Kids are swot and bothered
OLD-time Ska on the Death In Paradise soundtrack and Shyko Amos as Ruby Paterson. Kristen Bell, The Good Place. American History’s Biggest Fibs and baton-twirling Lucy Worsley. The Grand Tour. Schitt’s Creek. True Detective back on form.
WHEN Jeff Bezos fell for TV presenter Lauren Sanchez, do you think he got a message from Amazon saying, “You might also enjoy Susanna Reid and Christine Lampard”?
POSSIBLE names for the new EastEnders gay bar: the Queen Albert, the Dirtier Den, Bottoms Up, Minute Meat Mart, Wellard’s, Sonia’s Strumpets, Albert’s Dare... GLORIA Hunniford was talking about ice-dancing when she told Saira Khan: M.Ashbee of Etchingham wins £35 for that howler. Keep ’em coming to the address at the top of the page.
PATRICIA Arquette is unrecognisable as Joyce “Tilly”
Mitchell on Escape At Dannemora.
She’s like the front door of Wormwood Scrubs – entered by prisoners on a daily basis.
Tilly’s in charge of the sewing machines, which is apt as she is constantly bobbin’ on top of Matt and Sweat. Everything in this slow-burn prison break drama actually happened.
DO The Right Thing With Eamonn & Ruth? If only... R Kew-Moss, Wellingborough & A Derrick, Somerset.
THE only sex education we ever got as kids was a grim warning to stay away from the school lollipop man.
How times change.
If Sex Education can be believed, our secondary schools are throbbing with sexual dysfunction these days. And there isn’t a single problem that can’t be solved by a 16-year-old virgin misfit.
Well, I say “our” secondary schools, but the Netflix comedy drama exists in a bizarre alternate universe where modern British kids dress like pupils at a 1980s US high school.
They are also unusually keen to discuss their bedroom hang-ups with straight-laced Otis – a “weird kid who looks like a Victorian ghost”.
His randy, sex guru mum Jean – a deadpan Gillian Anderson – embarrasses Otis on a daily basis.
The boy is so traumatised by her rampant love life and phallic art he can’t even jack his own beanstalk. Yet he seems to have absorbed all of her dubious wisdom and become the font of all carnal knowledge.
Enter Adam, the headmaster’s son, who is hung like an Andalusian donkey but can’t reach his vinegar.
As a result of Otis’ lousy advice, Adam exposes himself in the school canteen and gets dumped for being a flasher...
This public humiliation apparently Email me at: garry.bushell@ dailystar.co.uk or write c/o Daily Star Sunday,
10 Lower Thames Street, London
EC3R 6EN counts as a success and inspires Maeve, the super-smart rebel (and in old money, the school bike), to persuade Otis to give therapy sessions and cut her in on the profits.
Otis’ best mate is gay Eric, who is bullied for having once got aroused in public during a band’s live performance.
Adam calls him “tromboner”. Unfair! He actually blows a French horn...as indeed, given the opportunity, would Maeve.
The series is filmed in south Wales but is set in a kind of woke fantasy town where “non-judgmental”, anything goes C4-style views are the norm. Porky’s it ain’t.
The music is last century, the look is pure old school Yank – varsity jackets and lockers in the corridor – but the problems could have been filched from today’s paper.
Future episodes tackle STDs, revenge porn and abortion.
Everyone at Moordale High is either “thinking about shagging, about to shag, or actually shagging”. That was the only bit I believed. ADRIANNE Palicki, right, The Orville (Fox)...new Punisher (Netflix) ...Jimmy Carr, Roast Battle UK (ComCen). BIRD Box, left, – birdbrained...the Gillette ad...Celebrity Coach Trip – they’re not celebs, not entertaining and should’ve been left stranded in Espania with a raging bull. MURDER mysteries where the killer turns out to be an obscure extra. The dim-witted phrase “toxic masculinity” being applied to anything men do. Question Time persistently failing in its duty of impartiality. Gemma Collins and any show that books her.
‘I worry about you when the one hand job comes in’
ARDAL O’Hanlan complains about having to film Death In Paradise in a 22-week block. The hell these poor thesps go through.
Imagine being paid fortunes to spend nearly six months with all that sun and sea, missing out on the endless Brexit bull. Millions must feel his pain.