Ab-Drab Jo a BAFTAs flop
STANLEY Johnson was talking about flipping a coin on The Real Marigold Hotel when he asked Sheila Ferguson: M.Ashbee of Etchingham wins £35 for that howler. Keep ’em coming to the address at the top of the page. DID you see that show where they found a severed head in a bag and a severed arm with the fingerprints burned off? Help me out, was that Shetland or MasterChef? I got confused.
DO you ever feel the people in charge aren’t fit for purpose?
Not just our political leaders – that’s a given – but across the board?
The BBC in particular seems institutionally inept. On Sunday we watched Joanna Lumley’s toe-curling jokes at the BAFTAs die more deaths than Netflix’s Russian Doll.
If BAFTA bigwigs thought her clumsy script was witty, how can we trust their verdict on movies?
Eurovision: You Decide was dismal, riddled with production errors. The director missed a good Bucks Fizz dress-rip gag and the credits spelled Rylan as “Ryan”.
Did no-one in the overmanned production team spot it? Did anyone check? Does anyone care?
Across the board, standards drop like aitches in a Danny Dyer documentary. Laziness hangs over commissioning like a lowland fog. The Real Marigold flogs a dead horse. MasterChef cooks it.
ITV are just as bad. They’re planning an “all-celebrity” version of X Factor, presumably to answer the question: How can we make a dying show worse?
Why do we need more than one TV singing show anyway? It’s not like they’re producing stars. And why are Email me at: garry.bushell@ dailystar.co.uk or write c/o Daily Star Sunday,
10 Lower Thames Street, London
EC3R 6EN they so long? New Faces managed on hour-long episodes, Op Knocks with 50 minutes. And look at the talent they found – Les Dawson, Jim Davidson, Lenny Henry, Victoria Wood, Frank Carson... all a damn sight funnier than Seann Walsh’s lame cheese board routine, or Josh Widdicombe’s musings on marmalade. Waiting for a break-out British sitcom hit is as frustrating as waiting for conclusive proof on Ancient Aliens. It’s been nine years since Gavin & Stacey and The Inbetweeners ended, and five since The Thick Of It. Thank comedy heaven for C4’s filthy, funny, utterly relatable Catastrophe. The Yanks still knock out smart, successful long-running sitcoms like The Big Bang Theory, The Good Place and Modern Family. Why can’t we?
Possibly because BBC Comedy is staffed with overpaid, right-on bores merrily commissioning third-rate dross from their old uni buddies.
They need to take their heads out of their collective backsides, stop telling us what we can’t laugh at and find something worth watching.
WHAT do the BAFTAs stand for? Simple: Blonde Actress Fails To Amuse Stars. In tribute to the lost, after each of Joanna’s jokes there was a moment’s silence. JONNY May and the England rugby squad...Under The Wire...Rick & Morty, right, (E4)...Edward James Olmos, Mayans MC. MARCUS Brigstocke, left, Famous And Fighting Crime – not much cop... Joanna Lumley, BAFTAs – had viewers squirming like Doctor Octopus...The Sex Clinic – poxy... MasterChef – over-egged.
‘Are you are a practised tosser?’
ONE an old-fashioned, deeply irritating figure of fun… the other was played by Russ Abbot.