November 2008 Archives

Parents of the Band (Friday 8.30pm, BBC1)

Oh dear, this could get messy. This Jimmy Nail starring sitcom casts the Geordie crooner as one of a group of parents who want to muscle in on the band being formed by their teenage offspring. Okay, it doesn’t sound that bad, but it misfires from the start with a mercilessly low gag rate. Is it too late to bring back After You’ve Gone?

The IT Crowd (Friday 10pm, C4)

Ah, this is more like it. It takes a misguided attempt at sitcom like Parents of the Band that really makes you appreciate the quality of The IT Crowd. A trio of central characters that work well together, some nicely executed performances, comedy that ranges from observational to absurdity, and, most important of all, some gags that make people laugh. It’s not a classic, but at least it is funny.

Merlin (Saturday 7.35pm, BBC1)

This week’s tale of everyday magic folk is called The Labyrinth of Gedref, which has a delicious, Tolkein air about it. Silly Arthur, he’s gone and killed a unicorn, which is a Very Billy Thing To Do as it brings a curse down on Camelot. Ooops! Guess who’s going to save the day…

Outnumbered (Saturday 9pm, BBC1)

Perhaps the best show on the box at the moment, and if you’re not watching, then shame on you! Outnumbered is sublime and familiar and laugh out loud funny as Claire Skinner and Hugh Dennis attempt to keep their boisterous brood under control. Hugh Dennis is just brilliant, which is a surprise as he’s probably best known to a wider audience (outside Radio 4) as a low rent secondary character in My Hero (shudder). In tonight’s episode, granddad moves in and TV is banned for the day. Are they mad?!

Rebus (Saturday 9pm, Alibi)

John Hannah is a better Rebus than Ken Stott. Discuss.

Wallander (Sunday 9pm, BBC1)

A lavish new detective drama for BBC1 that brings Kenneth Branagh back to television for a very welcome turn as Inspector Kurt Wallander, based on the books by Henning Mankell. Swedish detective Wallander investigates the links between a girl’s suicide and the brutal slaying of a government minister. Branagh is good casting for Wallander, and if these adaptations are well done, they should fly. Van der Valk for the Noughties?

Louis Theroux: Law and Disorder in Philadelphia (Sunday 9pm, BBC2)

Louis Theroux’s quiet yet subversive charm is always fascinating to watch as he uses his seemingly harmless air of bemusement to get under the skin of people in a variety of extreme environments. In this revealing piece that sees Theroux play ride-along with the Philadelphia police force’s rapid response unit. Even the unflappable Louis for once looks a little rattled by some of the quite shocking scenes encountered on the streets of the city. Good stuff.

So Jana Bennett, director of BBC Vision, has called for swearing aired on the network to be more tightly restricted and monitored in the future. Speaking at the Media Festival in Manchester, she said that:

We have actually been pushing back a bit on language. It is possible that some language alienates some audiences unnecessarily… I’m not sure that [the use of strong] language by itself is some sort of proof that it’s really good, or makes you trendy or down with the kids.

Earlier in the month, ITV’s executive chairman Michael Grade also advocated a cutback in effing and blinding on the telly:

We’ve let it go a bit and need to show a bit more thoughtfulness about how we use these words… Clearly not enough consideration is given to a very large section of the audience who don’t want to hear such words.

Clearly, much of this anxiety about bad language has come about as a direct result of Sachsgate, but there’s a possibility that in focussing all of their efforts on four-letter words, TV execs might find that comedians find other ways to buck the system — and that the complaints keep on coming…

Radio 2 Live: Monkey - Journey to the West Radio 2, Saturday 7.00pm
Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett’s creative partnership continues with this specially arranged version of their Chinese opera. Based on the 16th century novel by Wu Cheng’en, the show is billed as a ‘circus-opera’, but Albarn, Hewlett and director Chen Shi-zheng clearly think that it can still be compelling without the acrobatic visuals. This hour-long adaptation was recorded at the BBC’s Radio Theatre just four days before broadcast.

Between The Ears: Crossing The Same River Twice Radio 3, Saturday 8.30am
Not to be confused with the jazz pianist of the same name, the theatre director Lou Stein here uses random sound recordings he has made throughout his life to create an autobiography perfectly suited for radio.

That’s No Job for an Asian! Radio 4, Saturday 10.30am
As reported in The Stage earlier this month, Sanjeev Bhaskar is one of the starry contributors to this half-hour documentary taking a look at the health of the British Asian comedy scene, and how stand-up fits into Asian traditions and expectations. Intellectual comedian Paul Sinha and Rohan Acharya, producer of ITV’s rather wonderful Comedy Cuts, also air their views.

The Saturday Play: Boscobel Radio 4, Saturday 2.30pm
Anyone acquiring a taste for the decadent Jacobean period thanks to Channel 4’s The Devil’s Whore can tune in for this dramatisation of Charles II’s 40-day self-exile. After the execution of Charles Snr, Charles understandably felt it was best to lie low for a while, and so this is the story of a king learning to live rough.

Elaine Paige on Sunday Radio 2, Sunday 1.00pm
EP is joined by another uber-diva, Bette Midler, for this week’s 90 minutes of film scores, tracks from musicals, and that distinctive laugh.

Classic Serial: The Hunchback of Notre Dame Radio 2, Sunday 3.00pm
This new collaboration between BBC Radio Drama and the disabled-led theatre company Graeae brings to life Victor Hugo’s classic novel set in the heart of 15th century Paris. Those used to the Disney version should be forewarned that there probably won’t be any singing gargoyles.

The Phantom of the Opera Radio 7, Sunday 6.30pm
This is a repeat, but a well-deserved one. This re-telling of Gaston Leroux’s novel, from indie producers Big Finish, stars James D’Arcy and Anna Massey, who was last seen stealing the show in the BBC’s adaptation of Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

There comes a point in every series of Strictly Come Dancing where you realise you’re about to enter the home straight, and that’s when the couples have to start dancing twice a week.

We’re at that point now, so more than ever it’s the couples who can cope best in both Ballroom and Latin disciplines who will fare best out of the judges’ marks. The couple with the biggest disparity of marks across disciplines is currently Lisa and Brendan. Christine and Matthew are more consistent, but their average scores are so much lower than the other four couples’ that their continued presence in the competition must be in peril.

After their perfect 40 last week, Rachel and Vincent leap to the top of the judges’ series scoreboard. Together with their consistent scoring in both Ballroom and Latin, they’re surely serious contenders now.

The layout’s changed slightly because of the change in number of dances, but the scoresheet is here:

Strictly Come Dancing 2008, week 11 scoresheet [PDF] (right-click and select ‘Save As…’ or similar to download to your computer)

As ever, come back during or after the show to discuss your opinions and share your scores; the TV Today review will be available on Monday.

Another day, another SF remake. Just days after Survivors started transmission, BBC Vision director Jana Bennett has confirmed that the Corporation will be making another version of John Wyndham’s Day of the Triffids.

How different from the situation forty-odd years ago. Recently released as part of the BBC Archive project’s documentation of the Genesis of Doctor Who, a 1962 report from the BBC Survey Group stated (my emphasis):

We are left with a small group of works, and writers, mainly novels written by British novelists. With the exception of Arthur [C.] Clarke and C.S. Lewis, they represent the Threat and Disaster school, which as we have said, is the genre of SF most acceptable to a broad audience. John Wyndham is the chief exponent. Wyndham’s books were studied in the Department on an earlier occasion, and we decided that with one exception they offered us nothing directly usable on TV. The exception was “The Midwich Cuckoos”, which of course was snapped up for a film. This is indeed the likely fate of any SF novel that could also serve us for TV.

Of course, since then Day of the Triffids has been adapted for television, most notably in the 1981 version starring John Duttine.

The new adaptation will be written by Patrick Harbinson, who has worked in America on ER and Law and Order as well as Brit military cop series Red Cap. Executive produced by BBC Wales’ Julie Gardner, the series will be produced by Justin Bodle at independent company Power.

It’s a left-field suggestion, I’ll admit, to put forward Richard Ayoade as the next leading man in Doctor Who, but there are actually more strings to Mr Ayoade’s bow than you might realise. Not that just playing the nation’s favourite computer nerd, Moss in The IT Crowd, isn’t enough for some people — in today’s Guardian, Julia Raeside waxed lyrical over Moss, and his real-life alter ego:

Despite first-rate comic support, it’s Ayoade’s peculiar magnetism that steals every episode. Moss is a socially inept nerd with a love of numbers and a side-parting to rival the Grand Canyon. Many have identified with his affectionate portrayal of a man forever lost in binary, hugely intelligent at work yet utterly stupid in a social interface scenario.

But the reason Ayoade is an actor capable of playing the Doctor (not that I’d take the premise of this particular blog post over seriously) is that in reality he’s incredibly cool.

If you read the press, the casting of the new Doctor Who seems to be all over bar the shouting, with Survivors actor Paterson Joseph (or Joseph Patterson, depending on which paper you read) still front-runner for the role. He seems such a dead cert, that the bookies have closed books on this particular flutter opportunity.

It still won’t be him, and today, as part of our occasional series, I humbly offer you Benedict Cumberbatch as a possible contender…

So there I was, reading Matt’s story about how the BBC4 drama The Curse of Steptoe has had complaints against its accuracy upheld. I was wondernig whether to blog about that, and went off to the BBC’s Editorial Complaints Unit report on the matter — but then my eye was caught by something else…

Two YouTube-related stories: first off, the web’s biggest video sharing website has had a little redesign, with wider pages now allowing for widescreen videos by default.

Unfortunately, for some reason the official YouTube blog post heralding this change no longer appears to be working. The version I received in my RSS reader this morning, though, said:

We’re expanding the width of the page to 960 pixels to better reflect the quality of the videos you create and the screens that you use to watch them. This new, wider player is in a widescreen aspect ratio which we hope will provide you with a cleaner, more powerful viewing experience. And don’t worry, your 4:3 aspect ratio videos will play just fine in this new player.

And so, if you happen to want to see the pre-credits sequence from the Doctor Who Christmas special (as seen on Children in Need night), you now get a better proportioned view without the ‘letter boxing’ addition of black bars above and below the video image. Unfortunately, by default you still get quite a low quality image, and this new larger size makes the compression all the more visible. The high quality version is better, but again this new larger size stretches the video quality a little too much for my liking. Then again, when I’m sitting at the laptop it looks odd: from a little further away on a proper screen, the side-effects of compressing the video output are less noticeable.

If you use the embedding code provided by YouTube, the proportions remain (for now, at least) the traditional 4:3 size. Fear not, though, there’s nothing to prevent you from altering the HTML code yourself so that your player has no extra black spaces around the video playback area (as I do each week with our Strictly Come Dancing reviews and the attached videos).

Also on the subject of YouTube, The Guardian’s Jemima Kiss reports that the Monty Python’s Flying Circus team have become the latest to take advantage of YouTube’s Video ID initiative.

It has become something of a truism that evil characters are a hoot to play - and, as a viewer, to respond to - while the goodies are rather more… uninspiring. With panto season just getting underway, I would put money on reading an interview in which a pretty young soap actress says how much fun it is scaring the little kids on the front row as the Wicked Queen.

Of course, most well-worn phrases have some basis in truth, and our TV reviewer Harry Venning certainly felt it applied to the current BBC adaptation of Little Dorrit:

There are very many good reasons to watch Little Dorrit, but two of the best of them are Alun Armstrong, who plays both of the loathsome Flintwich twins. The brothers are involved in some nefarious, if yet unspecified, scheming to do with the Marshalsea debtors prison.

But so is everyone else, it seems…

Matthew MacFayden and Claire Foy play the story’s morally upright hero and heroine, Arthur and Amy, but it doesn’t look half as much fun.

I don’t think anyone could argue that Alun Armstrong and Andy Serkis in particular had a wonderful time hamming up their parts, but Elise Favet, who wrote into The Stage this week, thinks that we celebrate our baddies far too much:

Yes, of course it’s fun to play villains and villainesses, but it’s just as enjoyable to play heroes and heroines. Good characters are just as strong (often stronger) than bad ones.

So, do the villains really provide the best characters, or is time we also appreciated the greatness of television heroes?

In my review of the first episode of this series, I expressed my sadness that its writer, Jonathan Harvey, had turned in such a disappointing script, especially when his BBC2 sitcom Beautiful People had been such a joy to watch.

I was worried, then, when his name came up in the writing credits for this, the fifth episode in the series. Which Jonathan Harvey had been handed the pen this time — the one that wrote the first episode, or the one who is capable of creating some really beautiful television?

If anything, Go Your Own Way proved that these two Jonathan Harveys are one and the same. For while there were occasional ludicrous moments that echo the worst of Britannia High, there were also signs that this is a series that is determined to be better than it’s given credit for. And that’s a task made all the easier by Harvey writing a script that’s a better indication of his talent, and a young cast that do it justice.

The Sarah Jane Adventures BBC1, Monday 4.35pm
If your parents had died when you were a baby and you were given the chance to go back in time to meet them, would you do it? That’s a temptation Sarah Jane can’t resist — which is what the devious Trickster is counting on… Gareth Roberts’ sequel to last year’s superb Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? can’t quite live up to the formidable standards set by its predecessor. There are plenty of nice moments, though, including an affectionate dig at the bizarre fashion sense Sarah Jane had during her time on 1970s Doctor Who…

Spooks BBC1, Monday 9pm
As Israeli and Palestinian delegations prepare for a crucial summit in London, Malcolm discovers a sixteen-year-old selling top secret military hardware on eBay. Can Lucas retrieve the hardware and protect the boy from the mysterious men in black who are after him? While the ongoing Russian links continue, and Harry gets further into examining the leak in Operation Sugar Horse, this feels like a standalone episode that recaptures some of the freshness of spirit of Spooks’ first series.

24: Redemption Sky One, Monday 10pm
A feature-length, self-contained special to bridge the gap between series. Does that mean that, given its two-hour running time, it should really be called 2? Anyway, Jack Bauer is lying low in Africa, helping his old soldier friend Carl (Robert Carlyle) is running an orphanage. Trouble follows Jack like a bad smell, though, and a coup is in the air… Meanwhile, back in the US there’s a presidential inauguration, which is bound to spell trouble…

Hollyoaks Later E4, Monday-Friday 10pm
What with Coronation Street reviving the straight-to-DVD spinoff and now the Chester soap doing another late-night strand, it feels like the soap opera cash cows are all being called into service again. Still, it must be cheaper than commissioning anything truly original. This week’s post-watershed editions of the teen soap see the return of Craig Dean (Guy Burnet) and the villainous Niall (Barry Sloane). The story will also feature Carley Stenson as Steph Dean, but will hopefully be salvaged from mediocrity by Ellis Hollins’ Tom Cunningham. He may be young, but he’s the best actor in Hollyoaks by a country mile.

Survivors BBC1, Tuesday 9pm
Adrian Hodges’ thriller continues. With the country’s infrastructure gone, the group has to scavenge for food at variou ssupermarket outlets — but others have got there first, and they have guns… Anthony Flanagan (Shameless, Cracker) guest stars. I was quietly impressed with Sunday’s feature-length opener, although personally I could have done without the coda featuring Nicholas Gleaves and Ronny Jhutti, which seems to imply a nefarious organisation may have been behind the initial outbreak. We’ll see how that side of the story develops…

High Society’s Favourite Gigolo Channel 4, Tuesday 9pm
Leslie Hutchinson, or “Hutch”, was one of Britain’s top cabaret stars of the 1920s and 1930s, and one of the most well-known black performers of the age. One of the earliest references in The Stage comes from November 1927, where it describes him as:

He is one of the best type of cabaret artists, and does exceedingly well with high-class songs old and new.

His subsequent affair with Edwina Mountbatten, wife of Lord Louis Mountbatten, scandalised high society. This documentary charts the rise and fall of a long-forgotten hero of light entertainment.

• Also continuing this week: Little Dorrit (BBC1, Wednesday and Thursday 8pm) and The Devil’s Whore (Channel 4, Wednesday 9pm).

Well, we may have been unexpectedly down to six couples rather than seven this week, but that didn’t mean the entertainment levels dropped at all. In fact, if anything, it showed that Strictly Come Dancing is more entertaining when you have a set of competitors who all have a chance, rather than some who can dance and some who are popular for being rubbish.

In the last week where all couples had one competitive dance, Lisa and Brendan kicked off with a lively Quickstep to Merry Clayton’s Yes. Smooth and lively throughout, nevertheless the choreography didn’t really thrill me at all. Even Brendan’s flamboyant leap which topped and tailed the dance added little to the overall thrill. Technically, though, it was good, although in common with nearly all the celebrities Lisa still has trouble with her gapping. I didn’t see her trip over Brendan’s foot as Craig claimed she did, but she knew what he was talking about and took his points on board.

The judges’ scores of 8 + 9 + 9 + 9 = 35 points were good, and appropriate to the standard Lisa has achieved. But would they be good enough?

Next up, Christine and Matthew danced a Cha-cha-cha to Pete Rodriguez’ I Like It Like That (instantly recognisable if, like me, your local cinema is an Odeon as they use it on a trailer before every film). Unfortunately, the song takes a while to warm up, and so did the dancers. Throughout it was a very stop-and-start dance, and while in places that was because the choreography was attempting to match the music, in others it felt more due to a hesitancy on Christine’s part. Her hips weren’t moving as well as they could — and as Arlene pointed out this time and has so often before, that’s often a result of not pushing through with the feet.

At this point, Len started berating Craig because he’d been a bit too critical. Normally I like Len, but in this case I thought Craig’s criticisms were perfectly appropriate. They weren’t presented nastily, and he did complement her finishes. Unfortunately, Len’s outburst made Craig seem the reasonable one on the panel. How often does that happen?

The judges’ scores of 6 + 6 + 8 + 7 = 27 were disappointing, but again appropriate for the quality of the dance. Christine does seem to be among the most variable of the competitors, and unlike some her consistency doesn’t seem to have any relation to the ballroom/Latin divide.

Talking of inconsistency, Jodie and Ian have struggled with most Latin dances, while coping well with the ballroom repertoire. Here, their Jive to Great Balls of Fire bucked the trend a little. It was certainly better than most of the couple’s Latin attempts to date, and all the more impressive given that Jodie was clearly suffering with illness. It did feel more like a week 4 or 5 dance rather than a week 10 one, though.

The judges’ scores of 7 + 7 + 8 + 8 = 30 were a little over-generous, I thought: personally I would have placed Christine just above Jodie.

So after two middling dances, it was time for the three main competitors to show their stuff. Of course, now that John and Kristina have bowed out, there will only be places for two couples in the final…

It’s all been kicking off this week, hasn’t it? Mark’s had a couple of posts already about the increasingly bizarre turns the competition has taken this week, so we won’t dwell on that.

What it does mean is that, rather unexpectedly, we’re down to six couples rather than seven.

On to the entertainment, though, and here is the Strictly Come Dancing scoresheet for week 10 [PDF].

As the competition starts to heat up, I’ve changed the table of all the couples’ results slightly to take note of how all the contestants compare with Ballroom and Latin disciplines. Perhaps unsurprisingly, every single couple who has danced both (which excludes our early exiting couples) has scored on average higher for Ballroom than for Latin. The most consistent across both disciplines, though, are Rachel and Vincent. Whether that will be enough to topple both Tom and Austin in this second half of the series, only time will tell.

Coronation Street (Friday 8.30pm, ITV1)

Dev buys the kebab shop, and Amber is furious. Um, do we sense that pre-Christmas lull running through the soaps at the moment?

Gavin and Stacey (Friday 9.30pm, BBC1)

Ahead of the much-anticipated Christmas special, the other big success story of BBC3’s comedy output is promoted to the heady heights of BBC1 for a welcome repeat of the just-as-good-as-the-first second series. The more people that see this show the better, as it’s absolutely stonking, with Ruth Jones and James Corden’s scripts hitting the right note between sweet and subversive. If there’s one criticism, Gavin and Stacey themselves take a back seat for much of the series, but blame the writers for creating such a lovable and well-drawn group of characters. Brilliant.

The IT Crowd (Friday 10pm, C4)

Graham Linehan’s always-enjoyable comedy returns for a third run, but as before, it still leaves me yearning for the vibrancy and wit of his Dylan Moran collaboration, Black Books. Still, I’ll take what I can get (and compared to Clone, The IT Crowd looks like vintage Galton and Simpson). Roy, Moss and Jen are still stuck in the basement, attending to the IT needs of Reynholm Industries, while Douglas (Matt Berry) does his level best to run his father’s company into the ground. This week, Moss gets some tuition in how to stand up to bullies.

Merlin (Saturday 7.25pm, BBC1)

This show has really hit its stride, with last week’s undead extravaganza being a real turning point. This week, Merlin’s home village is under attack from bandits, and the boy wizard, naturally, races home to help. But will Uther let Arthur ride into battle for his most loyal of servants? Probably not, but that’s what bad tempered fathers are for, isn’t it? Good, fun stuff that is finally discovering an edge.

Outnumbered (Saturday 9.10pm, BBC1)

Best. Comedy. On. TV. Watch it!!!!!

Einstein and Eddington (Saturday 9.10pm, BBC2)

Slightly odd scheduling - this HBO/BBC co production has a mid-week feel to it - but it’s a cracking piece of telly nevertheless. Andy Serkis and David Tennant (never heard of ‘em) star as scientists Albert Einstein and Arthur Eddington, the two men responsible for one of the greatest scientific breakthroughs of all time. Einstein, toiling over his work into the theory of relativity, strikes up a correspondence with Eddington, Director of the Cambridge Observatory. Together they seek to break down geographical boundaries in a difficult age, with Eddington sounding a lone voice in speaking up for the German physicist’s work. Beautifully acted by two of our finest performers, with a script by Peter Moffatt (Hawking), there is more than The X Factor worth staying in for this Saturday.

Rolf Harris Night (Sunday from 7pm, BBC4)

It’s an evening of programmes devoted to Rolf Harris - what more needs to be said? The evening culminates in a new Mark Lawson Talks To… interview with the beloved presenter and painter at 10pm.

Survivors (Sunday 9pm, BBC1)

Well, this is going to be interesting. This is not so much a remake of Terry Nation’s (no, he didn’t create Doctor Who, just the Daleks, okay?) 70s disaster series, but more a take on the novel the writer penned to go alongside it. I suspect something to do with rights issues there. Still, this modern Survivors has a lot going for it, with a cast that includes Julie Graham (washing Bonekickers right out of her hair), Freema Agyeman and Max Beesley. When a virus wipes out much of the world’s population, survivor Abby Grant (Graham) sets out to find her young son, encountering danger, friends and enemies along the way. Interesting stuff…

I tried with the third season of Heroes, I really did. I thought I’d start afresh, come at it new and give it another spin. But no, 20 minutes into the season opener and my brain was threatening to leak out of my ears in a flood of myriad characters that were soon joined by even more characters. They all flit through a conveyor belt of disparate storylines that have no focus and no coherence to make new viewers feel welcome to the party.

Shame. The first season started brilliantly. There was genuine mystery and excitement, well-drawn characters and a storyline that was going somewhere. And by and large, that kept up throughout. Sure, the end was an anti-climax, but these things generally are. It’s often the journey that’s the important bit.

Words fail me, really (which might be a blessed relief for some of you). Yes, John Sergeant steps down from Strictly Come Dancing, saying:

“The trouble is that there is now a real danger that I might win the competition. Even for me that would be a joke too far.”

Well God bless Mr Sergeant for falling on his sword for the sake of the show when really, he didn’t have to. He clearly thinks it’s for the best in the final few weeks of the ‘competition’, and I guess we have to respect that.

and Dance!

Oh good grief, it comes to something when the brouhaha over John Sergeant and Strictly Come Dancing is being discussed on the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2. What next, a Panorama expose into the scandal of Sargegate?

Poor old JS hasn’t done anything wrong apart from saying yes to appearing on what is a popular light entertainment show. And let’s just stress the words “light” and “entertainment” there, just for the record. I’m not watching BE THE BEST AT DANCING ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD EVER!!!!!, I’m watching Strictly Come Dancing and loving tuning in to see John Sergeant being entertaining (ooh, there’s that pesky E word again). I also love seeing the other dancers strutting their stuff, it’s what the show is all about.

I’m off for a few days, to do some interviewing for a forthcoming seasonal podcast for The Stage. Rest assured that the weekend’s Strictly Come Dancing scoresheets will be available form Friday as usual, and I’ll be back for the usual video review on Monday.

In the meantime, the comment space on this post is handed over to the Loppies, as their previous post has been getting unwieldy.

Let’s stop talking about Russel Brand and Jonathan Ross and go and do something less boring instead…

…like discussing John Sergeant and his performance on Strictly Come Dancing…

The world truly is a crazy place.

It seems that Phoo Action, the comedy drama based around Jamie Hewlett comic strip Meet the Freebies, has been dropped by BBC3 just prior to filming was due to start.

A report on MediaGuardian, itself following up on a report in the Glasgow-based Herald, says that a concern that it was not creatively good enough is the reason for the cancellation.

To which, I suspect a number of people who saw it (including Mark and myself) must be fighting the urge to reply, “We told you so”.

Despite the Phoo Action pilot winning a Scottish Bafta last week [for best drama - Ed.], one crew member told The Herald newspaper in Scotland that the series had been dogged by script problems, with the actors frequently seeming embarrassed by lines they were asked to read.

As I said at the time, Phoo Action seemed to be crying out for a format other than the traditional hour long slot. If it gets to the stage where the actors are not committed to the project, though, then there’s clearly more wrong than just the length of each episode.

At least we will still have a series of Being Human…

…well, any website really. But that wouldn’t make for such an arresting headline.

For the last few months, Bryony Matthewman (no relation that I know of) has been utilising the huge fanbase of her Paperlilies channel on YouTube to construct a very different type of zombie movie. And all the while, the BBC3 website has been tracking her progress with a series of video diaries.

Last night, BBC3 aired the half-hour documentary, Bryony Makes a Zombie Movie. Which would normally mean that it was available online for another week via the iPlayer site. And it is. But uniquely, and probably because the collaborative nature of the project means that the lion’s share of the work came form the YouTube community themselves, the programme is now available on YouTube as well. And that doesn’t have the seven-day cutoff period imposed upon iPlayer availability.

In addition to all that, it’s available for any other website to embed. So, after the jump, watch a full half-hour of BBC documentary without ever leaving thestage.co.uk… (Note that it’s rated “G” for Guidance — as it contains strong language, zombies, blood and stuff…)

Coronation Street ITV1, Monday 7.30pm & 8.30pm
Hang out the bunting — Hayley Cropper is back! After a year helping underprivileged children in Africa, everyone’s favourite transsexual returns to the cobbles tonight. While Roy is understandably happy to have her back, Hayley is clearly upset about something. Was returning to Weatherfield the right thing for her to do? The Street has really missed Julie Hesmondhalgh, so hopefully Hayley will have a change of heart at some point… Note that there’s no visit to the Street on Wednesday, as there’s a football match on.

Clone BBC3, Monday 8.30pm
A new six-part sitcom starring Jonathan Pryce as Victor Blenkinsop, a research scientist involved in top-secret government experiments, under the watchful eye of the bonkers Colonel Black (Mark Gatiss). When his latest project, a cloned super-soldier, turns out to be no more intelligent than a new-born baby, Blenkinsop takes the clone and his feckless assistant on the run… Unfortunately, a couple of cute visual gags aside (the secret entrance activation, for example), the whole project is derailed by ridiculous slapstick, a weak script and an intrusive laughter track. At one point, Gatiss’ Colonel Black says, “You just don’t get it, do you? My career is on the line!” As Pryce’s answer of “What about my career?” is greeted by Black’s laughter, I felt the overwhelming urge to join in…

Summer Heights High BBC3, Monday 9.30pm
A welcome rerun of Chris Lilley’s mockumentary, in which he plays disruptive schoolchild Jonah, exchange student Ja’mie and the narcissistic, camp drama teacher Mr G. What a shame that BBC3’s commissioned sitcoms can’t be as good as this Australian acquisition.

Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe BBC4, Tuesday 10.30pm
It’s been far too long, but finally Brooker, the master of dissecting current trends in television, returns for a new series. Expect the Ross/Brand saga, the economic meltdown, and costume dramas to come under Brooker’s acerbic gaze.

Little Dorrit BBC1, Wednesday & Thursday, 8pm
After a slow and unassuming start, I’m really getting into Andrew Davies’ latest Dickens adaptation, thanks mainly to the charms of Matthew Macfadyen, whose portrayal of Arthur Clennam is beguiling. If you haven’t yet, then make sure you catch up with the iPlayer (which is ‘stacking’ all the previous episodes) before viewing this week’s instalments. Pancks (Eddie Marsan) reveals the results of his investigation, and sends events off in a completely new direction.

The Devil’s Whore Channel 4, Wednesday 9pm
More costume drama, but this time exploring the relatively unexplored era of the English Civil War. Andrea Riseborough stars in Peter Flannery’s tale of a woman haunted by apparitions of the devil, who marries into the aristocracy. With John Simm as an enigmatic mercenary, Dominic West as Oliver Cromwell and Peter Capaldi as Charles I, this has all the hallmarks of one of the TV dramas of the year.

I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! ITV1, all the effin’ time
Wake me up when it’s over, won’t you?

Before we get down to business for this week’s Strictly Come Dancing review, can I just say something? Somebody dancing well is more entertaining than somebody who can’t dance at all. All eight couples danced well tonight, with some making more mistakes or being more uncomfortable than others. I know who my pick of the seven couples to go through to next week would have been. Lovely as they are as people, John Sergeant and Kristina Rihanoff would not be among them.

Yes, Strictly is an entertainment show. But given the strong field shown this week, a programme without John could not in any way be less entertaining with his absence.

Ahem. With that out of the way, along with another apology to contributors to our You be the judge post who had their results show enjoyment spoilt by an inconsiderate person blabbing the result, let’s get on with the business at hand: reviewing one of the strongest Strictly competitions ever. John included.

While the pre-teen appeal of High School Musical may have been a contributing factor to the commission of Britannia High, conceptually the series shares so much genetic material with the Eighties TV series Fame that a paternity test probably wouldn’t be necessary. It’s a lineage that’s not gone unnoticed — so it takes some chutzpah to use the title of its well regarded predecssor to name Britannia High’s latest episode.

When it came to satirising the symbiotic relationship between tabloid papers and fame-seeking celebrity hopefuls, it could have been a lot sharper. But then, on the day when I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here! started its latest run for the broadcaster, maybe that would have been a step too far.

With the series format of concentrating on one lead character per story meaning that we focussed on a dancer this week, the vocal performances weren’t as strong as previous episodes. And that, ultimately, is the key to a good Britannia High episode — which is one of the reasons why this week’s instalment felt like a backwards step…

Children in Need (Friday, 7pm, BBC1)

Personally, I think Pudsey Bear has been pulling the wool over our eyes for decades now - pull up that bandage, and I bet the little yellow scamp has a healthy eye and he’s just scamming us for cash. Fair play though - millions will be raised this evening in the BBC’s annual telethon, and although I rarely sit through it these days, it’s all in a good cause. There’ll be fun along the way, banter with Terry, and for Doctor Who fans, a sneak peak at the first two minutes of this year’s Christmas special.

Taggart (Friday 9pm, ITV1)

If you’re not into the charidee-fest on BBC1, Taggart should provide a suitably grim alternative as Glasgow’s favourite detectives investigate a body found in a bath. Nice! It’s good to see Taggart still going strong, but isn’t it about time poor old Jackie Reid got a promotion? She’s been a DS for donkey’s years!

Merlin (Saturday 7.20pm, BBC1)

It’s very pleasing to see Merlin holding up in the ratings game, despite the schizophrenic scheduling, and the adventure series seems to be well into its stride now. A mysterious knight turns up in Camelot in this evening’s outing - is his mission fare or foul?

Outnumbered (Saturday 9pm, BBC1)

An odd piece of scheduling for a brilliant comedy. I hope this doesn’t turn into another Trevor’s World of Sport for co-writer writer Andy Hamilton, because the second series of this insidiously clever piece of work deserves an audience. Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner return as parents Pete and Sue, constantly trying (and generally failing) to corral their brood of three boisterous children. The beauty is in the fact the kids are rarely working from a script, with a lot of the comedy coming from just letting the child actors get on with it and see what happens. Cracking!

The Fallen (Saturday 9.05pm, BBC2)

Documentary maker Morgan Matthew’s film, setting out to remember those soldier’s who have fallen in Afghanistan and Iraq, is haunting, poignant, funny, heartbreaking and, ultimately, necessary. Through home movie footage and interviews with parents and siblings of those who have given their lives in service to their country, this is not an easy three hours to sit through. But such a powerful piece of TV deserves to be watched, even if only for a little time.

Top Gear (Sunday 8pm, BBC2)

Mark Wahlberg is the star in a reasonably priced car this week, publicising his not reasonably priced movie, Max Payne. That’s quite a big name guest and shows the reach that Top Gear has now - and let’s face it, we’re all tuning in to see what Jeremy says next, aren’t we?

I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! (Sunday 9pm, ITV1)

That’s it, prepare to lose your life to the most addictive and joyous of reality shows. I’m a Celebrity… has shown no sign of Big Brother-style waning, and there’s no reason to think that this new run will dent the ratings in any way. Ant and Dec are on hand, as always (watch those phone lines, boys), and jungle playmates this year include Dani Behr, Brian Paddick, George Takie (off of Star Trek) and, joyously, Robert Kilroy-Silk. Bring it on!

Well, John Sergeant’s still here. How did that happen? On the bright side there are seven other couples that are all trying hard, and hopefully this will be the week that the voting public appreciates that good dances are far more entertaining than rubbish ones.

My attempt last week to order the scoresheet in accordance with the BBC’s running order proved, er, a little ineffectual, so I’ve gone back to arranging the couples in alphabetical order to be on the safe side. However, just in case, here’s the ordering as suggested by the official website:

• John & Kristina — American Smooth
• Tom & Camilla — Salsa
• Christine & Matthew — Waltz
• Lisa & Brendan — Samba
• Austin & Erin — Tango
• Cherie & James — Cha-cha-cha
• Jodie & Ian — Quickstep
• Rachel & Vincent — Rumba

To get ready for tomorrow’s show, download this week’s score sheet. See you back here for your scores, and our review will be online on Monday as usual.

There was an episode of The West Wing during it’s classic run, entitled Let Bartlett be Bartlett, running along the theme that the White House team should let the President be who he is and do what he does best. It was a phrase brought to mind in the wake of the brouhaha over Jeremy Clarkson’s recent antics across a couple of episodes of Top Gear…

The chief offender that has got dander’s up (and my, haven’t our danders been up a lot recently?) was JC’s quip about lorry drivers and murdering prostitutes. A little tasteless, perhaps, and I’ll admit to a sharp intake of breathing when he said it. But that’s what Clarkson is about really - off the cuff banter in the course of the show and sometimes-dodgy quips that play to Top Gear’s rather sizable home crowd.

As you all know, David Tennant will be leaving Doctor Who, probably at Christmas 2009, relinquishing the best role on television to a new actor (or actress?) for the fifth series of the revamped TV classic in 2010. This series of Doctor Who will mark showrunner-elect Steven Moffat’s first run in the big chair on the series. And his first, most important task, will be to select the actor who will take Doctor Who on the next phase of this trip of a lifetime…

I’ve mused recently on some names that might fit the bill for the role, and the papers are coming up with new names seemingly every day (Tom Ellis? I mean, really…)

We probably have months ahead before Tennant’s successor is announced - and let’s not count David out yet, he’s got a stack of specials to film throughout next year. But here at TV Today towers we thought it might be fun to run the occasional piece on possible contenders who we think could be Who… You never know, we might get it right…

As you must surely know by now, the iTunes store doesn’t just sell music, but it has diversified into films and, more importantly for TV Today readers, television programmes. Unlike DVDs, it’s possible to buy individual episodes, but most people will, I suspect, want to buy whole series.

In general, iTunes is pretty expensive, though. While the quality of the download is impressive when viewed on an iPod, on a larger screen it often doesn’t match the picture quality of DVDs. Shiny metal discs have other advantages, such as additional extras (no commentary tracks or other extra features on iTunes) and the ability to lend them, or sell them on as second hand items. Because iTunes prefers a standard price per episode, long-running series tend to cost quite a lot more than the equivalent box set. The latter do tend to be cheaper as well, as competition between multiple vendors encourages prices to stay low, and iTunes has become somewhat of a monopoly.

Every so often, though, some bargains come along. I’m not entirely sure when they started doing it, but the iTunes Store now has a TV Series of the Week page, which has some bargains available.

Of course, because the series in promotions such as these typically aren’t particularly new, the equivalent DVDs may also be available for discounted prices. So, after the jump, we compare this week’s iTunes offer prices to the Amazon.co.uk equivalent…

There’s one element of the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing coverage which is a simple, but effective, innovation this year. I’m not talking about It Takes Two, the programme which provides many a tabloid hack with a one-stop shop for hastily constructed ‘stories’ about the Strictly competitors. While that’s fun to watch, it’s now in its fifth series and at times the struggle to provide something new shows a little too plainly.

No, the real innovation lies on the BBC’s Strictly website: it’s the fixed camera view.

The Sarah Jane Adventures, BBC1, Monday 4.35pm (followed by CBBC Channel, 5.15pm)
As Sarah Jane herself rushes off on important journalistic business, the Joseph Lidster-scripted Mark of the Beserker concentrates on the junior cast, in particular Daniel Anthony’s Clyde Langer. Now happily adapted to life with his single mum (Jocelyn Jee Esien), Clyde’s life is turned upside-down by the sudden reapparance of his father (Gary Beadle). Meanwhile, Rani discovers a pendant which enables the wearer to force others to do their will — and you just know it’s going to fall into the wrong hands… The second half of the story airs on the CBBC Channel immediately afterwards.

Spooks BBC1, Monday 9pm
In an effort to stop al-Qaeda bombing London, MI5 opens up covert talks. As the terrorist representatives are otherwise respectable businessmen in suits, though, the actual organisation Harry ends up talking to could be any generic shadowy organisation from the last forty years of spy dramas. Potentially more interesting is the simmering plot with Jo’s (Miranda Raison) fragile state of mind, after her incarceration at the end of last season and being caught in the blast of last week’s bomb — plus, does Harry really have a traitor on the Grid, and could it possibly be Connie, his most trusted confidante?

The Commander ITV1, Monday 9pm
Oh dear. I’d really begun to believe that ITV had managed to get their Monday night drama sorted out, with Lost in Austen, The Children, Place of Execution and Wired all proving highly watchable. Alas, it seems that they seem to have given up the ghost a bit. Maybe it’s sensible given that the slot is up against MI5’s finest, but The Commander is especially weak, formulaic fare.

My Family At War BBC1, Tuesday 9pm
In effect a Who Do You Think You Are? wartime special, this final episode of the series sees Kirsty Wark and Rolf Harris undertake two very emotional journeys into their own family history during wartime. Perfect viewing for Armistice Day.

What the Dickens? Sky Arts 1, Wednesday 7.30pm
Sandi Toksvig chairs this comedy panel game in which celebrities are given the answer, and they have to come up with possible questions. It sounds like a round of Mock the Week expanded into a full half-hour, but with Chris Addison and Sue Perkins as team captains should be diverting enough.

The Bill: Proof of Life ITV1, Wednesday & Thursday 8pm
To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Sun Hill, we’re presented with a special double-bill of episodes that form a crossover with German police procedural SOKO Liepzig, both of which are made by Fremantle Media. Tonight’s episode is set in London, with the action transferring to Germany on Thursday, as DCI Jack Meadows teams up with his German counterpart to find the latter’s kidnapped god-daughter.

Apparitions BBC1, Thursday 9pm
Oh boy, is this going to get the tabloids’ knickers in a twist — indeed, some papers have already been stoking the flames. This series, written and directed by Joe Ahearne, who created ultracool vampires series Ultraviolet and produced by Ann Harrison-Baxter (who also produced Russell T Davies’ The Second Coming), features Martin Shaw as a priest with a talent for performing exorcisms, and who faces run-ins not only with your actual live demons, but other figures in the church who have their own reasons for wanting Father Jacob’s activities curtailed. The first episode is not quite as good as its potential implies, I hear — but be warned: the final sequence contains some truly horrific special effects. Best make sure your dinner’s nice and settled…

Lead Balloon BBC2, Thursday 10pm
A third series of Jack Dee’s in-now-way-autobiographical sitcom about curmudgeonly comedian Rick Spleen. Rick’s wife Mel announces that housekeeper Magda (the peerless Anna Crilly) is moving in, which makes Rick fret that it may be a permanent move. Meanwhile, Rick and Marty’s favourite cafe has been turned into a restaurant, which is just begging for trouble…

Okay, so episode 1, Let’s Dance was dire, but episode 2, Behind The Mask was much better. It takes a third episode, though, to determine if the quality has improved overall, or whether the second episode was just a blip…

The good news seems to be that Britannia High is holding up nicely, with Kirstie Falkous and John Regier’s script for Who Are You? maintaining the level last week’s Behind The Mask set. So it seems, at least, that we’ve found a level for the show: a bit silly maybe, but with enough charm and spirit to carry it along regardless…

From the comments we’ve received on our “you be the judge” post, one senses that at the public may be slowly wakening up to the fact that the longer John stays in the competition, the riskier it becomes for couples who have a genuine chance at this year’s title. But more of that anon — first, we have to get on with our reviews of each of the competitive dances…

First up were Tom and Camilla, dancing a Quickstep to A Town Called Malice. Now, given that Len had castigated the couple last week for too much faffing about before getting into hold, it was definite risk allowing Tom to do his own thing on the stage area before leaping into hold. However, it proved to pay off, as despite being one of the cheesiest moments so far in this series, it worked in setting the mood and style of the whole routine. Once into hold, the couple worked their usual magic together. In another daring move, Tom was either wearing white shoes or spats: I couldn’t quite tell which, but they certainly made his feet impossible to ignore and would have highlighted any dodgy footwork. Thankfully, it all worked out alright. I was less keen on his closing solo, although it did bring in some echoes of Billy Elliott, which uses the same song to similar uplifting effect.

The judges’ scores of 9 + 9 + 9 + 9 = 36 points were well deserved, and as well as being Tom and Camilla’s highest to date are also the joint highest of the series so far, joint with Austin and Erin’s dance last week (also a Quickstep). But would it give them clear water on the leaderboard?

Over to the Latin dances, and Jodie and Ian kicked off with a Samba to Help Yourself. They certainly needed more help, as Jodie really struggles with Latin dances, and struggles when out of hold — so here she doubly struggled. She had all the grace of a line-dancing hen party this week, which is such a shame as in the ballroom dances she and Ian work so well together.

That said, when the scores came in (3 + 6 + 7 + 7 = 24 points), I did think Craig’s score was a little harsh — although I also thought Len and Bruno were over-generous, so it all balances out.

Comedian Richard Herring (Fist of Fun, This Morning With Richard Not Judy and who writes Phill Jupitus’ links for, and occasionally appears on, Dave’s new gadget show Batteries Not Included) has a new obsession — reruns of the time-travelling sitcom Goodnight Sweetheart.

Currently on daily syndication on ITV3, the series was created by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran (who also authored tomorrow’s Saturday Play on Radio 4 — see our Turn off the TV radio preview), but some episodes were written by others. IMDB has Marks and Gran down for 58 episodes apiece, presumably jointly, and lists a further five writers. Whether this is a complete and/or accurate list, I have no idea.

As far as a sitcom goes, what has stirred Herring into writing a long blog post about the series is what he calls Gary Sparrow’s Paucity of Ambition.

Had it been handled correctly as an idea it could have been like “Life on Mars”, but because of the general lightness of touch, both in the writing and the acting, it can only be a disappointment. A disappointment however, that I am becoming increasingly obsessed about, partly because, I believe I could write it properly. Why not? There have been many many brilliant sitcoms turned, years later, into disappointing films. Why not a disappointing sitcom turned into a brilliant film (or TV comedy drama).

Read the full post for more of the problems with Goodnight Sweetheart, and Herring almost talking himself into rewriting it with much more emphasis on the science fiction, “what-if” aspects of time travel. I have to say that I, for one, would love him to have the opportunity to at least try. I really liked Herring’s pilot comedy drama for ITV1, You Can Choose Your Friends, and would look forward to his take on how a modern-day inidividual would cope with the ability to return to WW2 London.

Oh, and also, you should check out his regular podcast with Radio Times’ film editor Andrew Collins. The Collings and Herrin Podcasts (also available on iTunes) is about an hour a week of occasionally filthy, and frequently very funny, banter.

Now that the number of competing couples is down to single figures, the competition really starts to hot up. Can John Sergeant escape elimination again? Will Heather and Brian have to perform a fourth dance-off? Will Bruce get through all of his links without fluffing once? We shall see…

This week’s scoresheet has one more change: thanks to the BBC now revealing more information in advance, I’ve been able to arrange the competitors in the order we’ve been told they will be dancing in. Things, as always, may change at the last minute, but fingers crossed that things will be a little easier if you’re playing along at home.

Strictly Come Dancing week 8 scoresheet [PDF]

• Looking for dance-related gift ideas? Have a look around The Stage Strictly Store, powered by Amazon.co.uk. The Strictly Annual 2008 is currently £7.79 - over £5 cheaper than the store price. There are also dance instructional books and DVDs, as well as biographies of Len and Craig and more…

• The Saturday Play: Von Ribbentrop’s Watch Radio 4, Saturday 2.30pm

  Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran (Shine On Harvey Moon, The New Statesman) pen a new drama based on a true story. Impoverished Jewish wine merchant Gerald Roth discovers that a family heirloom is extremely valuable, because in once belonged to a senior Nazi. Should he sell it, thus capitalizing on Nazi memorabilia but saving his ailing business — or should he admit his failure as a businessman, a husband and a Jew? The presence of Miriam Margolyes in the cast guarantees that this play will rise above the obvious stereotypes.

• War Horse Radio 2, Saturday 7.00pm

  The drama highlight of the week, as the National Theatre’s stage adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s novel is in turn adapted for radio by John Tams, who wrote some songs for the NT production, and Tams’ wife Sally. The play tells of 14-year-old Albert and his affection for farm horse Joey. As the First World War breaks out, Albert’s father sells Joey to the army. As Albert trains in the cavalry, he resolves to be reunited with his beloved horse… While the radio play can’t have the benefit of the life-size horse puppets used on stage, it does have the vocal talents of Timothy Spall, Brenda Blethyn and Bob Hoskins.

• Drama on 3: All Quiet on the Western Front Radio 3, Sunday 8.00pm

  Erich Maria Remarque’s anti-war novel, first published in 1929, has never before been adapted for radio. Dave Sheasby’s adaptation tells the story of a group of German soldiers enduring and coming to terms with the realities of the First World War.

• Woman’s Hour Drama: A Taste for Death Radio 4, Monday-Friday 10.45am (repeated 7.45pm)

  One of PD James’s most celebrated murder mysteries, adapted by Neville Teller in ten parts, continuing next week. Two bodies are found in the vestry of a London church — one a tramp, the other Government minister. Adam Dalgliesh (Richard Derrington) must investigate…

• Afternoon Play: Keep Your Pantheon Radio 4, Wednesday 2.15pm

  David Mamet’s comedy, set in Roman times, tells of an actor-manager and his troupe struggling to survive under an absurdly autocratic regime.

• Cowards Radio 4, Thursday 11.00pm

  Sketch shows are, by definition, hit and miss affairs, and it’s unlikely that this will be any exception. However, the heritage of this comedy troupe, back for a second radio series, bodes well.

• The Friday Play: The Johnny Cash Hijack Roadshow Radio 4, Friday 9.00pm

  Ray Fearon and Philip Jackson play two out-of-work Sheffield lorry drivers who steal a petrol tanker and set off for the Houses of Parliament in order to protest at increasing fuel prices. They start to question their lives and past events begin to set them against each other, all set to the music of the late Johnny Cash.

• Mouth to Mouth BBC3, Friday 9.30pm

  Anna Nightingale, Ayesha Antoine and Pippa Duffy star as the three members of fictional girl band Cats Eyes, who see stardom beckon as they are accepted onto TV talent show Fame Search. The whole show is presented as a series of intercut monologues from each girl, which is initially fun but feels a bit wearing after half an hour. This show is far better consumed in short bursts, which is handy as each episode will be available as a series of short episodes both on the BBC website and on Bebo. The first chapter — and,therefore, the first few minutes of tonight’s show — is below.

• Film: Sweet Charity ITV1, Saturday 1.05pm

  Shirley Maclaine is on fine form as Charity Hope Valentine, a dancer at the seedy Fandango Ballroom who dreams of love, marriage and respectability. The direction and chroeography by Bob Fosse, the script by Neil Simon, and the wonderful songs (including Hey, Big Spender, There’s Got To Be Something Better Than This, The Rhythm of Life and If They Could See Me Now) make this an unmissable musical.

The rest of the weekend preview continues after the jump…

BBC Writersroom, the section of the corporation’s website dedicated to finding new writing talent, has just published a new interview with Russell T Davies.

Obviously the questions are skewed towards topics that prospective writers may find interesting, so it goes into details about the creative process that you’re unlikely to find in many other interviews (except, of course, in publications such as The Stage, or even Doctor Who Magazine, which I maintain is one of the best periodicals about television production on the market. Plus it has a great comic strip).

I’ve read a lot of interviews with Russell. I even conducted one back in 2000, which was one of my first ever professional pieces of writing. So a lot of what he talks about is stuff I’ve read elsewhere — but it’s never less than completely interesting to hear about how his writing started to change:

I can actually show you scenes from [ITV drama series The Grand] where I started to change. Everything I wrote was so on the nose, that’s what soap opera is, soap opera is if you’re angry you walk into a room and say “Oh I’m angry,” and someone says “Why?” “Because I’ve been betrayed, ooh, how could you,” and that’s doing the job well on a soap. I’m not knocking soaps, because I love soaps, but there are other ways to write, and I started to discover other ways to write that were not so obvious.

There was an episode of The Grand with a gay barman in it, which in 1921 was a really interesting character, because he didn’t have a language. And what I did with that - it wasn’t the gayness, that was fine at nine o’clock - it was all concentrated on one character, and it was his. And it was flashbacks with his father, and his whole life. There was a fuss at Granada because every other speaking part - there was a regular cast of twelve in that show - they all got two lines each. And the actors didn’t complain, but the people paying the actors complained, saying “We’ve got Susan Hampshire, you’ve only given her four lines,” and I was like, “Tough.”

And it was pivotal actually in many ways, it wasn’t just me writing better, it was also me realising how tough I was, because everyone told me to rewrite that, everyone, and I just sat there and said “I’m not.” And eventually they just ran out of time and had to make it, and it was a great episode, it was, so ha, so there! I’m still counting these victories all those years later.

For more on how writers write, I can’t recommend The Writer’s Tale highly enough. Written by Russell T Davies and Benjamin Cook and based on a series of email conversations undertaken while Doctor Who production was in full flight, it’s a genuine insight into the entire television production process, from initial ideas through script writing, rewrites, production and post-production. If you have any friends or family interested in writing for television, that book should be on their Christmas list if they haven’t got it already.

Incidentally, the website for The Writer’s Tale has PDF copies of six of Russell’s Doctor Who episodes available for free download.

She may be on a career break, she may be a new mother, but already people are talking about Billie Piper as a contender to succeed David Tennant in Doctor Who, writes Liz Thomas. The news has drawn scoffs from some stalwarts, with one veteran drama producer sniffing at the idea. “They are Time Lords not Time Ladies,” he told me rather witheringly.

Personally, I don’t see any reason why a woman can’t play the character, considering all the other wonderful and weird things the hit drama features. It’s almost laughable that there is even a debate — seemingly women can do pretty much every other job as well as, if not better then men.

But when it comes to a fictional dramatic hero, it is still something that provokes discussion.

Now into her third series of Spooks, and having successfully survived her own faked death, Ros Myers is now leading the Grid in BBC1’s spy caper.

We love Ros here at TV Today, and we’re clearly not alone. On his TV blog for The Guardian, Gareth McLean agrees:

…even if TV were resplendent with rich and varied strong women, Ros would still stand out as exemplary. Because she’s a rare creature indeed - a complex and credible, funny, scary and sexy, realistic female lead. (Yes, lead - these are indeed Spooks: the Ros Myers Years.) That such a believable, admirable female role model exists in such a high-octane show is both testament to Spooks’ confidence and damning of other, more true-to-life dramas that seem unable to accommodate such a spirited female character.

What’s more, since writing that blog post he’s actually elicited some information from Spooks writer Ben Richards, who created the character, on how she was created.

As TV Today announced back in April, Being Human, the best of BBC3’s six drama pilots will soon be coming back as a full series.

It seems like an age ago that the commission was confirmed, but the BBC has only just formally announced the casting — and there are changes afoot…

I hadn’t been expecting much of Consuming Passion (BBC4, Sunday) — after all, women’s romantic fiction is hardly my sort of thing. But along with Mark’s recommendation, the cast list spurred me to watch: after all, I had just enjoyed Jodie Whittaker in ITV1’s Wired, and Olivia Colman is just superb in BBC2’s Beautiful People.

It turned out to be a great little play, telling the stories of three women decades apart whose lives are impacted upon by the infamous range of bodice rippers. The highlight, though, was Colman’s dual role as dowdy 1970s aspiring writer Janet, who escapes from her mundane life into her own fictional world where doctors are smouldering sex gods, and Nurse Violetta, the heroine of her own Mills & Boon-style romance. View the clip above for an example of what I mean.

Less satisfying was the modern-day strand, with Emilia Fox as an English lecturer who assigns the history of Mills and Boon as a project to her students. While the direction her brief affair with student O T Fagbenle took mirrors the direction the novels themselves seem to have taken — cruder and more graphic than Colman’s romantic fantasy — it also served to highlight how much less interesting material gets when it relies on pornographic content for its thrills.

Consuming Passion is repeated throughout the week on BBC4, and also currently available on iPlayer.

• Consuming Passion: 100 Years of Mills and Boon

Prior to last week’s show, we at TV Today decided that, as it’s set in a performing arts school and it’s therefore a perfect crossover for The Stage, we’d review every episode just as we’ve done for several other TV series in the past.

I have to admit that halfway through last week’s opener (which I reviewed last week) I was already regretting that choice. So it was with a sinking feeling in my stomach that I sat down to watch the second episode. It couldn’t be any worse, could it?

Thankfully, the answer was ‘no’. In fact, the improvement was so great that I’m now looking forward to the rest of the series.

• Pinky and Perky CBBC Channel, Monday-Friday 5.45pm

  The BBC’s latest plundering of old children’s TV shows (cf. Bill and Ben, Andy Pandy, Muffin the Mule) is an all-CGI reimagination of the porcine brothers. According to the blurb, “Their show is loud, messy, funny and frequently out of control, which makes it very unpopular with the old guard of the TV station. One way or another, they’re going to get those pesky pigs off the air!” Maybe a campaign by the Daily Mail might help?

• Spooks BBC1, Monday 9pm

  The seventh series of the spy show continues apace, with Lucas North (Richard Armitage) back on the grid, and Ben (Alex Lanipekun) working undercover as part of an al-Qaeda cell. But really, what propels each episode each week is the superb performance of Hermione Norris as Ros Myers, fast becoming the twisted moral centre of the show. Both she and Peter Firth’s Harry Pearce get some great dialogue every week, so it’s a shame that the rest of the cast aren’t afforded the same luxury. This week also sees the return of Robert Glenister as the Home Secretary — although there’s no sign of actress (and TV Today reader) Lisa Bowerman as his secretary. Shame.

• Mister President Sky Arts 1, Tuesday 6pm

  On the day when US citizens determine who will be their President for the next four years, Sky Arts takes a look at fictional depictions of the Americans’ Commander-in-Chief. From TV shows The West Wing, 24 and Commander in Chief to Independence Day, Air Force One and West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin’s first stab at the Oval Office, The American President, the role is one that is often portrayed as a triumph of wish fulfilment over accuracy.

• Little Dorrit BBC1, Wednesday & Thursday 8.00pm

  I ahve to admit that the BBC’s current Dickens adaptation hasn’t quite gripped me as quickly and as comprehensively as Bleak House did — but we’re only on episode 3 of 14, so there’s still time.

• The Bill Made Me Famous ITV1, Wednesday 9pm
  The Bill ITV1, Thursday 8pm

  This programme doesn’t exactly do what it says on the tin — many of the cop show’s guest stars featured were famous before they ever graced the Jasmine Allen estate in Sun Hill. But otherwise, this promises to be a fun look back at the long-running police series through the eyes of its cast, both regulars and guests. Celebrating a quarter century this year, The Bill has joined Doctor Who and Casualty as “show most likely to appear in an actor’s CV”.

  Thursday’s episode of the drama guest stars Elize du Toit (Hollyoaks, Doctor Who) in a storyline which leads into next week’s ground-breaking crossover with German police procedural series SOKO Leipzig.

• Beautiful People BBC2, Thursday 9pm

  Jonathan Harvey’s sitcom bows out with a guest appearance from Frances Barber as a new teacher at school, while young Simon and Kylie attempt to leave Reading behind to join the beautiful people in London. While each episode of this series has had bad patches, at its best it’s been beautifully observed and frequently uproarious. Let’s hope life in 1997 Reading isn’t over quite yet, as a second series would be most welcome. View a YouTube playlist of Beautiful People’s best bits

As we approach the halfway stage of the competition, this week all the contestants were given a different dance style to master. The variety of the performances lifted the whole programme, I thought — although it does make it harder to compare couples directly against one another.

First onto the dance floor this week were Austin and Erin, with a Quickstep to ‘Swonderful. Erin’s enthusiasm for this dance style is obvious, and it also rubbed off on Austin: there was no sense that the smile on his face was in any way forced. In terms of footwork it was exceptionally good — I noticed one slight slip, but the recovery was so quick that he had rectified it within a beat. The conclusion to the dance came far too soon, but Erin’s peck on Austin’s cheek before flinging herself back summed up the delight the dance gave.

The judges loved it: 8 + 9 + 10 + 9 = 36 points making it the highest scoring dance of the competition so far, the first 10 of the series and propelling Austin and Erin to the top of the overall series leaderboard.

Next up, Heather and Brian delivered a Cha-cha-cha to Estelle’s American Boy. I actually thought that Heather did much better this week, certainly in terms of selling the choreography. Heather still had a problem with her footwork in places, though, which tied in to not enough hip movement and the overall feeling that her posture wasn’t all it could be. It is nice, though, to see her actually smiling at points during the dance, which makes a pleasant change. For a minute, Brian’s closing slide through Heather’s legs looked like it could topple his partner as he caught the inside of her shin — thankfully disaster was averted.

The judges weren’t too keen: 5 + 5 + 7 + 6 = 23 points, on a par with the couple’s week 4 quickstep and week 5 samba — a precariously low score when most couples are improving at a quicker rate.

Third up were Jodie and Ian, performing a waltz to Sandy’s Song. As I’ve said before, the classic ballroom disciplines really allow Jodie’s height to work in her favour, as opposed to the Latin dances that make her look so ungainly. Here, she and Ian captured the romantic spirit of the dance and the song.

Len pointed out that her footwork still needed improvement, as her heel leads need major work. Overall, though, the judges were charmed: 7 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 31 points, making it their highest scoring dance yet, just a point above their American Smooth from week 5.

Andrew and Ola were next, with what we were told was a Samba. How odd, then, that it should start with a Paso Doble-style opening. Apparently it was a last minute change to replace a knee slide that Andrew couldn’t manage due to an injury sustained earlier in the week. The revised opening worked, though. In fact, it was probably the best part of the whole dance. Full marks to Andrew for trying, bless him, but dance does just not come naturally to him, and he’s neither bad nor charismatic enough to divert any of the sympathy vote away from John Sergeant.

The judges’ scores of 4 + 5 + 7 + 5 = 21 points were only just below Andrew and Ola’s series average of 21.5 points, but it still ranked as their second worst dance so far, beaten only by their excruciating American Smooth two weeks ago.

More dances after the jump.