In Treatment (2008)

So I can't stress how much I liked In Treatment, though I also can't stress how much it was just because of the concept! Five half hour episodes a week; the patient he sees on Monday on Monday, the patient he sees on Tuesday on tuesday, etc and then on Friday he goes to his therapist and talks about what he really thinks of all his nut job patients! And the best part of it was you had to wait a week to see Sophie again, or Jake and Amy or whoever was your favourite, and how has what Paul's (Gabriel Byrne, our therapist) had to deal with over the week, how was that going to affect how he treats his patients. See even though you only see him non-professionally in the friday episodes it was still all about him, it took a week to get into it, but once you're in you are caught!
So Sophie was my favourite. Not just because she seemed to be the only patient he actually managed to help (Laura, no, that didn't work, Alex, that definitely didn't work, Jake and Amy, well, Jake seemed much better but I grew to like him more and more towards the end and hate Amy, and his own therapy, well what a disaster!) But I liked the relationship between them. One of the things Paul argued to his own therapist was that he loved all of his patients, if he didn't feel a connection then he couldn't really help them. Sophie was the one he really loved I think, and she loved him. She got what she needed out of therapy, a safe place and someone she could trust and a father figure who didn't let her down or take advantage of her. I came to the conclusion he should be a child psychiatrist, as he was gentle and patient with her when he wasn't with some of the others, after all it's ok for a child to act like a child but surely you can't help showing your anger and disgust if after ten sessions a grown man is still acting that way (I liked it when he went mad at Alex, did he punch him or did he just throw coffee in his face?).
Mia Wasikowska was bloody good. Makes me want to watch Jane Eyre again, she's now on my list of actors to always watch. I liked Melissa George as Laura as well, but only 'cause I fancied her.

Eastbound and Down Seasons 1 & 2

'Sup mother fuckers, it's Kenny fuckin' Powers! This is my last "Review" I'm currently waiting for season 3 of Kenny fuckin' Powers, as I call it, to arrive. I loved the first season, it was ridiculous and disgusting but it had heart (Kenny's love of April and her boobs) the second season was not nearly as good, it felt weak and they got rid of the heart and added more gross (Stop letting Stevie say things!! Argh! So gross and uncomfortable!!) I read online they shot it all in a month! I can believe it. I was ready to not buy any more seasons but hell, god damn them if they didn't just go and return home to his brother, brother's family, the principal and April and her boobs in the last episode and make me want to see what happens! Tch! I did enjoy Matthew McConaughey's creepy gay cameo. My mum couldn't believe it was the same naked hot guy who models for perfume ads. Hope he's back in season 3! Smell you later tv diary! Consider yourself updated at last! I'll be adding the first season if In Treatment to this list soon, I'm in the middle of watching it!

Misfits, Sesaons 1 & 2

I've been meaning to watch it for ages, we've had the boxset of series 1 & 2 for a year and it's remained unopened, still cellophane wrapped. Well, I opened it, and I watched all 13 episodes within a couple of days, probably could have done it in one if I didn't have to have so many naps! The kids are charming, talented and good looking and the stories are mad, funny and stupid and just what you want when you're ill. Series 3 arrived this morning, me and Dad-Y are going to watch some tomorrow, he's ill too, so we can both enjoy it. I've seen the ads on tv for the current 4th series, it looks naff with none of the original characters in it. Yes I'm sad Nathan is gone, but I love the actor who plays Rudy so I'm still really looking forward to this third series, series 4 I don't think I'll bother with, hopefully the third will be like the 4th series of Breaking Bad, a suitable ending. Kelly better not die, she's my favourite now Nathan's gone

Mad Men, Season Five (and yes I'm still alive)

Ok. I'm going to start with this one because I have just rewatched it on DVD after having watched it all when it was originally on tv. I haven't put anything on here since April, I've been useless! I blame having that job at the comic shop! And then having that tv job in Leeds and then being on holiday and then being in hospital. I am now bedbound and so I have no excuse... The thing is I actually did keep a note of all the films and plays I've seen and I prepared images for the blog, I just never seemed to have time to write it. So now, even though the reviews will be short and probably I'll say "I can't really remember it" a lot, at least I'll be back up to date!


Madmen season five was thrilling, I loved watching it weekly as well as watching it all in a couple of nights last week! Peggy is just the bomb, I can't wait for her in the next season. I can't write more, just that I love it and I'm glad after a season of Don thinking he can be different with Megan the final shot of him was like "Ah, fuck it, I'm Don Draper!"

The Inbetweeners Movie (2011)

I was really looking forward to it, so was Anna, the trailer looked great, classic Inbetweeners. Anna saw it first and said she'd never been so disappointed in all her life.
I then was prepared to see great disappointment and because I was prepared you know, I still managed to enjoy it.

But Anna was right, it could have been about anybody, it wasn't about the Inbetweeners. Somehow we're supposed to think Jay and Simon have a bond when they haven't for all three series, their falling out was the basis of the film, but were they ever really that close?! They all get girlfriends?! What? The only one who would get a girlfriend is Neil, because he would shag anybody. They are all loathsome and all of those girls must have had serious mental issues, especially the tortured soul who likes Simon and ESPECIALLY the little blonde who is supposed to be intelligent but decides to go out with Will. Maybe Jay could have got a girl, when he's sweet he is sweet, but you have to have pretty low standards and that chick who went for him was gorgeous!

Anna thinks overall it would have been greatly improved by all the parents also being on holiday with them (but staying somewhere nice). The parents are great and the bit that they were in was fantastic. Not enough! I think I would have liked that too.

BUT, saying that, I did really really like lots of bits of it. The dancing was hilarious.

A Dance to the Music of Time (channel 4, 1997)

Like a cross between Brideshead Revisited and the Camomile Lawn in that some of the characters are charming like in Brideshead and then all the actors were replaced by older actors who look and act nothing like them in the final episode- like in the Camomile Lawn.
BUT the Camomile Lawn did this much more successfully because throughout the wartime episodes they cut to the 1980s scenes and showed some of the older-selves so that the audience had time to grasp who was who, also they used Jennifer Ehle's mum, Rosemary Harris, to play her so that was really good casting! It was only at Max's funeral when we had to believe that formerly handsome young secondary characters had grown into the most hideous of old extras that it disappointed- this is what happened in ADttMoT, except it wasn't secondary characters, it was the lead.
My mum told me that when my parents first watched it they honsetly believed that the actor who had played the lead (James Purefoy) through the first three films must have died. It was the only explanation they could think of to why they suddenly had another actor play him! That's how much it disturbs the flow of the story! Ok, this might sound odd but here's the real issue, it wasn't that they replaced the actors- it was that they replaced SOME of the actors and put aging makeup on others, and it seems completely at random! James Purefoy suddenly turns into John Standing, Miranda Richardson gets no age makeup and is the same age in 1943 as she is in 1963, Simon Russell Beale is Simon Russell Beale aged 14 to 84 but with bad prosthetics. Why replace some actors and not others!?
Ho hum, I'll get away from the casting problems and onto the story problems.
The Camomile Lawn has no real story, it's about a bunch of inbred poshies bonking during the war. This pretends to have a story but is basically the same sort of thing but with less bonking. I compared it to Brideshead because it follows some boys from school after the first war, Oxford, through their jobs and up to the second war. Also there's the usual characters, James Purefoy as the lead is the Charles, Paul Rhys is the Sebastain but there's also a rake and a fop and a marxist amongst the bunch of pals AND, most importantly there is the brown-nosing flesh-crawly creep, Widmerpool (Simon Russell Beale). It was like watching Brideshead if suddenly Brideshead was not about beauty but about that fat fuck Boy Molcaster and all the boring shit he got up to!
Simon Russell Beale was really good as the creep but- and I know this sounds weird, considering he's so theatre famous- I've never seen him in anything before and I've always assumed he would be like that in every role he plays. He has never appealed to me, he practically lives at the National Theatre, collecting awards a dozen at a time every year, but I just have no desire to see him or any of the plays he appears in. Obviously if he decided to do a play with young Rory Kinnear I would have to make an exception and maybe I'd see the light, but until then he just makes my flesh crawl and this show really didn't help.
In conclusion Paul Rhys was the best thing in it, his Sebastain-esq story was extremely tragic and well acted, his end was horrific.

Worzel Gummidge (1979-1981)

Worzel is one of my earliest book-memories, audio-book-memories and tv-memories. Somehow I remember all three when I try and think back as far as I can... I can picture Worzel falling backwards in Ten-acre Field very clearly as he does in the end credits of the TV show I watched repeats of as a child. I can hear Jon Pertwee's voice proposing marriage to a lady scarecrow and then telling her he's going to kick her head off if she doesn't accept him from the audio book I listened to when I first had tonsilitis. And I can see the illustrations of ferocious Aunt Sally, the one in the book, the one who's actually his aunt- not his cruel but cute love interest.
I got the boxset of Worzel for Christmas, I haven't watched the series they made six years later in New Zealand, I'm not sure if I should... I've just finished watching the 30 original episodes and I think I will wait a while before tainting it, I often wish I'd never seen the second series of Catweazle.
I feel both happy and extremely sad while watching Worzel, the British countryside and village teashop, climbing over fences and kids wearing clothes that could be from any time between 1945 and 1985. I feel like it was my childhood -especially my holidays, but maybe it wasn't, maybe it was the things I read in my childhood and I'm just remembering it wrong. It makes me sad that childhood isn't going to be like that for future kids and sad that what I draw and how I think is nostalgic, when I draw children they look like Susan and John. And that's just the look of Worzel. The characters and the scripts they make me happy and sad too.
I remember enjoying the books as a child, but they are odd books, they are amusing, but they're quite sinister. Worzel was a sometimes angry sometimes miserable weirdo, completely disinterested in the children, just going about his business. Lots of these classic kids' books and TV shows rely on the idea that children have secret friendships with these grown-up freaks (Stig of the Dump, Worzel, Catweazle, et al.) No wonder TV has got so boring, kids wouldn't be allowed to be friends with a creepy old scarecrow nowadays.
The TV show doees have the odd unsettling episode every now and then- these are the ones that stick to the books quite well and usually feature Geoffrey Bayldon wheeling about on his bike dressed as an undertaker- but there are jolly episodes too with singing and dancing and cake throwing. The main thrill for me comes from Una Stubbs' superb comic timing, I think she is the funniest woman I've ever seen, I only remembered Aunt Sally from the books- and I was scared of her. If I'd have remembered Una I would have smiled more widely at her when she walked past me last August in Chichester. She is perfectly horrible and aggressive, but so amusing, physically she is brilliantly funny, a look from her, a subtle grab at a plate of sausages or watching her cram a cake into her mouth has me laughing out loud. She was very physically funny in the two plays I saw last year, but she didn't feature heavily, maybe that's why I didn't mention her.
And yet it is because of this re-written character that Worzel is such a tragic programme, I watched an episode today where kind, giggly Dolly Clothes Peg (a pretty manequin played by Lorraine Chase) asks Worzel to marry her but Worzel chooses the selfish cruel wooden doll who will never love him instead despite knowing this and knowing he could be happy with the other. The last shot was of Dolly Clothes Peg looking back for a moment with her fingers crossed before turning back to her lonely walk home with tears rolling down her face.
So many episodes, I'd say more than half, end with a character being disappointed by their own existence. And usually so disappointed that they are weeping! I mean, god! It's utterly tragic! and then it cuts to the jolly theme tune!
I like things that make me sad, I enjoy Worzel all the more when after a chaotic episode we see Aunt Sally with all her dreams of grandeur and adventure looking sadly out of her attic window knowing she's just a fairground doll. Or lovestruck Worzel believing Sal when she says she'll look after his money then watching her march straight into a clothes shop and spending it before he walks away with tears in his eyes. It's not just a children's show then, it's reality! It's so sad. Remember when Catweazle disappeared and Carrot just walked sadly back to his farm, that was perfect! I don't want to watch the New Zealand episodes and find they are not tragic, I think that would be completely awful.

House of Cards (1990)

Francis Urquhart is so fucking creepy and Machiavellian, he is AMAZING.

Ian Richardson makes my flesh crawl. But I love it!

I have never seen talking to the camera used like this before and it works because Richardson is so fucking good. When he talks to you, his audience, his conspirator, it's the fucking creepiest experience of your life, he makes TV better than theatre.

It is addictive. I want more. And the best thing is, I completely don't fancy him! He makes me feel sick, he makes me shudder with disgust, but I do want him, I want Urquhart.

Catweazle (1969-70)

I got a Catweazle boxset for my birthday. I've been asking for it these past three birthdays and Christmases and finally the family caved in... they didn't cave in so much to buy me the 40th Anniversary special boxset with commentaries, documentaries, reunions and postcards in it, no, they bought me the boxset with dutch subtitles and no extras. But never mind, when I'm rich and famous it's at the top of my list.

I've been asking for Catweazle for so long because I really enjoy The Ghosts of Motley Hall- written by Richard Carpenter after he wrote his more famous children's sitcom. I bought Tony Robinson's Maid Marian and her Merry Men complete series recently and they're as good as I remembered them. There are lots of shit kids' shows out there, everything except Sorry I've Got No Head actually, but in the past there have been some real crackers. Big Kids with Imogen Stubbs was a nice one and the recently cancelled Young Dracula was brilliantly written and acted- something rare these days what with the shortage of good child actors on British screens, don't get me started on how I despise that kid from Outnumbered who I predicted would be the new Just William and ruin it for another generation... Thank God for audio books.

So I finally got to see Catweazle. And it was wonderful. It was magical and it was funny and it was quite sad. Beautifully shot and acted, the boy was lovely and likable, the guest stars- Brian Wilde, Peter Sallis, Peter Butterworth, all brilliant. And weirdly, that first series shot in 1969, looked timeless. Farms still look like that, boys still look and dress like that!! I adored it.

Series two by comparison was disappointing. Aside from changing the dynamic of the show- in the first series Catweazle just didn't understand anything and every episode was him being freaked out by modern times, in the second he knew about everything and had a mission, so you automatically knew what to expect from every episode- aside from the way it had somehow lost all it's sadness and soul by becoming almost slapstick, the main problem for me was the boy.

You cannot expect an audience to relate to- or like!- a snobby squirt who tells Catweazle he's too busy for magic in every episode and lives in a gigantic manor house, perfectly content. He was hateful from the get-go! Carrot was a slightly downtrodden yet permanently cheerful and interested farmboy! Owlface was a fucking twonk. I hated his specky gob and I wanted to punch him.

The final episode of the second series almost recaptured the poignancy of the first series when Catweazle at last gets his greatest wish and flies off into the sunset in his hot air balloon, I say almost, it would have done if the camera hadn't panned back to Milhouse's stupid smug face! Argh!!

Anyway, Carpenter obviously learned his lesson by the time he wrote and cast The Ghosts of Motley Hall, the boy in that was a lovely, eager to help, poor, dead stableboy. Freddie Jones played a brilliantly mad character similar to the one that Peter Butterworth played in the first series of Catweazle (not the part he played in the second- that was a waste of Butterworth), Sheila Staefel was a really strong and funny female character (there were none of these in Catweazle), Arthur English provided the soul and the same relationship that Catweazle and Carrot had with Matt the Stableboy, and because we needed some sort of fool, a young Nicholas le Prevost provided drunken comic relief and has been providing it ever since.

Cold Comfort Farm (1995)

I don't know why I never got around to reviewing Soccer-Aid on here, that was the last thing I watched on TV and really enjoyed! I always enjoy Cold Comfort Farm. Every time Anna and I have a visitor we educate them in the ways of the world through DVDs, usually with a Bronte TV drama to accompany their inevitable trip to Haworth and then after a walk in the countryside around our house Cold Comfort is usually (appropriately) viewed.

Anna's guest was American Maddy, she is not the first American to be subjected to Cold Comfort and Jane Eyre (Ruth Wilson & Toby Stephens), next thing Maddy knows she'll be sat in front of Brideshead Revisited or the complete Blackadder, that's what I did to my American...

This is going to be a bold statement: I like Cold Comfort Farm as much as I like Withnail & I- and not just because some of it is filmed in the same tea room-it is all extremely quotable. It is of course almost word perfect to the book but the casting is what really makes it a joy every six-months (I could watch it every week I reckon). It is an all-star cast, but none of them probably as massive in 1995 as they are now. And it is the role, out of all he has played on screen, that Rufus Sewell is most perfect in, the role that he should have lived, hell, if he really was Seth in 1930 he would have been a HUGE movie star. The way they shoot his scenes are brilliantly funny, he is perfect for that role. Le sigh! And lead Kate Beckinsale is adorable, if she'd have stayed in Britain she wouldn't have all the fame and riches that she has now in Hollywood but she would have continued to shine in lead roles in TV drama, her film roles of the last ten years have been nothing special, look how bloody funny and sharp she was in this! Jesus fuck! Brits are wasted in America!

Anyway, I like word perfect adaptations of good books, this one is one of the best (and the bits they changed I don't care about! Rennet and Reuben are good together!). I even like Stephen Fry's comic turn, though I suppose it was made before he was on EVERY channel EVERY night in self-indulgent TV documentaries.

Bedtime Stories (CBeebies)

I watched a load of these at Christmas and then forgot about how flipping great they are!

So I write and illustrate books for children- that's my job, or at least, that's what I'm trying to do! So this programme that showcases new work -but also does a lot of old favourites- is obviously a dream for me: "One day an actor will read out my book on Bedtime Stories!"

Yeah, it's like Jackanory used to be except the books are usually between four and eight minutes long so if they're rubbish it doesn't matter! I used to love Jackanory, I thought they were all good but of course we have George's Marvelous Medicine read/performed by Rick Mayall on video and watch it yearly.

I've watched lots of actors doing Bedtime Stories and I think what's even more exciting is the range of actors they get in to do different books (I am excited now as both children's writer/illustrator AND actor-phile) David Tennant (above) is by far the best reader of bedtime stories, though I also enjoyed David Harewood very much. It's funny because it's not the people you'd expect who are the best, I assumed Kenneth Brannagh would be great- but I had to turn him off! He was cringey and hammy. Tennant I thought would be creepy and overenthusiastic, but he uses his natural gentle Scottish voice and is extremely charming, he's like your big sister's boyfriend reading you a story rather than Kenny who was like a boring old uncle.

So who would I have reading out my story? I wonder if the authors have any say in the matter...

"Excuse me, I'd like Jonathan Pryce to read out 'Timby and the Great Cake Robbery' if you don't mind."

"Tough luck, you're getting John Thompson."

Being Human, Series 2

One of the things I like most about Being Human is that there are only three major characters. Buffy had WAY too many in the end, like I care about a cast of TWELVE characters!

I much preferred this series to the first- probably because I knew the characters and I anticipated what an annoying weed George would be throughout, he really bothered me all through the first series!- but as with the first I only really watch it because it's something to watch while I eat my lunch! Yesterday I watched the final episode while eating... probably not a good idea, there was a lot more blood and gore in this series.

Anyway, Aidan Turner and Leonora Crichlow both play brilliant charming characters, she's a lovely ghostie making everyone tea and smiling her big gorgeous smile and he's a moody vampire with a lot of problems. Russell Tovey is so camp he really grates me, I find it impossible to believe his character is not in love with Mitchell- and I know Tovey is gay but straight acting is something he can do so why in this role (a werewolf desperate for a normal family life) is he playing it SO camp?!

There were some good stories in this series, the main story being very scary! I loved all the flashbacks; brilliant opportunities for the costume department! But overall I enjoyed Annie's storylines the most, being a ghost she is the most human, she is the heart of the group and I am ready for series three right now!! Good ending- well, it would have been a good ending if they'd have cut after George, Mitchell and Nina had watched the TV fade away... That bit with the bad actress girl vampires raising that vampire jerk from the grave was completely unnecessary and ruined what was a poignant and terrifying cliffhanger.

Ho hum.

Alison's tv acting debut (Friday Night with Jonathan Ross BBC1)

Yes, we've all seen her as "member of the audience" at Jools Holland's Hootenany standing far too close to The Kaiser Chiefs... But last night Alison Dennison delivered a short but sweet [uncredited] performance as Mary Poppins on Friday Night with Jonathan Ross. Tainted only by the fact that while centre-stage a kite blew in front of her and obstructed our view of this powerful piece of ACTING.

Martina Cole's The Take (2009)

Why did they cast a girl who looks JUST like Tom Hardy as Tom Hardy's wife?

Star Trek (2009)

I watched this film this afternoon with my mum and dad, my mum will only watch proper films- ie not big blockbusters crammed with special effects and aliens... But she really enjoyed this for the same reason I think everyone would enjoy it. You're just waiting to see another perfectly cast actor appear to reinvent or recreate a classic familiar character.

They all did brilliantly.

I can't see sequels being successful at all though, because we already know what happened next.

The Chatterly Affair (2006) -And general Christmas round-up

As per usual the family got a load of porn for Christmas. Just kidding, but seriously, when am I going to see Rafe Spall with some clothes on?!

We've done loads of Christmas watching, and it's not over yet, we like to stretch Christmas out for at least a month so I guess we're only half way through. Telly: I enjoyed Michelle Dockery in The Turn of the Screw, I thought they gave her shit hair in Cranford but then that is Cranford... Tom Hiddleston and Jodi Whittacker were good but let's face it Cranford was written by Mrs Gaskell as a bet. Not really, but she did write it as a piss-take and now it's the most successful thing the BBC has ever done!? It's shite! And The Christmas episodes that weren't even written by her were even worse than her send up of country-types and happy endings. Ugh. But obviously if both Jonathan Pryce and Nick le Prevost (And Rory Kinnear- one of my absolute favourite actors to see on stage) are appearing I'm going to be watching. So I did.

Anyway, I enjoyed the final Gavin and Stacey and Tennant's final Doctor Who- though my favourite bits were remembering Bernard Cribbins voicing Orinoco the lazy womble thinking he was invisible when he got stuck in that net... "Bramble Pudding! Oh no!!!" I look forward to Stephen Moffat's writing and Matt Smith's big grave stone slab of a face in the next series.

Missed Hamlet but we got the dvd in the post this morning so I will see it soon.

And now the gifties! We've been working our way through series one and two of The Inbetweeners and I have to say I totally love it. So reassuring to see realistic teenagers in realistic situations, Anna spends her mornings in bed watching 90210, everytime I go in there I say "teachers or teenagers?" because all the cast look the same age; in their plastic botox thirties- HORROR. The Inbetweeners is a wonderful British tonic to American sitcom/soap teenagers, all four boys are hysterically well suited to their roles.

We've watched lots of shite of course; Wolverine, an utterly awful Fantastic Four movie (Turns out he bought it in Lidl on Christmas Eve- he should have resisted.) Bridge to Terabithia- Suzie's favourite book as a child, totally un-cinematagraphical material so a terrible film, etc.

And today me and Anna watched The Chatterley Affair. Anna said flippantly afterwards of Andrew Davies the scriptwriter "Pervert. Always writes a lot of filth!" which made me laugh an awful lot.

Lady Chatterley's Lover is I think a key part of my strange history, my grandfather was one of the blokes who smuggled it into the country long before the court case, he was proudly photographed for the paper as a "local pervert", Nana was reet pissed off... I love it though, Anna probably thinks I'm a pervert too.

The X-Factor 2009

I'd never watched the X-Factor any other year because I don't like seeing members of the public on my tv, I could see members of the public in my damn living room. TV is for handsomes and talented types. Anyway I moved into a household where people watch reality tv and so I joined in to be sociable! (I also watched the final three episodes of I'm a Celebrity Get Me out of Here which I'd never seen either- I'm glad Gino won.)

Apart from the appalling members of the public (the contestants) and the four horrendous "judges" it turns out the X-Factor is sort of what TV is missing... By which I mean we have no Top of the Pops anymore, we have no variety shows where you can see famous singers promoting their new singles- not on the 5 channels I have access to anyway.

The guest acts were nearly always of an extremely high standard, and like I say I never get to see bands doing numbers because British tv doesn't have music programmes anymore. So I got to see Michael Buble, Take That, Robbie Williams, Lady Gaga, Janet Jackson, Paul McCartney, George Michael, Roger and Brian from Queen, Leona Lewis etc. performing great songs live and the only other time I get to appreciate modern pop music is by listening to the radio- which I don't do because most of it is shite! Rap- that's what's on Radio 1, did we have any rapping on the X-factor? No because it's a singing competition and the big names they managed to get were all brilliant singers.

And even though I didn't really think ANY of the contestants had the X-Factor I'm glad Joe McElderry won because he was clearly the best singer from the very beginning even if he wasn't the best all-round-performer.

-Also Joe obviously comes from a family of drunks so it's good that he can now escape that fate as he is a very talented young man.

Madmen Season 3 (only in America!)

I managed to watch a couple of episodes of Madmen while I was in America. I couldn't wait, so I watched ALL of season three online- and can you blame me? When they do show it on BBC2 it'll be on at 11 at night -probably on a sunday!

This season is so good, better than the first two- and they were brilliant.

God, Madmen is THE BEST thing on TV, the writing is superb it looks amazing, it sounds amazing, the casting is perfect, holy cow, it's just PERFECT.

A fantastic ending to this season.

Tutti Frutti (1987)

Tutti Frutti is still good but I don't think it's stood the test of time quite so well as other TV series from the 80s, it's not as good as Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (1983) but then not a lot is.

My favourite characters were Richard Wilson and Katy Murphy, they were great together, I liked how full of hate and disdain she was, she's always been great.

I found Robbie Coltrane and Emma Thompson's relationship just a bit too weird... I was willing to accept that she was an art school chick and so probably mad and always fancied him 'cause of his talent despite the fact he was a big fat bastard, but I didn't really get how she could fancy him after getting to know him because he was basically insane- Though in episode 5 when her husband who is an actual rapist and wife-beater shows up I suppose I can see how potential-rapist Robbie Coltrane is practically an angel.

The band were good- my favourite was Jakey Pete.

Bit of a downer really though. Not enough comedy to lighten all the horror that seems to happen in Glasgow.

Scoop (1986)

Evelyn Waugh. Mistaken Identity. Eccentric Family. Made-up Country. Tart.

Can you picture it?
Michael Maloney is so sweet.

But sometimes creepy.

According to Amazon.crap people who bought this DVD also bought The Red Shoes, it's true, I bought The Red Shoes a while ago, it's one of my favourite films. Anton Walbrook has great hair.