Us review

This four part adaptation of David Nicholls’ popular book opens with an extended middle of the night discussion between Connie and Douglas Peterson who have been married for nearly twenty five years. With their son Albie about to leave for Art College, she says she thinks they should separate, he is shocked by this declaration and herein begins an intriguing first episode which pulls at the tiny things that could make or break a marriage. Connie wants something different but she’s not sure what. “I want…change” she says, while Douglas seems content with what they have. It’s certainly an intriguing opening gambit for a series that appears as if it might tell a familiar tale. It does but not necessarily in the manner you’d expect. There’s been some criticism of the pace of the first two episodes (the whole series is on the iPlayer) but I promise you it is worth staying with as each episode has a tone of its own and the splendid cast develop a script that is filled with recognisable things. 

 

Top of the Pops 5 Sept 1985

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. Peter Powell: “Hi everybody! Welcome to Top of the Pops and our new time for the whole of the autumn!” Mike Smith: “All the climbers, all the breakers, and a new number one to come this evening, and let's start off with a real wang-dang-arooga. It's that Tarzan Boy, Baltimora. This week's number three.”
[3] Baltimora: Tarzan Boy. No gorilla this week, disappointingly, and no loin cloth either (see the 22/08/1985 and 29/08/1985 editions respectively). Baltimora is still doing that thing where he throws his coat backwards and accompanies the momentary glimpse of his bare torso with a shocked Kenneth-Williams-at-that-moment-in-Carry-on-Camping face. It occurs here at exactly the same point it did on the 22/08/1985 edition, so it's an established part of the routine rather than a spur of the moment topless-protest at BBC old maids and their loincloth embargo. (Fact John- There’s a rather sad story about this song. Jimmy McShane who does all the promo performances like this one was a former paramedic from Londonderry selected to front the Italian based `group` more for his dancing- and presumably coatography- than singing. Despite the huge success of the song, follow ups flopped and he was soon back in regular life. He died in 1995.)

Space 1999 - The Metamorph

Much has been said about what was lost with the change in producer for season 2 of Space 1999. Fred Freiberger as his name seems to suggest preferred the `fast food` style of television. Having boiled Star Trek down to primary colours in its third season he has been accused of doing the same with the second series of Space 1999. This opener certainly sets it stall as one of the livelier excursions for Koenig and co with so much colour and action it is almost as if the production team wanted us not to notice the changes. The results are engaging for the intended audience and there is an undercurrent of seriousness lurking; after all if someone like Brian Blessed can give a mostly understated performance then it can’t all be bad can it? The trouble is the disconnect between scriptwriter Johnny Byrne’s darker ideas and the extremely colourful manner in which they are portrayed.

Top of the Pops 29 August 1985

Reviewed by Chris Arnsby. Janice Long: “Hi thank you for joining us. Welcome to a very, very live edition of Top of the Pops. We're standing here right now, aren't we?” John Peel: “That's right. We can say really controversial things like bottom and they can't do anything about it.” Janice Long: “How controversial. He just wants to be in the newspapers. At eighteen this week, it's Mai Tai and this is Body And Soul.”
[18] Mai Tai: Body & Soul. Next week Top of the Pops is on the move again. The programme started 1985 in a 40 minute slot pinballing between 6.55pm, 7.20pm, and as late as 7.50pm when Paul Daniels wanted to play Odd One Out. Michael Grade dragged BBC1 kicking and screaming into the future (ie Wogan three times a week) with his February channel revamp and Top of the Pops briefly nestled between Eastenders and Tomorrow's World at 7.30pm. In April Top of the Pops and Tomorrow's World swapped places. A clever bod in Programme Planning worked out that shaving five minutes from the end of Tomorrow's World and starting Top of the Pops at 7.55pm created a variable length slot which could be telescoped from 30-40 minutes; depending on how much future news Tomorrow's World had to cover, and if you sneakily delayed the 8.30pm programme to just past the half hour. And that's how the schedule stayed until the autumn leaves start to fall.

 

Declan McKenna- Zeros album review

 Sometimes what you need in life is a large helping of music influenced by various decades filtered through the modern viewpoint of someone generations younger than the legends of old.  Welcome to `Zeros`, the second album from Declan McKenna an artist who defies expectations and adds a bit of fizz to 2020. This is far more than homage, instead he has taken some of the sounds from the early Seventies and moulded them into something else. It does sound both timeless and very Now. When it’s at its very best- as on the awesome `Be An Astronaut` or `Beautiful Faces` or `The Key to Life on Earth` - it is every bit the equal of those he is inspired by. So to amend an old Bowie ad – there’s Old Music, there’s New Music and there’s Declan McKenna. 

 

Midsomer Murders- Shot At Dawn

A sure fire way of knowing whether a Midsomer Murders episode is going to be enjoyable is if you can imagine its key characters in a sitcom. A splendidly playful episode that deals with a serious issue in macabre manner, `Shot at Dawn` opened series 11 and definitely fulfils that criteria. It features a couple of old troopers in the form of George Cole and Donald Sinden in what was one of the final roles for both of them playing, well, old troopers whose military families have been at war for ninety years. 

Tenet review

I saw a trailer for Tenet, the latest headscratcher from director Christopher Nolan, earlier this year since which we’ve had the You Know What and suddenly it feels much more a film suitable for 2020 than it did back then. It’s tricky to review without giving away the glue that holds it together so all I’m saying before the break is that it likely fulfils expectations both for those who enjoy the filmmaker’s world and those who don’t. So if you were baffled by Inception, irritated by Intersteller or put off by his Dark Knight trilogy he hasn’t radically altered course this time. If you loved them then this is exactly for you. Course there is a risk he may become this generation’s Tim Burton replaying earlier successes ad infinitum but it’s not happened yet. Tenet is a wildly ambitious, satisfyingly told knotty tale and if you’ve seen it or want to know more, click below….

Spoilers past this point