Demise of The Bill and ITV

I’m not going to write a whole long piece about the final episode of THE BILL airing tonight- The Guardian has not one but two fine such pieces already.

But it is a moment to step back and watch from afar as ITV slowly self-destructs. From next Monday, the channel’s new breakfast show debuts. I looked at the show’s press pack earlier and it’s quite badly put together. Apparently the budget didn’t stretch to new photos of the team aside from Adrian Chiles and Christine “Alex Jones” Bleakley, meaning the pack consists of images snatched from the archives and, amongst others, the Daily Mail and Sky News. One of the photos is a blurry capture from GMTV. It’s like they aren’t even trying.

As previously discussed on this here blog, CORONATION STREET is continuing on its slow transformation in to a Carry On film, even with former DOCTOR WHO producer Phil Collinson at the helm. The network has commissioned new drama, but I doubt we will see anything with the kind of longevity The Bill has enjoyed over the last 27 years. Although I haven’t been watching since the dramatic (and rubbish) changes they made last, I will miss it being on. Still, there’s always [formerly-known-as-UK] Gold.

Update: I watched the last fifteen minutes and the very end was quite nostalgic. It is a shame, but perhaps ITV realised the new format wasn’t working and killed it with some dignity. Slightly more seriously, where will young actors learn their trade now? Almost literally everybody has been in either The Bill, CASUALTY or EASTENDERS – probably all three – from Keira Knightley to Russell Brand.

In other news, ITV News (did you see what I did there?) just hit the pinnacle of ridiculousness with one of the headlines in the bongs: “Raise the Titanic”. And some naughty people in cricket is still more important than floods, apparently.

BEDA day 4: the state of television

The unveiling of the third generation of the SKINS cast last Thursday got me thinking about the TV industry.

That show is one of the most original things to be commissioned in the last decade. It might not reflect real life for all college-age kids – at least I hope not – but it is at least realistic. Soaps, with their continuing sagas of people marrying each other, having affairs with each other, divorcing and killing each other, are now going to new heights of ridicule to attract audiences. CORONATION STREET has become a pantomime of nonsense and camp Northern accents. The problem is that after fifty years, what is there to do that’s completely original? New writers come along who, unsurprisingly, haven’t watched every single episode, and so they repeat things and make it stale.

Back to the teenagers of Bristol – it might be over-dramatic but it feels real, and is proof there is writing talent in the UK, especially young writing talent. When you compare it with, say, COMING OF AGE, (BBC Three’s “comedy” presumably aimed at teens) the former destroys anything good the Beeb’s offering might have going for it. The dialogue is littered with bad cultural references, sexual innuendo and poor-taste jokes. The acting is so over the top to the point of absurdity. The characters are inhabiting the same world that the cardboard cut-out characters in programmes like THE LIFE OF RILEY and MY FAMILY have been living in for years – where children come out with witty one-liners and where episodes change the game before everything reverts to normal for the next time. Scripted television programmes are not real but they should have a semblance of reality for people to relate to them, watch them and enjoy them. Think of the awkwardness of watching David Brent in THE OFFICE – good awkwardness, we’ve-all-been-there awkwardness. This sort of tripe is bad awkwardness – nobody watching has ever experienced any such situation.

Tonight is the final episode of SHERLOCK, the three-part updated adaptations of Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels and written by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. This has been perfect TV viewing for the last two Sundays and it is this quality of writing, production and acting which has to be encouraged and recommissioned – not more series of COMING OF AGE (a third series is due for 2011).

BEDA day 3: Musical theatre

It’s an exciting time for musical theatre right now, but it’s not all good news. Whilst the musical adaptation of Victor Hugo’s LES MISÉRABLES is celebrating its 25th year on the London stage, (PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, an adaptation of the Gaston Leroux novel, will be doing the same next year) newer musicals and Broadway transfers are not enjoying such longevity.
AVENUE Q, Jeff Marx and Robert Lopez’s Sesame Street-inspired look at modern life in New York City is leaving the West End this October after just over four years here. The entire Broadway company of HAIR’s revival transferred to London in April, only for the show to close this September with no opportunity for a local cast to take over. And who can forget SPRING AWAKENING’s four month run at the Novello last year? I regret not seeing it.

The balance between satisfying the hardcore fans of shows such as Avenue Q, (me, for instance) opening new shows and not going out of business is tricky. Avenue Q alone has had three West End homes during its run, as has Les Mis – but because it expanded, whereas Avenue Q’s been shunted around town.

Last year I set out to make a documentary investigating the effect the global recession on UK theatre. Mostly it has not had a hugely adverse effect – a fact demonstrated in the enormous number of people who flocked to see both David Tennant and Jude Law’s respective HAMLETs. But the draw there, it has to be said, was the celebrity. This is not to detract from the acting abilities of Tennant or Law – (the latter I cannot vouch for, but I think we all saw the RSC/BBC Films HAMLET screened last Boxing Day) in the case of Shakespeare it is a positive thing, introducing David and Jude’s fans to the Bard. But with last week’s announcement that SHREK THE MUSICAL would “star” Amanda Holden when it opens next year, is Theatreland becoming saturated with celebrity?

When her casting was revealed there was much mockery and dissent, from fans, musical theatre students and performers. With her role as a judge on BRITAIN’S GOT TALENT, many people forget she is an actresss – anyone remember CUTTING IT? Still, I don’t know about her talent as a singer or stage actress, and for the many young people graduating from (musical/) theatre courses, it must be depressing seeing not one of their own making it big, but yet another celebrity parachuted in to a show. I’ve got nothing against Amanda, but she is hardly a big name amongst anyone who doesn’t watch BGT. If SHREK THE MUSICAL is a good show, people will come. Word will spread. The revival of OLIVER! is currently playing at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane, where SHREK will premiere next May. That show had the benefit of weeks of prime-time BBC One airtime to publicise and cast it, and it still isn’t very good. A better example is LEGALLY BLONDE. The London production started previewing last December and opened in January. I was at the gala night and enjoyed myself. Although the lead roles of Elle and Warner were played by fairly well-known people, it’s more of an ensemble cast and while Sheridan Smith is a star, she doesn’t dominate. Arguably more famous than both her and Duncan James (who played Warner) is Peter Davison, who plays Professor Callaghan. When I interviewed him, I asked what he thought of shows relying on celebrities to prop up shows or attract audiences. He said that he thought whatever gets people through the doors is fine, as long as the performers are good.

Do you like (musical/) theatre, and do you have a favourite show? Sorry this is a bit rambling – most of what I write is only seen by me (including this, apparently) and is in the form of news articles, not this personal outlet. So I’m still finding my voice 🙂

Update: I hope Neil Patrick Harris’s production of RENT at the Hollywood Bowl goes great this weekend. Lots of people have complained about Vanessa Hudgens as Mimi, seeing as how she is apparently a role model for girls and a lap-dancing drug addict is not conducive to a good image, but I don’t think artistic choices should be influenced by pressures like these. Sure, set a good example, but you shouldn’t not do something for such reasons. Why would kids who like HSM even be interested in RENT? If she turns out to be rubbish that’s another, completely separate, matter.

Even better update: I have now booked my ticket for the LES MIS Concert at the o2 in October! Very happy about this. Rebecca Caine (original Cosette) suggested I save the money and just buy the DVD instead – the first and only mention I’ve seen of there being a DVD, so obviously she knows something we don’t – but I have now asked for a ticket as a graduation present, which is excellent.

BEDA day 2: What’s a graduate to do?

Here is a link to my friend Becky’s BEDA post on how she feels after graduating, and I was happy when I read it as I am exactly the same. It is scary how many doors are open to graduates, and which to choose. I don’t mean there are opportunities being handed round on golden plates, because there aren’t. I mean the rest of our lives are laid out before us and, although it sounds clichéd, we can do anything. Except, y’know, the recession and stuff (I made a documentary about how it’s affected one of my favourite things, if you didn’t know). But hopefully you get from mine and Becky’s posts that inside our heads right now it’s like a washing machine (as I type this, I don’t know where this metaphor is going either) of confusion as we try to work out what we really want to do with ourselves, and how to make that happen.

Do you have firm ideas of what you want to do, or how you see your life going?

BEDA day 1: a delayed start

I am starting today and am going to try to do it for the rest of the month. Maybe I’ll carry on until September the 5th, then it’d be BEDFAM. Blog every day for a month. Which is more of a mouthful, but essentially the same thing.

I downloaded the Kindle app to my iPhone a few months ago and have been reading my first eBook on it – the first eBook that I haven’t read the actual book equivalent of first, that is. In this case, that’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (no spoilers please!).

Do any of you (theoretical you that is, unless anybody reads this – hello!) have eReaders (such an awkward name, no?) or iPads or Kindles? I do not buy in to this idea that they are going to take off in any big way. The paperless office was touted as coming 15 years ago, and today computers put more ink on paper than ever.

Saying that, having used both the Kindle app and Apple’s iBooks app, I much prefer the Kindle. It automatically remembers where I am when I switch apps or go to the home screen, whereas with iBooks you have to tap Library for it to remember. iBooks is also laggy, at least on my iPhone and the iPad I tried it on on launch day. I was in the Apple Store in Cardiff that morning.

Meeting the Doctor


Peter Davison
Peter Davison. Image by /Sizemore/ used under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license

One of the only disappointments I had when making THE PHANTOM RECESSION was that I wasn’t able to interview Peter Davison in person. Not only would the audio quality have been much improved but the whole dynamic is different when face to face. Nevertheless I was very grateful for the time he gave me.

In late June I was walking along the Strand looking for a Sainsbury’s Express when I noticed a rather tall man wearing dark glasses, a cream suit and a boater-style hat walking towards me. As we approached each other, I realised it was Peter trying to avoid being recognised in the break between his matinée and evening performances in LEGALLY BLONDE. I continued walking then reversed and swiftly caught up with him, introducing myself and walking covertly beside him. He stopped and – though I cannot be certain he genuinely remembered our interview, he offered his hand to shake, which I took. I thanked him for his appearance and he said it was no problem.

Friendliness is always appreciated by me, especially in such situations. Writer Russell T Davies says in THE WRITER’S TALE that anyone who buys in to the personality someone gives off when being interviewed is a fool, but Peter wasn’t wearing his media hat. He was actually wearing a hat strongly reminiscent of the one his Fifth Doctor sported, which is what first alerted me to him. So while yes, while being interviewed in certain situations celebrities are in their cool and in control modes, some people are just nice. I could name a few others on either side of the nice fence, but I’ll leave it there.