SMOOTH SHOWBIZ WITH JOHN & SHARON Dreaming of a new Dallas
Sharon says...
IHAVE become really excited about the return of the TV series, Dallas. I find myself poring over tidbits of gossip about Larry Hagman and Patrick Duffy with what can only be described as wanton abandon.
I can’t get enough of it and I fear perhaps my life has become a little boring. How could it possibly compare with the glamour of the Oil Barons’ Ball, or Miss Ellie’s full dinner settings at teatime?
The closest I get is a Friday night with a jacket potato in front of John Mackay.
I know for a fact I was born to breeze up to a Southfork-type mansion in the Texan sunshine, driving my Mercedes convertible with a Bobby Ewing lookalike waiting for me. Of course, in some cruel twist of fate, life has dealt me a very different hand: battling the elements up the M8 in my seven-year-old Cinquecento with ... er … John McCauley waiting for me at Smooth HQ.
However, now I think about it, Dallas wasn’t that perfect. Pamela Barnes Ewing always seemed to be jittering out of the pool, battling force 10 gales. Also, without putting too fine a point on it, of all the baby casting agencies in the entire world, their choice of actor to play Christopher was a little, shall we say, unusual.
I apologise if I sound a little mean, but this was meant to be ‘fantasy glamour’ but the boy looked like a cross between Lyle Lovett and Shane McGowan, although I believe he has grown up to be a fine-looking chap.
Now if they would consider bringing back the ultimate divas, Krystle Carrington, Alexis Colby and Angela Channing, preferably in a combination of Falcon Crest, Dallas and Dynasty, that would be well worth watching.
John says...
ITHINK Sharon does indeed sound a bit mean there, on a couple of occasions in fact. I’ll get to the personal slight later but I must say in his defence that I liked wee Christopher. He had his own look. Or was that little John Ross? Whatever, it was always good to see a character who looked more like a real person than the rest of them, all perfect hair and shoulder pads at 8am.
Of course, both junior Ewings’ have grown up to be handsome, cowboy-booted, 10-gallon-hatted specimens and, a generation later, the rest of the cast don’t look bad either.
However, there is a press photo going around which has them all just out of the shower in a dream sequence kind of way with there’s a lot of bellysucking going on. I gather that the remake of Dallas has gone down pretty well in America but I can’t help feeling that it might be a mistake to bring things back. They tried it with the greatest soap opera of all, Crossroads, and the new version was a disaster.
No wobbly sets, no Benny and Miss Diane and no Amy Turtle. Rubbish.
They had a go with Are You Being Served too, bringing back the cast in Grace and Favour which was just like the original, except it wasn’t funny. Leave well alone, I say.
Oh, and about that personal slight of Sharon’s. I’m gutted that she feels hard done by because there’s no Bobby Ewing lookalike waiting for her at Smooth Radio every morning.
Just, as she puts it “... er ... ” me. Well, sorry. I’m off for a shower now. Who knows, I might emerge in a few minutes only to be told that the last few years on the show with Shaz has been just a dream and I can now get back to my real life. Oh, I do hope so.
JOIN JOHN AND SHARON AT BREAKFAST EVERY WEEKDAY AT 6AM.