Musings on the byways of popular culture
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This took quite a while, certainly not as easy to make as records or films ones. Television seemed more ephemeral, watched one you’d never see it again. Now of course it’s ready available to rewatch even some of those programmes you’d missed years ago and thought you’d never see.
Honourable mention to Hiram Holliday the first programme I recall seeing, Hiram fighting a suit of armour with an umbrella.
Have I stirred any recollections?
Hope the good people of the Afterword can help with this.
On the 28th November I am having a full knee replacement operation. I’m so pleased as it’s been getting steadily worse over the last few years, plus the resulting couple of months or so off work will be more than welcome. What I’d like to know is a couple of things:
1, Has anyone here had this done, and if so how was it for you?
2, In between physio there is likely to be a fair bit of sitting around. so any recommendations of any long multi series TV, or music docs on Netflix or Prime etc? Not so keen on sci-fi or fantasy type stuff.
Thanks all!
Starting this Wednesday 24th on Sky Comedy or NOW TV is The Rehearsal, a genuine one-off which is pretty much the best and most original thing I’ve seen on TV for years – my wife and I haven’t talked about a programme this much since Twin Peaks: The Return (not that they’re similar, except in a “holy cow, what on Earth did I just watch?” kind of way…) and I can’t recommend it enough.
I hadn’t heard of Nathan Fielder before this, but he’s a dead-dead-deadpan Canadian comedian whose previous claim to fame was Comedy Central’s “Nathan For You”, a reality show where he’d advise small businesses on how to be more successful, occasionally with surprisingly successful results… in The Rehearsal, he offers to help people rehearse (in quite ludicrous detail on HBO’s dime) crucial moments in their lives, with the intention of getting the best possible result, but after that I struggle to describe how things proceed…
Episode 1 is quite self-contained, but episode 2 starts a longer arc, and isn’t quite as immediate, but it perfectly sets up 4 amazing episodes of ever-escalating rollercoaster TV which turns itself inside-out and back-to-front, defying its classification as “cringe comedy” at » Continue Reading.
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So Maureen Lipman has joined those complaining that comedy is under threat from ‘cancel culture’. Is this a real threat, or something that’s being exaggerated by conservative types who like complaining that the world is unjustly turning against them?
I have the perspective that there are some liberal types who are too sensitive and ready to complain that comedians they don’t like are unacceptable. But I also think this is used by some old comics who have lost the knack of making a big audience laugh, and some people who don’t like having their perspectives challenges.
I’m aware of two clear examples of cancellation: Roy Chubby Brown being bumped from Sheffield City Hall, and a whole stream of Andrew Lawrence gigs being cancelled. In both cases it seems this was down to decisions by the individual theatres rather than part of a widespread campaign. I haven’t seen any of Brown’s material for a long time so wouldn’t comment on whether he has crossed any lines; but Lawrence’s tweets were clearly racist and I can understand why many theatres didn’t want to let him on their stages. (Would also say he’s the one I’ve seen in the past, about ten years » Continue Reading.
Just a quick recommendation to the Massive for the TV series Ramy, starting on Friday night at 11.05 PM on Channel 4 (though they also seem to be previewing multiple episodes at 1.45 AM Friday morning if you want to set your recorders.)
This trailer gives you a good flavour of what it’s like, but in short, it’s a comedy-drama about a young Muslim American in New Jersey starring and (mostly) written by Ramy Youssef, but the supporting cast are fantastic too, and all get chances to shine (some even get whole episodes to themselves) as the series progresses. It’s funny and poignant, all that good stuff, and even the soundtrack is great (including some excellent 70s & 80s Arabian needle drops.) It’s probably my favourite new series of the past few years, and I haven’t seen any promotion for it, so I thought I’d highlight it to you good folks here…
(PS Season 2, with added double-Oscar winner Mahershala Ali, is even better, though I don’t know if/when Channel 4 will be showing it, and season 3 is on the way, too…)
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Whilst washing up the dishes this morning I came up with an idea for a TV pitch- Alan Moore’s Love Island. The premise is fairly similar to the usual Love Island, just with the V for Vendetta hit maker presiding over the usual sort of fun and jollity you’d expect with prime time viewing. The contestants would probably be mutants, superheros or mutant superheros and the island itself would not be on a tropical island, but rather a traffic roundabout just outside of Northampton town centre. Whenever the result of the public poll are announced they will be preceded by the refrain from Pop Will Eat Itself’s ‘Can U dig it?’ “Alan Moore knows the score!”
I reckon that this could be a go-er. Anyone else got any ideas to improve this ‘golden age of television?’
I as good as never do. Streaming, Tivo boxes etc. mean I never watch live broadcasts so there’s never any reason to flick around channels looking for something to watch.
Prompted by watching a movie that was a series of sketches designed to simulate someone channel surfing on late night American TV.
Amazon Women on the Moon (1987)
Comedy sketch film by two writers and various directors (most notably John Landis and Joe Dante).
Sadly it suffers from being made from weak material. You could see the concept for the joke but it was rarely fleshed out into an actual solid joke, or augmented with additional jokes. The invisible man sketch for example does nothing more than show a deluded naked guy think he’s invisible when he’s not. No additional jokes are added to it to flesh it out. It’s very disappointing. Some of the sketches didn’t even have a strong conceptual idea (Jack the Ripper was really the Loch Ness Monster is not only a weak idea, it’s the complete content of the whole sketch). Some sketches seemed almost without jokes (the spoof sci-fi 50s movie that is returned to multiple times could barely rub two jokes » Continue Reading.
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Two that jump out for me are ‘Alan Partridge: Why, When, Where, How And Whom’ [9pm Wednesday 27th, BBC2] ahead of a new series on the Beeb in 2018, a one hour special looking back on the phenomenon that is Partridge. And ‘Vic & Bob’s Big Night Out’ [9pm, Friday 29th, BBC2] a half hour, one off special which promises sketches shot on location, songs, skits and stunts. I can’t wait.
Have you spotted anything worthy of programming into the PVR? And what’s the worst thing you can imagine having to sit through?
Share your finds here, so that we may all wallow in some decent TV and deliver us from FOMO
I’ve been dipping into the TV Cream website for many years now – they style themselves as a 70s & 80s pop culture repository and though they can veer into the “Spangles & Chopper bikes” nostalgia zone, I mostly find them pleasingly irreverent…
Years ago they published a top 100 singles list, and have recently updated it… they’re not clear on how it was arrived at, though the comments clearly indicate some kind of voting system, but it’s a pleasingly bonkers celebration of 70s/80s pop & rock, and probably more diverse than many “cooler” charts out there… I’d also wager there’ll be a few “blimey, I’d forgotten about that” moments to be had too, especially in the YT clips they provide…
It might just be a bit too-uncool-for-school for us Afterworders, but I’d like to think it might also be a bit of an antidote to the angst-y handwringing we can sometimes be guilty of in analysing our listening likes & dislikes…
Top 10 in the comments (the number 1 might raise a few eyebrows), and the whole list is at the link, enjoy and have at it (and remember, don’t have nightmares…)
http://www.tvcream.co.uk/category/pop/100-greatest-singles-ever/
Sorry if we’ve done this before, but how about collecting our favourite tracks by fictional (non-existant) artists? I’d imagine the richest seam will be songs from movies & TV series, but I think we can stretch things to include artists actively performing under assumed identities (e.g. Dukes Of Stratosphere, even Chris Gaines or Silicon Teens), though if there’s a “rule”, it would be that this doesn’t apply to simple pseudonyms (so no “Layla”).
I’ll kick things off with the track that put the idea in my head – “All Over The World” by Strange Fruit, from the movie Still Crazy, and featuring the collective songwriting talent of Mick Jones and Chris Difford (with Marti Fredriksen) – surely this would have been a hit in “real life”…?
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Now it’s just the sort of television that makes the Tory party think the BBC is full of lefties determined to bring down the government but my god, the current BBC documentary series following the London Ambulance Service – ‘Ambulance’- made for powerful and uncomfortable viewing last night
We know that the NHS is under threat but you realise that cuts to all sections of public sector have only made their job harder. Those with drink, drug and mental problems, the old, infirm and demented as well as timewasters and attention seekers are all in a night and days work.
A man who overdoses on heroin is bought back to life only to throw abuse at the paramedics and leave as soon as he is able to stagger, a woman fakes serious medical conditions, ending up in hospital four times in one day and an old lady with dementia constantly phones 999 for an ambulance despite having been visited by two crew, a district nurse and her daughter already that night. The phone centre operators have the patience of several saints as they try to reassure her only for her to phone again as soon as she thinks » Continue Reading.
Keith Richards was on the BBC every night last weekend choosing programmes and chatting, yet there has been no comment on the Afterword about this. I’m amazed. Was l the only one watching? I very much doubt it, so views please.
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I don’t know about you but much as I love the Starman TOTP clip I’ve probably seen it enough. The Beeb have run some many ‘Death metal at the BBC’ type shows that there are very few stones left un-turned. ITV? Now that’s another story. Pop Gold is a bog standard clips and captions show, but as it’s on ITV we’re enjoying a whole other nostalgia ride exploring seventies music TV. This week’s has had The 3 Degrees on the Wheeltappers and Shunters, Alex Harvey, the Russell Harty show, the Frost Report, Supersonic, Alright Now (with a cracking live Sultans of Swing) – and the jewel in the crown the Bowie Heroes performance from the Marc Bolan Show.. The whole backing track has been rerecorded to feature Marc on guitar inter alia. I’ve posted that here, but I can recommend it as much for the shows as the music – the Three Degrees play to a thoroughly bemused audience of flat caps and beehives.
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I see from the news and from social media that Channel 4 have not commissioned a third series of middle-ranking (1.2 million viewers) Raised by Wolves. The writer and creator has decried the decision, describing RBW as the “only TV in Britain by and about working class women” – (Empire Online) and has set up a Facebook campaign to have the show made by other means. The last media news I heard about RBW was that it was being developed for American TV by the writer of Juno, so it *does* seem a bit soon for the show’s star to wane. I wonder if The Massive has any thoughts on number of issues raised (hah!) by this series of events. I see that one correspondent recently mentioned that he didn’t find Ab Fab remotely amusing because he didn’t identify with the characters (I’m paraphrasing). Is that the thinking behind the cancellation? Are TV commissioners really the hopeless dolts that The Talent often portray them to be – at least when shows are being dumped, not commissioned – based on what they put on our screens? Are there really no shows for and about working class folk (Channel 5’s output with » Continue Reading.
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Just been rewatching Mad Men – and what a fantastic ending- better even than Sopranos? Any thoughts/contenders?
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BBC4 10:30
although Colin H may wish to ignore this plug….
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b068fvks
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Yer twats
As mentioned in the ‘Lovely’ thread I adore that Bob Mortimer fellas humour so grandly pissed off that the odd and hilarious ‘House Of Fools’ has been axed by the Beeb. OK maybe it did get rubbish viewing figures and was wilfully odd but I liked it. No more Beef. Bastards
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtAvh6nTPQg
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Is anyone else watching Nashville? The country music industry provides a great frame for what is basically a high quality soap. Established stars coping in the new industry, young stars coping with fame, talent looking for a break and, the heart and soul of the series, an alcoholic singer songwriter who struggles with his place in the business whilst loving the music perhaps more than anyone else in the show.
So far, so formula. But the thing that makes Nashville rise above the normal TV drama is that the music is done so well. T Bone Burnett is the musical director and it shows with the songs being a key part of the show.
And it really makes you want to go to Nashville and visit the Bluebird Cafe and take in show.
Anyone else watching it?
I have asked this before (probably 2 sites ago), but me being me, I cant remember anything, so I am looking to pick your brains.
I am trying to obtain recordings of unreleased/ never released British TV programmes from the 70/80s. Due to them never having been previously released, I suppose what I am asking is if anyone can point me towards a site/ sites that deal in this sort of thing. Realistically a file sharing site or a collector/completist site/ sites.
For information/clarity, the programmes/ series I am looking for are old programmes I remember from back in the day that TTBOMK have never been released, nothing sinister.
Any/all help/advice welcome.
Many thanks in advance.
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Those daring young men at the BBC are planning some lovely Poverty Porn for us.
They will find “Britain’s Hardest Grafter” in a Hunger Games style show that pits low paid workers against each other, specifically targeting young graduates who haven’t found a job yet.
On BBC2 no less.
I want my licence fee back. This is not how things should be.
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Can anyone tell if it is possible to improve my TV sound by connecting the set to my CD player and playing through my speakers? The CD player is a cheap Sony mini system, no separate amp, with an audio in port on the front; the television is a fairly new LG with various ports on the rear.
I’m a bit of a dunce about electronics and any advice would be welcome.
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The time may be nigh to replace my old hifi. It’s a great Pioneer system, but its now over 25 years old. The CD players no longer work, and it’s now mainly used to play the TV through, either films/TV or music via an Apple TV box. It gives great sound – Im not sure what the output is but I can never put it up to full volume. Now, how would your modern mini hifi speakers compare – most seem to be about 30w output (?) – have they moved on a lot in 25 years? Could I just connect my old speakers up to the TV or does it have to run through an amp? I very rarely actually put on a CD these days – listening via iTunes library instead – but I’d like to still have the option. So does anyone have a favourite mini hifi they’d recommend? And what’s the diff between mini and micro hifi?
