Why do TV gongs always go to the Wrong shows?
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS is so infuriated that he’s awarding his own
LeT’S just appoint Ant and Dec as joint prime ministers, a double act to rule the nation, and have done with it. It’s evident that they’re more popular than any other star, celeb or politician could ever dream of being. At the national Television Awards this week, the duo were named best TV presenters for the 15th year running. That means they’ve won every year since 2001. As Ant McPartlin said: ‘It’s getting a bit mental now.’ Furthermore, their jungle reality gameshow, I’m A Celebrity, won Best entertainment Programme for the sixth year in a row.
There’s no question that Ant and Dec are genuinely loved and talented. But we should view these awards with suspicion: the obnoxious Danny Dyer, after all, has won the Soaps awards twice on the trot, as landlord Mick Carter from eastenders.
So let’s imagine a world without Ant and Dec — and a less predictable cast of winners than we saw this week.
Who’d be in the spotlight at my alternative TV awards parade?
THE WINNERS . . .
Drama: Wolf Hall
BBC One’s retelling of Anne Boleyn’s rise and fall from power, seen through the eyes of Tudor schemer Thomas Cromwell (Mark Rylance), evoked the era in meticulous detail.
Unfortunately, that meant we were sometimes watching night- time scenes lit by a single candle. But when we could see what was going on in the gloom, by golly it was good.
Damian Lewis was a scarily unpredictable Henry VIII, Jonathan Pryce played Cardinal Wolsey with all the oily charm of Fagin from Oliver Twist, and Claire Foy as the doomed queen was fragile and megalomaniac at the same time. Scintillating TV.
Comedy: Dad’s Army
SOMeTIMeS repeats are the best thing on telly. First screened in 1968, this beloved sitcom is more in the news than ever. A clever drama over Christmas imagined how writers Jimmy Perry and David Croft persuaded the Beeb to back their unlikely idea, and next month a spinoff film goes on cinema release.
Meanwhile, there’s a repeat on BBC2 every Saturday. So let us relish the comedy genius of Arthur Lowe, John Le Mesurier, Bill Pertwee and Co . . . but after 50 years isn’t it time the Beeb created something of equal calibre?
Talent stars: All the Strictly professionals
In THe latest series of Strictly Come Dancing, all eyes were on the pros — who bothers watching celebs any more? even the best star contestants, such as Peter Andre and Caroline Flack, look like galumphing elephants beside the grace of movers like Gleb
Actress: Sheridan Smith in The C-Word
SHe broke our hearts playing Cilla, and did it all over again in the true story of Lisa Lynch, who chronicled her fight with terminal breast cancer in an online blog right up to the end. Lisa had actually asked Sheridan to play her on TV: ‘I cried buckets,’ said the actress. So did we all.
It’s probably time to give Miss Smith a Best Actress award at the beginning of every year, just to get the inevitable out of the way.
Factual show: Countryfile
Any programme that can make drystone-walling a fascinating topic is doing something right. BBC One’s Countryfile is quietly outperforming just about every show on television, with ratings at an average six million which saw it trounce its faltering timeslot rival, The X Factor.
It has proved such a success that this spring will see the launch of 45minute episodes called Countryfile Diaries five days a week. Part of its appeal is the TV veteran John Craven, a presenter on the show for 27 years.
Is it sexism that men of 75 still get the prime jobs? not when they are this urbane and effortlessly competent.
TV presenter: Sue Perkins
PeRKy PeRKInS (above) was everywhere, from a travelogue to India, where she got emotional about street children, to her short-lived daytime
chatshow with TV partner Mel Giedroyc — which has been justly cancelled, because it truly was a clunker. And Sue and Mel were the giggly, smutty-minded hosts of The Great British Bake Off as it enjoyed its most cessful season ever. Now Perkins her own panel game, Insert Name re, on BBC2. Don’t try to ignore : it’s impossible.
Best kept secret: Father Brown
THIS brilliant detective period drama, hidden away on daytime TV, has just finished its fourth series on BBC One. Former Fast Show comedian Mark Williams — the one who was always announcing ‘ I’ll get me coat’ — stars as the sleuthing priest of a Cotswold parish, for ever upsetting the bishop and the local police as he solves murders and prevents jewel heists by the master criminal Flambeau ( John Light).
With its gorgeous cars and costumes, witty scripts, fiendish mysteries and a spiritual touch that kes it unique on television, it’s a nder Father Brown isn’t a Sunday ht fixture.
New drama: Humans
GEMMA CHAN starred as a household robot programmed to obey all the family’s whims, from cooking the dinner to bedtime stories d beyond in the superb Channel 4 sci-fi series. Supposed to be a warning about artificial intelligence, and a meditation on the dangers of slavery in the digital age, it just made us all want to own a robot.
Children’s show: The Clangers
HurrAH, they’re back! The pink woolly aliens who captivated young viewers during the era of the Moon landings in the early Seventies have been revived in 52 new episodes that thankfully were made using traditional stop- motion camera techniques rather than computer animation.
eccentric creator Oliver Postgate, who voiced the original episodes, died in 2008, but his place is ably filled by Michael Palin. Listen for the moment in every episode where Michael murmurs, ‘Oh dear . . . ’ as a sweet, knitted extra-terrestrial tumbles into another scrape.
On-screen moment: Nadiya wins Bake Off
‘I’M NeVer ever gonna put boundaries on myself again,’ a tearful Nadiya Hussain told the cameras, as the 31year- old housewife and mother- ofthree won The Great British Bake Off. ‘I’m never gonna say I don’t think I can — I can and I will!’ The nation welled up — even the usually composed judge Mary Berry struggled to hold back her tears. Surely there was not a more touching moment on telly all year.
. . . AND LOSERS Off-screen moment: That Clarkson fracas THe telly scandal had been threatening to erupt for years. The story is too well known to bear repeating, but after a cold buffet was served and punches were thrown, Jeremy Clarkson’s contract with the BBC ended. result: he decamped to Amazon (with a rumoured £10 million annual paycheck), co- presenters James May and richard Hammond trailing in his wake.
Meanwhile, Top Gear was handed to radio Two’s Chris evans. I’d love to see the Ginger ego make a triumph of Top Gear, I really would . . . otherwise Clarkson will be more insufferable than ever.
But right now, with reports that he can’t even drive and talk at the same time, the evans era looks like a turbocharged Trabant, ready to fall to bits at high speed.
Award for gratuitous nudity: Aidan Turner
TurNer wins not for his iconic appearance scything a Cornish meadow without his shirt in Poldark, but the scenes in And Then There Were None, the Christmas Agatha Christie drama, where he wore only a low- slung bedsheet. This was artistically essential to the plot, of course, because the rest of the characters had to be sure Aidan wasn’t concealing a pistol.
Thankfully, other suspects including Charles Dance were spared the bedsheet routine. Co-star Maeve Dermody’s reaction was priceless — she looked like she was about to melt.
Most pointless show: Is Binge Drinking Really That Bad?
AS PArT of the long-running science series Horizon, photogenic twin doctors Xander and Chris van Tulleken examined the effects of excessive boozing.
Numerous hangovers later, their unsurprising answer was ‘Why yes, it is.’
While Xander paced his boozing evenly over the weeks, Chris downed 21 units — the equivalent of ten pints or twoand-a-half bottles of wine — in a single session. After his first bout, he blacked out and might have died.
This wasn’t just stupid TV, it was dangerous. Telly talent: (clockwise, from bottom left) The stars of Father Brown, Claire Foy in Wolf Hall, Humans star Gemma Chan, Aidan Turner and Maeve Dermody and a Clanger
Most boring: Great Pottery Throw Down
THIS offering from BBC Two is the outright prize winner for the most desperate attempt yet to copy Bake Off’s formula.
We’ve seen ‘Great British’ takes on gardening and allotments, painting, interior decorating and even sewing.
each show is a knock-out contest, where amateurs demonstrate their skills while the host flings around Carry On innuendos.
But the pot-making competition was the most blatant rip- off yet — and, by golly, clay isn’t half as interesting as cake.
Most baffling: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
THIS tale of Napoleonic wizards wasn’t supposed to be a comedy.
In fact, the Beeb lavished a giant budget on the costumes and computer effects.
But the results of the special effects — which included horses made of seawater and exploding ravens — were so awful that viewers had no choice but to switch off or howl with laughter.
By the end, barely one-and-a-half million were still watching, a catastrophe for BBC1’s Sunday night figures . . . but for those who relish really bad TV, it was a unique treat.