Britain on song for Party at the Palace
HOW’S YOUR Jubilee hangover? If you’ve still got it then an MBE to you! It’s worth saying – because the BBC cops it invariably for many things – that the Platinum Jubilee Party At The Palace (BBC One, Saturday), was probably the best concert ever staged for the Royals. Even national treasure Sir Cliff Richard, who wasn’t asked to perform (an oversight in itself ), said it was, generously – so it must be true.
His fellow national treasure Sir Rod Stewart, who did warble about on stage, just about got away with it because we all knew the words to the improbable Jubilee anthem, Sweet Caroline.
My favourite performer was Eurovision runner-up Sam Ryder who’s got something of Freddie Mercury about him, and has
A VOICE that can easily hit Admiralty
Arch from the Victoria Memorial. He’ll be back for the next one.
Everything I Know About Love
(BBC One, Tuesday) was buried after the late news, which is rather odd because most people interested in watching it wouldn’t have got home by then. Yes, it’s another young person’s drama, even though many of the target audience have surely never watched a BBC One drama.
I’m not showing my age but, if I was 40 years younger, I could relate to it although I’ve never “done shots” or taken cocaine in a nightclub toilet, so I struggle on all counts to keep up with these fictional twenty-somethings.
It’s an adaptation of a Dolly Alderton memoir, which opened rather pretentiously with one character on a train, a would-be troubadour as it turned out, saying, “I think Larkin got it right…”
I agree. Pop Larkin is a very profound man.
I could have turned it off then, but I’m a professional TV reviewer so I saw it through. If it’s not sounding too sexist, when are we going to see a new play about four young lads living in Camden?
I fear they might be under-represented in BBC drama.
Love Island (ITV2, nightly) returned for the summer, fresh from reports that it was okay for older viewers to watch.
Even grannies like it, we’re told – by ITV. Well, there’s no law against it apart from it transgressing the laws of taste.
The upside is that the “islanders” are now wearing recycled clothes, an initiative backed by ebay. People buy swimsuits off ebay? “Bargain! One short beach holiday only. No sand…” I really need to spend more time on the internet.
Not sure if they were “recycled” but they appeared to be half the size of last year’s costumes. I blame the parents.
One conversation I can report which will fill you with amusement. A Brighton fishmonger said his favourite position was the “oyster”. That’s his position on Brexit of course. Fishermen, as we know, are very sensitive about these issues. It was a week of returners. In a generous Jubilee spirit, I decided to give The Outlaws (BBC One, Sunday) another chance. I wish I hadn’t.
What a mucky show. The set-up is that a clutch of “likeable” crims are doing community service, which seemed to give apparently talented writer Stephen Merchant, a large slate for bad language, and what was loosely called “adult humour”.
Droves would have turned off. I didn’t laugh once. The character Merchant has written for himself is simply a limp Frank Spencer. Indeed, I thought the writing was lazy and uninventive, and for a Sunday night drama on the country’s most popular channel, it was very inappropriate – more so than Love Island, which is saying something.
Why do we need to see incessant drug-taking, BBC? And don’t get me started on the characters.
One girl has a scholarship to Oxford – of course she has – and an evil county lines drug baron believes her when she says she can make a lot of money for him.
So Channel 5 gave back Neighbours and we got Dan Walker. In case you missed it, the dyed-in-the-wool BBC man has left Breakfast to present 5 News at 5 with Dan Walker (Channel 5, nightly).
It wasn’t awful but it wasn’t anything different either in this crowded market for news nowadays.
I thought Walker would have given it the Tom Bradby conversational spin, but he played it straight, like the BBC newsman he is – accompanied by the trusty battered “5 Phone” he kept proudly in his trouser pocket to receive Whatsapp messages about the small matter of a vote of confidence in the PM. And to think C5 had interrupted a run of Brits Go Large In Benidorm to bring me this.
Ironically, as Walker was introduced, he told us: “It’s never about the person who sits in this chair – it’s about the team.”
Okay, we won’t bother you again, Dan.