Sad news this weekend - Humphrey Lyttelton has died. Aside from his amazing Jazz talents, he has kept me laughing for the last many years as host of the legendary antidote to panel games, I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.
Thanks Humph for all you did to add an extra bit of happiness to the lives of your vast armies of Radio 4 listeners. Here’s wishing you good luck in your new role chairing the heavenly heats of the Mornington Crescent championships.
Goodbye.
After all the hullabaloo surrounding last year’s Celebrity Big Brother, Channel 4 went into hasty back-peddle mode and announced there would be no celeb version in 2008. Which is true. Ish.
They’ve gone back to the drawing board, coming up with Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack, which will be shown on E4 for the next few weeks. Last night was launch night, featuring an hour long simulcast on Channel 4 and E4, before the main channel was ditched in favour of an E4 exclusive (clever digital telly marketing strategy there).
There have been some big changes in the format: rather than filling the house with a bunch of celebrities or forcing a freakshow as they’ve tried to do for the last few summers, they’ve selected a group of twelve gifted contestants aged 18-21. The whole thing immediately feels more natural, a hark back to the simpler days a few years ago when Big Brother was good. The twelve chosen ones just seem, well, normal. There’s no forced “stick a homophobic guy and a lesbian together” meddling. It’s almost like a rerun of the Teen Big Brother show.
That’s not to say there’s no fun. The celebrity hijack element comes into play here: Each day, a new celebrity will get to become the voice of Big Brother and decide what goes on in the house. Last night was Matt Lucas, who busied himself communicating with one of the contestants via a hidden earpiece, telling him what to say and do. Poor guy, but it was quite funny.
So will Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack manage to save Big Brother from a slip into ratings obscurity? Possibly. It’s too early in the series to make those kind of predictions, but it certainly already feels like a return to the basic winning format of putting a bunch of normal people together in a house and observing how they live together.
Please don’t mess this up again Channel (E)4.
Top Gear returned to BBC Two’s Sunday night schedules tonight after an extended absence due to Richard Hammond’s crash back in September.
I was talking to somebody this morning about whether it was right for the BBC to air footage of the crash or whether it was in bad taste.
As it turns out it was handled very well. To not mention it would have felt very false, to be overly serious certainly not in Top Gear style.
Mr Hammond, we’re very pleased you’re OK … now let’s not mention the crash again.
Bookending the final episode of the last series of Doctor Who on BBC ONE were some short teasers for the Beeb’s new Robin Hood drama starting in the Autumn.
However, an evil deed worthy of the Sheriff of Nottingham befell the production last week when master tapes were stolen from offices in Hungary where filming is taking place.
As if to prove the good-conquers-over-all theme of the stories, the tapes were recovered by Hungarian police yesterday, but not before scenes had been re-shot on location.
All that seems missing from the story are a few arrows flying about the place. I wonder if the plot will feature in a future episode? Or maybe it was an inside job by BBC Wales, jealous of Locksley’s gang stealing their prime time slot?
What? Oh? What? Who are you? What? Where am I? What? What the hell is this place? What?
What a fantastic way to lighten the mood!
I am of course talking about the Finale episode of Doctor Who. More superb storytelling and a great way to “kill” off Rose Tyler - bet not many if any people guessed that was how the death would be played out.
Thanks BBC for another great drama series. Now what’s this all about Robin Hood coming soon? Sounds exciting, but in the meantime: How long until Christmas? Oh, 170 days. Gotta catch a bride…
At last! Sunshine, blue skies, hot weather. Perfect for a bit of rollercoaster riding.
That’s exactly what BBC South Today’s weather presenter thought too as she presented the weekend weather live whilst riding Cobra at Paultons Park.
