John Byrne talks about telly.
Reviewed: A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss (Sunday, BBC 4)
For those of us who get our TV from Sky, the belated but recent arrival of BBC 3 and BBC4 has produced an emotional mixture of relief and joy.
In my house, we used to tune these channels in manually as they didn’t come as a part of any Sky package. At least we had access to them, but given that we’d grown accustomed to using Sky+ all the time, and tend to record programmes and watch them at our leisure (and skip through the ads), most of the time we forgot to switch over whenever there was a new or interesting show on. Now everything is just right in our telly world and we’re getting more and more addicted, especially to BBC 4.
Recently BBC4 gave over (as is their wont) almost an entire night of viewing to a topic, in this case Easy Listening, a style of music that became insanely popular during the hi-fidelity days of the 1960s. The ability to theme nights rather than try to cater for a variety of tastes, makes BBC 4 a great place to flop in front of for a night; Bank Holiday Sunday being the latest case in point.
Although the competition was fierce – particularly as the very promising drama ‘Case Histories’ was starting over on the mother channel, BBC One – we hit the red button for the Beeb's mother channel and plumped for an extended visit the fourth channel and along the way took in the first episode of ‘A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss’, a three-part documentary charting the movies’ relationship with scary monsters and spooky stories.
This was part of an evening of viewing for fans of the genre as it was preceded by an excellent documentary about America’s great horror writer, Edgar Allen Poe, presented by Scottish crime writer, Denise Mina, and followed by ‘Gods and Monsters’, the oddball 1998 biopic of James Whale, the British-born director of the classic black and white horror flick ‘Frankenstein’.
Anyway, I was a little wary about the show given that its presenter Mark Gatiss is better known as one of the main guys behind ‘The League of Gentlemen’, and quite often more time is spent acquiring a personality to face a show such as this, rather than concentrating on producing a quality programme.
Thankfully my fears were unfounded as Gatiss is quite the horror movie buff, and what followed was an insightful and genuinely enthusiastic wander through the early days of horror movies, with Gatiss getting access to all sorts of things and people: from actors and actresses who starred in these early creepies, to getting to see Lon Chaney’s original makeup kit, which is now preserved and cared for in a Hollywood museum.
Other greats from that era were given the full treatment, including Bela Lugosi (aka Dracula) and Boris Karloff (aka Frankenstein’s monster). Poor Lugosi felt his career was strangled by his association with Bram Stoker’s vampire, but still got buried in his Dracula cape, while Karloff – who had been a bit-player in 80 previous movies - was eternally grateful for the fame he achieved relatively late in life playing a patchwork person.
All in all, the opening instalment of ‘A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss’ made for great TV-viewing: it was well-scripted, tightly edited and hugely engaging and informative, and horror fans can look forward to things stepping up considerably over the coming weeks with classics such ‘The Shining’ and ‘The Exorcist’, and genres such as Hammer horror and slasher movies getting the Gatiss treatment.
New this week
In with the Flynns (Wednesday, BBC ONE)
The Beeb haven’t been doing too well in terms of family sitcoms in recent years ('Outnumbered' being the exception rather than the rule, so they went and threw that all over the schedule), and this is the latest vehicle that they’ve rolled out to try and warm the cockles of our inter-generational hearts.
The cast includes Will Mellor, Warren Clark, Niky Wardley and Craig Parkinson, and the six-parter promises to be about ‘what real family life is like when you’re holding down jobs, raising three kids, and having to deal with an irresponsible brother and cantankerous dad’.
Much depends on the writing, and Daniel Peak, whose previous includes Ardal O’Hanlon’s okay-ish 'My Hero', the quite amusing 'Not Going Out', and some awful rubbish. Fingers crossed!
Mock the Week (Thursday, BBC TWO)
With news that 'The Panel' has been despatched to TV Heaven after running out of steam, and with 'Have I Got News for You' having gone on for almost a decade too long, the only current affairs-led comedy worth watching on TV these days is this returning, Dara O Brian-hosted show.
The best news is that the two captains, Hugh Dennis (the dad in 'Outnumbered') and comic/comedy writer Andy Parsons, are back onboard and – hopefully – will be as sharp as ever.
Worth waiting up for
Bad time. Great show.
Entourage (Sunday, RTÉ Two)
It’s a sign of things to come that Sky Atlantic has beaten RTÉ Two in showing the seventh season of 'Entourage', but as the channel is exclusive to Sky subscribers there’s a fair chance many fans have yet to see the latest run of the show about a bunch of lads from Queens doing their fish-out-of-water thing in Hollywood, which is quite a different place to anywhere else on the planet, never mind the tough New York borough.
Anyhow, the boys are back in Tinseltown and despite the show having moved on from its original premise (they’re all pretty much at home in Hollywood these days), the laughs are still there because most of the characters are as strongly independent as before. But what really holds this show together is Kevin Dillon’s endearingly tight-assed failure, Johnny Drama, and Jeremy Piven’s explosively obnoxious agent, Ari Gold. Everyone else is getting a little softer around the edges, but these two characters are as prickly as ever and keep the show fun and occasionally fresh.
And while 11.15pm isn’t that late, Sunday night at 11.15pm is a bit of an awkward slot for likely viewers, unless you’re also an insomniac 'Law & Order' fan, or one of the smart non-sleepers waiting for the truly wonderful '30 Rock' on 3e.
Guest stars of the week
Some interesting guests doing the rounds over the coming days, but we’ll kick off with the return of Mock the Week (Thursday, BBC TWO) where Dara O Brian hosts and 'The Thick of It’s Chris Addison and Inbetweeners’ Greg Davies join in the topical fun.
Also on Thursday, Katy Perry pops up on How I Met Your Mother (E4) as Zoey’s hot cousin who dates the permanently predatory Barney Stinson. Friday’s Graham Norton Show once again offers an impressive lineup as the Corkman chats with actors Tom Hanks and Simon Pegg, as well as singer-songwriter Nicole Scherzinger.
Casting Couch Corner
Who’s heading to what show
Fans of British actor Damian Lewis (who made his name starring in Band of Brothers and totally bewildered the five people who stuck with bizarre cop show, Life) will be delighted to hear that the irrepressible redhead is back in Blighty and on the small screen next month in a new one-off drama on BBC ONE. It’s called Stolen and Lewis stars as DI Anthony Carter, who works for British a Human Trafficking Unit trying to help the growing number of children being smuggled into the UK . . . American writer Michael Patrick King is hoping to repeat the stunning success he enjoyed with the once great sex and the city (the final season and both moviews were awful) as his new show, co-written with comedienne Whitney Cummings, has been taken up by CBS. It’s called 2 Broke Girls and it follows two 22-year-old Brookylyn-based girls struggling to make their dreams come true in New York City . . . ER fans take note: JJ Abrams’ Alcatraz has added former Parminder Nagra (Dr Neela Rasgotra) to an impressive cast that already included Jorge Garcia and Sam Neill. Could be worth looking out for . . .
Sat Nav
Satellite Highlights
Angry Boys (Tuesday, BBC 3)
Australian funny man Chris Lilley returns with another fly-on-the-wall spoof following on the heels of Summer Heights High. This latest mockumentary series sees Lilley play an assortment of characters including troublemaking teen twins Daniel and Nathan Sims, a pushy Japanese mother called Jan Okazaki, and a rapper with the moniker of S Mouse who’s under house arrest. Be prepared to be offended or amused, and maybe even a bit of both.
Isle of Wight 2011 (Friday, Sky Arts)
Anyone who was in Slane recently might (or might not) fancy taking this in as Henry Mountcharles’ headliners Kings of Leon do likewise on the opening night of the Isle of Wight rock festival. Coverage is presented by Zoe Ball and Ben Jones, while those of you with 3D tellies will surely tune in as it’s the first festival in the world to be broadcast live in 3D. Those without 3D can at least console themselves with the fact that no one watching it on 3DTV is actually there, soaked to the skin and caked in real mud.
What You Watched
RTÉ’s top 20 programmes (viewed as live) for the week ending 01.05.2011
Figures in multiples of a thousand (eg: 500 = 500,000)
(RTÉ One unless stated otherwise)
1 The Late, Late Show Friday 601
2 Fair City Sunday 537
3 Fair City Tuesday 516
4 The Saturday Night Show Saturday 480
5 Roomers Sunday 457
6 Fair City Wednesday 444
7 EastEnders Tuesday 444
8 Prime Time Tuesday 435
9 The Consumer Show Tuesday 428
10 Reeling in the Years Sunday 423
11 EastEnders Monday 415
12 Crimecall Tuesday 413
13 Bride Wars Sunday 410
14 Desperate Housewives (RTÉ Two, Tuesday) 409
15 Reeling in the Years 390
16 Changeling Wednesday 388
17 Dirty Old Towns Wednesday 386
18 The Restaurant Sunday 385
19 Fair City Thursday 384
20 Winning Streak Saturday 380
This week we’re looking at the top 20 from across RTÉ One and Two and the only programme from the second channel to break the top 20 is Desperate Housewives. For the record, the second most-watched RTÉ Two programme was Champions League live, with 302,000 viewers.
Elsewhere, The Late Late retains top spot and picked up a couple of thousand viewers. Fair City also saw an improvement with Sunday’s episode climbing from 8th to second, while Roomers was the week’s big climber, picking up an extra 88,000 as it went from 17th to 5th.
Another improver was The Saturday Night Show, as it gained 59000 while climbing from 10th to 4th. The biggest loser was Dirty Old Towns, which fell ten places to 17th while shedding 63,000 viewers.
