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South Bank Show goes south

Melvyn’s plaything has been axed.

"I wonder, ah, erm, ah, maybe, ah, erm, what?"

Surely nobody will mourn its demise. It’s been a joke for years, shoved out at the arse end of Sunday nights, shorn of all dignity and respect, spending two thirds of each series profiling whichever D-lister was propping up ITV’s schedules that week.

Besides, it stopped taking itself seriously when it binned off the full, glorious version of the theme tune and started using that weird, abbrieviated one with no title sequence and just one boring graphic.

The last good one was the edition  in 1992 about how Sgt Pepper was made, with George Martin pissing around with a giant recording console at Abbey Road.

Here’s Melvyn and friend toasting his smugness, yesterday:

Melyvn gets back to his pretend roots

3 Comments

3 Comments

  1. Matthew Rudd

    May 6, 2009 at 11:22 am

    It gave Richard Digance his most famous (and repeated) gag, of course.

    I did enjoy Melvyn pretending to understand/appreciate/enjoy the work of rock musicians. He looked bored stiff as George Michael showed him how he arranged Waiting For That Day, and incredibly nonplussed as Michael Stipe discussed Gardening At Night.

  2. Lolsworth

    May 8, 2009 at 10:36 pm

    I mourn its demise only on general principles.

  3. johnny242

    May 11, 2009 at 12:57 am

    Surely the last good one was when it covered the work of the Pet Shop Boys. Unless that one came before the Sgt Pepper one, they were both broadcast in the same year.

    It was only when moving around my CD collection the other day that I thought about the bit where the South Bank Show camera zoomed out on the LP cover for ‘Please’ until the photo of Neil and Chris was near unrecognisable in the middle of the screen.

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