The Guardian Awards

I have no recollection of this picture being taken as I decided to get as drunk as possible in the hour preceding the awards in order to prepare myself for rejection. Luckily, they gave me some money, which I used to pay my rent. The guy on the left wasn't keen on me.

Doctors (BBC 1)

For screenwriters, Doctors often acts as the first rung on the ladder to bigger things. It's always frustrating starting a career in the creative industries and being forced to do things that aren't really within your sphere of interest. Take me, for example. My true passion is for investigative journalism that goes to the very heart of the matter but until my talent for cutting socio-political commentary is recognised, I'm stuck doing frivolous TV columns.
A build-up of unspent creative inspiration could explain Doctors' continual edging away from anything to do with a medical practice. It may well reach the point that, while saving a group of schoolchildren from a mineshaft, the heroine is a woman who once lived two doors down from a doctor. Often, I find I'm only reminded of the programme's main focus on seeing the opening credits which consist solely of the words 'DOCTORS DOCTORS DOCTORS' flying madly across the screen.

On initial inspection, Doctors may appear normal but, as anyone who's ever watched it knows, it is the least realistic depiction of NHS general practitioners ever shown. Anywhere. In the real world your GP, being pushed for time, will hurriedly respond to your throat infection by printing off a prescription for Calpol and shoving you out the door. In the world of Doctors, your GP will read your throat infection as signs you're being mentally abused at home by your bed-ridden elderly mother. Not only will they give you penicillin, they will do a home visit! (I last witnessed a home visit in 1991 when the family had chicken pox and GPs a stronger work ethic).
They will then arrange counselling for you and your mother.

If, in the real world, you require an emergency appointment the misanthropic receptionist will still tell you to come back in Open Access hour. In the world of Doctors they will say this at first but, upon seeing your pain, soften and immediately find a doctor willing to treat you.

Consider those who constitute the majority of viewers in this daytime slot - the elderly, the bed-ridden and people who are in hospital and can't find a nurse to change neither channel nor bedpan - and a second, alternative explanation for the parallel world of this BBC soap is in evidence. This rose-tinted show reflects the NHS in an ideal world, so much so that in my more paranoid moments I've decided it's probably commissioned by them as an ongoing PR exercise. To those who say TV has no duty to mirror the tedious realities of real life, I'd like to remind them of the sadly-missed No Angels, which conveyed the NHS at its chaotic, blundering best. Coincidentally, it was also an infinitely better show.

UPDATE: I naively thought I had neatly summarised all that is wrong with Doctors but no; this man - who is very possibly crazier than those folk who take pics of rabbits with cakes on their heads - has went further than I ever could: http://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/articles/life/Something_Rotten_In_SoapLand/31261/p1/

Luke Toulson review

Have managed to retrieve a review written for the Evening News Festival guide. The piece (about an unbearably smug comedian) has since mysteriously disappeared off the face of the Scotsman website and, indeed, the rest of the internet.
So, apologies to Mr Toulson:

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Luke Toulson: There are many things I can't do (*)

There is an important distinction to be made between bad comedy and simply dying on stage. At best, Luke Toulson is a bad comedian: tonight however, he falls into the latter category.
Despite holding a Hackney Empire Award - an accolade that kick-started Russell Brand's comedy career - it is near impossible to pick out a single redeeming feature to this act.
Aside from Toulson's rugged good looks, the only appeal in watching him lies in an element of sick fascination as you witness his car-crash act go from bad to worse.
On top of a couple of unimaginative and painfully stereotypical jibes at the Scots, Toulson bitterly laments losing out on the Perrier Award in between looking at his watch and expressing frustration that the show isn't yet over.
With an act that is devoid of talent or even enthusiasm, it seems unfair to gift Toulson with the oxygen of publicity but it is vital to alert festival-goers that there really are many things Luke Toulson can't do. Stand-up comedy is one of them.

Celebrity Scissorhands (BBC 1)

This week's Student column, pre-edit. I've also (very crudely) put the pic above in as the need to illustrate my mad hair was fairly essential for the purposes of this piece.

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It's 2am and as the credits of the Celebrity Scissorhands finale roll down the screen, I'm struck with the appalling realisation that, like a dog returning to its own vomit, I've watched the entire series for three weeks. How did this happen?

Much as I love Charlie Brooker (though his work is somewhat derivative of my own), I thought he was going a bit far when he made the point that reality TV is turning us all into zombies. I quickly changed my view on witnessing the finale of this show which consisted of dead-eyed people clapping numbly in time to music while Steadman from Five Star (a kind of Tesco Value version of Michael Jackson) danced around a haircut. This process was repeated several times over with the other non-entities while my eyes rolled back into my head and drool spilled from my mouth.

Nonetheless, it would be kind of hypocritical to deride the haircuts produced, primarily because I appear to be smugly wearing a sort of Legoman's helmet of hair in my column picture. But for fuck's sake, three weeks spent doing a slighly modified graduated bob?

Celebrity Scissorhands is like a lot of TV that interests me: to the average viewer, it's pointless shite that shouldn't be broadcast; to the discerning TV critic, it raises numberless issues, each more complex than the last.

There's Lee "I'M NOT GAY" Stafford, who proved a constant source of fascination with his aggressively heterosexual similes regarding hairdressing: "Oi, mate, cutting hair's like playing Premiership football, innit" and other variations of that sort (boxing, making love to a beautiful woman, etc).

Then there was the problem of Zammo from Grange Hill who, despite having reached the twilight of his life, has remained trapped in a permanent childlike state. His face has lost none of the youthful enthusiasm or openness that made the 'Just Say No' campaign an international success. On a middle-aged visage however, this had the consequence of making him look like a friendly retard.

And of course, the same thing happened that happens every time I get too involved in a second-rate TV show. Like the time I had confusing feelings for Jeremy Kyle, or the tragic period when I started emailing the panel at Loose Women, I began to feel a powerful attraction towards Lee Stafford, a feeling rendered even more conflicted by the fact that I bought a pair of his hair-straighteners recently and they were fucking atrocious.

Loose Women (ITV)

Published in 'Student' in February 08, this is the unedited version:

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Watching Loose Women proves disturbing viewing for me, but not for the reasons most
people would cite, i.e. the pseudo-feminist-tone-masking-a-desperate-need-to-be porked;
the irritating 'Carry-On' style innuendo that only the 50-something audience members find
risqué or even the mysterious, somewhat exploitative reappearances of a visibly unhinged
Su Pollard as a guest on the show.

No, the thing that upsets me the most is the relentless and daily victimization of Carol
McGiffin (aka Bulldog Chewing Wasp/Chris Evans' first ex-wife).
Despite being the only presenter who ever comes close to espousing rational and
comparatively intelligent views (that is, comparative to endless euphemisms for Coleen
Nolan's tits) each day brings fresh torture for poor Carol. Bitching and bullying is an
undesirable quality in adolescent schoolgirls, but to witness it amongst a group of adult
women is nothing short of embarrassing.

The sheer injustice of The Passion of McGiffin is only compounded further by the fact
that she's not even the most dysfunctional presenter out of all of them. No, that award
most definitely goes to cruise-ship/karaoke singer Jayne MacDonald. Now, call me a
conspiracy theorist, but I have a suspicion. A while back I spent a month in bed and in
that month I watched Loose Women from start to finish, every day. This was when I began
to notice Jayne's 'peculiarity', if you will. Notice the number of times she mentions her
mother. Nothing wrong there, you're thinking, some people simply love their parents.
Except Jayne is in her 50s and lives with her mother. Goes on cruises with her. Nights
out. Nights in. To put it clearly, they spend almost every waking moment together. Is it so far-fetched to suggest there's something of a Norman Bates dynamic at
work here? You're cynical, and so was I, initially, until Jayne started talking directly
into the camera to tell Mummy MacDonald how much she loved her.
I also spent my time as an invalid coming up with the following Loose Women drinking game, which is pretty standardised as drinking games go, and works in the following way:

Take a drink each time: - Jayne MacDonald looks into the camera and speaks to her mother
- Jayne MacDonald says she's "just a lass from Yorkshire" as if it's some sort of
hallmark for no-nonsense straight-talking
- Su Pollard is a guest on the show
- Carol's alcohol problem is brought up and she tries to deny it until the other women
tear at her like vultures
- the one that was in the Bisto adverts talks in a luvvie voice about doing 'theatah'
- like a little dog, Coleen Nolan will eagerly jump onto any male guest, attractive or
otherwise, and dry-hump his leg, until one of the other women reminds her of her husband
and she slides off, panting and slightly flushed.

Vanity Lair (C4, published February 25th 08)

I've gradually come to accept that Channel 4 has ditched home-grown quality drama and
comedy in favour of American-style imports. What I don't appreciate is their utilisation
of pretentious psycho-babble as a smokescreen for the programme's shallow intentions.
Which brings me to Vanity Lair, a show which the formerly respectable Alexa Chung reminds
us before and after every commercial break is "a sociological experiment designed to make
the contestants question what's really attractive". To which I contest "Is it fuck,
Alexa! Get back on Popworld with your passable attempts at Simon Amstell-esque dry wit."
Vanity Lair features everything I find despicable in American reality shows, including
the filming in a large mansion (Why? Why?!), the dramatic slow-motion camera shots of
doors opening to reveal a serious-looking presenter and all that pausing for 30 seconds
before announcing anything. Adding up all the suspenseful pauses employed in reality TV
brings you to the woeful realisation that you spend around a quarter of your viewing time
watching nothing at all.

Having ditched my TV as an ingenious solution to the niggling problem of actually paying
for my TV licence, I've found the 4OD player is ideally fitted to my viewing needs.
Specifically, when watching Vanity Lair, I can skip the token 'scientific experiment'
segment of the episode to the parts that - let's not deny it - the show is all about.
Like the bitchy Geordie model crying and vomiting because his face was the least
symmetrical. You read the last sentence correctly - VOMITING because he was
'scientifically' the least attractive housemate.

Though the puke scene was a spectacular demonstration of the depths of human narcissism,
the most grating contestant is the guy that's continually criticising his fellow cretins
for being "too into how they look". Did I miss something here? This is in spite of the
fact that he at some point responded to an ad in Heat that said "Are you a self-obsessed
twat? Wanna be on telly? Then call us now!"

When are reality TV shows going to drop the facade of being anything other than
televised bearbaiting? That's not a moral judgement, it's just that if they cut out all
the intelligence tests and pretend-science bits, it'd leave a greater amount of time to
put all of the contestants in a giant maze and track their gradual degeneration week by
week. The finale would see them hauled out by the scruff of the neck and thrust back into
a cold, unforgiving world, in which even employment with Tesco (never mind glamour
modelling) is but a distant dream. Now that would be Vanity Lair living up to its name.

Fringe 2008 reviews

Links to my comedy reviews, all badly-written as I was hungover/drunk throughout August.

Wil Hodgson: http://www.scotsman.com/reviews/Dour-alright-but-not-convincing.4360684.jp

Andrew Maxwell: http://www.scotsman.com/theguide/Funny-side-of-life-on.4389349.jp

Matt Kirshen: http://news.scotsman.com/theguide/You-can39t-help-smiling-along.4400454.jp