ianlouisiana

At last Bill Tidy's 'The Fosdyke Saga' has been recognised as the seminal text that it is.

An everyday story of Cloggie Folk has finally been adapted for the medium it was always destined to grace.

And it's hilarious. BAFTA Comedy Awards must surely follow.

Remember Woody Allen's "What's up,Tiger Lily?' 'The Hardacres' is a worthy successor.

Ludicrous anachronistic dialogue is dubbed onto po - faced acting achieving new heights of Surrealism.

21st century preoccupation and silly vanities dispel any sense of period.

Whatever possessed the makers,presumably intelligent people, to imagine that a subject done to death some thirty years could possibly be rescucitated when it was clearly brain dead?

Destined,I feel,for the middle aisle in Lidl or Asda,today's equivalent of straight to video.

Estined.

I mean,the noise - and the people,really it's too much.

And the last time saw Miss A. Roach she was being murdered at a railway station in 'Killing Eve'.

Who'd have thought it eh?

And I preferred Joe Cole when he was playing for West Ham.

The cobbler - as my old Granny used to say - should stick to his last.

Never mind Joe,there's a vacancy coming up soon on 'Match of the Day',apparently.

Although you still showed a good turn of speed chasing the bag snatcher at Glasgow Station.

After that everything became a bit of a blur.

People were either shouting so loud I had to get up and turn the volume down or so quietly I had to get back up again to turn it up. Much more of this and I might have to consider getting a remote control.

I know nothing about trains and less about computers so much of the dialogue was beyond my ken.

I admired Miss Roach's eyelashes which never seemed in any danger of coming unstuck even in her most emotional moments

• my goodness there were rather a lot of them weren't there?

Apparently it was filmed in a railway yard near Norwich station.

The bloke from BBC Look East seemed quite enthusiastic.

It takes all types.

Too clever for its own good,'Ludwig' exercises two of the BBC's great obsessions - the Old Bill and the Old Universities.

There is very little new to say about either institution which suits the Corporation down to the ground.

As comforting and familiar as a plate of hot buttered crumpets in front of an open fire.

And about as involving and exciting .

Not one of the characters is remotely believable;apart from Mr D. Mitchell not one of them is even vaguely likeable.

The cops are all cliche - figures stolen from countless better shows,the 'plots' - for want of a better word - and the only better word I could think of would get me banned from IMDB - ludicrous.

It makes 'Murder She Wrote'seem urban,edgy and gritty .

The music,'wittily' stolen from Beethoven(Ludwig - geddit?) is shambolic and intrusive and frankly irrelevant.

All this might have seemed a good wheeze to the Cantabridgians present at the pitch,but most viewers won't be deceived by the Emperor wearing a new outfit.

Well,why not? We've had a Singing Detective,a Dying Detective a Grumpy Detective (George Gently),a poetry Writing Detective (Dalgleish),several Square Peg Detectives (notably Morse) and numerous Knuckle - Dragging Psychopathic Violent Drunken Racist Detectives (take your pick - name your favourite).

So,as the lovely Adrian Scarborough wobbles round the picturesque streets of Chelsea with gritted teeth and a too - big helmet,we can perhaps look back to the days when coppers didn't have hi - vis jackets and Tasers and knife - proof vests but rode (sometimes even "Two by Two" as sung by Roger Miller in "England Swings" blithely on their bikes(boosted by the 16/6(77p) weekly allowance for spare tyres etc).

With an estranged wife,a Gaggia coffee maker and a gay older sister the writers have given the Chelsea D. I. some of the essential accoutrements of living in the third decade of the 21st century but generally he is a throwback to gentler age when he can safely confront a thief trying to steal his bike without being decapitated with a Zombie Knife.

But the jewel in his crown is his elegant,urbane partner played by Sonita Henry with supreme coolness .

Perhaps she has returned from Maternity leave a little prematurely but she is generally a very "In - Charge" police officer whilst on duty and you feel he would flounder without her.

In a world of "Two - Tier - Policing" and endless coppers ending up at the Old Bailey,"The Chelsea Detective" gives a glimpse into a parallel universe where seeing old ladies across the road was still part of the job description.

No wonder they can't recruit teachers. You'd think the children would give them some down time,right?

Instead it's supervise,supervise,supervise,duty of care yawn,yawn,God I fancy you,let's go down to the bike shed - or in this case the boat shed and have a quick knee - trembler,this lot of vulnerable teenagers can look after themselves alongside a deep lake,right?

And so it goes.

Everything you'd expect from a follow up of the very silly Sheridan Smith first series that hardly showed The Profession in a good light in the first place in 2022.

Presumably there are plans for a male teacher to be similarly spatchcocked as Mesdames Smith and Tointon have been.

Back in the days when blackboard rubbers and canes swished through the air,hey,they were 'Teachers' man.

I wouln't trust this lot to take my labradoodle for a walk.

No fannying around. Maybe 3 seconds screentime. In 'The Tower' every suspect is given the full caution;about 15 seconds screentime. Multiply that by the number of persons arrested during the series and that's a serious amount of time wasting.

Still,at least they don't add it on at the end.

Here,on display,is the full range of current media obsessions.

I won't detail them - they're all so familiar.

Congratulations to the production company for squeezing them all in .

If any of them were remotely original I could understand them being given an airing,but as they staggered by I mentally noted the boxes that had more ticks an 'A' - level student's exam paper.

The dialogue was spoken and for all I know written by robots.

Police and criminal fought out a scoreless draw in the realistic portayal league division three.

Any similarity between 'The Tower'and real life is purely imaginary and coincidental.

No copper or gangster so stupid would survive ten minutes on the mean streets.

...and the great Mark Heap,creator of one of the most brilliant comic characters on 21st century television in Dr Statham,linchpin of 'Green Wing' is only allowed to offer a pale imitation in 'Piglets'.

This is funny in a Curate's Egg kind of way,and as an alumnus of a similar establishment - albeit a lifetime ago - I can recognise dimly the Instructor/Pupil relationship portrayed here.

Back in those days we were brutally repressed at any sign of individuality or dissent,however.

The situation was more like Richard Gere/Lou Gossett in 'An officer and a gentleman' than Sid James and Kenneth Williams.

There are some good gags and of course the various plotlines are deliberately cliched. That is what makes then funny.

Sarah Parrish is brilliantly and deliberately cast against type.

Not as good as it could have been but not as bad as it's made out to have been.

Starting with a fumbling effort to join the Mile High Club after a five minute romance between two strangers on a plane(see what I did there?)That's about the standard of humour you can expect from 'Daddy Issues' at it's 'peak'.

After finding herself unfortunately 'enceinte',our heroine turns -as a last resort- to the 'care' of her hapless father,played as a drooling idiot by David Morrisey.

Miss Aimee Lee Wood - for it is she - can only be sympathised with for her choice of men.

The usual selection of TV's most grotesque male figures with all their brains(and that's hardly the word)below the belt.

One day TV writers will invent a man with at least half a brain who will engage with the women on more or less equal terms.

Maybe.

Until then they will continue to have rings run around them to go with the ones through their noses.

'Daddy Issues' is merely a continuation of the status quo for the media portrayals of us blokes.

I'd give it a swerve if I were you.

After 27 years at the Chalkface,a teacher takes an enforced career change and drives a cab around Britain's second most famous city.

Dark,gloomy and miserable,filled with an impending sense of violence - and the cabbie's not very happy either.

I long for the days when blokes like Sid James cackled round the streets of sunny suburbia,flirting with the lady despatcher before going home to Diana Coupland and roast and two veg.

But life's gritty,urban and edgy in 2024 Liverpool.

Lots of B. C. U.s of our hero looking disconcertingly like Marlon Brando in 'Apocalypse Now' as he reaches out for his own Heart of Darkness.

Encouraged by the Lorelei - like whispers of a late night talk-show host in a Iago type role.

(That's enough literary references - this isn't the Grauniad - Ed) It all goes spectacularly Western,wih gritty ,urban and edgy acting exploding everywhere.

I didn't find 'The Night Caller' in any way educative,amusing or entertaining.

It wouldn't have done for Lord Reith.

A mixture of gravitas and joie - de - vivre characterised his work. From fairy tales to George Seurat Mr Sondheim grasped almost as from fresh air any subject one could choose with a mixture of wit,lyricism and deep human understanding.

And the music-ah yes the music.

He certainly didn't write the sort of tunes newsboys left the theatre whistling that's for sure.

But he wrote songs performers loved to inhabit.

Songs that grew on the listener.

Songs performed in 'Old Friends' ,Cameron Macintosh's heartfelt tribute by singers and actors with intelligence and sensitivity absolutely appropriate to the material.

There are some unexpected delights,Rob Bryden who I would normally change channels to avoid and Damien Lewis who I would previously have accused of being a trifle po - faced let their hair down and hoof away happily.

Miss Bonham - Carter pleasantly surprises.

The late Hayden Gwynne is extraordinary,a revelation to watchers of 'The Windsors'.

Of course Sondheim diva Bernadette Peters steals every scene she graces,as is her wont.

Michael Ball,mesdames Mckenzie,Langford,Staunton et al live up to their reputations and more.

Dame Judi brings out the subtleties in the iconic 'Send in the clowns'but it is up to Petula Clarke to amaze and delight us with 'I'm here',a defiant riposte to ageism.

That these performances have been preserved and I can watch them all again on BBC i-player whenever I wish makes me grateful to Mr Macintosh and our much - maligned(often it has to be said by me)National Broadcaster.

Well,ITV obviously wanted it Wednesday,because 'Cuckoo' looks to be a hurriedly assembled mish -mash of cliches and stereotypes that have become over - familiar to anyone who has watched tv drama over the last 20 years.

They say Ira Gershwin used to write his lyrics on the back of a matchbox,he could have written 'I got rhythm' ,the Old Testament and still found room for ''Cuckoo' before he ran out of space.

Mr L Ingleby has played unhappy screwed - over blokes since he was the severely miserable sidekick to Chief Inspector George Gently. He just doesn't 'get' women,does he?

Mind you'with Miss Halfpenny at her sublimely dotty best he is a bit up against it.

Miss Goose scowls a lot and don't blame her,having to make some sort of sense out of the dialogue she has been given.

In a year that has seen 'Boat Story' and season 2 of 'The Tourist' much can be forgiven,but 'Cuckoo' is tv pushing its luck.

'

During the pandemic I watched a news item broadcast from the London Hospital where a young doctor I had known a few years earlier as a bright idealistic medical student changed into premature middle age with the thousand yard stare of a person who has seen too much death and suffering for two lifetimes.

Faced with the biggest health emergency in its history,the NHS was like a rabbit in the headlights. As in so many public institutions it comprises of too many chiefs and not enough Indians.

Tragically if predictably this monolithic organisation froze from the top down,leaving its frontline workers to fend for themselves.

'Breathtaking' tells of the frustrations and disasters suffered by the doctors and nurses and patients as the disease took its toll on the unsuspecting population.

There is no 'acting',no egos are on view.

This is stripped - down semi - documentary TV production at its best.

One hundred thousand people died,countless others suffered pain and bereavement.

'Breattaking tells it as it was.

He Horror. The Horror.

This series should have been allowed to pass away peacefully long ago. It is in honesty,dead but the BBC won't let it lie down. Since Miss A. Burton left it has been hanging on on life support but it has been brain dead for years.

It has provided Miss E. Fox with a comfortable pension pot for quite long enough and it is time for her to hand in her scalpel.

The core cast reflects the makers demographic obsession and little relation to real life as is so often the case.

The acting is wooden,the dialogue like something a connoisseur of cliches would swoon over.

Last night's episode centred on the discovery of a number of murder victims in a disused part of King's Cross Station.

Their mummified remains were ludicrously badly realised, like Amateur Night in a Frankenstein Monster Competition.

The usual scientific mumbo - jumbo was solemnly spouted by actors who clearly had no idea what they're talking about.

Miss H. Norris and Mr N. Pearson looked slightly embarrassed but gamely carried on although gradual realisation of the gap in class was visibly apparent.

I should think they were jolly glad o get back home afterwards and have a stiff drink.

I hadn't watched the show for 2 or 3 years and although a few faces have been changed it blunders on regardless.

Time of the BBC to call 'Dignitas'.

Men are certifiable morons(and if there ae any certifiable morons I might have offended I apologise profusely) and women are smart,sassy perceptive empathetic(fill in your own female virtue and if I have omitted your particular favourite please feel free to cancel me.

Miss K. Parkinson(arguably our finest tv comedienne(ok so definitely cancel me) is far too good for this box-ticking extravaganza and she is the only reason I sat through the whole second season. Well,that plus the forlorn hope that it might improve with maturity - for want of a better word.

MIss A. Steadman sails through as if she was on her own show like a killer whale through a shoal of sprats.

She shows no mercy to the other performers who must be laughing up their collective sleeves thinking about the amount of old rope they are giving for their money.

There may well be a third series - but I don't have to believe it if I don't want to.

My review is too short? Surely not...

....like one of those Donald McGill postcards beloved of holidaymakers in between the wars England,'Boat Story' is cheeky,irreverent, and funny.

Think a visualised Max Miller,,wide - eyed and faux naif.

There is no evidence that anybody involved is taking it remotely seriously and the comic book violence is so ridiculously over the top as to actually offend only those whose ambition is to be offended from the safety of their sofas.

A sly voice - over lets us in on the gag early on - this is a comedy,friends. You may laugh freely.

Excellent performances all round and kudos to Liam from 'Benidorm' for his turn as a psycho drug dealer - very convincing dear boy.

Plot familiar to readers of Cormac McCarthy and lovers of Fred C. Dobbs.

Proof that somewhere in Wogan Towers a spirit of anrchy still exists.

He sighs before he speaks,he sighs after he speaks,he sighs because frankly he finds himself stuck with dialogue that would defeat a lesser man but he gamely carries on probably hoping we'll all move along please - nothing to see here .

'Blindspot'marks an inauspicioius ( to put it politely )return to the boards for Mr Kemp and his two expressions - menacing scowl and not quite so menacing scowl.

The Danny Dyer of his day,he too has tried his hand at various roles as a presenter and game show host with some persistence if not success.

He is guilty here of an error of judgement Never since I saw an American college students 'production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' at Cambridge have I seen such a comprehensive display of awful acting.

Nobody escapes this charge.

There is not a single sympathetic character,the dialogue is dire.

The plot - if I may use such a word in this context - is space cadet stuff.

As Jerry Lewis once said about one of his films_ 'They should of cut it up for mandolin picks'.

...treasure him because when he's gone - he's gone.

David Attenborough should do a documentary about this threatened species restricted now to a few habitats in the English - Speaking world.

Homo Amiabilis is drowning under a sea of 'isms' none of which are of his own making.

As usual in TV he is mocked in ''Colin from Accounts' but fights back gamely and holds his corner in a world where he is apparently de trop and antediluvian.

We al know he's never going to win,but hey,he's giving it the Old College Try.

Distracted by flash of female breast,he runs over a dog.

He and the flasher take the dog to the vet who turns out to be a former girl - friend who charges a distinctly unfriendly 12,000 bucks to fix it.

This is the pitch.

The glory of 'Colin from Accounts' is in the details.

Aimed somewhere between 'Men Behaving Badly' and 'Green Wing' it's sure to offend those who spend their lives being offended,but it's rude,crude and bloody funny.

And don't even bother to explain how a copper can be employed by a UK Police force one day and and a foreign one the next.

Here the Garda are shown as a rainbow nation LBGTQ+ inclusive organisation that they surely are not.

Is this just wishful thinking by the programme makers?

Life,I'm afraid just isn't like this,and wishing won't make it so.

If you're a D. I with 30 years' service under your belt you're going to hit the hills yodelling, not carry on grumping.

If your daughter you haven't seen fpr 20 years dies in a foreign country you're not going to charge over there like a bull at a gate and be permitted to get involved in the investigation.

Two grandchildren you never knew you had?

One's going to identify as gay of course and the other might well be somewhere on the spectrum with a deeply unsuitable boyfriend.

People are suspicious of you? There's a surprise.

You're English - this is Ireland. What do you expect?

To be decked with flowers?

Predictable early 21st century drama writing by the numbers.

Nothing to see here - try something on Catch - Up.

Is it because she wants to get rid of the dialogue as quickly as she can and move onto the next page ?Is she being paid - a bit like Brian Blessed - per decibel?

Is she a 'Strong Woman' as has been suggested,or merely a loud irritating one?

Well,you'll have to make up your own mind about that.

Ms Seymour gives a Master Class in over - acting that unfortunately does not hide the paucity of ideas flowing - if that's the word - from the writers pens.

Absolutely no subtlety is on display - I mean an Irish Pub with overtly Irish customers and street signs on the wall in Dublin?

It's all bit de trop don't you think?

If you have an appetite for Stage Irish people getting themselves into a tiswas and relying on a former University Eng Lit Lecturer to get them out of it(a leetle bit too Colonial for me) this may suit you.

No cliche is left undisturbed in 'Harry Wild' no characters are in the least bit believable,and unless you are in fact,hard of hearing,I'd advise keeping the remote handy.

Imagine you work in a a bank and you've got three days to plan a bank robbery to replace 25 grand your son hasn't actually stolen from a drug baron who';s watche d too many movies about drug barons before said drug baron blows him away.

'Desperate Measures' goes on a road rather too well travelled by TV drama in the last few years and adds nothing to the genre apart from some dodgy moral equivalence issues and some notably wooden acting.

Not even the splendid Ms Abbington can make her character believable I'm afraid and when her ex and her dad turn a hand to help her out credulity is even further strained.

Around five thousand banks have been closed since 2015.

If they're all run like this one I'm not on the least surprised.

They can take him back and relieve us of the horror of watching any more episodes of this sub - sub undergraduate humour with a sniggering buffoon and his educationally challenged acolytes and their pathetic attempts to master the all - purpose RADA 'country' accent (from Cornwall to Norfolk is all grist to their mill).

I would imagine a reel of failed screen- tests for 'Doc Martin' would have set the standard apart from Miss F. Montague who at least had a brave bash at Port Wenn a few years ago .

Mr K. Marshall is now far too old to carry off his crass teenage act he just about got away on 'My Family'.

I know the Met has come in for a bit of stick lately but the likelihood of a complete cretin reaching the rank of D. I. is extremely low (unless he was a Freemason - and there is no evidence of his membership of that organisation).

His fellow officers(for want of a better word) are of a calibre that makes him appear superhuman.

If I tell you 'The Madame Blanc Mysteries' seem on a par with 'Happy Valley' in comparison you will get the idea.

The introduction of his wife's apparent miscarriage shows an appalling lack of taste and was a misjudgement of magisterial proportions.

Despite what the lead detective says there was corruption,bribery and Freemasonry deeply embedded in the Brinks Mat investigation.

After Noye stabbed DC Fordham a dozen or more times with a pitchfork(imagine the force needed to do that) whilst he was allegedly being held down by two other people never convicted the Met,not surprisingly,took the job rather more seriously and being in the same Lodge as Investigating Officers no longer gave him a free pass.

The laws of libel prevent me from mentioning the DPP's office and its role in giving him a get out of jail card.

Fortunately it didn't work for him regarding his next murder.

Neither Noye,the late 'Goldfinger' nor any of the robbers were chirpy working - class heroes,merely ruthless thugs the majority of whom were never caught.

Those that were jailed were quick to broker a deal with the Filth but unfortunately for them they couldn't access their swag as the other robbers had nicked it.

I often came across men like these in my career in the Met,visited their sometimes palatial sylvan homes but never forgot their wealth and influence was bought at the cost of fear and pain for ordinary 'civilians' or 'Mugs' as they referred to them.

People like you and me.

The BBC as so often,chose to present them as they would have chosen to present themselves, victims of Thatcherism.

In truth they were fierce proponents of greed and selfishness.

Instead of producing a harsh true - life account of a deadly crime they have come up with a kind of 'Carry on Robbing'.

I knew DC Fordham from his time on C11. He has never got justice and I never thought the Met were happy with the way things played out.

'Goldfinger'upset the wrong people too often and was shot in the garden of his particular palatial mansion.

Others might wellk learn from that.

The 2014 series was superb television,and I thought reached an unrepeatable height.

Nearly a decade on I am happy to be proved wrong.

Mesdames Lancashire and Finneran have some hard - lived years under their belts as the sisters united but divided by the tragedies they have shared.

Sociopathic killer M J. Norton has lost none of his deranged menace and terrifying presence in the passing years.

He is a living advertisement for capital punishment though I doubt that is a 'woke' view.

Catherine's grandson (courtesy of rapist - murderer Mr. Norton) is a confused ands vulnerable adolescent targeted by a - freak teacher to be 'rescued' and rewired.

A creepy Pharmacist(Mr. A Shah) is blackmailed by local gang bosses to supply drugs. They also plan to free Mr Norton from jail presumably not to make over their garden.

Catherine herself is now on the verge of retirement - a bad day for the Yorkshire Old Bill that'll be you mark my words.

With all her knowledge and experience why isn't she a high -ranking officer? Simple - she didn't want to be.

Boots on the ground policing is what she does best.

She knows everybody on her patch - they know her.

That's how it used to be;how it should be.

Respect,Catherine - you've got it from them and you've got it from me.

When I was in 3 B at St Custards we wanted to change its name to 'The Dan Dare Space Academy'.

Me and my grate friend Pearson rote a partition and most of the 3rd form who could write their names singed it.

Even Fotherington - Thomas when he pawsed from skipping around shouting 'Hello birds - Hello sky' and being utterly wet.

He later went to Ballet School and is now discouraged from attending Old Custardian re - unions.

Me and my young brother Molesworth 2 handed it to Grimes the Headmaster who larffed out loud and caned us both unmersifully.

If this had happened at Waterloo Road we could have watched the older boys play Fives and Badminton for the rest of the hour,and other manly pursuits.

But there are gurls( chiz!) at Waterloo Road and when they aren't doing cooking and sewing and(except for those excused games) playing lacrosse they seem to be runing up and down the corridors screaming and shouting an damaging skool property.

What's wrong with setting the skool dog on them?

My pater always said'What's in a name?' which I think was in 'Hamlett' or some such. I did metalwork myself.

Fotherington - Thomas said Dan Dare was 'actually very attractive' which is why he voted for him. God knoes what he was on about.

I think if St Custards had been anything like Waterloo Road,the pater would have demanded the fees back.

Just about every Western director is given a nod in 'The English'.

Sumptuously shot,exquisitely paced beautifully lit,each scene meticulously worked out,even the skies are just right(see George Stephen's 'Shane').

Any doubts about whether Miss E. Blunt could carry off such a role were dismissed in the first ten minutes of episode one.

Apparently 'English'was a generic term for any pioneer who was not from American Stock so covered all European emigrants who helped to open up the West. Certainly there are many Nationalities on display.

Starting as a straightforward revenge tale 'The English' gradually becomes an elegaic tribute to the masters of the genre.

Mr C. Spencer is impressively monolithic as the former U. S. Cavalry Scout returning to his homeland after serving Uncle Sam.

Well - known British actors decorate the picture to good effect.

But the star is the Western Movie sui generis.

If this doesn't feature in next years BAFTAs I'll call in Rooster Cogburn.