January Round-up: TV

We recently watched Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure that I had recorded on TV... and then realised I actually own it on DVD! The perils of a large DVD collection. Anyway, I enjoyed it all the same, and it brought back memories of when I saw it live in Stoke-on-Trent while at uni, and I got a photo with Gorman afterwards. I need to find that and dig it out to scan and put with my 'James Meets...' celebrity photo ops on Facebook. 

Something I hadn't seen before was The Comic Strip Presents... The Hunt for Tony Blair (2011), a one-off comedy starring Stephen Mangan as the PM who finds himself in trouble and ends up on the lamb. The twist here is that the story takes place in a black and white, old-Hollywood noir world, where Margaret Thatcher (Jennifer Saunders) is a corpulent Barbara Cartland type predator, modelled on Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard, and Harry Enfield is a sweary Alistair Campbell, with Ross Noble putting in a great performance as a socialist and another of Blair's victims. Short for a one-off (running an hour on Channel 4), Hunt was very well made and had laughs at Blair's expense so it was enjoyable enough, but it did feel like it could have stretched a bit longer.

Back at Christmas 2010 the BBC showed The One Ronnie, a hilarious one-off vehicle for Ronnie Corbett and a host of comic cameos, and early this year they took the format and applied it to create The One Lenny Henry, Jasper Carrott, and Griff Rhys-Jones (2012). The title really only makes sense in the case of Griff as his comedy usually involved Mel Smith, who turns up for a great head-to-head conversation in his episode. I enjoyed all 3 episodes - it was good to see the comedians doing what they should be doing rather than fronting daytime game shows or light-entertainment documentaries. Carrott's stand up was funny because he moaned about getting older in the current tech-obsessed world and didn't come off as fusty, just funny - and while the reunion with Robert Powell as the inept pair from The Detectives had a low gag-rate, the sketch with real-life daughter Lucy Davis that reversed the father-daughter relationship was a hoot. Lenny Henry was good but the weakest of the 3, but then I've often found his comedy a bit hit and miss. The best of the trio was Griff Rhys-Jones, who eschewed the stand-up / sketch / stand-up / sketch pattern for a series of hilarious sketches, including the aforementioned Mel Smith update. Griff has a real knack for stupid characters and brings good acting chops to the comedy dialogue - his persistent football fan, desperate to get Tom Hollander's non-fan to talk about the game was gold. I hope that Griff more than any of the others gets back into comedy after this. And if Mel Smith wants to join in as well that would be fine.

A show from last year that we took a while to getting around to watching, Death in Paradise: Series 1 (2011), turned out to be a warm, easy show to like - once the first episode was over anyway. I liked the first show because they wrong-footed the viewer and made a character you assumed was a starring role into the murderer (stealing an idea from Spooks' very first episode), but for some reason the hour felt long and the set up, though intriguing, didn't hook me straight away. Ever reliable Ben Miller is DI Richard Poole, sent to the beautiful Caribbean island of Saint-Marie (really Guadeloupe) to investigate a murder and then told to stay there, along with French DS Camille Bordey (Sara Martins). Poole loves the rain and cold of Britain so he's none to happy to have to suffer in the sun and heat of this unfamiliar island, particularly with a French sidekick. While the plots were often fairly easy to work out for anyone who's ever seen a crime show before, the joy of Death in Paradise was how easy and relaxed and comforting it all was, and with great performances from Miller and co, including Danny 'Cat from Red Dwarf' John-Jules as a laid back policeman, and a host of British character actors like Miranda Raison, Shirley Henderson and Keith Duffy(!). Oh and this being a Caribbean-set show there are some great accents, mostly shown off by a who's who of black British talent - very much like The No.1 Ladies Detective Agency. The camaraderie of the main cast kept me coming back, along with the gentle humour and the exotic locations.

The Royal Bodyguard (2012) was equally as gentle as Death in Paradise, but it wasn't nearly as satisfying. I decided to watch the whole series to see whether it would improve, and other than brilliant comic work from David Jason as hapless, disaster-prone bodyguard Guy Hubble and sublime straight-man Geoffrey Whitehead as his boss, it fell flat in terms of believability and truly funny comedy. I realise that comedy doesn't need to be realistic, but the central idea - that someone as old and useless as Hubble would be entrusted with looking after the royal family - just does not ring true, however much Jason is adept at playing the gullible fool. For such an unexciting show the production values were good, it's a shame that more time wasn't spent on the scripting and curiously drawn out jokes.