The Couch Potato Column by shoutingatco.ws
This is a guest post from the Internet’s Adam Postans. Read his tellywords every week at couchpotatoadam.com, or argue with him on Twitter @couchpotatoadam over the merits of Adrian Chiles.
Jason Manford begins his search on Monday for a new comedy act, on ITV1’s Show Me The Funny.
Which, by coincidence, is almost exactly what he said to some girls on Twitter that got him into so much trouble with his wife.
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If you were unaware of Popstar To Operastar’s place in music past and present, Myleene Klass put ITV1’s audience in the picture during Sunday’s final: “Opera has a long history of epic showdowns and tonight we’re writing another chapter.”
Yes, a showdown of epic proportions between that woman from Bucks Fizz and the gay Geordie bloke who won X Factor, which began with Joe McElderry singing a duet with Rolando Villazón, like Kermit The Frog’s cousin Robin and Fozzie Bear on opening night at the Muppet Theater.
The only thing missing was two old-timers, in the royal box, heckling: “It was terrible,” “Awful,” “I hated it”, “Well, it wasn’t that bad,” “It was great,” “I loved it,” “More!” “More!”
In Statler and Waldorf’s place, however, was sour puss Vanessa Mae, a violinist offering tips on opera to the great Mexican tenor, like a Premier League footballer telling the England rugby coach to get his players to kick the funny-shaped ball between those two big stick things they have.
Cheryl Baker, meanwhile, has clearly embraced opera over the last six weeks, so much so that she bade farewell in the only fitting manner – by plugging her next Bucks Fizz gig.
Truth is, though, she was always playing second fiddle to McElderry, who said: “Winning the show could be an amazing full-stop to a fantastic experience.”
That experience being “fame”.
Still, he was a worthy winner, for what it’s worth, and had this message to all the doubters: “I think I cracked the passion. I unlocked it and I just let it out. I sang like I was never going to sing again.”
Promises, promises.
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In 2009, BBC1 launched two new shows within weeks of each other which it hoped would become Saturday night staples, blissfully unaware they were prize turkeys that could have earned a rosette, and a side helping of cranberry sauce, from Bernard Matthews.
One was Totally Saturday, with Graham Norton, which predictably fell by the wayside after just one series (it was a wonder it lasted that long).
The other equally appalling farmyard poultry of a series was Tonight’s The Night, in which the shy, retiring John Barrowman “makes people’s dreams come true”.
They lied, of course. Because three series in, my dream goes unanswered – for reasons beyond my comprehension, it still hasn’t been axed and Scotland’s all-American soggy bagel continues to run amok on our screens.
And so the latest run opened last Saturday with Barrowman, wearing a suit, sparkly blue lapels and an even more garish ego, belting out a chorus of: “I’ve got a feeling, that tonight’s going to be a good, good night.”
An oxymoron if ever I’ve heard one.
He’s a Captain Jack of all trades, master of none, who, once I’d removed my earplugs, declared: “Good evening! I’m back! You’re back!”
I am? I never knew I went away. But I was back, apparently, to witness another hour of Barrowman destroying the memory of some old songs and deliver outdated hidden-camera pranks.
First up to have her dream come true was 22-year-old Hayley who got to sing All Time Low (you’re telling me) with boyband The Wanted, who were obviously there only on the promise of performing their latest single at the end of the show, minus Hayley.
Barrowman yelled: “We’ve got a girl who makes everyone feel wanted and five guys who are The Wanted. Let’s get them together and watch the fireworks,” which was too much to hope was meant literally and involve an enormous powder keg, a launch pad and some strong binding.
Next up, 65-year-old Herefordshire vicar Susan who was fooled (or rather, let herself be fooled) by Barrowman, in a prosthetic disguise, acting like a boorish American. He clearly had to get deep into character to pull that off.
Then he had a “very, very special surprise” for a woman in the audience, Jackie, whose wedding day had been ruined when she fell down the stairs the night before.
Husband James said: “I want John to sing to her because the wedding day is not something she looks back on with a lot of fond memories.”
The poor woman clearly wanted to re-enact the day, then.
Out came her wedding guests to sing Sleep by Texas (the couple’s first dance) with the host, like some nightmarish vision by Tim Burton or Terry Gilliam.
Before we were through, Annie, from Stirling, was sent to Nashville to get singing tips from Dolly Parton, who’s had so much plastic surgery she can no longer go within 100 metres of a naked flame and talks like a ventriloquist’s dummy, so could only offer the advice: “Gottle of gear.”
Finally, Richard, a charity fundraiser from Yorkshire, sang like Elvis Presley (more like Elton Welsby, if I’m honest) with the cast of West End show Million Dollar Quartet, which made everyone proud – his wife Jane, John Barrowman, Countryfile’s Matt Baker (it doesn’t matter why).
And all that was left was for Barrowman to shock the nation by singing us out with a song (didn’t see that coming) and declare: “Amazing! What a show!”
But you would do, wouldn’t you? You know, if you were hosting a show made by own TV production company.
Tonight’s had its day.
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You can’t get too much of John Barrowman on BBC1 in a week, apparently.
So there he was again on Torchwood’s series opener which, I notice, has gone down the big-explosions-and-pointless-helicopter-chases-along-beaches-on-the-Gower approach.
But he didn’t sing. All is forgiven.
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The Apprentice final five, tasked with creating a fast-food outlet, received this warning from Lord Sugar: “I’m going to bring in some industry experts who are going to advise me which restaurant has legs.”
Presumably the one that sells chicken. Yet neither team went down the southern-fried route, with Jim’s trio serving Mexican cuisine, unfortunately slower than a Mexican stand-off.
Susan told him: “The big problem was that the nachos and fajitas were cold.”
Jim: “Give me solutions.”
Susan: “They need to be in the oven.”
Hire that woman now, Lord Sugar.
And what could be more Mexican than naming the place Caraca’s, the capital of Venezuela?
A crrrackers idea, you may think. That is until you consider the other team, Helen and Tom, named their pies named after Britain’s famous explorers, Francis Drake and Christopher Columbus, who as every schoolboy knows was from Genoa, near, erm, Bromsgrove.
Just a pity, then, that they didn’t choose a more obvious influential British figure, and call them Sugar Pies.
A missed opportunity. Still, sticking to the strictly British theme, Tom envisaged how their shop would look: “I see Big Ben over there, a bus over there, and this here is a big blue wall.”
That most British of institutions, the big blue wall.
This was a man in creative overdrive/lunacy, looking at a baby’s hat in a boutique and “seeing a flying pie”, and speaking in tongues to himself as he tried to come up with their restaurant’s name: “Qype. Kwai Pie. Kwai Pee. Kwai Pie. Kwai P Y. Kwai Pie Kwai…” Delilah?
It was Susan, however, who showed the best prospects for a future career: “Mexican jumps out at me as really fun. I’m imagining cactuses and people wearing sombreros. I’m thinking of a happy Mexican-looking man with a big moustache.”
I’m thinking we’ve found the next presenter of Top Gear.
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At 7.30pm on Wednesday, ITV2 Tour de France commentator Paul Sherwen was describing stormy conditions that would greet the cyclists in the town of Lavaur: “There’s a quick glimpse of the final kilometre and you can see the wind really is pelting down.”
I laughed and switched to BBC1 which, over the next hour, managed to be even more nonsensical about meteorology, live from a beach in St Ives, Cornwall, on The Great British Weather, which undoubtedly came about a bit like this in a brainstorming session:
“It’s summer and we need a series to get us through to August. What does everyone love talking about? The weather. Yeah, let’s make a series about the weather.”
“But who can we get to host it?”
“Well, BBC weather forecaster Carol Kirkwood would be a good start.”
“OK. Who else?”
“Erm, how about that bloke who won Strictly and does the sport stuff on BBC Breakfast? Or that one from Armstrong and Miller, not Miller, the other one?”
“Great! Let’s get both!”
So it came to pass that Kirkwood, Chris Hollins and Alexander Armstrong were floundering around while EastEnders was having a night off.
We discovered that a man in sitting in a bath of warm water inside a freezer van doesn’t get as cold as man not sitting in a bath of warm water inside a freezer van.
Hollins discovered that a schoolgirl spent the day at school, what with it being a school day.
And Armstrong discovered he doesn’t have a talent for improvised comedy: “John Cameron has sent this picture of a rare noctilucent cloud. Look at that. He says it’s noctilucent. Not too cloudy, noctilucent. AHEM.”
The main gimmick was a big map of Britain which the presenters were “on a mission” to cover with viewers’ emailed photos of the sky, or, as Kirkwood said: “So we can get an oversight of what the weather is like.”
It’s one massive oversight, alright. The map refused to let the pictures stick to it and was left largely unfilled.
But the wheels fell off during a section with Tomasz Schafernaker and the family from Lambing Live (no mention of the fact, strangely) about the validity of the saying: “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight,” which concluded there might be something in it. They weren’t sure.
And Hollins teased us with this: “Next week, Tomasz will be investigating the classic ‘When cows are lying down, does it mean it’s going to rain?’”
No, Chris. It means the BBC’s primetime barrel has been scraped.
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Another new low for television, otherwise known as just another regular week on ITV2, came in the form of Peter Andre: Here 2 Help, which elicited my immediate response – Adam Postans: Going 2 Bed.
But that would have meant missing this stinker of a new series, which no amount of sponsorship, by The Perfume Shop, could mask.
So I sighed and sat through what amounts to Supernanny meets Ground Force, with “Pete and Team Andre” playing the combined role of Jo Frost and Alan Titchmarsh, traipsing the country solving people’s problems, beginning with single mum and teacher Corinne Grant and her unruly two-year-old son Josh.
Pete persuaded Corinne’s headteacher to give her the afternoon off with this trade-off: “Maybe I could take over her class. I do speak Greek. They’re learning Spanish.”
An offer the head could hardly refuse.
The rules (for there are rules) state that Pete cannot use money but must barter by offering his services in return for goods.
Hence the Greco-Spanish lesson, 15 minutes working at the till in Spar for ingredients for a meal, shelf-stacking in Toys R Us, and bar work in a hotel, where Pete’s responsibility was sorting the bills and serving drinks and resulted in this assessment from a barman: “There are issues with the bills and the drink-serving.”
Apart from that, he did a great job.
He did an hour’s shift at a garden centre to get Corinne’s backyard looking “fantablamooso”, which is even less of a proper word than “Insania”, and while there received a phone call from This Morning chef Gino D’Acampo, who just happened to be in Birmingham and just happened to have time to drive to Corinne’s house and give her some pots and pans.
Gino: “Where are you?”
Pete: “I’m at, erm, one minute, where are we?”
Garden centre supervisor Louise: “Coles Hill.”
Pete to Gino: “Yeah, some place.”
His final task, shovelling elephant poo (a metaphor) at the zoo, was to give the teacher a day out with two other mums.
A clearly besotted Corinne told them: “He’s earthy, very earthy, like earthy soil. Not the dark stuff, just the nice soft soil.”
No, that’s Peat.
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