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PEOPLE tend to look back on it with embarrassment these days, but I reckon the Britpop / Cool Britannia era of the mid-90s had a lot going for it. There was Euro ‘96, for one thing, plus the rise to prominence of bands such as Blur, Oasis, Suede and Pulp. We even won flipping Eurovision, for God’s sake.
And then, of course, there was TFI FRIDAY, Chris Evans’ live Friday teatime show for Channel 4. It had celebrity guests, great music, shamelessly mental stunts, and a very real sense that anything could happen, most famously illustrated when Shaun Ryder turned up and let rip with some spectacularly postwatershed language.
To celebrate its 20th anniversary, the show makes a one-off return to the Channel 4 schedules tonight, albeit in the comparative safety of the 9pm time slot. Evans’ old pal Danny Baker will be among those joining him, as will special guests including Blur. There’ll also be a reminder of classic TFI items such as the excellent Fat Lookalikes segment – but minimal mention of the short-lived attempt to revive the show’s format on ITV in 2005, in the form of the rather embarrassing OFI Sunday. DID Nazi leader Adolf Hitler fake his own death and disappear to a secret hideout in the Antarctic? Did American soldiers help themselves to the gold the Nazis had looted? Is the European Union the result of a Nazi plot? No, don’t worry, I haven’t suffered a blow to the head. I’m just telling you about some of the fantastically bonkers theories put forward tonight in CONSPIRACY: THE DEATH OF HITLER (8pm, Channel 5).