My rescue plan for ailing Beeb
JOCKEY Davy Russell was talking about his body weight when he said of Grand National winner Tiger Roll: C. Ryan of north London wins £35 for that howler. Keep ’em coming to the address at the top of the page.
TV QUESTIONS: On Corrie how do all those people fit into Chateau Platt? Do the bedrooms use Tardis technology?
Has their randy GP Ali misunderstood the meaning of Doctors Without Frontiers?
How stoned do you have to be to follow Legion? It makes Twin Peaks look like Balamory.
SIR Cliff Richard reckons the BBC ruined his life. Join the club, pal.
Attenborough aside, it’s been a mighty long time since the arrogant Corporation felt like a national treasure.
With its lifeless light entertainment, dull dramas, inescapable bias and insane casting, “Auntie” is a shadow of its former self. They need to:
Encourage writers from working class backgrounds. Oxbridge toffs didn’t and couldn’t create sitcom immortals like the Trotters, inset, the Steptoes, David Brent and Fletcher.
Let’s find the new Fools & Horses.
Enough reality TV nitwits, random relatives, chums of Kim Kardashian and dimbos from obscure outposts of BBC Radio. New rule – you’re not famous unless you turn heads at a bus stop.
The Beeb hates Brexit, although it’s hard to tell…unless you Email me at: garry.bushell@ dailystar.co.uk or write c/o Daily Star Sunday,
10 Lower Thames Street, London
EC3R 6EN watch their news coverage, soaps, toothless “satire” or two-bob comics.
EastEnders is particularly nuts. Mick Carter must be the only Cockney landlord who ever worried a Nativity scene might “offend” regulars.
The Vic celebrated Diwali and launched an EU supper club, but St George’s never gets a look in.
Will tomorrow be any different? Unlikely – it’s too hot for hell to have frozen over.
McNaffia, Collateral, Troy…damp squib after damp squib. Where is our Sopranos? Our Game Of Thrones? We need bolder commissioners and fresh writers. Less soap more vision.
Why not dramatise our own folk heroes before the Yanks do? And resurrect The Wednesday Play for gritty realism. It’s a long wait until Line Of Duty returns. We need a modern Whistle Test. Not only for hot new bands who don’t fit Later’s agenda, but also for our world-conquering rockers who the snobby Beeb are so sniffy about. Top Of The Pops could work too, using charts that discount streaming. Let’s book people on the basis of their ability again rather than their gender or ethnicity. It’s how good they are that counts.
Also stop blowing fortunes on managers and auto-cue readers. And finally…
Too many great old pros are confined to reality TV and afternoon quiz shows.
Let’s create proper Saturday night variety formats. Use old talent, build new talent. It’s got to be better than another karaoke car-crash. MOLLY Parker, Lost In Space, right (Netflix)... Helen Housby & the Roses... Rachel Keller, Legion. THE Alienist, left – more tedious than the Games closing ceremony…The Button – press and eject…My Year With The Tribe – phony baloney …Urban Myths – largely a miss.
‘I just sat on him, shoved it on to him and he came... I was able to take a breath and go again’
TAME TV satirists failing to savage the puffed-up unelected House of Lords. Competitive chutney makers now apparently deemed prime time entertainment. Nightmare Pets SOS
– not a blowfish in sight.