Saturday night scheduling on telly has traditionally appealed to those of us who don’t go out, and for ‘don’t go out’, read, ‘have no life’, and Piers Morgan’s ITV natter with the fairy-princess-esque Cliff Richard appealed strongly to that demographic.

I grew up listening to my mum singing along to Cliff’s songs and watching her positively swoon – yes, people swooned in those days – whenever Hank Marvin was on TV, which, I might add, had newly become colour.

But if she were alive today, I’m not sure that she’d be happy to see Cliff in a bright pink jacket or inexplicable amounts of lime green. I suspect she might’ve longed for the days of monochrome telly as her retinas would have remained undamaged by watching Cliffy going about his long-standing and unbreakable career. Read more & comment »

Having missed the final episode of this excellent show earlier in the week, I caught up with it on 4oD, and within seconds of the show starting, I was mentally yelling at my laptop, “Ed! For the love of Pete, go home! Just ring someone and go home!”

Poor Ed was weeping most of the way through this episode; starving, emaciated and with a frighteningly low heartbeat, his strength was all but gone and his thoughts turning increasingly to his loved ones.

I cried right along with him when he opened and read a letter from his girlfriend Amanda which also contained photos of herself and members of Ed’s family. It was a very touching scene, one of many in this last episode, but for a while there, I thought Ed was – literally and metaphorically – going out of his tree. Read more & comment »

Friday’s First Cut offering was Molly Clark’s engaging documentary about Frank Evans, a 66 year old man from Salford whose love of bullfighting made him return to Spain to indulge his passion, despite having had quadruple heart bypass surgery and a knee made of titanium.

I must first point out though that, despite the story having the appearance of being an inspirational one of triumph over adversity and willpower winning the day, I abhor bullfighting, so I was prejudiced towards Frank from the get go.

It’s not just bullfighting that I find repellent, it’s any sport which engages an animal to the death of that animal. It’s not an equal fight and therefore, it’s not a fair sport, however, I guess that’s a whole ‘nother issue and one perhaps ill suited to be aired in this forum. Read more & comment »

I missed the latest episode of this positively addictive show when it was originally on BBC, so I’ve caught up with it on BBC iPlayer, and I’m so glad I did, because the latest offering was every bit as entertaining as they’ve all been.

Last week, Nicky got the boot – thankfully – so this week, just four remained in the House of Large Lazy Gits. They are, Dogan, Dina, Sean and Danielle. And a bombshell was dropped on them within minutes of the show opening; this week, they were only given the equivalent of dole money to live on.

The news was greeted with mostly stunned silence as the four began to realise just how little they had to live on, in fact, it equated to about £7 a day. Oh dear. So, they set off looking for job, somewhat half-heartedly, as of course we’ve come to expect from them. If they’d put in any actual effort, I think we’d have all dropped down dead. Read more & comment »

This man is, I suspect, clinically insane. I’ve seen bits of episodes of Born Survivor in passing before but I’ve never watch one all the way through – I don’t know why – so on Saturday, I decided to sit down and check him out on Channel 4.

Bear is a former Special Forces soldier and in this series of daring/lunatic shows, he demonstrates how to survive “in the world’s most extreme environments”. For this episode, Bear ventured into the unforgiving and decidedly human unfriendly forests of Transylvania, where he negotiated steep ravines, cavernous underground water systems and encountered a potentially deadly brown bear. Read more & comment »

Coleen Nolan, one of the stars of Loose Women and formerly the young overweight one from the family girl group The Nolans, explored the nation’s obsession with staying young and staving off the dreaded aging process for this ITV show last night.

With her remit being, find the answer to the question, “In this day and age, is it possible to grow old gracefully?” she sought out women who’d done everything from swearing by old-wives-tale ‘remedies’ to aging to those who’d gone the route of the surgeon and his/her knife.

Interestingly, she also had to decide whether to have cosmetic surgery herself once she’d weighed all the options… Read more & comment »

In Cutting Edge: Would You Save a Stranger? last night it was revealed somewhat shockingly that one in three of us wouldn’t.

Of the stories recounted as examples of people stepping in to help a stranger and those who weren’t helped by anyone, one of the most shocking for me was Jasmine’s story. She and a friend had been out to buy the ingredients to make fruit smoothies but on their return bus journey, a gang of girls demanding money surrounded Jasmine and her friend and proceeded to beat them violently.

And despite it being a bus crowded with adults, nobody even attempted to help these two girls who’d done nothing wrong and were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and became victims of the mindless thuggery which took the Great out of Britain long since. One woman on the bus not only didn’t help these poor girls, she told them to be quiet! Read more & comment »

What a lovely bit of nostalgia this BBC show was! It was a real trip down memory lane, and for those of us who are old enough for that lane to be quite a long one, this was a real treat that featured archive footage from the likes of Suzi Quatro – who I used to long to be when I was a kid – and Marianne Faithfull – who always scared me when I was a kid for some reason!

It didn’t take itself too seriously either, despite the blurb for the show which made it sound as if it was going to be a serious discussion of how women have altered the face of music and societal attitudes through their music… as it turned out, it was just a montage of clips and interviews but it was very nice to see some – now very – old faces again! Read more & comment »

This new series from the pen of Debbie Horsfield aired on BBC1 last night and went from zero to seventy in about a minute, or at least it felt that way…

One minute we were being introduced to Esther – played by Sarah Lancashire – and her devoted husband Michael – played by Neil Pearson – who were blissfully celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary and almost the next, he’s dumped her for newcomer Layla – Sarah Alexander.

It happened dizzyingly and unbelievably fast, even accepting that men of a certain age are prone to acts of utter stupidity and calling it a mid-life crisis when they commit one. All of a sudden, everything we’d seen about Esther and Michael being a loving – but rather dull – and contented couple was exploded with a few bats of Layla’s not inconsiderable eyelashes.

As a storyline, it was about as convincing as Sarah Alexander’s miming… Read more & comment »

Japan: A Story Of Love And Hate created an intimate portrayal of Japanese life from within, and what it showed wasn’t the Japan I had a mental image of certainly.

Acclaimed documentary maker Sean McCallister followed Naoki – a formerly successful, thrice married and divorced entrepreneur who lost everything in the economic crash of the early 90s – and his much younger girlfriend Yoshei. He now works for a pittance in the Post Office in Yamagata while Yoshei works as a hostess in a bar among other things… Read more & comment »

Piers: “You’ve had an extraordinary career and for a long time you were one of the top female presenters in the country. I suppose the problem for you is that you’re still defined in most people’s eyes by men. You’ve had four children now by four blokes. You’re the 4 x 4 Star.”

Ulrika: “I know. It’s a funny terminology but it is appropriate, it’s not an opinion, it’s a fact.”

Piers: “If I asked the audience, some would like you very much be a fan of yours, others would think ‘bit of a floozy’?”

Ulrika: “I think others might be a little bit circumspect. A lot of women have more than one partner in their life and because I’ve ended up marrying now for the third time and yes admittedly having four children by four men, doesn’t necessarily mean I’m more of a floozy than anybody else.”

And thus the interview between Piers Morgan and Ulrika Jonsson went on in a similar manner; with Piers offering thinly veiled insults in the form of questions and Ulrika answering defensively in a very non-defensive manner.

That said, Piers did his usual ‘idol worship’ of an introduction which basically involves licking the metaphorical boots of his guest verbally before they start talking, which often – as it did last night – takes up way too much time… Read more & comment »

This episode of ER was rather like Groundhog Day and It’s A Wonderful Life in that Neela – on whom the entire episode centred – had three differing outcomes for the same day, courtesy of three dreams which showed the confused medic – and the even more confused viewer; me – how minor changes in behaviour can have huge consequences.

Neela’s day – thrice over – began with her pager going off at 5am and her wishing Ray a happy birthday. And then the story begins but it was interwoven into, as I said, three different outcomes.

The central story surrounded two patients; Anastacia, a young girl with sickle cell anaemia and Nick, who had messed up brain chemistry which caused him to “act out” his dreams as though he were awake. He was in the ER because during a somnambulistic wander, he’d managed to get big chunks of glass embedded in his abdomen… Read more & comment »

Well, this new cop show on Five has me baffled; I want to dislike it because it’s clichéd, it’s predictable, the acting is horrifically overdone and it’s kind of a rip-off of several other shows, but nonetheless, the rather studly Simon Baker who plays The Mentalist, Patrick Jane, brings something to the show that I can’t quite put my finger on and the fact is, I still want to watch it next week but I’m not sure why I do…

In a nutshell, Patrick used to make a very good living as a fake psychic but he’s stopped doing that now and uses his talent for “observing” people to help the California Bureau of Investigation solve crimes. The overall impression is that the CBI use him as a consultant because he gets results, but only reluctantly… he’s too ‘slippery’ for their liking but they can’t deny he’s brilliant at what he does.

That said, his lady boss clearly has a ‘thing’ for him – and I don’t blame her; he’s pretty – but of course, she’d sooner cut her own arm off than tell him so… which is just one of the many clichés in the show. Read more & comment »

Last night saw the first of a new four part series celebrating Alan Whicker’s remarkable fifty years on television. The show sees the TV legend off round the world on a journey of remembrance as much as celebration during which he reflects on his incredibly varied life and career.

In this first episode, Whicker revisited Venice, a city of massive significance and one that’s apparently very close to his heart. He retraced his steps from war to peace, from soldier to Fleet Street journalist, and then his subsequent move into the fledgling world of television.

Included in this episode were Whicker’s earliest surviving TV appearance, an in-depth profile of both John Paul Getty, Baroness Fiona Thyssen, and Alan’s legendary encounter with millionaire Yorkshireman – and general ‘eccentric’ – Percy Shaw, the man who invented the cats’ eyes which illumine our roads… Read more & comment »

I’m in a quandary about this programme – or rather its subject matter – and having a little argument with myself about it… one half of me thinks “It may as well be a holiday camp” and the other, “Those poor kids…” because kids they are, for the main part.

And how sad that many of them prefer being in prison to being free. That said, suicide attempts are by no means rare – the staff call a suicide attempt a ‘Code Black’ – so for some, I guess it’s not quite the bed of roses that some of the girls seem to believe it is.

As we saw last night, there are times on the young offenders’ wing when it can feel almost like a party atmosphere, but the mood can change in an instant. A new girl on the unit was found with a leather belt around her neck and had stopped breathing. She was given mouth to mouth resuscitation and thankfully started breathing again. Read more & comment »