his home on that fateful night, and he slept fully dressed in work clothes and boots with a shotgun and ammo always close at hand. Tony Martin was a fearful, resentful and indignant man who blamed incidents of attempted sexual abuse as a child as a reason for his behaviour. It was this mindset that was subsequently diagnosed as paranoid personality disorder when his conviction for murder was reduced to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility on appeal.

Unfortunately Nath chooses to conclude his film with a peculiar coda that allows the real Tony Martin to have his say. Returning to Bleak House for the first time since 1999, the 70-something Martin remains as conceited and pugnacious as the investigating officers and the original trial's prosecution proved. It's quite unsavoury to witness his impenitence, his prickly refusal to feel any sympathy for Barras or his family, and the sick anecdote he has from prison that he seemingly finds humourous. It's an odd note for Nath to end on, leaving as bad a taste in the mouth for his film as the one we feel for the incident itself. Still, it proves that the old adage of criminals always returning to the scene of the crime to be true...if only for the TV cameras.

Political Drilling

Caught this film on last night's Channel 4 News. Very interesting way to consider the kind of language our hypocritical MP's use in comparison to the present moral panic of drill music.

The full music video is on twitter here

And it's worth remembering that politicians don't just use the language of violence, they enable actual violence the world over. As one of the YT comments under the video puts it; "What's more dangerous, one man in Peckham with a knife or a government that sells billions of pounds worth of weapons to a Saudi dictatorship that routinely murders thousands of innocent Yemenis?"

One Summer (1983)

Written by Liverpudlian playwright Willy Russell, One Summer is the story of two scouse schoolboys who flee their life of crime and gang turf wars to seek refuge in the Welsh countryside in the titular brief summer. For my money, it is arguably one of the finest evocations of the scouse character I've seen. I was going to say the juvenile scouse character but, to be honest, there are still grown men in Liverpool who dismiss anything that isn't traditionally macho or they don't understand as 'soft'.

A startlingly young David Morrissey and Spencer Leigh are our two leads and from the off, Morrissey shows the abilities that has made him the reliable star he is today. Leigh on the other hand can be quite frustrating with a slightly more wooden manner and an irritating ability to screech his lines at several decibels too loud (and they wonder where Harry Enfield got his 'Scousers' characters from?) It's surprising then that, off the back of this and Derek Jarman's Caravaggio, it was Leigh who, alongside the likes of Tim Roth and Gary Oldman, was proclaimed to be a key member of the1980s Brit Pack movement of actors by The Face journalist Elissa Van Poznak. 

In contrast Morrissey, who chose to take up the offer to train at RADA followed by a stint at the Liverpool Playhouse, has perhaps proven that slow and steady ultimately wins the race. Both young actors are grounded by a great turn from James Hazeldine as their rural mentor, Kidder. Hazeldine was an accomplished character actor on stage and screen and brings every  one of his years experience to bear on the production, whilst remaining deeply generous to the pair of young leads. His premature death in 2002 at the age of 55 has left a gaping hole in British TV.

Made during the summer of '82 against the backdrop of the Falklands War and the rampant Thatcherism that was notoriously setting in place Liverpool's 'managed decline', One Summer is certainly evocative of that period but it hasn't really dated all that much. Today's innercity kids face the same problems and society at large still believe in the 'lock 'em up' solution to juvenile delinquency. With that in mind, it's easy to see not only One Summer's influence on subsequent films and TV (including the work of Shane Meadows) but also its potential to be remade as a film (something Russell has often expressed a hope for) as it's still highly relevant. Should it ever occur, perhaps David Morrissey could now take the Kidder role?

This was the perfect mini series to watch across last week's long and unusually hot May bank holiday weekend.

Smack the Pony: I'm Really Interesting

For the past month or so I've been loving the fact that Gold's After Dark segment on Friday nights have been repeating a double bill of Smack the Pony, Channel 4's brilliant (mostly) all female sketch show from the turn of the millennium. It takes me right back to those Friday nights when it first aired and my crush on...well all three girls, but especially Sally Phillips! It still stands up really well and I do feel it's one of the most undervalued sketch shows of British TV. The song spoofs that concluded every episode were often criticised even back in the day, but when they worked - such as this skit on Shania Twain's hit That Don't Impress Me Much that Gold repeated tonight - they really did fly. 

Look out for Sally's bum flash/wiggle...

Out On Blue Six: East 17

This blast from the past from East 17 could be heard in Thursday night's episode of Derry Girls on Channel 4 and it's been stuck in my head over since.

If you haven't been watching Derry Girls, then stop what you're doing and go and watch it. Seriously, step away from my blog immediately and go and download the three episodes that have so far been broadcast on Channel 4. This Northern Irish, 1990s sitcom is without a doubt the funniest thing the channel has aired since Raised By Wolves, which they stupidly axed after two series. I'm still fuming about that, by the way. In fact Derry Girls has a lot in common with Raised By Wolves, and The Inbetweeners. 

End Transmission

RIP Keith Chegwin

Another day, and the announcement of yet another truly shocking and surprising celebrity death - Keith Chegwin, gone at 60. 

Now obviously you don't expect people to live forever, but there's something almost unbelievable about hearing the news that the endlessly upbeat scouser known affectionately as 'Cheggers' has died. Like Richard Herring said about Terry Wogan, it's hard to imagine a world in which such mainstays are no longer a pop-cultural cornerstone, flickering away on the box in the corner of the room. But the awful truth is that Cheggers has died, at the age of 60 from a long battle with the progressively degenerative lung condition idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. In a way, a part of childhood has died with him too.

Because, with shows like Swap Shop, Saturday Superstore and Cheggers Plays Pop, Keith Chegwin was your childhood. And perhaps more than any other entertainer, Cheggers adapted with the times and reflected your life as you grew older. He had of course started out as a child actor, appearing in productions from the Children's Film Foundation, as Fleance in Roman Polanski's acclaimed Macbeth, opposite Peter Sellers in The Optimist of Nine Elms and in TV series such as Open All Hours, Village Hall, The Liver Birds, Z Cars and The Whackers. But it was the move into presenting around the mid 1970s, that Cheggers made his name. He was there for you every Saturday morning when you were a kid both in the gaudy glow of the 1970s and in the sparkle and shine of the 1980s, performing outside broadcasts up and down the land, helping children to swap their toys and games. And then, as you found yourself headed into your teen years and your twenties in the '90s, he rode the wave of the ironic tide and successfully reinvented himself without even moving away from his self appointed kingdom of morning TV. As you roused yourself from slumber for lessons and lectures, there he was surprising one and all in The Big Breakfast's 'Down Your Doorstep' segment, and later even presenting the show alongside Gaby Roslin and Zoe Ball, a surprise promotion when '90s zeitgeist wunderkid Chris Evans resigned.

When time was called on The Big Breakfast and the show ended, he simply took the format and moved seamlessly across to ITV to do it all over again for GMTV, his perpetually chirpy demeanour whisking you off to work. What's surprising about this ever-reliable, ever-reimagining fixture of our lives is that Chegwin achieved it all after overcoming alcoholism in the late '80s and early '90s.

In later years, Chegwin fully embraced the role of cheesy celebrity and the boost social media like Twitter afforded him. Having hosted Channel 5's revival of It's a Knockout and even appearing naked for the channel's nudist gameshow The Naked Jungle, he began to take part in several reality TV competitions such as Celebrity Big Brother (finishing fourth) Dancing on Ice and Celebrity Masterchef, as well as quizzes like The Chase and Pointless Celebrities. His ability to poke fun at himself and embrace the irony led to him starring as himself in a series of productions from the comedy slasher film Kill Keith to Ricky Gervais/Stephen Merchant series Extras and Life's Too Short, the latter of which he formed an unusual comedic trio with Les Dennis and Shaun Williamson. 

A true entertainer, he'll be much missed. 

RIP

Cluub Zarathustra (1996)

Imagine, if you will, that Big Brother from Michael Radford's version of Nineteen Eighty Four put on a comic cabaret to entertain the masses. Are you imagining it? That, ladies and gents, is Cluub Zarathustra, a Channel 4 pilot from 1996 that has never been broadcast.

Cluub Zarathustra has to be the single most important and influential movement in comedy of the 1990s. Without it, there would be no The Mighty Boosh, Smack The Pony, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, Jerry Springer - The Opera, Johnny Vegas, Harry Hill, Al Murray's Pub Landlord, or Jam. And yet it remains a deeply overlooked cultural (or cuultuural?) landmark. One of comedies greatest kept secrets.

Developed by Simon Munnery, Roger Mann and Stewart Lee as a Dadaist comedy club night at The Market Tavern, Cluub Zarathustra ran from 1994 to 1997, spurned traditional stand-up comedy in favour of the surreal and absurd (their creedo was 'we aim to fascinate, not entertain', and as such you were more likely to see The Actor Kevin Eldon dressed in oilclothes and measuring the room, reporting each measurement into a dictaphone than anything resembling a traditional joke) and was presided over by Munnery, in character as his self-aggrandising, deluded and weedy tyrant The League Against Tedium. The likes of Mann, Lee, Eldon, Sally Phillips, Richard Thomas, Lori Lixenberg and Julian Barratt performed alongside Munnery as his faithful fascistic acolytes clad in black militaristic garb. The Cluub houseband was Evangelista, featuring Al Murray on drums, and guest spots were regularly taken up by the likes of Harry Hill and Johnny Vegas, the St Helens comic being the only performer to regularly receive payment for his efforts.  This was cult comedy performed as if it was a cult itself.

Following the Cluub's first excursion to Edinburgh in 1995, Channel 4 commissioning editor Seamus Cassidy enticed the cabaret to make this pilot; a twenty-one minute futurist extravaganza filmed at Ealing studios on a vast stage surrounded by Z banners and emblems and a giant ever watchful projection of The League's face, Big Brother-style, his eyes swivelling around the room. At any given command, The League could invoke rapturous applause from his devoted and clearly faked audience, deeming the real audience surplus to requirements and beneath contempt. Between his proclamations came testimonies from The League's cult, a beret-wearing Roger Mann and Sally Phillips attesting to the fact that, before discovering the Cluub, they had a 'withered leg' or were 'bald'. As they speak, the silhouette of a pacing, demanding Munnery can be seen, ensuring their praise of him and the Cluub is suitably effusive. Master storyteller Edgar Allan Poo ascends to the stage from the hidden depths below, amidst impressive pyrotechnics, whilst Lori Lixenburg appears as a 20ft tall steel Valkyrie known as 'The Opera Device' singing insults to France and Germany. The pilot cost £120,000 to make, big money in 1996, but still not enough: the pilot fizzles out with the legend 'INSERT MORE MONEY', the brainchild of Stewart Lee and an unashamed begging bowl for any potential series to follow. 

The series was not to be, indeed the pilot was not even broadcast, and as such Cluub Zarathustra as a televisual experience remains a tantalising missed opportunity. Several of those involved cite the transition from cabaret night to TV production itself as being problematic and near impossible. Munnery felt the performers were too removed from the audience to make the pilot a success, whilst Cassidy, in Robert Wringham's excellent book on the Cluub, You Are Nothing, cites the decision to make it so big a production took away some of the magic that made Cluub Zarathustra a success in the first place; "For me, the joke was always that Simon was the annoying bloke who sat down beside you on the bus, only he'd actually managed to get it together and start this embryonic messianic cult. when they dressed him up in Victorian kit, and had a massive set, and a soprano in metal Brunnhilde gear, I wasn't at all convinced". It's true that something is altered when you take the inherent ramshackle live experience to the screen and the essential joke that originated in such a shambolic incubator surrounding the scum-baiting League and his loyal, brainwashed followers does seem a little lost when portrayed with a big budget, but Cluub Zarathustra remains a startlingly good and radically different example of TV comedy. See for yourself:

And then weep at the realisation that this is all we have. And then cheer that the BBC did commission Attention Scum! five years later. And then weep that they didn't recommission it. And then rinse and repeat until satisfied.

The Biased Broadcasting Corporation

Only Channel 4 followed the money to reveal the staggering Tory election fraud that secured their win in 2015 and has finally been acknowledged today. The BBC never mentioned it at all. When they finally had to acknowledge its existence today, the BBC's increasingly biased political editor Laura Kuenssberg tweeted this...

So according to our supposedly independent, impartial and prized public service broadcaster, this was not fraud then, it was just a mistake. Every other broadcaster has correctly called it as fraud, so why not the BBC?

As one tweeter responded to Kuenssberg, the only mistake here was in the Tories getting caught!

Is it any wonder that this week SNP's Alex Salmond raised a point of order in the House asking for emergency measures to bring Laura Kuenssberg into the Tory cabinet?!

Given her terribly biased track record, and her role as a laughing stock in parliament, that this woman is still in work at the beeb is beyond me. But then to criticise Kuenssberg is to be charged as a misogynist by those who employ and protect her and who will never concede that they are terrified of upsetting the Tory government who can rip their charter up whenever they feel like it.

Theme Time: Elvis Costello - Scully

The death of Tony Haygarth reminded me to blog about Scully today.

King of the scallies, Franny Scully remains scouse playwright Alan Bleasdale's most enduring character. Initially created to entertain the kids he was teaching, Bleasdale realised he was on to something and began to write the character's (mis)adventures in series of short stories which he submitted to BBC Radio Merseyside. The station loved them, and Bleasdale was subsequently invited to read them on air. From there, a Scully story was read out on the BBC2 arts series 2nd House, before he became a stage play, the subject of two novels, a recurring character in the Saturday morning kids TV show and regional TISWAS replacement The Mersey Pirate, the subject of a BBC Play For Today (Scully's New Year) and finally, a full length Granada TV series for Channel 4 in 1984.

If you can get past the fact that by 1984, Andrew Schofield was a very obvious 26-year-old playing the eponymous 16-year-old schoolboy, and that all his schoolmates were of a similar vintage too, then there was much to enjoy in Scully. On initial inspection, Scully seemed like a much needed bout of light relief for writer Alan Bleasdale following his searing masterpiece Boys From The Blackstuff just two years earlier. Light relief for many of the cast too, who returned for fresh roles here. But there's a dark undercurrent that runs through Scully beneath the humourous japes, the rites of passage tropes and the commentary on teenage life. The lack of opportunities awaiting the likes of Scully in the impoverished and neglected Liverpool of Thatcher's Britain are often alluded to and seemingly embodied by the Scully's recurring vision of his idol Kenny Dalglish during his everyday life - is this seemingly funny and surreal Billy Liar-esque device actually an example of serious psychosis borne from his relationship with his environment? As the series progressed things turned darker and more serious, leading to an extended finale that sees Scully's dreams of one day playing for Liverpool in tatters. It's a world away from some of the amusing slapstick elsewhere in the series and is deeply emotionally affecting. But that's not to say that the show wasn't very funny too, providing an authentic and endearing depiction of working class teenage life that is probably just as relevant today as it was back in 1984.

And the series boasted a great theme tune too - Turning the Town Red - from Elvis Costello, who also plays Scully's train obsessed simpleton brother, Henry (pictured above). It played over the opening credits which saw Scully training with Liverpool FC, before pulling on the Number 7 shirt and running onto the Anfield pitch to the cries of 'There's only one Francis Scully!' from the Kop faithful.

The Crystal Gazer: Sandra Caron, 1973

Channel 4 broadcast a special one-off edition of The Crystal Maze last night for the charity StandUp2Cancer, with Stephen Merchant stepping into the gamesmaster shoes previously worn by Richard O'Brien and latterly by Edward Tudor-Pole of Tenpole Tudor fame. I was quite surprised to see they'd included Mumsie, the riddling fortune teller character created by Sandra Caron in the original series, played this time around by none other than Maureen Lipman!

Mumsie then, Sandra Caron

Mumsie now, Maureen Lipman

It spurred me on to googling Caron, who was of course the sister of tragic songbird Alma Cogan, and I found these delicious, atmospheric photographs from 1973 taken by Howard Grey which feature her gazing wistfully, maybe even mournfully out of the window of a cafeteria

For more of these photographs visit Howard Grey's site here

Theme Time : Belle and Sebastian - Teachers

So my bedtime viewing for this past month or so has been Teachers, the Channel 4 comedy drama that ran for four series from 2001 to 2004 and starred, amongst others, Andrew Lincoln, Adrian Bower, Navin Choudhry, Raquel Cassidy, and Nina Sosanya (pictured below)  

This has been an enjoyable way to spend an evening as Teachers was a series that pretty much passed me by at the time. Being in my early twenties at the turn of the century meant I was out more nights than I was in. I do vaguely recall catching some of the first series, but at the time I found it to be a pale imitation of Andrew Lincoln's previous hit series This Life (which I loved) like it was just 'Egg Becomes a Teacher' and promptly didn't bother with any further episodes.

Watching it back, my opinion hasn't changed all that much about the first series. Aside from sharing a leading man, the show was also executive produced by This Life's Jane Fallon (Ricky Gervais' other half) and shared much of that series comedy/drama balance in its depiction of twenty-something's, on the first step of the ladder career wise, juggling their lives and loves. Much of the debut season rests on Lincoln's shoulders; he plays probationary English teacher Simon Casey, a teacher more interested in impressing his unruly pupils than he is actually teaching them anything. He's a teacher simply because he hasn't figured what else he could possibly do with his degree. He's still living at home with his dad, who is about to remarry his attractive younger girlfriend and spends too much time down the pub with his mates, PE teacher Brian (Bower) IT teacher Kurt (Choudhry) and Psychology teacher Susan (Cassidy) lusting after chilly English colleague Jenny (Sosanya) even though he has a sensible girlfriend at home, WPC Maggie (Zoe Telford) 

Things improved in the second season, with the show finding its identity more. For a start, it realised that although the show was called Teachers it needn't actually be about teaching, so out went the focus on the schoolkids that featured throughout the first series (actors like Kara Tointon, Phoebe Thomas and the irritating James Corden had all appeared in Simon's English class, and would go on to bigger things immediately after leaving) as the show concentrated fully on the core ensemble which was beginning to grow; joining Simon, Brian, Kurt and Susan in this second season were new probationers JP (Shaun Evans) a confident young gay man from Liverpool, and Penny (Tamzin Malleson) a beautiful but deeply manipulative character who it soon becomes clear trades on her looks to get anything she wants. In this series Jenny also became part of the group, rather than an outsider who stirred conflicting emotions in man-child Simon, and other characters such as demon headmistress Claire (Gillian Bevan), the dragon-like secretary Liz (Ellen Thomas) her incomprehensible boss-eyed sidekick Carol (Ursula Holden-Gill) and the pathetic head of English Bob (Lloyd Maguire) also began to have more to do. The show became much less straighter, and altogether more stranger with surreal sightgags such as a donkey wandering the school corridors without explanation, or a band of dwarf dinner ladies manning the canteen. Towards the end of the series, Simon left to go travelling which saw James Lance's Matt arrive to replace him and instantly begin an affair with Penny, behind his wife's back.

On paper, you'd expect the third series not to work. Not only have you lost your leading man in Andrew Lincoln, but between the end of the second series and the start of this third one, Raquel Cassidy, Nina Sosanya and Shaun Evans had also jumped ship, with no explanation made as to where their characters had gone. Cassidy's leaving was especially troubling as Susan was the patient glue of our little band. However, in came Vicky Hall as biology teacher Lindsay, a girl who could outdrink and outbelch what was fast becoming the best comedic double act on TV, Kurt and Brian.

  

Yet for me, the third series is actually the most enjoyable of the show, though that's not to say it isn't without its faults and I do seem to be in a minority here as a lot of people online seem to claim things went downhill from series three onwards. It does seem a little uncertain in whether or not it should place too much emphasis on Kurt and Brian, as the last remaining characters from the original gang, the series brings the likes of Bob, Liz, Carol and Claire even more to the fore, with mixed results. There's just something wrong about seeing our little group now including the likes of sad Bob (now dumped by his wife in favour of the satellite installation man) or Liz and Carol, down the pub. The whole point of Teachers in that first series was this was a little clique who viewed themselves as the misfit outsiders to the rest of the school, embracing these other secondary characters betrays that original purpose. I particular had trouble with Liz, a loathsome character who was downright awful to so many people yet never gets any comeuppance whatsoever, whereas Bob reminded me of the kind of tragic middle aged bloke I used to work with in the civil service at the time, who desperately wanted to reclaim some of his youth and inveigle his way into a much younger set. 

What really does work though is the fact that this ensemble is actually even stronger than the original team. James Lance and Vicky Hall are inspired additions and the latter teaching Tamzin Malleson's character the error of her ways, rehabilitates Penny enough to allow her to take her place in the gang. Her affair with Lance's Matt peters out rather early on, and over the thirteen episodes something slowly develops between Matt and Lindsay that culminates in the pair realising they have feelings for one another in the last episode.

But the real triumph in this third season is Kurt and Brian, the most sexually frustrated men in Bristol - and possibly the whole of the UK! In the hands of Bower and Choudhry, these characters transcend the Men Behaving Badly like trappings lesser actors could have contentedly and successfully mined  to approach something akin to the most glorious of double acts like Morecambe and Wise or Laurel and Hardy. They're both loveable idiots (though they'd probably be much less loveable in reality - Kurt especially!) but they never seem totally aware of how idiotic they are, with Kurt in particular being totally oblivious to his own faults and flaws.

Even Simon comes back for three episodes, and it still works, with Andrew Lincoln also appearing behind the camera as a director for some of the best episodes later in the series. OK, it's far more outlandish and more sitcommy than the comedy drama of series one, but I still think it's the most enjoyable of the lot.

When I bought the DVDs a couple of years ago (and yes, I've only just got round to marathon-watch them) I actually only thought Teachers ran for three series, so imagine my surprise only yesterday when glancing through the All4 boxsets on my Sky+, I saw that there was actually a fourth series too. How did I not realise this? 

Maybe I shouldn't have?

I should point out that at the time of writing, I haven't actually watched any of this fourth and final season. But I have heard a fair bit about it online. Many view it as a mistake and a disappointment and cite one more cast reshuffle as the reason why this flopped. Certainly Channel 4 do, claiming the changes saw viewers turn off, leading to the low ratings that saw the show get axed and the channel perhaps push all its resources into Teachers most likely successor Green Wing, which made its debut the following year.

I have no idea why Adrian Bower, Navin Choudhry and James Lance decided not to return to the series after the third season, but to write them out in the opening moments as having died in a car crash strikes me as being particularly bitter (ETA: I've just watched the opening scene which sees Lindsay, Bob and Penny visit their graves and proceed to urinate on them! What the fuck?! OK Penny doesn't want to piss on Kurt's grave, despite Lindsay pointing out 'he'd've loved that' which is quite amusing, but it's still a deeply wrong scene that makes me think the production had issues with the three actors leaving). Losing the inspired double act at the heart of the previous three seasons is always going to hurt, but losing James Lance's suave and devillish Matt, just when he realised his unlikely love for Lindsay, throws away everything that series three worked towards. 

The setting for the series also changed for this final run, with the school having merged with another in the area. Joining the cast are Lee Williams as English teacher Ewan, Daon Broni as Food tech teacher Damien and Matthew Horne as RE teacher Ben, leaving Lindsay and Penny as are only link to the past. I've read that Bob becomes even more central to this series, becoming even more tragic in his attempts to be young and rejuvenate his life, taking to wearing a toupee and ordering a Thai mail order bride, Ping. 

I will watch the fourth season for completist's sake, and because I really like the characters of Lindsay and Penny, but I'm going in with very low expectations. It's a real shame the series didn't just end on the high of the final episode of series three, directed by none other than Andrew Lincoln.

The theme tune was an instrumental stretch from The Boy With The Arab Strap by Belle & Sebastian - beautiful song....

Of the three DVD's I have each has an amusing Making of featurette of each series, which suggests a very happy team behind the scenes.

And if you have Sky boxsets, you can download series 1 to 4 now.

Raised By Wolves - A Message From Caitlin Moran

I cannot believe how utterly short-sighted Channel 4 are in cancelling the funniest sitcom in years; Raised By Wolves.

Thankfully Caitlin Moran believes it is far from over. 

If you have Facebook (unlike me, I don't) and love Raised By Wolves (just like me, I do) then please join the Moran rebel alliance. If you don't have Facebook (like me) you can subscribe to the rebel alliance via the Raised By Wolves website - see the link at the end of the video above, just after Caitlin's tits!

There's also a petition here

I really hope she manages to secure a third series somewhere else - but not Amazon Prime or Netflix eh? Cos I don't have them! Let's have it on a proper channel. If it does go 'online' then let's at least have very expedient DVD releases!

The People Next Door (2016)

Ben Chanan, the man behind previous Channel 4 one off dramas Cyberbully and Blackout, brings us another astute and chilling 'state of the nation' in The People Next Door. If you think we've become a society that films, photographs and records absolutely everything - that we are all now Big Brother - that privacy is not only  a thing of the past but we have unwittingly taken part in its destruction, then this film will confirm all your worst fears.

The film commences with  the happy and attractive young couple Gemma and Richard, played by Joanna Horton and Karl Davies. They have recently moved into a new home and, in the opening scene, its revealed that Gemma is pregnant - we see her hurrying into the bedroom with the positive pregnancy test in one hand and a video camera in the other, capturing her partner's reaction to the news. But the video isn't just used for the major events of their lives, Gemma and Richard are clearly a couple who film every little detail. Yes, they're that annoying smugly satisfied couple that you inevitably end up sitting next to at gigs, never living in the moment, always recording the here and now for the future. From that opening scene on, it comes as no surprise to see that every moment of the film is captured on camera. 

When Richard and Gemma start to hear noises next door suggesting arguments and beatings, they become concerned - especially for their neighbour's children, in particular the youngest, a toddler who one day wandered into their home unsupervised and disappeared not long afterwards. Suspicious, and fearing that the young boy is being kept against his will, they begin to start what they call an 'evidence log', capturing every suspicious noise through the walls and comings and goings from the house. But when does evidence become surveillance?  When does concern become obsession? Have they even the right to be concerned - is this all just something they've blown up out of proportion and dreamt up in their own heads, the product of Gemma's febrile, emotional mind? As their quest for the truth spirals out of control we're left to ask just who really is breaking the law here, the neighbours or Richard and Gemma themselves?

The People Next Door is a genuinely creepy experience, reminiscent of Hollywood's 'Found Footage' thrillers like Paranormal Activity or, for a more closer to home comparison, Andrea Arnold's Red Road. There's even a pinch of the  yuppies-in-peril genre there too in the way it pitches the respectable, upmarket young couple against Kate Fleetwood and Anthony Flanagan's less salubrious, grubby looking next door neighbours. But though these comparisons stand, Chanan's urban nightmare is topical, disturbing and challenging enough to be distinctive and important in its own right. Once again, Chanan has held a mirror up to his audience and dared us to look at it to see if it reflects back some unpalatable truth we'd rather not admit to possessing.

Tonight's Tele Tip : Raised By Wolves

Tonight is the last episode in the second series of Caitlin and Caroline Moran's (pictured below) excellent, hilarious Raised By Wolves

It's been another hilarious series and I'm going to miss it so much. Catch it tonight at 10pm, Channel 4.

Tonight's Tele Tip : Raised By Wolves, Channel 4, 10pm

The funniest sitcom of 2015 returns to our screens tonight for a second series - Raised By Wolves written by Caitlin and Caroline Moran.

I cannot wait.

RIP Frank Kelly

Father Ted star Frank Kelly, famous for playing the irascible drunkard Father Jack in the Channel 4 sitcom, has passed away aged 77.

Kelly was diagnosed with Parkinsons last year and away from Father Ted was known for his roles in Emmerdale, The Deal, Taffin, Evelyn, and Mrs Brown's Boys D'Movie. In his native Ireland he made his name in shows such as Wanderly Wagon and Hall's Pictorial Weekly and, in 1984, hit the charts at number 8 in Ireland and number 26 in the UK respectively with The Twelve Days of Christmas - Christmas Countdown

Uncannily, his death today on the 28th February coincides with his Father Ted co-star Dermot Morgan's death 18 years ago to the day.

RIP