MOSTLY TEDIOUS panel thing hosted by JIMMY MULVILLE, who would invite planted audience questions for four comic panellists to answer via their own stand-up acts or, in the odd isolated case, an actual natural wit. Almost all of the latter was provided by the magnificent TONY HAWKS, the resident performer in every episode who frequently showed up the rest of the panel for what they lacked and single-handedly salvaged whole episodes. Sometimes it was association with Hat-Trick rather than real observational talent that got guests on, with STEPHEN FROST in particular only able to raise a laugh when responding to the sound effects round (“Siamese twins having a wank?”). Proper comedians like FRANK SKINNER, NICK HANCOCK and JIMEOIN helped matters along though the second series was also hindered by the residency of an overly misandric JO BRAND, who seemed to include men, alcohol and cakes (“Don’t heckle me, I’ll sit on your face”) in just about everything she said. There were questions from celebrities in the audience (JILLY GOOLDEN, DAVID GOWER, NEIL KINNOCK, TONY BLACKBURN) which didn’t aid the process greatly (except when JOHN McCRIRICK made a verbal pass at Brand and she responded with real poison), and Mulville himself admitted afterwards the show didn’t work. Opening titles showed a head being cracked upon and a pinkish slime emerging to run down towards a grating in the gutter. Newsnight’s next.
Posts Tagged With 'Tony Hawks'
Brain Drain, The
Just A Minute
![[BZZZZZT] Deviation](http://www.tvcream.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/justaminute.JPG "[BZZZZZT] Deviation")
AND as the minute waltz fades away Radio Cream you have sixty seconds to talk about in this game, without repetition, hesitation or deviation, Just A Minute: Just A Minute is a long-running panel game where the wonderful chairman Nicholas Parsons [BZZZT: "He's not wonderful"] invites four lovely players of this game, like the great Clement Freud, Kenneth Williams, Derek Nimmo, Paul Merton, Peter Jones, Gyles Brandreth, Julian Clary, Barry Cryer, Tony Hawks, Kit Hesketh-Harvey, Tim Rice, Sue Perkins, Wendy Richard, Ross Noble, Graham Norton [BZZT: "You can't just keep naming contestants"] to talk about a given subject for sixty seconds without repetition, hesitation or deviation, whoever’s speaking when they hear the whistle gets all the greatness and all the glory [BZZZT: "Repe... oh hang on, it was great and greatness"] and we’re indebted to Ian Messiter who created this ga*PHEEP*
I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue
STARTED off as an excuse for the old I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again team to keep on getting their I’m Sorry I’ll Read That Again money while tied up with TV projects, courtesy of an improvised panel game made up of smut, innuendo and silliness. Original rotating line-up was therefore Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie, Jo Kendall and John Cleese (with fellow ex-ISIRTA-er David Hatch as producer) being given silly things to do by former Joe Meek-produced Trad Jazz Boom hitmaker and irreverent host of BBC jazz shows Humphrey Lyttleton. Oddie, Kendall and Cleese dropped out after a series or two, making way for external witmongers Barry Cryer and Willie Rushton to make up the long-running classic four-man line-up. Key running themes developed during these early days, most of them still in use to today, include ritual humilation of town and townspeople playing host to that evening’s recording, baiting of resident pianist Colin Sell, ridiculing of comedy panel game contemporaries (“I heard a joke the other day, apparently Quote… Unquote has a Listen Again feature… good one, Nigel!”), ever more ambitious double entendres about scorekeeper The Lovely Samantha, and of course the games – some self-explanatory, others not explanatory in any way at all: Late Arrivals, The Uxbridge English Dictionary, Just A Minim, The Bad Tempered Clavier, Pick Up Song, Cow Lake Bomb, Swanee Kazoo, Letter Writing, Name That Barcode, Quote… Misquote, One Song To The Tune Of Another, Sound Charades (invariably introduced with an anecdote about ‘The Undisputed Grand Master Of The Game’ Lionel Blair), Film Club, Book Club, and of course Mornington Crescent, famed for its innumerable, impenetrable and fiercely guarded rules. Survived Rushton’s death in 1997 by bringing in clued-up guest contestants like Jack Dee, Linda Smith, Rob Brydon, Stephen Fry, Andy Hamilton, Sandi Toksvig, Jeremy Hardy, Tony Hawks, Harry Hill, Phill Jupitus and Ross Noble, bringing their own running jokes with them, and similarly countered Lyttleton’s recent passing with installation of HIGNFY-esque ‘guest hosts’, and long may it continue.
SUPERIOR sound-only reading of Nick Hancock’s Orwell-hued comedic discussion of all things disliked, with better and funnier guests (worth listing in full: Paul Merton, Jenny Eclair, Danny Baker, Arthur Smith, Steve Punt, Annie Nightingale, Ian Hislop, Jo Brand, Tony Slattery, John Walters, Helen Lederer, David Baddiel, Stephen Frost, Donna McPhail, Frank Skinner, Trevor And Simon, Caroline Quentin, Tony Hawks, Rory McGrath, Kevin Day, Maria McErlane, Mark Lamarr, Nick Revell, Simon Delaney, Chris England, Andy Hamilton, and Hancock himself with Danny Baker in the presenter’s chair) telling their tales of loathing for their most hated people, places and pop songs in the hope that their reasoning would be sufficient to warrant a place in the titular “bin lorry for the bad, boring and Beadle”. Schoolroom misdemeanours and humilating early steps on the career ladder were frequent starting points for the misery-fuelled anecdotes, but there was also a hefty slant towards seventies pop cultural ephemera, hence incredulous rumination on the likes of I Will Survive, Boomph With Becker, Butterflies, Kung Fu Fighting, and track two off Jigsaw’s LP, as well as more esoteric tales of “this train has failed”, O! Punchinello and Sarah Baddiel’s obsession with ‘Golfiana’. TV transfer started out well, but then they started getting ‘name’ guests who didn’t have anything to say for themselves, and then Paul Merton took over and it just turned into the Blue Peter Elephant again and again and again every single week… so in it goes!
Creamguide's Pick of the Day
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Electric Dreams – The Giorgio Moroder Story
Monday, 22.00, BBC Radio 2Second part of this, where our hero moves slightly more towards the mainstream and starts penning film soundtracks, including the likes of Flashdance and Top Gun, plus of course The Never Ending Story which means we get to enjoy Limahl nestling alongside the rest of the heavyweight contributors, plus another film where his soundtrack is probably about a hundred times more famous now than the actual film. It’s the title of this programme, for a start.
Points of View