Nigel Kneale, RIP

OTT was very sad to learn of the death of one of television’s true greats – Nigel Kneale. Three years ago this month, we were lucky enough to run an interview with the man himself, and I was particularly lucky in that it was me putting the questions to him. All of this came about when our friends at BBC4′s Timeshift contacted us to let us know they had a documentary on his life and times in the works. Being the impudent souls we are, we harassed Timeshift‘s Tom Ware into agreeing to take part in an interview with us. But in the course of our finagling, Tom let it be known Kneale himself might even spare us a few minutes for a chat over the telephone. Read more

“That’s why restaurants have menus”

…That’s Donald Trump’s philosophy on homosexuality, and something that came out (if you’ll pardon the expression) during the fourth series of The Apprentice USA. I love this show, and have been greedily devouring episodes of it as quick as I can get ‘em (thank you, World Wide Web).  Read more

This Life’s farewell tour

The Independent have a detailed report from the set of the new episode of This Life which they’re suggesting will be broadcast at Christmas time. Annoyingly, it’s very spoilery, and the kind of thing you’d want to save until you’ve seen the episode so that everything is a surprise - as I suggested here part of the fun of the episode will be discovering what has happened the gang since the mid-’90s. But if you cover up the first column, the second is a good discussion of the flavour of the new episode if not the details and why now seemed like the right time [via].

Man to Man with Dean Learner

You wake up screaming and drenched in sweat. No, darling, don’t worry, go back to sleep. It’s all right … it wasn’t really you who commissioned Man to Man With Dean Learner. Read more

Your Money or Your Wife

Despite claims by some that Britain has become a nanny state, what we are in fact living under is a dominatrix dictatorship. Read more

Fear of Fanny

You know how it is. You’re gorbing down chocolate Hobnobs at three in the afternoon while watching Pocoyo, or maybe just blasted to the gills on G&T, and the phone rings. Read more

Torchwood

In the same way big screen versions of stage musicals used to have professional vocalists “singing” the parts of the lead actors, so it might be advisable to have professional scribes employed to “write” the scripts of Russell T Davies. Read more

Hitler’s Holocaust

As Megadeth once sagely observed, “Peace sells… but who’s buying?” Read more

“You’re not a journalist, so fuck off”

Dateline: 18 October, 2006, The St David’s Hotel & Spa, Cardiff. Russell T Davies and Chris Chibnall are hosting a Q&A session, following a press screening of episode one of Torchwood.  Read more

Some ordinary Joe

The Stage is reporting Kudos, the independent production company behind, Spooks, Hustle and Life On Mars has  been commissioned by ITV1 to create a new drama.  Read more

Children of the Valley

144. The number at the end of the times table, the merciless grid emblazoned on countless classroom walls for so many years, and no doubt in those of the Pantglas Junior School in Aberfan, South Wales, whose obliteration by a colliery slagheap landslide 40 years ago this week has been shamefully all but overlooked by TV. Read more

Suez: A Very British Crisis

Given our accelerating obsession with media and pop culture trivia, it’s conceivable that in 50 years time school history lessons will concentrate more on the succession of the Foxes than the ramifications of the Suez crisis. Read more

“No procedure anymore – it’s a fucking disgrace!”

That’s less than five minutes in to episode one of Torchwood.

Prime Suspect

Bad weather follows Jane Tennison everywhere. Like the Douglas Adams character who blunders through a soggy existence unaware of his real status as a Rain God, and for whom precipitation was but a lumpen fact of existence, so Tennison has served her time in a near-continual downpour of dirty rain. Read more

Like a…

Matthew’s comments on Lead Balloon are, at least for me, a sobering demonstration of how not everyone can agree on the quality of a programme. He’s correct in saying that it has had generally favourable reviews, although this is what I wrote on my own blog the night of the first episode, after banging my head against a table trying to come up with something longer: Read more

Dee-lightful

Regarding Matthew’s comments below, Broadcast magazine reports that Lead Balloon will be screened on BBC2 in two weeks’ time.

Dee-vine

The first two episodes of Lead Balloon on BBC4 have been nothing but a joy. Read more

Raymond Baxter: Gentleman and Broadcaster

Nostalgia ain’t what it used to be. I mean, for a start, there wasn’t a sign of Stuart Maconie on this compelling half-hour of TV that did exactly what the medium was meant to do when its subject Raymond Baxter and his mellifluous port-and-stilton baritone were royalty – ie. it informed, it amused and it entertained. Read more

Myra

“Minority Report star slams ‘luxury’ accommodation for paedophiles in jail”. That’ll be in your evening papers tonight, and the tabloids tomorrow.  Read more

Twowood

In fact - Mr Chris Orton - as per the confirmed TV schedules this lunchtime, Torchwood is not being simulcast on BBC1 and 3, it’s being repeated later in the week on BBC2 on Wednesday at 9pm, when two episodes will be going out back-to-back.

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