Sherlock v Sherlock

So who do you prefer Robert Downey Jr or Benedict Cumberbatch? Jude Law or Martin Freeman? Stephen Fry or Mark Gatiss? It's interesting that the two 'reboots' of Sherlock have taken very different approaches. The Guy Ritchie approach is a cross between an action film and a pantomime, with Downey Jr playing it for laughs in between the set piece action scenes. There is plenty of pow but little sleuthing. The Steven Moffat/Mark Gatiss approach is to set it in the present and have a more traditional 'whodunit', although updated with things like Dr Watson publishing a blog.

Personally I found the movie OK but too long. I couldn't really tell you what the plot was - the only things that stick in the memory are Sherlock being camouflaged as a couch and it had the actress from the original Girl With a Dragon Tattoo series. Very little whodunit and a rather needless nude scene from Stephen Fry meant it was all fairly amusing but it's relationship to the original Sherlock Holmes character was tangential.

The Moffat/Gatiss reboot is excellent. The two leads are superb together and having Una Stubbs as Mrs Hudson is wonderful casting. Admittedly for me Moffat can do little wrong as he was one of the people behind Press Gang which was one of the best, if not the best, Children's TV dramas of all time (mind you, with the last series of Doctor Who he is testing my patience). It respects the sleuthing heritage of Sherlock, which has to be its key draw, and it leaves you wanting the next episode.

So for me it has to be Cumberbatch, Freeman and Gatiss.

My so called life...

Been a bit of a strange week...

• spoke at my local church on Sunday and the subject was Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. I included a couple of comments about whether blokes have a biological clock and if so does it just tick a little quieter than it does for women? Got a lot of comments and feedback on this - most reaction I've ever had on anything I've ever said.
• was coughing and spluttering on Monday and Tuesday - seemed to be my turn on the office rota
• Thursday evening was spent at the Riverside Studios in Hammersmith. Very pleasant evening that got a little strange as Question Time was being recorded there that evening (not the reason I was there) and Dimbleby and the panel emerged into a cordoned off part of the bar for a post show meal - didn't recognise any of them...
• pleasant Friday afternoon in Pizza Express for office Christmas meal. However, I do seem to spend a lot of time in Pizza Expresses - perhaps should move in...

Football coming home?

Have to say I was disappointed with Panorama on FIFA on Monday night - if nothing else a programme that enables David Mellor to take the moral high ground will always leave a bitter aftertaste. However, what really disappointed is that showing FIFA is less than transparent and might have some dodgy members is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel. What for the next two programmes - hard hitting investigations in to the Pope's religious views and what bears might get up to in the woods??

Some of the allegations were new but hardly surprising - indeed Andrew Jennings has been investigating FIFA and other sporting bodies for many years and runs the excellent Transparency in Sport website. How will this impact the England bid? Well I'm tempted to say 'who cares'? But I suspect the impact will be limited - I doubt England were ever going to get the 2018 Finals. For what it's worth here's how I think the FIFA meeting will pan out...

2018 - the best bid is England. It's probably the only bidder who could hold the finals tomorrow, it has a football culture, excellent grounds, sound finances and innovative TV companies who could provide the pictures. They won't win. The Spain/Portugal bid will get several votes early on but both have had a finals - World Cup or Euros - fairly recently and giving them the finals with their current economies is risky. I think Russia will win - they haven't had the finals and are a 'new market', have serious money and a 'friendly' media. The outside bet would be Holland/Belgium - if they survive the first round (and I think either they or England will go out in round one) they might emerge as a compromise winner. If Putin turns up I think Russia will walk it.

2022 - should go to Australia. Football may not be the most popular sport in Aus, but they are sports mad and know how to put on big sporting occasions. They are also a 'new market' but the main thing against them is the time zone and what time the games would be in the important European and African TV markets. Japan and South Korea have recently (jointly) held the finals so I think either USA or Qatar will win. The USA if FIFA are seduced by the $ and trying to get 'soccer' to finally break America; Qatar will win if seduced by the money, the sun and a completely new market. I reckon Qatar might, surprisingly, sneak it.

All will be clear later on Thursday...

Culture in Chichester

Have escaped London for a couple of days and today am in a damp Chichester. Spend the morning going around the excellent Pallant House Gallery with its wonderful collection of 20th century British art - a good selection of work including several by Peter Blake, Patrick Caulfield, and currently showing several pieces by some of the St Ives artists. Following a restorative coffee and chocolate cake - well it was raining and I needed something purely for medicinal purposes - I head to the Chichester Festival Theatre.

By a stroke of luck I've got about the last ticket to Yes, Prime Minister - not a rerun, but a complete new show written by the original team of Anthony Jay and Jonathan Lynn. I'm one of the oldest in the audience - but then it was last on our screens back in 1988!

Written by Jay and Lynn, and directed by Lynn, this is a bang up to date version of the show, complete with references to SpADs, sub prime mortgages and the hung parliament. The writing is as sharp as ever - combining biting political satire with moments of pure farce - as the events unfold over a weekend at Chequers.

I have to admit I was a bit nervous seeing this as the original was so loved - plus could anyone else than Nigel Hawthorne and Paul Eddington play Sir Humphrey Appleby and Jim Hacker? The answer is a clear yes! Excellent casting with the wonderful Henry Goodman as Sir Humphrey, and David Haig (who has also been in the politically sharp The Thick of It) combining bumbling incompetence with political opportunism as Jim Hacker. Full of laughs it has had good reviews and deserves a West End transfer. A wonderful antidote to the damp bank holiday weather.

Full of Glee

I've already admitted that Glee is one of my guilty secrets - tonight's episode was a 'Madonna' special, complete with an excellent Vogue remake.

Compare the original with the Glee homage - just can't imagine a UK show doing something like this so well.

Full of Glee

There are certain TV programmes that both define a decade and are guilty pleasures;

• In the 1980s it was Beverly Hills 90210 - did you like Brandon or Dylan, Andrea or Kelly? (And let's face it, the current updated series just isn't the same even with Brenda and Kelly cameos...)
• In the 1990s it was Buffy
• In the 2000s/noughties it was The OC

I have to say that for the 2010s/teens it could well be Glee.

For so many reasons it shouldn't work - teen angst, musical numbers - but it's one of the funniest, best written and most original shows currently on TV.

It also has a killer soundtrack - and any show that includes an old Huey Lewis & the News track can't be wrong. Glee - my current guilty pleasure.

And this is what I blog on?

Things still a bit busy and I've not got back to blogging as much as I'd like. Was unwinding over the weekend and catching up on various stuff I'd recorded off the telly. Armstrong and Miller can be a bit hit and miss - but it has more hits than misses and the WW2 RAF pilots who talk in 21st century teen is still very funny.

Sat there watching one sketch I suddenly thought, 'hold on, I recognise that station. That's where I get on the train ever morning I go to work.'

Still can't work out if spotting this was being incredibly observant or whether it's geeky beyond redemption...

Hartland

Last day of my (too) short stay in Devon and the weather is lovely. Head out to a part of north Devon I've not been to before - the Hartland area. It's a little off the beaten track - most people either shot straight past on the way to Bude or head to Clovelly - and this probably adds to its charm.

Down by Hartland Quay the shoreline is impressively rocky. Over the centuries this part of the north Devon coast has claimed numerous ships and it's easy to see why. The view across to Lundy is beautiful and clear.

After a little potter I head to Hartland Abbey. Apparently one of the last abbeys under Henry VIII, and then given to the keeper of his wines, it's been passed down through the generations and is still in private hands. Open to public at certain times it has that usual mix found in UK minor stately homes - feeling a little run down and needing some TLC in places, but still stunning with impressive architecture, furnishings and art work. From here I wander down to the coast to a quite and (fairly) secluded bay.

Recognise the house in the right hand photo? It was used in the recent BBC adaptation of Sense and Sensibility as the house the Dashwoods went to. As with many minor stately homes, those location fees probably come in handy!

More Olympic thoughts

How annoying are the BBC Monkey/Gorillaz style opening credits and indents - and particularly the Monkey Madness part of evening round up show?

Just how bad an interviewer is Garry Richardson?

The Olympics have been been great - the BBC presentation of the event, very poor.

Some Olympic Thoughts

1. If you're in charge of 2012 opening ceremony just how annoyed/worried are you at the moment - follow that! Fear not for do not forget the Manchester Commonwealth Games opening ceremony featured David Beckham, a parade of old cars and the Wombles - the 2012 ceremony will be fine...

2. Just how good are the GB cycling team?

3. Just how quick could Usain Bolt be if he ran flat out for the whole 100 metres?

4. Just how normal and refreshing is Rebecca Adlington?

5. Just how poor has the BBC presentation been? Way too much of the presenters rather than the sport, poor 'human interest' and 'amusing' pieces (I particularly hate the Phelpsometer/Jaws theme and the 'previously at the Olympics' start of the evening show), not enough coverage of other 'minor' sports and some incredibly poor commentating. Notable exceptions on the commentary front are Michael Johnson (refreshingly calls it as it sees it), Gerry Herbert (knowledgeable and passionate, if slightly hysterical) and Hugh Porter (like most cycling commentators - such as Phil Liggett on C4 and David Duffield on Eurosport - he's completely mad but the spirit of Alan Partridge lives on). Also did you used to watch some football programmes just to see what John Barnes or Barry Venison would actually be wearing? Doesn't the same seem to apply to Gabby Logan and the Olympics coverage?

Is an interesting article here about just how unequal the Olympics are. Is it still little more than a posh people's sports day?

HIGNFY

The joys of spare ticket syndrome have stuck again as I've just spent a very pleasant evening watching a recording of Have I Got News For You.

Alongside Ian Hislop was BBC newsreader Kate Silverton, and with Paul Merton was poet, broadcaster and 'professional northerner from Barnsley', Ian McMillan. Hosting the evening - Jeremy Clarkson.

A good evening started with Jo Caulfield doing some stand up to warm up the audience and then into the show. The actual recording started at 7.50pm and ran for 2 hours - with a few retakes it meant it finally finished at 10.10pm.

OK, it wasn't a completely riotous 2 hours of non-stop humour - inevitably there were a few misses - but much was good quick witted stuff. Kate Silverton was told she looked like a particular C4 style/clothes show presenter, Ian McMillan told a great joke about a Yorkshire tombstone amongt other slightly surreal observations, Ian Hislop had his usual pithy observations, and Paul Merton had a couple of great one liners and flights of fancy - one answer he gave in the "missing words" round was superb and had Jeremy Clarkson in tears.

Clarkson held the whole thing together well but a particular highlight was Paul Merton telling some old gags - probably dating back to his early stand up act 20 years ago - while we all waited for the retakes to be set up. Simply excellent.

Tomorrow night, BBC1, 9pm.

The Magic Rectangle

Just over halfway through a busy week. Lots of stuff going on - work, evening meetings, discussions and catching up with people.

Decide to unwind with a brief bit of telly. Unlike most of the nation I couldn't a monkey's about The Apprentice, but thankfully there is the return of Location, Location, Location which I'm able to catch on C4+1.

Now, I actually can't stand the rash of property porn shows there are on our screens - most seem evil and generally they all merge into a ghastly 'Grand Design in the Attic in the Sun with a Property Doctor Show' - but I do have a soft spot for Location, Location, Location.

Well... for Phil and Kirstie.

Well... mainly for Kirstie.

If having a thing for Kirstie Allsop is wrong, I don't want to be right.

I've said too much...

Mission of madness?

I've just watched Bear Grylls:Mission Everest which I recorded from yesterday and I don't think I've seen such a couple of slightly posh daft sods in my life. Many of Bear Grylls' films are quite entertaining -this was, but for the wrong reasons.

The idea - for exactly what reason was never clear - was to try to fly over Everest using paramotors. Imagine a person with a parachute and a massive fan on their back and you get the sort of idea. Bear's companion in this folly was Gilo Cardozo whose job was to design the motors and who seemed to have modelled himself on the Harry Enfield 'Tim-nice-but-dim' character.

Firstly, one engine froze prior to testing in an industrial cold wind tunnel - a fairly major design you might have thought given they needed to operate in extreme cold. This meant that they eventually turned up in Nepal with one engine that hadn't been tested... or run... at all.

Then their dry run in the Alps failed due to strong winds - though these were winds that were lower that they expected to find at Everest. Bear realised that the wind might actually be a problem so instead of flying over Everest, they decided they'd fly at a greater height, but a few miles to the south. Didn't that negate the original idea?

Finally they take off - that's after,

• having had trouble with the weather balloons they were using to assess the weather and find a suitable 'window'. Again, surely another fairly fundamental problem??
• having had Gilo make last minute adjustments to one engine whilst it was on Bear's back as he was about to take off - talk about at the 11th hour!
• Gilo's wife - who for some reason had come along on the trip - had a nosebleed just as Gilo was about to take off.

Having taken off their radio communication then began to break up and they had to do '3 clicks for yes and 2 for no'. Now most Everest expeditions manage to have radio communications so why did their's fail? A little later Gilo's engine - the one which had to be rebuilt and hadn't been tested or even flown since it froze at the wind tunnel - packed up and he had to descend early. Oh, yes the altimeters also froze and stopped working at 19,000 feet - so they had no idea how high they were and wouldn't know if they'd achieved their target height until after they landed!

The final 'irony' was that having landed when they looked at the equipment to try to see how high Bear had gone.... they discovered the altimeter had stopped working completely at around 25,000 feet - we'd never know if he'd done it or not!

Absolutely unbelievable - the overall impression the programme left me was that 2 slightly barmy posh blokes had gone off on some under prepared jolly jape. Harry Hill's TV Burp - consistently one of the funniest things on television - had got huge laughs from Bear Grylls previous series. Can't wait to see this weekend's edition - he should have a field day!

We interrupt this service...

Nothing on the blog front as it's been a very busy week. Hopefully the normal service of my erratic, and occasionally mildly amusing, blog posting will resume shortly.

In the meantime - a brief interlude.



Remember - this is what television used to show. Better times??

Writers Bloc

Scott from Neighbours, Tiffany from Eastenders, Mike Baldwin from Corrie, the bloke from The Full Monty and, most bizarrely, Mrs McClusky from Grange Hill - you have to say that Moving Wallpaper/Echo Beach had some inspired casting.

Too early to say whether the new ITV series will work - and whatever you think of the general rubbish ITV put out, this is a brave piece of commissioning - but there seems to have been a glut of TV shows looking at writing and making TV shows.

Channel 4 had Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. With Aaron Sorkin and the West Wing team behind it - and the lovely Lucy Davis continuing to move away from "Dawn from The Office/Hayley from The Archers" territory - you feel it should have worked. Somehow it didn't, it just didn't gel and I wonder whether a similar fate awaits the Cornish based soap and the accompanying behind the scenes mockumentary.

The best show of this sort - and one of the best shows on TV at the moment - is 30 Rock on C5 late on Thursday nights. A witty, funny look behind the scenes of a Saturday Night Live type show, it has a cracking lead character in Liz Lemon - played by the superb writer/producer Tina Fey - and an amazing turn by Alec Baldwin as the company boss. Definitely worth watching.

So, farewell then Tony Soprano?

And so it ended - The Sopranos, a show that was groundbreaking, shocking, genre-defining, and, I would argue, one that eventually almost became a cliche of itself, has finally come to a close.

Over the years it's been fascinating watching the relationships around Tony evolve - especially those between himself and Uncle Junior and his sister, Janice. It's also been fun watching AJ and Meadow grow up - as they first realise, and then accept, exactly what their father does for a living.

However... the ending??? I felt cheated - it had 'future Christmas special' written all over it. As a creator and director who often sought to 'break the mould', I expected more from David Chase.

The 'Magic' Rectangle

OK, I'm not exactly thrilled with the return of BB.

To me it's all the stranger that the few decent TV programmes there are at the moment - and there are very few - seem to have been banished away to digitial channels, such as Friday Night Lights on ITV4, and What About Brian on E4.

Bizarrely the 'best' night on terrestial TV seems to be Sunday evening. The return of Coast - complete with the lovely Dr Alice Roberts - and a new series called Vanished on C5 seem to offer brief respite and an oasis in a TV desert.

RIP OC

So farewell then to The OC.

Now I've admitted in the past to The OC being one of my guilty pleasures. Yes it was shallow, superficial and full of some annoying Californian teens. However, in its defence it was well written, often willing to parody itself, killed off one of its major characters, and had Jim Robinson in a major role for a couple of seasons before he headed off to become the owner of Mode Magazine.

To its credit the final episode did what final episodes should do - a couple of knowing references to teen dramas lasting too long, the loose ends about who ends with who all tied up, and above all the wonderful news that Pancakes the rabbit had a family.

Overall, The OC passed the Ronseal test - it did exactly what it said on the tin. Very witty and funny it was a true ensemble piece - none of the characters were wasted with Ryan, Taylor, Julie, Seth, Summer and the Bullet all adding to the show. All the actors had great comedy timing and in Sandy it possessed the most magnificent pair of eyebrows ever to grace the magic rectangle.

Shallow? Absolutely - it contained the depth of a British reservoir in the middle of a heatwave - but what has British TV got to offer in the way of an hour's TV escapism? Holby City??

Chrismukkah will be missed.

Friday Night Lights

Don't know how often people end up flicking on to ITV4 but currently it's hosting one of the best shows on TV. Friday Night Lights (Weds 8pm, ITV4) is the spin off series from the recent eponymous movie, in turn based on a best selling book. It follows the ups and downs of a high school football team; crudely it could be described as 'redneck Dawson's Creek' - teenage small town americana without the naval gazing.

It features an excellent cast, has Peter Berg, Jason Katims and Brian Grazer as executive producers, and with the obligatory WG Snuffy Walden theme tune it is the sort of top class TV production that the US can do so well. The US make Dawson's Creek, the UK gets Grange Hill - the US get The OC, we get Hollyoaks. The nearest equivalent to Friday Night Lights I could think of in the UK is DreamTeam, or even worse, Jossys Giants.

One thing I don't understand is how this show - a ratings winner on NBC - has ended up on ITV4. It deserves a wider audience.

Let's Talk Sex

Is Davina McCall going to be the Jamie Oliver of sex??

On Friday night C4 showed an excellent programme where Davina argued for a radical overhaul of sex and relationships education (SRE) in the UK. She wants it to start early, be consistent, and be compulsory.

The programme highlighted the appalling state of sexual health in the UK - one of the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and STIs in Europe - and contrasted the situation with that in the Netherlands,who have a far better sexual health record.

Yep, the programme was pretty graphic - especially considering it was pre the 9pm watershed - and no doubt many of the green ink letter writing fraternity have already put pen to paper. However, the programme demonstrated that the UK approach to SRE - which still seemed to be the appalling and brief 'part A goes into part B' approach I was subjected to 20 years ago - just isn't working.

I'm a bigger fan of Davina than I am of Jamie, but credit to him he raised awareness of a key issue and I hope Davina has similar success. For more info - and to see how much you know - see here and take the test.