Jack's Bean and gone...

So here we are, the first of my 12 bits leading up to Christmas. Taking the festive season and making it drink so much Egg Nog and Absinthe, that come Boxing Day it'll be wondering about a recipe for scrambled eggs...

Starting off with...

1. Pantomines...

"He's behind you!" The regular call heard at theatres up and down the country over December and Early January, usually when someone's drink is split... Either that the refrain of children excited by sweets and also a character searching for someone. The panto has developed over the years from the early Harlequinade to today's sophisticated lights and music shows, in modern times the attraction is the stars who are in the panto itself. Taking its lead from Music Hall, the great entertainers have always appeared. From Pop stars to comedians and sports stars, they have each done their turns. Each story in turn has been adapted for the major star to show off their talent, for instance Rolf Harris would do his Jake the Peg act in the middle of Cinderella. Which bears no relationship to the plot itself, but it gave the chance to for others to shine. 


The dame is a key role in any pantomine, acting as a foil for the comical turn such as Buttons but also entertaining the audience in themself. The role has been filled with performers with the magnitude of  Chris Harris famous in the South for his time presenting 'Hey Look That's Me!' but also the quality of Les Dawson, Dawson is the master of the dame. His style, the demeanour and also the way he sells the role to the audience.... A true pro...

In myself, my experiences of panto are sort of mixed really from the Kings Theatre in Portsmouth seeing the great stars performing and getting up on stage with Brian Cant to tell an awful joke. But in meeting the great man was enough, but in that same performance... Major embarassment... When Lorraine Chase was playing Aladdin and was at a crucial scene when she finds the lamp originally, guess who shouted at the top of his voice as the lone voice "Rub the Lamp!" Which she replied "Thanks..." I could have nearly died, thinking back on it... Not the best move at all... Thinking over all the stars I saw in panto, it encouraged my love of Light Entertainment...

"Its Bobby Davro... Who?"

This gem comes from 2009 when Bobby Davro, and Mickey Rooney starred in panto in Milton Keynes... Milton Keynes isn't funny in itself, but it comes from the tradition of the stars being put into the panto who maybe don't fit as such... When Frank Bruno went into panto, it was because he was famous for his boxing but with the trend for reality stars now it seems that panto has changed into a vehicle for people who may have been on the television soon enough. The nature of this has been shown in the previous year when Britt Ekland came out of the jungle and to the Kings Theatre, it might be good publicity for the show itself. But with the currency of this, it leads to more people coming to the theatre and also something as such with their effect. 

So what else is there? Maybe a bit of festive time ads, involving panto... This from 1987 with Children's ITV , in which it feels right to be involved with panto time...

More fun here on Saturday... Enjoy people!

A quizzical situation...

In these times of the credit crunch everyone is feeling the pinch, especially the television industry. So it comes down to what ideas are cost effective and usually the solution lies in mass producible programmes such as Deal or No Deal and Countdown leading to monster runs of each basically spanning the whole year.
The phenomenal success of Pointless shows that a stranded show in the schedule puts the channel into a position where they can control what they want to do.  In the re-runs of early Pointless on Challenge, the seed is sewed as far the game is so addictive and being able to play along at home, which any quiz is giving its back teeth for.

ITV have experimented somewhat more then the BBC by re-introducing The Price Is Right with Joe Pasquale some time ago. But everyone knows about Golden Balls and Weakest Links of this world, though if it gets worse what shows will be brought back?

Here we ponder at the lesser lights which could fill up a wet Wednesday afternoon against Dickinson’s Real Deal...


Takeover Bid (BBC 1)
The Brucie lead vehicle of the late 80’s and early 90’s when he came back to the BBC, encouraging players to steal prizes off their opponents. Quite right for these times when it seems like every other company is taking over everyone else, so why not have that business-like jolly uncle turned entertainment host Gerry Robinson takes over the role of quizmaster plus with the added bonus of Adam ‘Shaw’s Shares’ Shaw as the glamorous assistant. “Your prizes value may go up or down owing to market conditions….”


Talkabout (ITV 1)
Verbally adept game show once introduced by future Peep Show executive producer Andrew O’Connor is brought up by Simon Cowell’s Syco TV in which the self appointed entertainment guru ditches the game and makes up the rules as he goes along. Contestants are punished if they don’t talk about The X Factor, Britain’s Got Talent or any show presented by Ant’n’Dec, the show is given a trillion week monster run by ITV as they see the potential to use a phone vote to get rid of the contestants one by one…

  Lucky Ladders (ITV 1)
Presented by the woman from the accident claim line adverts. As contestants come on and claim for such things as a loose fitting pen lid to a violent sneezing fit because the waitress in a Little Chef dropped the pepper. If their claim is suitable enough they are given thousands which they have to pay back eventually at double the rate of inflation…

"Gordon Bennett! No it's actually Lennie in fact..."

The Travel Quiz (BBC 1)
Contestants are giving the chance to win pictures of all the destinations that they cannot travel, all to due to the rising costs of air fuel. Due to copyright restriction, only pictures of British seaside resorts maybe used thanks to a dusty box of photos left over from Holiday ’78 found in a cupboard at the back of BBC canteen behind tins of semolina and prunes. (Andi “Ow, that’s rather hot isn’t it?” Peters not included…)




That’s My Dog (ITV 1)
Ironic twist gameshow, where half the staff of Heat Magazine are charged with
trying to control certain nightclub *ahem* beauties and keep them from getting
too merry before filming whilst Derek Hobson tries to reflect where his career has
gone and why they have turned the South-West’s number one produced gameshow
into a scene from Footballer’s Wives…



If that the case of being funny, by suggesting them its a serious business that people will tell you in the number of quiz shows have been piloted for BBC and ITV, with The Weakest Link leaving us soon, it brings into focus that when a format finishes, the next idea has to be ready to go....

So when they've started I'll finish and hopefully it'll be a starter for ten...

Shame about the show...

What makes a show real? Realism or a mixture of stories with something to say? Now Shameless has reached 100 shows, it has changed drama and made a debate about how it should be. Some people may see it as chavs and naer-do-wells upto no good while other may see it as the best drama in a long time. In terms of kitchen sink drama it has pushed the boundaries to the edge, learning that the basis for its drama should be what people see everyday. Of course people don't always live on a council estate, they may live in the country or in a town, but they can recognise characters they know in a show.

But these types of dramas have always tried to hold a mirror upto the nation at various time and said "Have a good look at yourself and see what you see.." Now people may not like what they see, other may see themselves and others may start to see what they are becoming. Through films such as Kes and also Saturday Night and Sunday Morning which reflected a realism which people were crying out for in the 1960's and 1970's came through a spirit, almost akin to their own properties. As we look at the 80's for example with Alan Bleasdale's Boys from the Blackstuff, showing the situation with employment as people got laid off from jobs and had to fight to survive in the atmosphere which had been created at that time. The mantra of Yosser Hughes being 'Gissa Job' was never so true at those times.

Fast forwarding to today, Shameless fills the gap where once costume drama would have filled and the characters are as compelling as any in Dallas. For Frank Gallacher, has become an idol to some but also a clarion call to others. Through the riots recently, people were screaming about this, that and everything. It is convient to show people reclaiming their cities when they think its appropriate, but for the small person it doesn't hold much truck to them. I wouldn't say that it could be claimed that I was a chav myself but in Shameless its the need for something which exists in our minds only. The need for putting everyone in the same box, there are good and bad people out there, never I could say that in judgement I could pick everyone on either side. I might be right, I might be wrong... It might be Shameless to say, that Shameless has pushed the boundaries again...

How local is local?

With Jeremy Hunt saying about local television this week, that spaces on the Freeview multiplex will be give to microcosmic local television channels, similar to the old RSL licences. There is a case in point to look back at another experience I had...

In my time I had auditioned for the now defunct TV12 on the Isle of Wight, to not much success to be said. Now I had been working for the local hospital radio for a couple of years when an opportunity came about to appear in a local training video as one of many disabled people who had found opportunities through volunteering. To me this seemed a bit almost wet, but it was appearing in front of the camera so I took it.

This lead me into Portsmouth Television, the seemingly hotbed of local television... To tell you the truth, it was a news room and another room with a chromakey screen. But I had to look around ], so at the end of my recording I said is it OK to take peep at where the action is? They said yes, apart from the average presenters who have gone to other media organisations or just out of the industry...

But there was one person who looked set for the top even then, in the corner there was a women with long eyelashes concentrating hard who didn't even acknowledge when I said hello to all the people in the newsroom.

"Moody so and so..." I thought... But after getting some autographs of the presenters including Sarah Dinenage, Fred's daughter. It was time to go home, I kept watching the service to see if it would improve but this young lady kept appearing nightly reading the news...

I never thought much would come of her...

Then one day I switched ITV on and there she was...

Eyelashes not included...

Oh, I thought as I put my head in my hands... It was ITV News' Andrea Benfield...

Star spotting, not a great talent of mine... But it has come about that 65 licences are to be given out and it seems like the local news on this 'Channel Six' will be sponsored... But eventually as has been proven by other RSL's, that they will need to break even pretty soon after launch otherwise advertising revenue will not be big enough to maintain the service even with huge financial backing. In Manchester even with the full backing of Guardian Group, that Channel 'M' closed down eventually, but now is putting a bid in for the same region...

Maybe you can teach an old dog new tricks, but getting them to remember it can be a pain...