Possibly because I made a habit of never reading him, the departure of one of the most turbulent sons of TV criticism completely passed me by. Yes, Gary Bushell penned his final Bushell on the Box column for the Sunday People this weekend just gone.
Although I never read the column with any regularity and find a lot of Bushell’s views thoroughly hateful, there is a tiny part of me that’s sad about this. Bushell might have been a boorish voice at a certain level, but he was never an apologist for his views, however bizarre and obviously wrong they could be (my middle name is Devil’sadvocate) I personally feel that his attacks on Queer on Folk at the time of its transmission to be a depressing low point in TV criticism, but still, I’m sure he stands by what he said. Channel 4 is certainly wowing them in the cheap seats now, isn’t it?
So, join me in marking the passing of a controversial giant of a TV critic. I might not have been a fan, but you always stuck to your guns, and I guess that has to be respected. And if you read the column and Bushell’s reasons for walking, there is a genuine sense of sadness at what British television has become, some of it I find it difficult to argue with. Some. Not all.
Now I’ll be content to spend my Sundays waiting for those glorious words to come round:
AA Gill is away
Bushell was an old cry from the past but a good cry and from a good past. As television moved on from the golden days of 'The Generation Game' and 'Noel's House Party' Bushell was a throw back to the days when the whole family would spend saturday night in front of the TV watching the line up on BBC1. Sadly it is no longer 1977 or 1987 it's 2007 and TV is now nothing more than a slave to the cheap format of reality shows. Here in America there are over 950 TV channels which are nothing more than reality channels with commercials every five minutes. Bushell might be old hat now (and probably always was) but at least he has a hook to hang his hat on in the TV Hall of Fame.
You've misspelled Garry's first name, and you also lifted your final joke from Maureen Lipman, who made the same joke in a G2 column sometime last year.