Dr Pamela Connolly talks to Michael Deacon about her new series of Shrink Rap and being flirted with by Gene Simmons...
Gene Simmons, the singer in the rock band Kiss, claims to have slept with 4,800 women. Dr Pamela Connolly suspects that, when she interviewed him for her new series of More4’s Shrink Rap, which starts on Monday, he was hoping to make it 4,801. ‘It’s so important for him to flirt with any woman in the vicinity – he was so outrageously flirtatious with me,’ she says, laughing. ‘Lots of not-so-subtle put-downs aimed at my husband [the comedian Billy Connolly], for example. I showed Billy a tape of the episode and he roared with laughter. He said, “Oh you know, it’s rock and roll.”’
To Dr Connolly, of course, her guests’ behaviour is rather more than that. In each episode of Shrink Rap – the first series of which aired last year – the clinical psychologist invites a showbusiness guest to talk about their fears and traumas. ‘It’s not psychotherapy but it’s a very psychological conversation,’ she says.
As well as Simmons, Dr Connolly (formerly a comedian herself; she starred in the 1980s BBC1 sketch show Not the Nine O’Clock News under her maiden name Pamela Stephenson) talks to the stand-up Joan Rivers, the author Salman Rushdie and the Hollywood stars Tony Curtis and Kathleen Turner. All have faced trauma. The husband of Rivers (the first guest) killed himself; Turner was an alcoholic; Curtis’s brother was killed in a road accident as a child; Simmons was abandoned by his father; and Rushdie had a death sentence imposed on him by the Ayatollah Khomeini because of supposedly anti-Islamic passages in his novel The Satanic Verses.
A couple of the guests in the first series didn’t prove suited to this kind of analysis: Stephen Fry repeatedly meandered into jovial, flippant anecdote, and David Blunkett, in his politician’s way, tended to give vague, unrevealing answers. The new guests, Dr Connolly says, are on the whole more open. ‘I had some surprises,’ she says. ‘For example I was worried that, because Joan Rivers is so funny, she’d just joke her way all through the interview. But she was very articulate about painful stuff.’
Rushdie surprised Dr Connolly too. The most agonising aspect of the fatwa for him, she now believes, was not the death sentence itself. ‘All his life, he had been expected to be perfect – it was the theme of his life,’ she says. ‘Finally he had written this book, The Satanic Verses, which he felt came closer to his own personal truth than perhaps his other books had.’ Therefore the attack on the book, she says, was a dismissal of Rushdie’s worth as a person, and that hurt him more than the threat of death: ‘It dovetailed with this very traumatic theme from his early life.’
Guffer viewers may think this sort of talk is little more than gushy psychobabble. One newspaper critic, reviewing a previous episode, went further, saying Shrink Rap was ‘no different from the hysterical tabloid revelations of Jerry Springer’. Untrue and unfair, says Dr Connolly: that attack strikes her ‘as probably emanating from someone who doesn’t feel comfortable with seeing another human being talking deeply about themselves’.
Earlier this year Shrink Rap secured a scoop: an interview with the actor Chris Langham, who had recently completed a jail sentence for downloading child pornography. In the resulting special edition, shown in January, Langham talked about the case and the sexual abuse he suffered as a child. A headline-grabbing exclusive, certainly. But, in the eyes of some critics, it also represented an undeserved chance for a convicted sex offender to appeal for public sympathy. ‘He served his time,’ Dr Connolly says. ‘There was a certain amount of “trial by media” with Chris. Our aim certainly wasn’t to put him on trial again, or to put forward one opinion or another about what he’d done. I think it gave people a unique insight into his mind and his mental state.’
That may be what the viewer gets out of Shrink Rap – but what do the guests get out of it? They come on, let Dr Connolly rummage in the clammy depths of their psyches, and don’t even get to plug their latest book/film/CD at the end. As chat shows go, it’s pretty gruelling. ‘I think all of us want to be understood,’ says Dr Connolly. ‘It’s easy for well-known people to be misunderstood or relegated to soundbites. This is a rare opportunity for them to explain who they are. I think they find it healing and useful.’
A guest we might have expected to see by now is Billy Connolly. After all, in 2001 his wife published Billy, a bestselling book analysing the comic’s behaviour and childhood (he was sexually abused by his father). ‘He says he would do it,’ she says. ‘But I don’t know. It was one thing writing a book about him, but doing it face to face… that might be a bit too weird. I think it’d probably put a dampener on our sex life for a few months.’
Well, there’s always Gene Simmons.
Shrink Rap is on More4 on Monday, 21 April at 10.00pm
Saturday 19 April 2008
The dangerous methods of Leo Regan
A young NHS hospital doctor called “Ruth” is suspended because she is suffering from depression. She does not tell her employers that she is also hearing a voice in her head, telling her to kill herself. To do so would mean dismissal and probably get her sectioned. She turns to Rufus May, an unorthodox NHS psychiatrist who rejects the use of medication. He believes such voices are full of meaning and that patients should engage with them. He talks to the voices himself. He talks to Ruth’s.
Without medication Ruth becomes temporarily deluded. She is working in a care home for the elderly and thinks that the fish tank in the sitting room is a heart monitor hooked up to one of the residents. Many people would feel terrified of having this otherwise charming young woman treating them in hospital. May wants to get her back on the wards.
This is the disturbing, but challengingly real story of The Doctor Who Hears Voices, the latest film by Leo Regan. His previous subjects have included drug addicts, racists and, more recently, in Scars, an explosively violent criminal. Regan likes to reach the corners of humanity that normal documentary film-makers don’t.
He spends months getting to know his subjects, winning their confidence, coaxing them to open up. If his subjects refuse to be identified, he uses the transcriptions of their conversations as scripts and reconstructs their interviews, talking to professional actors. Jason Isaacs gave a chilling performance as the thug in Scars. In this film Ruth Wilson is equally convincing as the troubled subject.
But, as Regan explains when we meet in a vegetarian café in North London, this film has been far more complex than Scars. Intrigued by reports of a pressure group called Mad Pride, he had gone to Channel 4 proposing to do a film exploring the stigma of mental illness. The organisation led him to May and the initial plan was simply to follow him in his work. “The sections of the film where it’s just me talking to Rufus are straight documentary,” he says. “I spent 18 months with him and saw him working with 48 people. We documented some stories that we thought it wasn’t right to show.” Ruth’s story stood out because it encapsulates the moral dilemmas for doctor and patient alike in an extreme form, but, for obvious reasons, she would only cooperate on condition that she could not be identified.
Regan spent a lot of time talking to the real Ruth on her own. “Rufus wasn’t always comfortable with that,” he says. “He was afraid I might be provoking her in a way that could make things worse.” These conversations are re-enacted by Regan and Wilson using his transcripts. The strangely multilayered reality of the film is complicated even further when Wilson playing Ruth, tells Regan (playing himself) that the voice in her head doesn’t like either May or himself and often mocks them in a way she finds very funny.
A third form of drama-doc hybrid comes when Regan reconstructs encounters between May and Ruth at which he was not present. This time there are no transcriptions, and May and Wilson must improvise using May’s notes of the meetings and what the real Ruth has told Regan she recalls of them. It is, Regan says, his most ambitious project yet.
A Londoner currently based at a hospital in Bradford, May is a former mental patient himself, though he hates such negative terminology. When he was 18 he had paranoid delusions, Regan tells me. “He was found walking naked in the street, and he thought the KGB had implanted a gadget in his chest.” Now free of his illness and happily married with two children, May hates the diagnosis of schizophrenia and the stigma it brought.
But he also knows his methods are controversial and that some of his colleagues regard them as irresponsible if not downright dangerous. “Agreeing to do the film was a huge risk for him,” says Regan. “He had to agree that the film would continue wherever it took us.” At one point, in fact, it seems his treatment may have provoked a dangerous crisis in Ruth. “I rushed up to Bradford overnight to talk to him when he was feeling at his most vulnerable,” says Regan. “I wanted to film him in that moment.”
Regan is shocked by the idea that the film might be seen as too favourable to May. “I pushed him hard all the time,” he says, “challenging what he was doing. I hope that comes across. I had no idea myself how things were going to work out for Ruth.” Further balance is provided by interviews with Trevor Turner, an expert on schizophrenia who is convinced of the efficacy of medication, intrigued by May’s methods but also extremely wary of them.
Underlying the whole film is the moral issue of whether psychiatric patients should lie about their conditions. May himself had to do this and tells Ruth to do so when she goes for her appraisal. In this respect Turner is a surprising ally, agreeing that the stigma of diagnosis is so great that he would omit it from an application form if he were applying for a job.
Inevitably, this film raises far more questions than it can possibly answer. But it shines a powerful light on a condition that, for the sufferers and their families, can be, literally, a matter of life and death.
The Doctor Who Hears Voices, Mon 21 April 2008, Channel 4, 10pm
Without medication Ruth becomes temporarily deluded. She is working in a care home for the elderly and thinks that the fish tank in the sitting room is a heart monitor hooked up to one of the residents. Many people would feel terrified of having this otherwise charming young woman treating them in hospital. May wants to get her back on the wards.
This is the disturbing, but challengingly real story of The Doctor Who Hears Voices, the latest film by Leo Regan. His previous subjects have included drug addicts, racists and, more recently, in Scars, an explosively violent criminal. Regan likes to reach the corners of humanity that normal documentary film-makers don’t.
He spends months getting to know his subjects, winning their confidence, coaxing them to open up. If his subjects refuse to be identified, he uses the transcriptions of their conversations as scripts and reconstructs their interviews, talking to professional actors. Jason Isaacs gave a chilling performance as the thug in Scars. In this film Ruth Wilson is equally convincing as the troubled subject.
But, as Regan explains when we meet in a vegetarian café in North London, this film has been far more complex than Scars. Intrigued by reports of a pressure group called Mad Pride, he had gone to Channel 4 proposing to do a film exploring the stigma of mental illness. The organisation led him to May and the initial plan was simply to follow him in his work. “The sections of the film where it’s just me talking to Rufus are straight documentary,” he says. “I spent 18 months with him and saw him working with 48 people. We documented some stories that we thought it wasn’t right to show.” Ruth’s story stood out because it encapsulates the moral dilemmas for doctor and patient alike in an extreme form, but, for obvious reasons, she would only cooperate on condition that she could not be identified.
Regan spent a lot of time talking to the real Ruth on her own. “Rufus wasn’t always comfortable with that,” he says. “He was afraid I might be provoking her in a way that could make things worse.” These conversations are re-enacted by Regan and Wilson using his transcripts. The strangely multilayered reality of the film is complicated even further when Wilson playing Ruth, tells Regan (playing himself) that the voice in her head doesn’t like either May or himself and often mocks them in a way she finds very funny.
A third form of drama-doc hybrid comes when Regan reconstructs encounters between May and Ruth at which he was not present. This time there are no transcriptions, and May and Wilson must improvise using May’s notes of the meetings and what the real Ruth has told Regan she recalls of them. It is, Regan says, his most ambitious project yet.
A Londoner currently based at a hospital in Bradford, May is a former mental patient himself, though he hates such negative terminology. When he was 18 he had paranoid delusions, Regan tells me. “He was found walking naked in the street, and he thought the KGB had implanted a gadget in his chest.” Now free of his illness and happily married with two children, May hates the diagnosis of schizophrenia and the stigma it brought.
But he also knows his methods are controversial and that some of his colleagues regard them as irresponsible if not downright dangerous. “Agreeing to do the film was a huge risk for him,” says Regan. “He had to agree that the film would continue wherever it took us.” At one point, in fact, it seems his treatment may have provoked a dangerous crisis in Ruth. “I rushed up to Bradford overnight to talk to him when he was feeling at his most vulnerable,” says Regan. “I wanted to film him in that moment.”
Regan is shocked by the idea that the film might be seen as too favourable to May. “I pushed him hard all the time,” he says, “challenging what he was doing. I hope that comes across. I had no idea myself how things were going to work out for Ruth.” Further balance is provided by interviews with Trevor Turner, an expert on schizophrenia who is convinced of the efficacy of medication, intrigued by May’s methods but also extremely wary of them.
Underlying the whole film is the moral issue of whether psychiatric patients should lie about their conditions. May himself had to do this and tells Ruth to do so when she goes for her appraisal. In this respect Turner is a surprising ally, agreeing that the stigma of diagnosis is so great that he would omit it from an application form if he were applying for a job.
Inevitably, this film raises far more questions than it can possibly answer. But it shines a powerful light on a condition that, for the sufferers and their families, can be, literally, a matter of life and death.
The Doctor Who Hears Voices, Mon 21 April 2008, Channel 4, 10pm
Masi Oka- superHiro
In Heroes, Masi Oka is an office worker who bends time and space. In real life, he's a computer genius who creates special effects for Georges Lucas and Clooney. He could be the biggest geek on earth. He's certainly the most popular, finds Horatia Harrod
The first time that Masi Oka became the face of Asian America was in 1987, when, aged 12, he appeared on the cover of Time, small and blue-shirted, a rucksack slung awkwardly over his shoulder. He's dwarfed by the headline above him: 'Those Asian-American WHIZ KIDS'. He happened to show it to one person and now it's become part of his story (see also: his very high IQ; the fact he still drives a 2000 Honda Accord). But the funny thing is that although he was a clever child who went to a school for the gifted, he was there mainly because his mother knew the photographer.
The second time Oka became the face of Asian America was in 2006, and this time it was less down to luck (although in his self-deprecating way he insists that it was) and more the result of a leap of faith he took six years earlier when he decided to become an actor. The pay-off was huge: a lead role in the NBC series Heroes, the big-budget, ratings-dominating show about ordinary people all over the world discovering that they have superpowers, which airs from Australia to Japan to Germany to South Africa, and whose second season begins this week on BBC2.
What's more, Hiro Nakamura, the time-freezing, time-travelling character Oka plays, has become the fans' favourite, an unlikely sex symbol and object of affection, even more so than the nubile cheerleader Hayden Panettiere and the conventionally handsome Milo Ventimiglia. Oka's internet fan sites show that he hits the part of the brain normally only stimulated by newborn babies and sleepy kittens: they are a babble of delighted gurglings about how 'cute' and 'adorable' he is. None of this was part of Plan A, but, as he tells me as we sit in a garden in Silverlake, Los Angeles, 'I always like to surprise.'
The surprising life of Masi Oka began in Tokyo, and took its first fateful turn when he was six. His mother had already created a family scandal by divorcing Oka's father, and she was bolder still when she decided to take her son and fly off to the United States. 'She gave up pretty much her life for me. She realised that the Japanese education system would stifle me, and she wanted to bring me to America where they would nourish me and let my "academic gifts" expand. She was willing to take all these risks against the recommendations and the wishes of my grandparents.'
The two of them touched down in Los Angeles, and landed up in Van Nuys, a cheap, rough-edged area in the San Fernando Valley. Oka wasn't too fazed by the freeways and palm trees and everything else that made up the new world he'd found himself in; at least not until the first day of school. He was at the Mirman, which is a school for the academically gifted, but the other children weren't exactly sophisticated: 'I remember getting a weird nickname, like Kenickio, I think it was because there was a Japanese bookstore named Kinokuniya; and I realised that people do find it weird that I eat raw fish or rice at lunch and not peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.'
Fortunately, though, the brainy little monsters who clung so spitefully to their sandwiches wouldn't tease their fellow pupils for being clever. At a school for the gifted it isn't so much whether you're going to be a geek, rather what type of geek you're going to be. Oka was a maths geek: 'I did love playing with computers and maths and puzzles. I just loved solving problems, and there's something about trying to figure things out and making things work that was always a big thing with me.' When he finished school, he got into Brown, the Ivy League university in Rhode Island, and his major was in maths and computer science.
The instant associations conjured up by 'maths and computer science major' aren't pretty: a pallid face lit up by the unearthly glare of a computer monitor, gazing intently at numbers, typing furiously, possibly wearing one of those shirt-pocket protectors. Oka wrestled with the stereotype and managed to push it aside. At college he discovered another side to himself. 'I was so focused on the left brain, about being logical, about problem solving, that I wanted to do something that was right brain, to kind of balance myself, to see the world in a different way. So I started doing a lot of theatre, music, performing, singing.' Admittedly, joining the college a cappella group didn't exactly make him the big man on campus (although, he insists, 'we thought we were rock stars'), but getting a bit of 'wiggle room' to reinvent himself was liberating.
The left brain/right brain wiggling didn't stop at Brown. His first job out of college was a covetable position at Industrial Light & Magic, the visual effects company owned by Lucasfilm. What he loved about computer graphics was that 'when you write an algorithm, you can visually see it, so you can show it to a friend and say, hey, check this out. And they say, oh wow, that's cool! You program a database or something, it's an artform in itself. No offence, but if I show it to my mother it's like...' He gives me a glazed look of deathly boredom.
His job, roughly - I think - was to create a system to allow the special-effects artists to create things visually without having to crunch all the numbers to make them happen. Halfway between the physicists and the artists, he could crack asteroids into a million pieces (in Star Wars Episodes I, II and III) or bring waves crashing down onto boats containing George Clooney ( 2000's The Perfect Storm, Oka's big break in the visual-effects community) or Captain Jack Sparrow. He was inspired and happy and his seniors took an interest in him. 'I realised I could stay there for ever, because I really enjoyed what I was doing.' But he didn't stay: 'I realised that when that happens, you need to shake things up.'
In his spare time he had continued to study acting: 'I learnt how to improvise, the skills and tools. And it was so attractive to me because it was technical; comedy in America is very scientific. There is a fine line between art and science, and there is a reason why some things are funny. There are just certain things: a derailment of thought or repetitions, light after heavy, heavy after light. There are so many rules you could use that can work out.'
Armed with his comedy databases, he knew where he wanted to go. At ILM he was working for Hollywood movies. 'But we never really got to experience the Hollywood glitz and the glamour. So for me, I was like: I just want to try Hollywood, just to see what it was like, before I regret not doing it, or before I get too old and can't do it. When you're in your early twenties, you think the world's your oyster and you can do anything you want. So I was very naive.'
It was 2000, a pretty good year for starting something new, and Oka decided to make another momentous journey to Los Angeles. He wasn't travelling as far as his mother had 20 years before - ILM was based in San Francisco, only a few hundred miles up the coast - but he was taking his intelligence, wholesomeness and optimism to a place where none of those things really mattered.
He kept his job with ILM through 'telecommuting', which is not like the travelling through time and space he does as Hiro, but involves telephones and the internet. He managed to keep everything going - the tech work as well as the auditions - but the roles he was getting weren't great: 'Asian man', 'Japanese tourist', 'Japanese pedestrian'. Sometimes the writers actually thought of names for the characters he played - Wonsuk, Deng Wu - but evidently they didn't think very hard. He had a mini-breakthrough when he got a recurring role in Scrubs as Franklyn the lab assistant, but on the whole it was frustrating: 'I realised people weren't writing roles for my type.' Six years after returning to LA, he'd reached a crossroads. When he got the script for Heroes, 'it was my last pilot season as an actor. I was ready to give up acting.'
His agent must have had a heart attack when the script hit the desk. 'It was the first pilot that came to my agents where they were like: we have your pilot?. They were looking for someone fluent in Japanese, who had a comedic background and who had some American television experience.'
Despite the excited flutterings of his agent, Oka was still sceptical - 'I was like: I've been through this.' But as he read the script, he knew it was the one. It was well-written and, more to the point, he had a lot in common with the character of Hiro: 'We're both from Japan. We both felt kind of isolated from society in some senses, thinking that there might be more to our lives. I love manga, he loves comic books, American comics. We're both fluent in Japanese. We both worked cubicle jobs: fortunately I enjoyed mine; Hiro didn't enjoy his too much. And there's an optimism for life. Like Hiro, I do have a childlike curiosity for a lot of things.'
When he told the comedian Sarah Silverman, whose show he'd appeared in, about the part, she tried to put him off. 'That sounds so gay!' she squealed. Fortunately, he didn't listen.
Hiro has become probably the most popular character on the show, quite an achievement when you consider that almost all of his dialogue is subtitled. Amazingly, he didn't appear in the first drafts of creator Tim Kring's script; it was Kring's wife who suggested he add a lighter, comic character to the mix. Kring doesn't speak Japanese, and it shows in the cry of delight that Kring intended to spring from Hiro's lips when he first manages to stop time: 'In the original script Tim wrote "bonsai". On the first day on set, I asked Tim: "Is it OK to change this, because bonsai means little tree."' The word he was looking for was banzai (Americans, doh), and on Oka's advice this eventually became yatta, which has become an unlikely playground catchphrase.
When he's approached by fans, he reckons about half of them address him as Hiro, and half as Masi. The demands of making television programmes in the States, where a season can run to 20 or more episodes, mean that 'television characters tend to be an extension of who you are, versus cinema, because they just don't have time to have you create this character, and you have to wear it for such a long time that you have to be comfortable, so you start to grow into that character and the writers start to write to you. So there has to be a very big part of you that associates with that character.'
Of course he isn't Hiro. Oka may share his basic optimism, but he's more serious and less anarchic than Hiro. When we meet he's tired after a late night/early morning reshoot of some scenes from Get Smart, the spoof starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway which is out in August. In the LA apartment where he lives by himself, he's been working hard on writing, too: things he can't discuss because they're being negotiated over (but one is a science fiction series, and he's making forays into romantic comedy, for which he has an unexpected passion). He even does occasional work for ILM. In other words, he doesn't always have time to be as silly as Hiro. Besides, his appearance is low-key: he flattens down the hair that's been shocked into a little quiff by the groomer as soon as the photo shoot is over, and his spectacles and understated outfit make him look fairly nondescript.
He does get recognised all the time, though. 'I have people who recognise me from my back. I mean there's the whole stereotype that all Asians look alike, but people just pinpoint me out of nowhere.' He loves his fans, and can even get a bit gooey about them: 'People from all over the country and all over the world, with different religious backgrounds, with different cultural backgrounds, different economic status, political beliefs: so many diverse people watch our show, and it's just so wonderful to know that we were able to inspire them in some way.' Sometimes, though, he finds the attention, the lack of respect for his privacy, difficult to deal with. With friends, too, it can be hard. 'It's like the theory of relativity in many ways,' he tells me with a typically scientific flourish, 'because they've changed towards me, they see me change.'
Oka is very conscious of the way people see him, and it's clear that he really isn't a fan of labels. He resisted the uniformity of being stuck in one job, and he's an intriguing mix of Japanese - he greets and bids me farewell with the hint of a bow - and American, his speech sprinkled with California-isms - 'woah' and 'like' and even a 'dude' or two.
But the label that continues to attach itself to him, a hangover from school that has got worse because of the character he plays in Heroes, is 'geek'. He's not annoyed when I bring it up, but perhaps slightly fatigued. 'This has been like my mantra: to be a geek is to be human, because being a geek means that you're passionate about something. And I'd rather be passionate about one thing than be apathetic about everything.'
Perhaps the geek doth protest too much, because part of Oka's appeal is that despite the Grammy and Emmy nominations, there's still a lot of the sweet little guy from the Time cover in him. He's not arrogant, or complacent, and he's sincere when he tells me the most important thing he has in common with Hiro: 'The biggest thing, you know, is that he gets to live his dream of being a superhero, which is something he's dreamt of being all his life, and I get to live the dream of being on a great show, working with so many people and touching so many lives.'
The first time that Masi Oka became the face of Asian America was in 1987, when, aged 12, he appeared on the cover of Time, small and blue-shirted, a rucksack slung awkwardly over his shoulder. He's dwarfed by the headline above him: 'Those Asian-American WHIZ KIDS'. He happened to show it to one person and now it's become part of his story (see also: his very high IQ; the fact he still drives a 2000 Honda Accord). But the funny thing is that although he was a clever child who went to a school for the gifted, he was there mainly because his mother knew the photographer.
The second time Oka became the face of Asian America was in 2006, and this time it was less down to luck (although in his self-deprecating way he insists that it was) and more the result of a leap of faith he took six years earlier when he decided to become an actor. The pay-off was huge: a lead role in the NBC series Heroes, the big-budget, ratings-dominating show about ordinary people all over the world discovering that they have superpowers, which airs from Australia to Japan to Germany to South Africa, and whose second season begins this week on BBC2.
What's more, Hiro Nakamura, the time-freezing, time-travelling character Oka plays, has become the fans' favourite, an unlikely sex symbol and object of affection, even more so than the nubile cheerleader Hayden Panettiere and the conventionally handsome Milo Ventimiglia. Oka's internet fan sites show that he hits the part of the brain normally only stimulated by newborn babies and sleepy kittens: they are a babble of delighted gurglings about how 'cute' and 'adorable' he is. None of this was part of Plan A, but, as he tells me as we sit in a garden in Silverlake, Los Angeles, 'I always like to surprise.'
The surprising life of Masi Oka began in Tokyo, and took its first fateful turn when he was six. His mother had already created a family scandal by divorcing Oka's father, and she was bolder still when she decided to take her son and fly off to the United States. 'She gave up pretty much her life for me. She realised that the Japanese education system would stifle me, and she wanted to bring me to America where they would nourish me and let my "academic gifts" expand. She was willing to take all these risks against the recommendations and the wishes of my grandparents.'
The two of them touched down in Los Angeles, and landed up in Van Nuys, a cheap, rough-edged area in the San Fernando Valley. Oka wasn't too fazed by the freeways and palm trees and everything else that made up the new world he'd found himself in; at least not until the first day of school. He was at the Mirman, which is a school for the academically gifted, but the other children weren't exactly sophisticated: 'I remember getting a weird nickname, like Kenickio, I think it was because there was a Japanese bookstore named Kinokuniya; and I realised that people do find it weird that I eat raw fish or rice at lunch and not peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.'
Fortunately, though, the brainy little monsters who clung so spitefully to their sandwiches wouldn't tease their fellow pupils for being clever. At a school for the gifted it isn't so much whether you're going to be a geek, rather what type of geek you're going to be. Oka was a maths geek: 'I did love playing with computers and maths and puzzles. I just loved solving problems, and there's something about trying to figure things out and making things work that was always a big thing with me.' When he finished school, he got into Brown, the Ivy League university in Rhode Island, and his major was in maths and computer science.
The instant associations conjured up by 'maths and computer science major' aren't pretty: a pallid face lit up by the unearthly glare of a computer monitor, gazing intently at numbers, typing furiously, possibly wearing one of those shirt-pocket protectors. Oka wrestled with the stereotype and managed to push it aside. At college he discovered another side to himself. 'I was so focused on the left brain, about being logical, about problem solving, that I wanted to do something that was right brain, to kind of balance myself, to see the world in a different way. So I started doing a lot of theatre, music, performing, singing.' Admittedly, joining the college a cappella group didn't exactly make him the big man on campus (although, he insists, 'we thought we were rock stars'), but getting a bit of 'wiggle room' to reinvent himself was liberating.
The left brain/right brain wiggling didn't stop at Brown. His first job out of college was a covetable position at Industrial Light & Magic, the visual effects company owned by Lucasfilm. What he loved about computer graphics was that 'when you write an algorithm, you can visually see it, so you can show it to a friend and say, hey, check this out. And they say, oh wow, that's cool! You program a database or something, it's an artform in itself. No offence, but if I show it to my mother it's like...' He gives me a glazed look of deathly boredom.
His job, roughly - I think - was to create a system to allow the special-effects artists to create things visually without having to crunch all the numbers to make them happen. Halfway between the physicists and the artists, he could crack asteroids into a million pieces (in Star Wars Episodes I, II and III) or bring waves crashing down onto boats containing George Clooney ( 2000's The Perfect Storm, Oka's big break in the visual-effects community) or Captain Jack Sparrow. He was inspired and happy and his seniors took an interest in him. 'I realised I could stay there for ever, because I really enjoyed what I was doing.' But he didn't stay: 'I realised that when that happens, you need to shake things up.'
In his spare time he had continued to study acting: 'I learnt how to improvise, the skills and tools. And it was so attractive to me because it was technical; comedy in America is very scientific. There is a fine line between art and science, and there is a reason why some things are funny. There are just certain things: a derailment of thought or repetitions, light after heavy, heavy after light. There are so many rules you could use that can work out.'
Armed with his comedy databases, he knew where he wanted to go. At ILM he was working for Hollywood movies. 'But we never really got to experience the Hollywood glitz and the glamour. So for me, I was like: I just want to try Hollywood, just to see what it was like, before I regret not doing it, or before I get too old and can't do it. When you're in your early twenties, you think the world's your oyster and you can do anything you want. So I was very naive.'
It was 2000, a pretty good year for starting something new, and Oka decided to make another momentous journey to Los Angeles. He wasn't travelling as far as his mother had 20 years before - ILM was based in San Francisco, only a few hundred miles up the coast - but he was taking his intelligence, wholesomeness and optimism to a place where none of those things really mattered.
He kept his job with ILM through 'telecommuting', which is not like the travelling through time and space he does as Hiro, but involves telephones and the internet. He managed to keep everything going - the tech work as well as the auditions - but the roles he was getting weren't great: 'Asian man', 'Japanese tourist', 'Japanese pedestrian'. Sometimes the writers actually thought of names for the characters he played - Wonsuk, Deng Wu - but evidently they didn't think very hard. He had a mini-breakthrough when he got a recurring role in Scrubs as Franklyn the lab assistant, but on the whole it was frustrating: 'I realised people weren't writing roles for my type.' Six years after returning to LA, he'd reached a crossroads. When he got the script for Heroes, 'it was my last pilot season as an actor. I was ready to give up acting.'
His agent must have had a heart attack when the script hit the desk. 'It was the first pilot that came to my agents where they were like: we have your pilot?. They were looking for someone fluent in Japanese, who had a comedic background and who had some American television experience.'
Despite the excited flutterings of his agent, Oka was still sceptical - 'I was like: I've been through this.' But as he read the script, he knew it was the one. It was well-written and, more to the point, he had a lot in common with the character of Hiro: 'We're both from Japan. We both felt kind of isolated from society in some senses, thinking that there might be more to our lives. I love manga, he loves comic books, American comics. We're both fluent in Japanese. We both worked cubicle jobs: fortunately I enjoyed mine; Hiro didn't enjoy his too much. And there's an optimism for life. Like Hiro, I do have a childlike curiosity for a lot of things.'
When he told the comedian Sarah Silverman, whose show he'd appeared in, about the part, she tried to put him off. 'That sounds so gay!' she squealed. Fortunately, he didn't listen.
Hiro has become probably the most popular character on the show, quite an achievement when you consider that almost all of his dialogue is subtitled. Amazingly, he didn't appear in the first drafts of creator Tim Kring's script; it was Kring's wife who suggested he add a lighter, comic character to the mix. Kring doesn't speak Japanese, and it shows in the cry of delight that Kring intended to spring from Hiro's lips when he first manages to stop time: 'In the original script Tim wrote "bonsai". On the first day on set, I asked Tim: "Is it OK to change this, because bonsai means little tree."' The word he was looking for was banzai (Americans, doh), and on Oka's advice this eventually became yatta, which has become an unlikely playground catchphrase.
When he's approached by fans, he reckons about half of them address him as Hiro, and half as Masi. The demands of making television programmes in the States, where a season can run to 20 or more episodes, mean that 'television characters tend to be an extension of who you are, versus cinema, because they just don't have time to have you create this character, and you have to wear it for such a long time that you have to be comfortable, so you start to grow into that character and the writers start to write to you. So there has to be a very big part of you that associates with that character.'
Of course he isn't Hiro. Oka may share his basic optimism, but he's more serious and less anarchic than Hiro. When we meet he's tired after a late night/early morning reshoot of some scenes from Get Smart, the spoof starring Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway which is out in August. In the LA apartment where he lives by himself, he's been working hard on writing, too: things he can't discuss because they're being negotiated over (but one is a science fiction series, and he's making forays into romantic comedy, for which he has an unexpected passion). He even does occasional work for ILM. In other words, he doesn't always have time to be as silly as Hiro. Besides, his appearance is low-key: he flattens down the hair that's been shocked into a little quiff by the groomer as soon as the photo shoot is over, and his spectacles and understated outfit make him look fairly nondescript.
He does get recognised all the time, though. 'I have people who recognise me from my back. I mean there's the whole stereotype that all Asians look alike, but people just pinpoint me out of nowhere.' He loves his fans, and can even get a bit gooey about them: 'People from all over the country and all over the world, with different religious backgrounds, with different cultural backgrounds, different economic status, political beliefs: so many diverse people watch our show, and it's just so wonderful to know that we were able to inspire them in some way.' Sometimes, though, he finds the attention, the lack of respect for his privacy, difficult to deal with. With friends, too, it can be hard. 'It's like the theory of relativity in many ways,' he tells me with a typically scientific flourish, 'because they've changed towards me, they see me change.'
Oka is very conscious of the way people see him, and it's clear that he really isn't a fan of labels. He resisted the uniformity of being stuck in one job, and he's an intriguing mix of Japanese - he greets and bids me farewell with the hint of a bow - and American, his speech sprinkled with California-isms - 'woah' and 'like' and even a 'dude' or two.
But the label that continues to attach itself to him, a hangover from school that has got worse because of the character he plays in Heroes, is 'geek'. He's not annoyed when I bring it up, but perhaps slightly fatigued. 'This has been like my mantra: to be a geek is to be human, because being a geek means that you're passionate about something. And I'd rather be passionate about one thing than be apathetic about everything.'
Perhaps the geek doth protest too much, because part of Oka's appeal is that despite the Grammy and Emmy nominations, there's still a lot of the sweet little guy from the Time cover in him. He's not arrogant, or complacent, and he's sincere when he tells me the most important thing he has in common with Hiro: 'The biggest thing, you know, is that he gets to live his dream of being a superhero, which is something he's dreamt of being all his life, and I get to live the dream of being on a great show, working with so many people and touching so many lives.'
Friday 18 April 2008
Long looks at the Pope, but a glimpse of the man
A papal visit is a lot like a royal wedding — a television spectacle that requires vivacious but respectful commentary and a lot of talk about pageantry and the personality behind the throne. Pope Benedict XVI’s first official visit to the United States comes closer to Prince Charles’s second wedding, to Camilla Parker Bowles, than his first, the 1981 extravaganza that starred Diana — and not just because both this pontiff and Ms. Parker Bowles, the Duchess of Cornwall, have endured the same tabloid nickname, Rottweiler.
The pope’s six-day visit lacks the thrill and historic drama that coloured Pope John Paul II’s trips to the United States, but the occasion is still momentous enough to pump up the live shots, telegenic priests and papal biographers. Non-stop coverage provides a dizzyingly catholic look at the Roman Catholic Church, seamlessly binding together the thorniest Vatican troubles — paedophile priests, shrinking parishes, non-observant believers — with papal mystique and fun Vatican facts.
As the pope’s plane landed at Andrews Air Force base on Tuesday, a CNN correspondent on the scene reported Benedict’s statement that he felt “deeply ashamed” of priestly child abuse while also noting that this pope plays the piano (mostly Mozart), prefers Fanta to wine, and is, as the reporter put it, “more human than you think.”
His is apparently a temperament more suited to small audiences than big crowds, better in camera than on camera. But the pope’s mission in Washington and New York does not break new ground so much as it repeats momentous steps taken by John Paul II, from addressing the United Nations to holding rock-concert-size Masses in sports arenas. But because he is the first pope to visit the United States after the sexual abuse scandal, much attention will be focused on his personality and his efforts to minister to the North American church. And Benedict hinted at his pastoral style by first addressing the issue aboard his plane en route, far from maddened crowds and obtrusive close-ups.
So far, at least, giving viewers a better sense of his character has required some improvisation.
Cable news channels and the networks interrupted their regular programming to provide live coverage of the pope at the White House as he read his speech precisely and evenly in a slight German accent. He graciously shook hands with cabinet members and elected officials (Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, kissed his ring). The pope, who turned 81 on Wednesday, smiled winningly when the crowd broke out in a ragged version of “Happy Birthday.” He looked pleased — he smiled and stretched out his arms to well-wishers — when the soprano Kathleen Battle led a more expert rendition of the song. But it provided, at best, a fleeting look at the pope. TV commentators tried to compensate, extolling the excitement of the crowds and the geniality of the guest of honour. One anchor declared that the pope looked “thoroughly overjoyed.”
So were some commentators. On Today on NBC, the newest co-anchor, Kathie Lee Gifford, discussed what the pope’s arrival meant to her. “I was doing my Pilates when his plane touched down, and nothing usually keeps me from that, you know,” she said. Ms. Gifford, who is not Catholic, added: “I was moved. I just teared up.”
The visit is a news event that also serves as a kind of running infomercial for the Vatican: theologians and priests recruited to provide their expertise about the papal mission also relish the opportunity to move beyond scandals and advance the church’s message. Or their own message. On Fox News, Shepard Smith underlined the religious congeniality between President Bush and the pope, whom he described as an “honorary Republican.” And Msgr. James Lisante, a Fox News contributor, told Mr. Smith that he detected a political message buried in the pope’s speech. “If Senator Obama or Hillary Clinton are listening to the speech and want the Catholic vote, and they clearly do, then they have to know what the Holy Father is saying: ‘The sanctity of life is very important to us,’” he said. And if they do not pay attention, Monsignor Lisante warned, “then we can’t take you seriously either.”
(Actually, it was Mr. Bush who said “all human life is sacred.” At the White House, Benedict did not mention the church’s position on abortion or birth control, although he used language indicating his opposition to abortion later in the day.)
Throughout their coverage, commentators struggled to give viewers a better sense of the elderly man in the white robes. “He’s a shy, modest man,” said David Gibson, a Benedict biographer. “Less a showman than a scholar.” Cardinal John P. Foley, an American who was the Vatican’s chief of communications for years, summed up Benedict’s character as “clarity with charity.” On the “CBS Evening News” on Tuesday, the Rev. Thomas Williams resorted to American vernacular. “He’s a really nice guy,” he said.
The pope’s six-day visit lacks the thrill and historic drama that coloured Pope John Paul II’s trips to the United States, but the occasion is still momentous enough to pump up the live shots, telegenic priests and papal biographers. Non-stop coverage provides a dizzyingly catholic look at the Roman Catholic Church, seamlessly binding together the thorniest Vatican troubles — paedophile priests, shrinking parishes, non-observant believers — with papal mystique and fun Vatican facts.
As the pope’s plane landed at Andrews Air Force base on Tuesday, a CNN correspondent on the scene reported Benedict’s statement that he felt “deeply ashamed” of priestly child abuse while also noting that this pope plays the piano (mostly Mozart), prefers Fanta to wine, and is, as the reporter put it, “more human than you think.”
His is apparently a temperament more suited to small audiences than big crowds, better in camera than on camera. But the pope’s mission in Washington and New York does not break new ground so much as it repeats momentous steps taken by John Paul II, from addressing the United Nations to holding rock-concert-size Masses in sports arenas. But because he is the first pope to visit the United States after the sexual abuse scandal, much attention will be focused on his personality and his efforts to minister to the North American church. And Benedict hinted at his pastoral style by first addressing the issue aboard his plane en route, far from maddened crowds and obtrusive close-ups.
So far, at least, giving viewers a better sense of his character has required some improvisation.
Cable news channels and the networks interrupted their regular programming to provide live coverage of the pope at the White House as he read his speech precisely and evenly in a slight German accent. He graciously shook hands with cabinet members and elected officials (Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, kissed his ring). The pope, who turned 81 on Wednesday, smiled winningly when the crowd broke out in a ragged version of “Happy Birthday.” He looked pleased — he smiled and stretched out his arms to well-wishers — when the soprano Kathleen Battle led a more expert rendition of the song. But it provided, at best, a fleeting look at the pope. TV commentators tried to compensate, extolling the excitement of the crowds and the geniality of the guest of honour. One anchor declared that the pope looked “thoroughly overjoyed.”
So were some commentators. On Today on NBC, the newest co-anchor, Kathie Lee Gifford, discussed what the pope’s arrival meant to her. “I was doing my Pilates when his plane touched down, and nothing usually keeps me from that, you know,” she said. Ms. Gifford, who is not Catholic, added: “I was moved. I just teared up.”
The visit is a news event that also serves as a kind of running infomercial for the Vatican: theologians and priests recruited to provide their expertise about the papal mission also relish the opportunity to move beyond scandals and advance the church’s message. Or their own message. On Fox News, Shepard Smith underlined the religious congeniality between President Bush and the pope, whom he described as an “honorary Republican.” And Msgr. James Lisante, a Fox News contributor, told Mr. Smith that he detected a political message buried in the pope’s speech. “If Senator Obama or Hillary Clinton are listening to the speech and want the Catholic vote, and they clearly do, then they have to know what the Holy Father is saying: ‘The sanctity of life is very important to us,’” he said. And if they do not pay attention, Monsignor Lisante warned, “then we can’t take you seriously either.”
(Actually, it was Mr. Bush who said “all human life is sacred.” At the White House, Benedict did not mention the church’s position on abortion or birth control, although he used language indicating his opposition to abortion later in the day.)
Throughout their coverage, commentators struggled to give viewers a better sense of the elderly man in the white robes. “He’s a shy, modest man,” said David Gibson, a Benedict biographer. “Less a showman than a scholar.” Cardinal John P. Foley, an American who was the Vatican’s chief of communications for years, summed up Benedict’s character as “clarity with charity.” On the “CBS Evening News” on Tuesday, the Rev. Thomas Williams resorted to American vernacular. “He’s a really nice guy,” he said.
An exceedingly average Kipling adventure
When Kim Cattrall of Sex and the City shows up on “Masterpiece” (formerly “Masterpiece Theatre”) wearing cameos and high collars, the jokes write themselves as easily as if Judi Dench were appearing in the life story of Doris Day. From the trailers for the coming Sex and the City movie, we can see that Ms. Cattrall, at 51, still has a body that could forge peace treaties. If there is a crime in her casting, it is that she has been forced to stand around in front of William Morris wallpaper in floor-length, high-waisted solid cottons.Ms. Cattrall is part of the cast of My Boy Jack (showing Sunday on most PBS stations; check local listings), a televised version of a stage play about Rudyard Kipling’s hard-headed, macho insistence that his fragile young son serve in World War I. As Kipling’s brazen American wife — is there really any other kind? — Ms. Cattrall suppresses her instincts for feline inflection. But no matter how hard she works to seem anxious or serious or miserable or bereaved, you can’t help thinking that whenever she is in the vicinity of a man in a uniform, she’s going to tell him she would sure as heck love to see his own Western front. What is she doing in this movie? Isn’t there a sale going on right now at a Neiman Marcus somewhere?
Still, Ms. Cattrall’s odd inclusion adds a spark and leaves you with something to talk about. Otherwise My Boy Jack is like a well-made hospital bed, all four corners too tightly tucked. It is hard to find much emotion in a movie that tries to wrench drama from an eye test. Kipling’s son, Jack, here played by the Harry Potter movies’ grown-up and gravitas-bearing Daniel Radcliffe, suffers from vision problems and ought to have been barred from the military, but he can’t help fulfilling his father’s ambition that he fight against German tyranny.
Things go badly; Jack goes missing; Kipling, played with Olympian restraint by David Haig (who also wrote the play and this script), must grapple with the guilt born of his too-pushy approach to parenthood. Most actors love scenes involving big, gushy Daniel Day-Lewis-style grapplings with conscience, but Mr. Haig seems as though he would rather be re-reading Bleak House. His screenplay is supposed to give us a sense of the emotionally withholding Edwardian mind-set Kipling embodied, but it is hard to imagine that in the thick of the worst imaginable tragedy Kipling turned to his wife and said, “We’ll manage.”
Productions of “Masterpiece” often work so hard to avoid the taint of melodrama that they come off seeming like high comedy. In an effort at poetry, one can only suppose, Jack, whose masculinity has always been under assault, is shown suffering a battlefield injury to the most intimate region of his anatomy. It is as hokey as if the actress playing his mother started reciting “There once was a man from Nantucket.”
Still, Kim Cattrall found many reasons to seize the role of Carrie Kipling, not least a life-long admiration for the British literary superstar. "He wrote a poem that I loved as a kid called 'The Way Through the Woods,'" says the actress, 51. "I read The Jungle Book, and my dad bought me Kim, because it was called Kim. Then I was shocked to find out someone with my name was a boy." Cattrall saw other reasons to sign on: "I had never played anyone who actually existed. I always was very excited by the whole imperialistic period of the 1890s and the turn of the last century," says Cattrall, who, though raised on Canada's Vancouver Island, was born in Liverpool, England. "It was very grand and romantic, then came crashing to a halt after the first World War."
A grand yet wistful tone permeates My Boy Jack, and Cattrall is a key agent. In her performance, she manifests grace, tenderness and firm resolve. For viewers who know her only as Samantha, Cattrall in My Boy Jack will be a revelation. Of course, Samantha isn't gone from her life. Sex and the City, though having finished its six-year HBO run in 2004, will vault to the big screen next month. Just two weeks after wrapping My Boy Jack last summer in Ireland and England, Cattrall was back home in New York to start filming the movie.
The film's May 30 opening is eagerly anticipated, especially by series devotees who wait to be convinced (while yearning to be) that a movie version was a good idea. "Even at this late date, you just hope that it works," Cattrall says. "But it was also that way with the series. There was always a feeling of 'I think we've gone too far' or 'I think we said too much' or 'I think we stayed too long'" - as the show's popularity and cultural impact proved otherwise.
Cattrall remembers being offered the part. "I sort of felt the heyday was coming to an end." That is, she had left her 30s behind her. "I thought if I did a television series, it would probably be as someone's mother in a recurring role." Reconciled to that career track, she was skittish about taking on the role of Samantha. "I didn't think I could play this vamp in her 40s. I didn't think I was up to it," she says. "Now I think: 'How ridiculous!'
"Then I met the other girls. They were all in their early 30s!" More trepidation. She took the leap anyway. "I thought, 'Well, OK! I might get laughed at. But here we go!'
My Boy Jack is on Sunday night on most PBS stations; check local listings.
CNN reporter faces drug charge
A British CNN reporter was arrested Friday in Central Park with a small amount of methamphetamine in his pocket, but he avoided jail time by agreeing to undergo drug counselling and therapy.
Richard Quest, 46, was arrested around 3:40 a.m. on a count of possession of a controlled substance, a misdemeanour that usually refers to a personal use amount of a drug. He was also charged with loitering; the park officially closes at 1 a.m.
When police saw and detained Quest, he told them, "I've got some meth in my pocket," according to the complaint filed in court. The complaint said he had a plastic sandwich bag containing methamphetamine in a jacket pocket.
Quest is a correspondent for CNN International and is known for his reports on business travel. He hosts CNN Business Traveller and Quest.
At his arraignment in Manhattan's Criminal Court, Judge Anthony Ferrara told Quest that if he attends the counselling and therapy designated by prosecutors for the next six months, his case will dismissed.
The judge allowed Quest to leave court without posting bail. He warned that if Quest failed to comply with the counselling schedule, he could be back in court and on his way to jail.
Quest's lawyer, Alan M. Abramson, said his client "did not realize the park had a curfew. He was returning to his hotel with friends."
CNN had no immediate comment on Quest's arrest.
Richard Quest, 46, was arrested around 3:40 a.m. on a count of possession of a controlled substance, a misdemeanour that usually refers to a personal use amount of a drug. He was also charged with loitering; the park officially closes at 1 a.m.
When police saw and detained Quest, he told them, "I've got some meth in my pocket," according to the complaint filed in court. The complaint said he had a plastic sandwich bag containing methamphetamine in a jacket pocket.
Quest is a correspondent for CNN International and is known for his reports on business travel. He hosts CNN Business Traveller and Quest.
At his arraignment in Manhattan's Criminal Court, Judge Anthony Ferrara told Quest that if he attends the counselling and therapy designated by prosecutors for the next six months, his case will dismissed.
The judge allowed Quest to leave court without posting bail. He warned that if Quest failed to comply with the counselling schedule, he could be back in court and on his way to jail.
Quest's lawyer, Alan M. Abramson, said his client "did not realize the park had a curfew. He was returning to his hotel with friends."
CNN had no immediate comment on Quest's arrest.
Clinton is Ms Fix-it to Obama's Mr Critic
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton played up her image as a tireless problem solver, this time for laughs, when she visited Comedy Central's The Colbert Report Thursday night. Not to be outdone, Sen. Barack Obama, her rival for the Democratic nomination, showed up via satellite to poke fun at what he called the media's fixation on gaffes and trivialities.
Clinton emerged just as host Stephen Colbert, broadcasting from the University of Pennsylvania ahead of the state's primary Tuesday, was lamenting that he had no technicians to repair the lost signal on his giant rear projector screen.
"Are you telling me there is no one in this theater who can fix the mess we're in?" Colbert cried out.
"I can," Clinton said as she strolled onstage. She questioned an assistant about technical specifics before figuring out the problem. Then she called out a makeup artist to take care of Colbert's shiny forehead.
"Wow, Senator Clinton, you are so prepared for any situation!" Colbert exclaimed. "I just don't know how to thank you enough."
"I just love solving problems. Call me any time," Clinton replied. "Call me at 3 a.m."
She exited without ever sitting down , exactly two minutes after she had entered.
"I'm sure she left her cell phone number," Colbert quipped.
Later, Colbert rapped Obama for belittling the questions he received in Wednesday's televised debate on ABC News. While campaigning Thursday in North Carolina, Obama complained that the debate fixated on matters like his controversial former pastor instead of issues affecting voters.
"Well, Stephen, I think the American people are tired of these political games and petty distractions," Obama said.
"Sir, speaking for the news media, we are not tired of it," Colbert retorted.
Obama announced he was putting "manufactured distractions" on notice, and Colbert promptly added them to the notice board.
Backstage, Clinton shared a private chat with her old rival John Edwards, who also appeared on the program. Clinton aides wouldn't divulge what they discussed during the brief meeting. Edwards has declined so far to endorse either Clinton or Obama, an endorsement that would be welcome ahead of the May 6 primary in the 2004 vice presidential nominee's home state of North Carolina.
Clinton emerged just as host Stephen Colbert, broadcasting from the University of Pennsylvania ahead of the state's primary Tuesday, was lamenting that he had no technicians to repair the lost signal on his giant rear projector screen.
"Are you telling me there is no one in this theater who can fix the mess we're in?" Colbert cried out.
"I can," Clinton said as she strolled onstage. She questioned an assistant about technical specifics before figuring out the problem. Then she called out a makeup artist to take care of Colbert's shiny forehead.
"Wow, Senator Clinton, you are so prepared for any situation!" Colbert exclaimed. "I just don't know how to thank you enough."
"I just love solving problems. Call me any time," Clinton replied. "Call me at 3 a.m."
She exited without ever sitting down , exactly two minutes after she had entered.
"I'm sure she left her cell phone number," Colbert quipped.
Later, Colbert rapped Obama for belittling the questions he received in Wednesday's televised debate on ABC News. While campaigning Thursday in North Carolina, Obama complained that the debate fixated on matters like his controversial former pastor instead of issues affecting voters.
"Well, Stephen, I think the American people are tired of these political games and petty distractions," Obama said.
"Sir, speaking for the news media, we are not tired of it," Colbert retorted.
Obama announced he was putting "manufactured distractions" on notice, and Colbert promptly added them to the notice board.
Backstage, Clinton shared a private chat with her old rival John Edwards, who also appeared on the program. Clinton aides wouldn't divulge what they discussed during the brief meeting. Edwards has declined so far to endorse either Clinton or Obama, an endorsement that would be welcome ahead of the May 6 primary in the 2004 vice presidential nominee's home state of North Carolina.
Lifetime Network to host Trump
Lifetime, the cable network that purports to be about empowering women, has gotten into bed for one of its new projects with Donald Trump, the guy who seems just the teensiest bit dismissive of women who are (a) plus-size, (b) lesbian, (c) over 40 or (d) Angelina Jolie.Trump Tower is described by Lifetime as "a juicy night-time soap set in one of New York City's most glamorous Trump apartment and condominium complexes." But the ring-kissing did not stop there, reports Lisa de Moraes. At its new-season development unveiling ceremony in New York, Lifetime went on to say the show is a "microcosm of the world's most chic, sophisticated and powerful players, and a rare insider's look at how they live, love and interact with the men and women who work in this plush and well-appointed building." And, best of all, Trump, who is executive-producing, will narrate the voice-over bits, Lifetime announced, though no writer has yet been assigned to the project.
Trump, you'll recall, got nicked by Rosie O'Donnell when he gave a reprieve to then-Miss USA Tara Conner after she got busted for under-age drinking, among other things, if she'd enter rehab. Trump owns the Miss USA and Miss Universe franchises. He responded that Rosie was a "fat slob" and said he was going to send one of his friends to try to break up her relationship with TV exec Kelli Carpenter, with whom she is raising four children. "I imagine it would be pretty easy to take her girlfriend away, considering how Rosie looks," he said.
Speaking of Rosie, she's executive-producing a movie in development at Lifetime called America, about a teenage boy by that name who is separated from his foster mother. No word on what Trump thinks of that project.
Rosie is in good company in Trump's No Beauty List. He also put stunning Jolie in that camp. Trump also slammed her for dating multiple men, once telling Larry King in a CNN interview she has "been with so many guys she makes me look like a baby, okay, with the other side." On the other hand, Trump had only good things to say about Jolie's partner, Brad Pitt, in that same interview for not marrying Jolie, with whom he now has two children.
Anyway, the whole women-empowering Lifetime in bed with stuck-in-the-1950s Donald Trump irony thing seems to have been lost on the Reporters Who Cover Television who attended Lifetime's upfront presentation to advertisers in New York, knicker-knotted as they were by the formal disclosure of the pinching of Bravo's Project Runway. Attending Lifetime's clambake, according to news reports, were "Runway" den mother Tim Gunn and Harvey Weinstein, whose Weinstein Co. is being sued by Bravo parent NBC Universal. NBCU claims Weinstein Co. violated terms of its contract by not affording it the opportunity to match the Lifetime deal.
Weinstein told the Hollywood Reporter the move to Lifetime would help his show reach its potential. Lifetime promises to televise two new Weinstein reality series: Project Pygmalion, in development for 2009, which will remake some lucky gal and give her entree into "high society," plus a series looking at Project Runway from the perspective of the models who wear the contestants' designs.
Trade publication TV Week, meanwhile, reported that Weinstein insisted he and NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker were "best friends" and "that after three years of cleaning his house and babysitting his kids, they would be best friends again." Which reminds me of that old gag -- you know, the one about "with friends like these . . ."
Gunn, Heidi Klum and Michael Kors are on board to continue as judges; judge Nina Garcia is less of a sure thing -- she was just shown the door at Elle, which was her calling card on the fashion-design competition series. Weinstein apparently was still getting traction out of the line that NBC Universal knew "Runway" couldn't stay on Bravo anyway. NBCU had been talking to the Weinstein Co. about moving the show to a network in the NBCU family with greater distribution.
Bravo's upfront presentation, ironically, is scheduled for today.
ABC is clear loser in Pa. debate
When Barack Obama met Hillary Clinton for another televised Democratic candidates' debate Wednesday night, it was more than a step forward in the 2008 presidential election. It was another step downward for network news -- in particular ABC News, which hosted the debate from Philadelphia and whose usually dependable anchors, Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, turned in shoddy, despicable performances.
For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with, observes Tom Shales.
The fact is, cable networks CNN and MSNBC both did better jobs with earlier candidate debates. Also, neither of those cable networks, if memory serves, rushed to a commercial break just five minutes into the proceedings, after giving each candidate a tiny, token moment to make an opening statement. Cable news is indeed taking over from network news, and merely by being competent.
Gibson sat there peering down at the candidates over glasses perched on the end of his nose, looking prosecutorial and at times portraying himself as a spokesman for the working class. Blunderingly he addressed an early question, about whether each would be willing to serve as the other's running mate, "to both of you," which is simple ineptitude or bad manners. It was his job to indicate which candidate should answer first. When, understandably, both waited politely for the other to talk, Gibson said snidely, "Don't all speak at once."
For that matter, the running-mate question that Gibson made such a big deal over was decidedly not a big deal -- especially since Wolf Blitzer asked it during a previous debate televised and produced by CNN.
The boyish Stephanopoulos, who has done wonders with the network's Sunday morning hour, This Week (as, indeed, has Gibson with the nightly World News), looked like an overly ambitious intern helping out at a subcommittee hearing, digging through notes for something smart-alecky and slimy. He came up with such tired tripe as a charge that Obama once associated with a nutty bomb-throwing anarchist. That was "40 years ago, when I was 8 years old," Obama said with exasperation.
Obama was right on the money when he complained about the campaign being bogged down in media-driven inanities and obsessiveness over any misstatement a candidate might make along the way, whether in a speech or while being eavesdropped upon by the opposition. The tactic has been to "take one statement and beat it to death," he said. No sooner was that said than Gibson brought up, yet again, the controversial ravings of the pastor at a church attended by Obama. "Charlie, I've discussed this," he said, and indeed he has, ad infinitum. If he tried to avoid repeating himself when clarifying his position, the networks would accuse him of changing his story, or changing his tune, or some other baloney.
This is precisely what has happened with widely reported comments that Obama made about working-class people "clinging" to religion and guns during these times of cynicism about their federal government. "It's not the first time I made a misstatement that was mangled up, and it won't be the last," said Obama, with refreshing candour. But candour is dangerous in a national campaign, what with network newsniks waiting for mistakes or foul-ups like dogs panting for treats after performing a trick. The networks' trick is covering an election with as little emphasis on issues as possible, then blaming everyone else for failing to focus on "the issues."
Some news may have come out of the debate (ABC News will pretend it did a great job on today's edition of its soppy, soap-operatic Good Morning America). Asked point-blank if she thought Obama could defeat presumptive Republican contender John McCain in the general election, Clinton said, "Yes, yes, yes," in apparent contrast to previous remarks in which she reportedly told other Democrats that Obama could never win. And in turn, Obama said that Clinton could "absolutely" win against McCain.
To this observer, ABC's coverage seemed slanted against Obama. The director cut several times to reaction shots of such Clinton supporters as her daughter, Chelsea, who sat in the audience at the Kimmel Theater in Philly's National Constitution Center. Obama supporters did not get equal screen time, giving the impression that there weren't any in the hall. The director also clumsily chose to pan the audience at the very start of the debate, when the candidates made their opening statements, so Obama and Clinton were barely seen before the first commercial break.
At the end, Gibson pompously thanked the candidates -- or was he really patting himself on the back? -- for "what I think has been a fascinating debate." He's entitled to his opinion, but the most fascinating aspect was waiting to see how low he and Stephanopoulos would go, and then being appalled at the answer.
For the first 52 minutes of the two-hour, commercial-crammed show, Gibson and Stephanopoulos dwelled entirely on specious and gossipy trivia that already has been hashed and rehashed, in the hope of getting the candidates to claw at one another over disputes that are no longer news. Some were barely news to begin with, observes Tom Shales.
The fact is, cable networks CNN and MSNBC both did better jobs with earlier candidate debates. Also, neither of those cable networks, if memory serves, rushed to a commercial break just five minutes into the proceedings, after giving each candidate a tiny, token moment to make an opening statement. Cable news is indeed taking over from network news, and merely by being competent.
Gibson sat there peering down at the candidates over glasses perched on the end of his nose, looking prosecutorial and at times portraying himself as a spokesman for the working class. Blunderingly he addressed an early question, about whether each would be willing to serve as the other's running mate, "to both of you," which is simple ineptitude or bad manners. It was his job to indicate which candidate should answer first. When, understandably, both waited politely for the other to talk, Gibson said snidely, "Don't all speak at once."
For that matter, the running-mate question that Gibson made such a big deal over was decidedly not a big deal -- especially since Wolf Blitzer asked it during a previous debate televised and produced by CNN.
The boyish Stephanopoulos, who has done wonders with the network's Sunday morning hour, This Week (as, indeed, has Gibson with the nightly World News), looked like an overly ambitious intern helping out at a subcommittee hearing, digging through notes for something smart-alecky and slimy. He came up with such tired tripe as a charge that Obama once associated with a nutty bomb-throwing anarchist. That was "40 years ago, when I was 8 years old," Obama said with exasperation.
Obama was right on the money when he complained about the campaign being bogged down in media-driven inanities and obsessiveness over any misstatement a candidate might make along the way, whether in a speech or while being eavesdropped upon by the opposition. The tactic has been to "take one statement and beat it to death," he said. No sooner was that said than Gibson brought up, yet again, the controversial ravings of the pastor at a church attended by Obama. "Charlie, I've discussed this," he said, and indeed he has, ad infinitum. If he tried to avoid repeating himself when clarifying his position, the networks would accuse him of changing his story, or changing his tune, or some other baloney.
This is precisely what has happened with widely reported comments that Obama made about working-class people "clinging" to religion and guns during these times of cynicism about their federal government. "It's not the first time I made a misstatement that was mangled up, and it won't be the last," said Obama, with refreshing candour. But candour is dangerous in a national campaign, what with network newsniks waiting for mistakes or foul-ups like dogs panting for treats after performing a trick. The networks' trick is covering an election with as little emphasis on issues as possible, then blaming everyone else for failing to focus on "the issues."
Some news may have come out of the debate (ABC News will pretend it did a great job on today's edition of its soppy, soap-operatic Good Morning America). Asked point-blank if she thought Obama could defeat presumptive Republican contender John McCain in the general election, Clinton said, "Yes, yes, yes," in apparent contrast to previous remarks in which she reportedly told other Democrats that Obama could never win. And in turn, Obama said that Clinton could "absolutely" win against McCain.
To this observer, ABC's coverage seemed slanted against Obama. The director cut several times to reaction shots of such Clinton supporters as her daughter, Chelsea, who sat in the audience at the Kimmel Theater in Philly's National Constitution Center. Obama supporters did not get equal screen time, giving the impression that there weren't any in the hall. The director also clumsily chose to pan the audience at the very start of the debate, when the candidates made their opening statements, so Obama and Clinton were barely seen before the first commercial break.
At the end, Gibson pompously thanked the candidates -- or was he really patting himself on the back? -- for "what I think has been a fascinating debate." He's entitled to his opinion, but the most fascinating aspect was waiting to see how low he and Stephanopoulos would go, and then being appalled at the answer.
The Spanish pop judge who's ruder than Cowell
He has modelled himself on Simon Cowell, becoming a hate figure for fans of the aspiring pop stars on Spain’s version of Fame Academy. But Risto Mejide managed to make even viewers accustomed to his withering comments gasp with his latest tirade against the fresh-faced youngsters who appear on the popular show Operación Triunfo.
Patty, a 26-year-old nurse with a promising voice, was made to choose between attending her grandmother’s funeral and remaining at the talent academy. She chose the former, explaining: “I think it’s the right thing to do.” Mejide did not agree, challenging the remaining contestants to leave if they would not commit themselves to remain at the academy no matter what the circumstances.
“I wonder if there is anyone else who wants to leave the academy, whether anyone has any errands to run?” he said, to boos from the audience, who had seen the contestant break down in tears upon learning of her grandmother’s death. “Perhaps someone has left their car parked outside illegally, or their budgie has died, a dog, their grandparent or whatever?”
The comments caused a great deal of consternation in Spain, where the idea of missing a grandmother’s funeral was seen as particularly shocking. “The management of Telecinco and the contest are under an obligation to fire Risto,” said Periodista Digital, an online magazine, which described the scene as a “macabre humiliation”.
Telecinco sought to distance itself from Mejide’s comments. “We never apply censorship,” it said. “However, that does not mean that we are always in agreement with what is said, and in this case the opinions were Risto’s.”
Risto, as the 34-year-old Mejide is universally known, has refused to speak to the Spanish media about his comments, with his agent saying that he is unreachable on a long trip. But on his personal blog, he refused to retract his comments or apologise. He wrote: “With regards to the girl who quit the show (I’m sorry if I’ve already forgotten her name), I’ll respect her decision but it seems to me that a real artist, someone who wants to dedicate themselves professionally to the music industry, should come on to stage smiling even if her child, father or entire family has died.”
It was not Risto’s only outrage during the show. He told the audience’s favourite that he looked like an inflatable doll on stage, and said to another aspiring starlet: “There is no sound capable of describing your performance tonight. If there is, I assure you it is not a sound that comes out of the mouth.”
Patty, a 26-year-old nurse with a promising voice, was made to choose between attending her grandmother’s funeral and remaining at the talent academy. She chose the former, explaining: “I think it’s the right thing to do.” Mejide did not agree, challenging the remaining contestants to leave if they would not commit themselves to remain at the academy no matter what the circumstances.
“I wonder if there is anyone else who wants to leave the academy, whether anyone has any errands to run?” he said, to boos from the audience, who had seen the contestant break down in tears upon learning of her grandmother’s death. “Perhaps someone has left their car parked outside illegally, or their budgie has died, a dog, their grandparent or whatever?”
The comments caused a great deal of consternation in Spain, where the idea of missing a grandmother’s funeral was seen as particularly shocking. “The management of Telecinco and the contest are under an obligation to fire Risto,” said Periodista Digital, an online magazine, which described the scene as a “macabre humiliation”.
Telecinco sought to distance itself from Mejide’s comments. “We never apply censorship,” it said. “However, that does not mean that we are always in agreement with what is said, and in this case the opinions were Risto’s.”
Risto, as the 34-year-old Mejide is universally known, has refused to speak to the Spanish media about his comments, with his agent saying that he is unreachable on a long trip. But on his personal blog, he refused to retract his comments or apologise. He wrote: “With regards to the girl who quit the show (I’m sorry if I’ve already forgotten her name), I’ll respect her decision but it seems to me that a real artist, someone who wants to dedicate themselves professionally to the music industry, should come on to stage smiling even if her child, father or entire family has died.”
It was not Risto’s only outrage during the show. He told the audience’s favourite that he looked like an inflatable doll on stage, and said to another aspiring starlet: “There is no sound capable of describing your performance tonight. If there is, I assure you it is not a sound that comes out of the mouth.”
Revived News at Ten struggles against BBC rival
The BBC’s 10pm news bulletin has attracted double the audience of its ITV rival since the two went head to head in January. News at Ten has averaged 2.5 million viewers since it returned from a later time slot, compared with the BBC bulletin’s five million. If the regional news bulletins that follow the national programmes are included, the BBC attracts 4.8 million compared with ITV’s 2.2 million.
The ITV figures have dipped since the opening night of the revived News at Ten, when Sir Trevor McDonald returned to news presenting, although News at Ten does have 100,000 more viewers than the bulletin it replaced, presented by Mark Austin at 10.30pm.
News at Ten was moved to 11pm in 1999. It was revived in 2001 but then ran at 10.30pm from early 2004. The BBC moved its bulletin from 9pm to 10pm in 2000.
Peter Horrocks, of BBC News, said yesterday: “It is gratifying that audiences are coming to us. However, it will take a long time before audiences fully settle down. I don’t think it is anything to do with ITN underperforming . . . The real issue is the length of time they were out of the 10pm slot.”
On Monday the BBC unveils a rebrand of its news services, featuring a globe symbol. ITV has denied reports that it is planning to axe News at Ten.
The ITV figures have dipped since the opening night of the revived News at Ten, when Sir Trevor McDonald returned to news presenting, although News at Ten does have 100,000 more viewers than the bulletin it replaced, presented by Mark Austin at 10.30pm.
News at Ten was moved to 11pm in 1999. It was revived in 2001 but then ran at 10.30pm from early 2004. The BBC moved its bulletin from 9pm to 10pm in 2000.
Peter Horrocks, of BBC News, said yesterday: “It is gratifying that audiences are coming to us. However, it will take a long time before audiences fully settle down. I don’t think it is anything to do with ITN underperforming . . . The real issue is the length of time they were out of the 10pm slot.”
On Monday the BBC unveils a rebrand of its news services, featuring a globe symbol. ITV has denied reports that it is planning to axe News at Ten.
Wright refuses to be a 'court jester'
Ian Wright has quit as a BBC football pundit, claiming that the corporation is out of touch and that he was expected to be a “comedy jester”.
The former England and Arsenal player could prompt an exodus of talent from the BBC after its loss of international matches and the FA Cup to ITV. Wright, 44, who has also presented BBC entertainment shows including the National Lottery, said that the corporation’s football coverage was too formal.
“Times are changing,” he told Broadcastmagazine. “I don’t know how long young people are going to want to sit down and watch that same old ‘jacket, shirt and tie’ format.” He added: “Fans want people who are dressed like them. They’ve got no one to relate to on TV and that’s why I’ve said to them I don’t want to do the England games any more.”
The final straw may have been the decision to dress the Match of the Day team in sober suits and ties for the first England match under the new manager, Fabio Capello, in February. The flamboyant pundit always chafed against BBC Sport’s dress code.
Wright, a forward who earned 31 England caps, said: “I feel like I’m just there as a comedy jester to break the ice with Alan Shearer and Alan Hansen, who just do run-of-the-mill things. I can’t do that any more. People want something different.” He was a passionate contributor to the BBC’s football coverage who coined memorable expressions such as: “Without being too harsh on David Beckham, he cost us the match.” He would often howl in anguish at the England team’s failings.
He had already fallen out of favour with his bosses at the BBC after accusing it of failing to nurture black talent. “I think it’s a disgrace – where are the black presenters on BBC prime-time TV?” Wright, a supporter of the Show Racism the Red Card campaign, asked last year in a newspaper article.
Wright said that he wanted to do more diverse programmes than just “get up there and smile on tap” but the BBC would not let him. The corporation said it was baffled by his outburst. A source said: “He was a freelance who only wanted to do England matches. We have lost England matches, so his role does not exist at the moment.”
The BBC denied that he was required to play a “jester” role. A spokesman said: “He was hired as a recently retired international player to give his own expert opinions, in his own style.” Wright will not be part of the BBC’s Euro 2008 team but could be a target for ITV, which is also showing an interest in Adrian Chiles, the host of Match of the Day 2, for a role in its Champions League coverage.
Wright will now present a revival of Gladiators for Sky One and co-host a Talk Sport radio show.
The former England and Arsenal player could prompt an exodus of talent from the BBC after its loss of international matches and the FA Cup to ITV. Wright, 44, who has also presented BBC entertainment shows including the National Lottery, said that the corporation’s football coverage was too formal.
“Times are changing,” he told Broadcastmagazine. “I don’t know how long young people are going to want to sit down and watch that same old ‘jacket, shirt and tie’ format.” He added: “Fans want people who are dressed like them. They’ve got no one to relate to on TV and that’s why I’ve said to them I don’t want to do the England games any more.”
The final straw may have been the decision to dress the Match of the Day team in sober suits and ties for the first England match under the new manager, Fabio Capello, in February. The flamboyant pundit always chafed against BBC Sport’s dress code.
Wright, a forward who earned 31 England caps, said: “I feel like I’m just there as a comedy jester to break the ice with Alan Shearer and Alan Hansen, who just do run-of-the-mill things. I can’t do that any more. People want something different.” He was a passionate contributor to the BBC’s football coverage who coined memorable expressions such as: “Without being too harsh on David Beckham, he cost us the match.” He would often howl in anguish at the England team’s failings.
He had already fallen out of favour with his bosses at the BBC after accusing it of failing to nurture black talent. “I think it’s a disgrace – where are the black presenters on BBC prime-time TV?” Wright, a supporter of the Show Racism the Red Card campaign, asked last year in a newspaper article.
Wright said that he wanted to do more diverse programmes than just “get up there and smile on tap” but the BBC would not let him. The corporation said it was baffled by his outburst. A source said: “He was a freelance who only wanted to do England matches. We have lost England matches, so his role does not exist at the moment.”
The BBC denied that he was required to play a “jester” role. A spokesman said: “He was hired as a recently retired international player to give his own expert opinions, in his own style.” Wright will not be part of the BBC’s Euro 2008 team but could be a target for ITV, which is also showing an interest in Adrian Chiles, the host of Match of the Day 2, for a role in its Champions League coverage.
Wright will now present a revival of Gladiators for Sky One and co-host a Talk Sport radio show.
Not in front of the adults
You might think that, at the moment, the television regulator Ofcom doesn't know whether it's coming or going on the question of whether it's permissible to speak on TV the slang words for, well, coming and going. This week it turned down complaints about the use of the F-word in The Catherine Tate Christmas Special, but, a few days earlier, had forced the BBC to make a long on-screen apology for sexual and scatological language during the Live Earth concerts.
Viewers may well wonder, according to taste, what the fuck is going on or, alternatively, what the f**k is going on? reports Mark Lawson.
But this confusion reflects a state of flux (always a word to be spoken carefully by broadcasters) on the question of what can be said in public. Fifty years ago, the broadcasting rules on language followed those of what was appropriately called polite society. Only dockers, soldiers or lovers at their most privately Lawrentian used the taboo words without an apprehension of scandal. And so the standards of the drawing room and of the television sets that increasingly stood in those rooms were a perfect reflection of each other.
Through the 60s and 70s, this alliance of propriety gradually broke down. After Lady Chatterley's corsets were loosened by the courts and the Lord Chamberlain's blue pencil was removed from British theatre, plays in particular tested television's linguistic prissiness. An essay by David Hare recalls sitting with the BBC head of drama in the Windmill pub on Clapham Common in the mid-70s and negotiating broadcastable oaths in a conversation that included the gambit: "I'll swap you two buggers for a shit."
It's appropriate that this farcical bartering took place on licensed premises because, even 30 years ago, words would have been in use at the neighbouring tables that made the dramatic dialogue under discussion seem mild. And, today, the tongue ties of television are as distinct from wider society as a convent in the grounds of a barracks.
Many people under 30 now speak a dialogue that Tom Wolfe has called "fuck patois", in which every other word is some variation of copulatory or genital slang, although spoken not with sexual meaning or, indeed, any meaning. In some quarters, words once thought appalling have replaced "um" and "er" as a pause for collecting thought.
Travelling recently with children on a train, I was sitting in front of a young woman on a mobile who was either an actress practising a speech from a David Mamet play or who just talked dirty all the time. Because she was a quarter of my size, I felt safe in asking her to tone down the torrent. It was only when she said, "Sorry, mum, some fucker's interrupting," that I realised she was speaking to her mother, which, looking back, made even more extraordinary the number of times she had used the C-word about her sister.
So, now that which used to be called bad language is standard in large areas of daily life, there's clearly a case for broadcasting to relax its own bans. This has certainly happened, and yet the rules seem confused. Foul-mouthed contestants in The Apprentice (9pm, BBC1) are not bleeped, and yet a potty-mouthed comedian on The Lily Allen Show (10.30pm, BBC3) was, when logic suggests the opposite policy.
There are other confusions. Strikingly, in refusing the Catherine Tate complaints, the watchdog ruled that words are no more offensive on Christmas Day than on any other date, a refutation of the traditional television view that swearing on Good Friday was worse than on October 5. And yet, paradoxically, time of day does still seem to matter. The severe sanctions against Live Earth seem to have resulted from the fact that it was transmitted largely before the notional children's bedtime - "the watershed" - of 9pm. And much of the sensitivity over what can come out of mouths on television results from the assumed risk of corrupting innocence.
There are some BBC executives, for example, who argue that programmes should be more cautious during school holidays because of the greater risk of younger ears being stung. But, as students at private and public academies are only educated for about half the year, and that half does not always overlap with state holidays, such infantilising of the schedules would become the dominant tone.
But the flaw in such age-related regulation is that everyday evidence suggests that younger viewers and listeners will be more used to - and less offended by - profanity than their seniors. It would actually make more sense to swap the Edwardian injunction of "not in front of the children" for greater care about what goes out when adults are around. The people the system is protecting from certain words really don't give one about them.
Viewers may well wonder, according to taste, what the fuck is going on or, alternatively, what the f**k is going on? reports Mark Lawson.
But this confusion reflects a state of flux (always a word to be spoken carefully by broadcasters) on the question of what can be said in public. Fifty years ago, the broadcasting rules on language followed those of what was appropriately called polite society. Only dockers, soldiers or lovers at their most privately Lawrentian used the taboo words without an apprehension of scandal. And so the standards of the drawing room and of the television sets that increasingly stood in those rooms were a perfect reflection of each other.
Through the 60s and 70s, this alliance of propriety gradually broke down. After Lady Chatterley's corsets were loosened by the courts and the Lord Chamberlain's blue pencil was removed from British theatre, plays in particular tested television's linguistic prissiness. An essay by David Hare recalls sitting with the BBC head of drama in the Windmill pub on Clapham Common in the mid-70s and negotiating broadcastable oaths in a conversation that included the gambit: "I'll swap you two buggers for a shit."
It's appropriate that this farcical bartering took place on licensed premises because, even 30 years ago, words would have been in use at the neighbouring tables that made the dramatic dialogue under discussion seem mild. And, today, the tongue ties of television are as distinct from wider society as a convent in the grounds of a barracks.
Many people under 30 now speak a dialogue that Tom Wolfe has called "fuck patois", in which every other word is some variation of copulatory or genital slang, although spoken not with sexual meaning or, indeed, any meaning. In some quarters, words once thought appalling have replaced "um" and "er" as a pause for collecting thought.
Travelling recently with children on a train, I was sitting in front of a young woman on a mobile who was either an actress practising a speech from a David Mamet play or who just talked dirty all the time. Because she was a quarter of my size, I felt safe in asking her to tone down the torrent. It was only when she said, "Sorry, mum, some fucker's interrupting," that I realised she was speaking to her mother, which, looking back, made even more extraordinary the number of times she had used the C-word about her sister.
So, now that which used to be called bad language is standard in large areas of daily life, there's clearly a case for broadcasting to relax its own bans. This has certainly happened, and yet the rules seem confused. Foul-mouthed contestants in The Apprentice (9pm, BBC1) are not bleeped, and yet a potty-mouthed comedian on The Lily Allen Show (10.30pm, BBC3) was, when logic suggests the opposite policy.
There are other confusions. Strikingly, in refusing the Catherine Tate complaints, the watchdog ruled that words are no more offensive on Christmas Day than on any other date, a refutation of the traditional television view that swearing on Good Friday was worse than on October 5. And yet, paradoxically, time of day does still seem to matter. The severe sanctions against Live Earth seem to have resulted from the fact that it was transmitted largely before the notional children's bedtime - "the watershed" - of 9pm. And much of the sensitivity over what can come out of mouths on television results from the assumed risk of corrupting innocence.
There are some BBC executives, for example, who argue that programmes should be more cautious during school holidays because of the greater risk of younger ears being stung. But, as students at private and public academies are only educated for about half the year, and that half does not always overlap with state holidays, such infantilising of the schedules would become the dominant tone.
But the flaw in such age-related regulation is that everyday evidence suggests that younger viewers and listeners will be more used to - and less offended by - profanity than their seniors. It would actually make more sense to swap the Edwardian injunction of "not in front of the children" for greater care about what goes out when adults are around. The people the system is protecting from certain words really don't give one about them.
Worst programme on TV? Caso chiuso
Last night's TV reviewed: Inside the Medieval Mind; Sex, Lies and the Murder of Meredith Kercher; Come Dine with Me
If you believe the camera on Inside the Medieval Mind, life in the Middle Ages was a weird and scary trip: the invisible men shimmering around the place, the dog-headed people lurking in the shadows, the women in glowing white robes popping up behind you when you're trying to play chess with your doppelgänger. The Renaissance must have come as such a relief.
I don't believe the Middle Ages felt like that at all; actually, life probably was scary, but in banal ways. Most people were too worried about hunger, cold, disease, the fact that everything was damp and smelled funny, wild things making noises in the dark, and the prospect of being beaten or maimed by their fellow human beings to give much thought to dog men. Still, it's not often that my main problem with a television programme is that it's too interesting, and I'm prepared to overlook the colourised, glossy look inflicted on the scenery on the grounds that they've left Professor Robert Bartlett alone. He is a large man who looms at the camera, and he is, if not dishevelled, not exactly shevelled. He projects a reassuring impression of a man who's been asked to do this because he knows about it and has interesting things to say.
The theme of this programme was the emergence of rational thinking from a world of superstition. The thing that distinguishes our minds from medieval ones is that we are more likely to ask questions and look for evidence. In the Middles Ages, knowledge was, essentially, received. If it was in the Bible, it had to be true; and if you heard stories of green children emerging in Suffolk from a marvellous underground country, of wild fish men being caught at sea, of far, distant regions inhabited by men with faces in their chests or giant feet they could use as umbrellas, well, given that you hadn't heard any different, you might as well take those to be true. Professor Bartlett quoted a report by the abbot Ralph of Coggeshall, about the netting of a fish man, who refused to utter a sound, even when hung upside down and tortured for information. For Bartlett, what was disturbing here was that Ralph worried less about whether the story he'd heard was true, than about what category this creature fell into (did it have a soul? In which case, ought it be converted to Christianity?). For me, what was disturbing was the casual mention of torture as a means of extracting information. Didn't they even have the decency to pack them off to a friendly power to get the torturing done?
There was quite a lot of entertainment in this vain: stories about people chucking spears and arrows at the moon during an eclipse, or about beavers, who would fool the huntsmen after them for their scent glands by biting off their own testicles, then cocking a leg to show off the blank space. Similarly, medieval bestiarists pointed out, we should be biting off our own vices, so that the Devil can see there's no point hunting us. Why doesn't David Attenborough give us useful stuff like that?
Sadly, all this picturesque counter-knowledge was being slowly picked apart by advances in thinking: Thomas Aquinas promoted reason, so long as it was compatible with the Bible (Bartlett got in a good story about his parents trying to dissuade him from the clergy by locking him up and sending in nubile young women); Roger Bacon promoted experience as the measure of knowledge; the conquest of Moorish Spain gave Western Europe possession of Aristotle's philosophy, as well as Arabic numerals – so much easier to calculate with. Meanwhile, travellers such as Marco Polo were establishing that the Eastern fringes of the known world were not inhabited by dog-heads – in fact, the Easterners assumed that the dog-heads all lived in the West. Occasionally, Bartlett left gaps that needed filling. His account of the invention of the mechanical clock implied an impressive industrial-technical infrastructure, with metalworkers who could make complicated and precise components. Clearly, there was something he wasn't telling us. But there are another three hours to go, and I'm looking forward to looking back.
Talking about rational thinking... Caso chiuso, or case closed, the Italian police trumpeted less than a week after the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia last November. Three suspects were in custody, accused of forcing the 21-year-old to engage in drug-fuelled sex before cutting her throat. Anyone following the lurid early press coverage, lapping up the sensationalist stories of sexual perversion and out-of-control students in the ancient university town, could be forgiven for thinking that would be that. Unsavoury perhaps, but straightforward.
Not so, said last night’s Cutting Edge documentary Sex, Lies and the Murder of Meredith Kercher (C4) which revealed that, six months on, the circumstances surrounding the homicide remain very much open to question. The principal thrust of the programme was that the police case has never been anything like as convincing as was claimed, and that they have repeatedly struggled to make the facts fit a theory shown at every turn to be flawed.
Now it should be noted that broadcast journalism has a disease. When a news programme or documentary can’t find anything original to report, it fills time by asking other journalists or “experts” to pass comment on – or analyses “the media”, as if “the media” wasn’t anything to do with them. Reports of a high-profile murder or football signing or entertainment event will inevitably include a reporter talking about the reporting of the event. This was most evident at the height of the Madeleine McCann drama, when reporters reported on reporters; and the media noted the activities of the media.
Last night’s documentary began most loftily, and with Cutting Edge’s august lineage behind it, why not? The media had descended on Perugia in Italy after the British exchange student’s death and – shoving a camera in a student’s face – Cutting Edge reported how the media had shoved cameras in the faces of students. The image of Perugia was, we were told, “Dante by day and Inferno by night”. All this hyperbole about hyperbole came furnished with a soundtrack better suited to a Hammer film.
The investigation’s initial hypothesis – that Kercher was murdered by her 20-year-old American flatmate Amanda Knox, Knox’s Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and Congolese club owner Patrick Lumumba – was proved wrong within weeks when Lumumba was released after providing an airtight alibi. When another suspect, Rudy Guede, was then detained after fleeing to Germany (he admits being with Kercher at the time but denies murdering her) the investigation’s desperate efforts to link him with Knox and Sollecito, as portrayed here, bordered on the farcical.
“We still know nothing with precision. We have no motive and don’t even have a dynamic of the crime,” said Meo Ponte, chief crime correspondent of the Italian daily La Repubblica, who dismissed the scenario put forward by the investigating magistrate in Perugia as “fiction”. Ponte was just one of a number of critical voices featured here, among them Lumumba, Knox’s parents and a leading pathologist who insisted the murder was committed by no more than one person. Subject to this kind of scrutiny, much of the forensic evidence said by police to be rock solid also appeared to be flimsy. Only this week came news that the latest post-mortem examination results couldn’t even say conclusively that Kercher had been sexually assaulted.
The case is a contradictory tangle: Kercher was found in a pool of her own blood. Knox has been painted as an unfeeling party girl, and was filmed kissing Sollecito after the murders – Cutting Edge showed this footage while telling us “the media” had shown the footage. Knox’s tearful parents were interviewed and Cutting Edge also employed a famous Italian crime journalist to wander the streets of Perugia, unhelpfully noting that nothing could be proved or deduced.
And then, some pantomime: a wild-haired sociologist with opinions about this apparently seething town threw his arms around like Johnny Ball (with the bushy eyebrows of Great Uncle Bulgaria), exclaiming wildly about student behaviour. “They come to Perugia and they EXPLODE. You SMOWWWKE TOO MUCH. YOU DREEEENK TOO MUCH, there is group sex ACTIVITEEEE and then everything GETS OUT OF CONTROWWWL.” We may start calling this phenomenon Peston-itis, in honour of the BBC’s business editor who overexclaims every syllable.
Nothing yet is known for sure about the “sex”, “lies” and “murder” of Meredith Kercher, so in the vacuum Cutting Edge served up some talking heads, reheated salacious rumours and was just as grubby as any preceding news broadcast from which it tried to set itself apart. Were the Italian police too hasty in making arrests? Did they, along with half the world’s press and this documentary, pursue fantasies rather than facts? Nothing can be determined until the case goes to trial later this year. So far, none of the suspects, still detained and all protesting their innocence, has even been formally charged. By the end of this programme the only thing that could be said with any certainty about the death of Meredith Kercher is that it was anything but straightforward.
Having scraped the last layer from the barrel-bottom of fame for last week’s one-off “celebrity” series opener, Come Dine with Me (C4) settled into its new evening slot last night with a cast of four mere mortals at the culinary coalface, each hosting a dinner party for the others with a view to skewering the prize for best evening in.
It is a simple format that never seemed so offensive coming in short daytime bursts spread over a week. But the move to primetime and the new hour-long format really betray the show’s lowest-common-denominator origins: the cheap-laugh competitors, the bog-standard production values, the woefully unfunny “comedy” commentary, and the miserly prize fund of just £1,000.
Last night’s quartet from Newcastle comprised a gay man who collects Barbie dolls, a female boxer, an obsessive hoarder and a Conservative councillor (“Ooh-er,” went the voiceover). All were so clearly chosen for their foibles rather than their kitchen skills it was frankly pathetic, and the result was all too predictably cringe-making. Truly, Channel 4 must be feeling the credit crunch badly to try to pass off this cheap, tasteless tat as primetime-quality fare. Truly, I think I've just discovered the worst programme on television.
Lee (gay man who collects Barbie dolls), who's not very good at hosting, or dinner, or partying, is hosting a dinner party. He's not spectacularly and hilariously bad at those things, just not very good at them. The guests, whom Lee didn't know before, turn out to be as unspectacular as he is. There's nothing wrong with them - well, apart from Brian, who's a bit of an arse, to be honest. And a Tory. But not enough of an arse to be amusing.
Becky and Brenda I'm sure are very nice, but nothing about any of these people is convincing me they should be on television. There should be a reason for someone to get on TV - an expertise, a skill, a story, the ability to entertain or act or read the news. Or, to get on Five, an interesting medical condition, like a twin brother growing out of your forehead. But this lot have nothing interesting to say or do, no party tricks; their foreheads are sibling-free.
Lee and Becky try to guess how old Brenda is, but Brian won't comment on
a lady's age. Then, after a couple of glasses of wine, a little innuendo creeps
in. Brenda says she's very particular about what goes in her mouth. Ha ha ha. Lee gets a bit tiddly and drops a bottle of wine while trying to open it. By happy coincidence, the camera is focused right on him as he does this, almost as if it were staged. Anyway, the evening now has drama. The bottle doesn't break, but some wine is spilled on the floor and a cloth is required.
This show is not purely about entertainment, though - it's about food, too. So Lee's starter doesn't work very well. The breadcrumbs haven't stuck to the calamari. But it's not a catastrophe either. The Beef Wellington is better: phenomenal, says Brian. Brenda notices how often Brian says phenomenal. She won't eat the Beef Wellington, because she's very particular about what goes in her mouth. Ha ha ha. Becky doesn't say much at all. And then Lee's pudding, a raspberry and passionfruit mousse, is, wait for it, it's hilarious ... a disaster! Ha ha ha ha. But we can still go to the website to get the recipe! Ha ha ha.
So, basically, we've joined four unspectacular people for an evening of unspectacular food and chat. I haven't been amused, or entertained, I've learnt nothing about food or anything else. But, wait, that's not the end. Because - and this is the really clever part - we have to do the same thing all over again. And again. And again. Dinner round at Brian's place. Then Becky's and finally Brenda's. All four in one show. By the end, I'm so bored I'm angry. Who's responsible - whose idea was this? You're fired. Andy Duncan, head of Channel 4, you're fired. You're all fired.
If you believe the camera on Inside the Medieval Mind, life in the Middle Ages was a weird and scary trip: the invisible men shimmering around the place, the dog-headed people lurking in the shadows, the women in glowing white robes popping up behind you when you're trying to play chess with your doppelgänger. The Renaissance must have come as such a relief.
I don't believe the Middle Ages felt like that at all; actually, life probably was scary, but in banal ways. Most people were too worried about hunger, cold, disease, the fact that everything was damp and smelled funny, wild things making noises in the dark, and the prospect of being beaten or maimed by their fellow human beings to give much thought to dog men. Still, it's not often that my main problem with a television programme is that it's too interesting, and I'm prepared to overlook the colourised, glossy look inflicted on the scenery on the grounds that they've left Professor Robert Bartlett alone. He is a large man who looms at the camera, and he is, if not dishevelled, not exactly shevelled. He projects a reassuring impression of a man who's been asked to do this because he knows about it and has interesting things to say.
The theme of this programme was the emergence of rational thinking from a world of superstition. The thing that distinguishes our minds from medieval ones is that we are more likely to ask questions and look for evidence. In the Middles Ages, knowledge was, essentially, received. If it was in the Bible, it had to be true; and if you heard stories of green children emerging in Suffolk from a marvellous underground country, of wild fish men being caught at sea, of far, distant regions inhabited by men with faces in their chests or giant feet they could use as umbrellas, well, given that you hadn't heard any different, you might as well take those to be true. Professor Bartlett quoted a report by the abbot Ralph of Coggeshall, about the netting of a fish man, who refused to utter a sound, even when hung upside down and tortured for information. For Bartlett, what was disturbing here was that Ralph worried less about whether the story he'd heard was true, than about what category this creature fell into (did it have a soul? In which case, ought it be converted to Christianity?). For me, what was disturbing was the casual mention of torture as a means of extracting information. Didn't they even have the decency to pack them off to a friendly power to get the torturing done?
There was quite a lot of entertainment in this vain: stories about people chucking spears and arrows at the moon during an eclipse, or about beavers, who would fool the huntsmen after them for their scent glands by biting off their own testicles, then cocking a leg to show off the blank space. Similarly, medieval bestiarists pointed out, we should be biting off our own vices, so that the Devil can see there's no point hunting us. Why doesn't David Attenborough give us useful stuff like that?
Sadly, all this picturesque counter-knowledge was being slowly picked apart by advances in thinking: Thomas Aquinas promoted reason, so long as it was compatible with the Bible (Bartlett got in a good story about his parents trying to dissuade him from the clergy by locking him up and sending in nubile young women); Roger Bacon promoted experience as the measure of knowledge; the conquest of Moorish Spain gave Western Europe possession of Aristotle's philosophy, as well as Arabic numerals – so much easier to calculate with. Meanwhile, travellers such as Marco Polo were establishing that the Eastern fringes of the known world were not inhabited by dog-heads – in fact, the Easterners assumed that the dog-heads all lived in the West. Occasionally, Bartlett left gaps that needed filling. His account of the invention of the mechanical clock implied an impressive industrial-technical infrastructure, with metalworkers who could make complicated and precise components. Clearly, there was something he wasn't telling us. But there are another three hours to go, and I'm looking forward to looking back.
Talking about rational thinking... Caso chiuso, or case closed, the Italian police trumpeted less than a week after the murder of British student Meredith Kercher in Perugia last November. Three suspects were in custody, accused of forcing the 21-year-old to engage in drug-fuelled sex before cutting her throat. Anyone following the lurid early press coverage, lapping up the sensationalist stories of sexual perversion and out-of-control students in the ancient university town, could be forgiven for thinking that would be that. Unsavoury perhaps, but straightforward.
Not so, said last night’s Cutting Edge documentary Sex, Lies and the Murder of Meredith Kercher (C4) which revealed that, six months on, the circumstances surrounding the homicide remain very much open to question. The principal thrust of the programme was that the police case has never been anything like as convincing as was claimed, and that they have repeatedly struggled to make the facts fit a theory shown at every turn to be flawed.
Now it should be noted that broadcast journalism has a disease. When a news programme or documentary can’t find anything original to report, it fills time by asking other journalists or “experts” to pass comment on – or analyses “the media”, as if “the media” wasn’t anything to do with them. Reports of a high-profile murder or football signing or entertainment event will inevitably include a reporter talking about the reporting of the event. This was most evident at the height of the Madeleine McCann drama, when reporters reported on reporters; and the media noted the activities of the media.
Last night’s documentary began most loftily, and with Cutting Edge’s august lineage behind it, why not? The media had descended on Perugia in Italy after the British exchange student’s death and – shoving a camera in a student’s face – Cutting Edge reported how the media had shoved cameras in the faces of students. The image of Perugia was, we were told, “Dante by day and Inferno by night”. All this hyperbole about hyperbole came furnished with a soundtrack better suited to a Hammer film.
The investigation’s initial hypothesis – that Kercher was murdered by her 20-year-old American flatmate Amanda Knox, Knox’s Italian boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito and Congolese club owner Patrick Lumumba – was proved wrong within weeks when Lumumba was released after providing an airtight alibi. When another suspect, Rudy Guede, was then detained after fleeing to Germany (he admits being with Kercher at the time but denies murdering her) the investigation’s desperate efforts to link him with Knox and Sollecito, as portrayed here, bordered on the farcical.
“We still know nothing with precision. We have no motive and don’t even have a dynamic of the crime,” said Meo Ponte, chief crime correspondent of the Italian daily La Repubblica, who dismissed the scenario put forward by the investigating magistrate in Perugia as “fiction”. Ponte was just one of a number of critical voices featured here, among them Lumumba, Knox’s parents and a leading pathologist who insisted the murder was committed by no more than one person. Subject to this kind of scrutiny, much of the forensic evidence said by police to be rock solid also appeared to be flimsy. Only this week came news that the latest post-mortem examination results couldn’t even say conclusively that Kercher had been sexually assaulted.
The case is a contradictory tangle: Kercher was found in a pool of her own blood. Knox has been painted as an unfeeling party girl, and was filmed kissing Sollecito after the murders – Cutting Edge showed this footage while telling us “the media” had shown the footage. Knox’s tearful parents were interviewed and Cutting Edge also employed a famous Italian crime journalist to wander the streets of Perugia, unhelpfully noting that nothing could be proved or deduced.
And then, some pantomime: a wild-haired sociologist with opinions about this apparently seething town threw his arms around like Johnny Ball (with the bushy eyebrows of Great Uncle Bulgaria), exclaiming wildly about student behaviour. “They come to Perugia and they EXPLODE. You SMOWWWKE TOO MUCH. YOU DREEEENK TOO MUCH, there is group sex ACTIVITEEEE and then everything GETS OUT OF CONTROWWWL.” We may start calling this phenomenon Peston-itis, in honour of the BBC’s business editor who overexclaims every syllable.
Nothing yet is known for sure about the “sex”, “lies” and “murder” of Meredith Kercher, so in the vacuum Cutting Edge served up some talking heads, reheated salacious rumours and was just as grubby as any preceding news broadcast from which it tried to set itself apart. Were the Italian police too hasty in making arrests? Did they, along with half the world’s press and this documentary, pursue fantasies rather than facts? Nothing can be determined until the case goes to trial later this year. So far, none of the suspects, still detained and all protesting their innocence, has even been formally charged. By the end of this programme the only thing that could be said with any certainty about the death of Meredith Kercher is that it was anything but straightforward.
Having scraped the last layer from the barrel-bottom of fame for last week’s one-off “celebrity” series opener, Come Dine with Me (C4) settled into its new evening slot last night with a cast of four mere mortals at the culinary coalface, each hosting a dinner party for the others with a view to skewering the prize for best evening in.
It is a simple format that never seemed so offensive coming in short daytime bursts spread over a week. But the move to primetime and the new hour-long format really betray the show’s lowest-common-denominator origins: the cheap-laugh competitors, the bog-standard production values, the woefully unfunny “comedy” commentary, and the miserly prize fund of just £1,000.
Last night’s quartet from Newcastle comprised a gay man who collects Barbie dolls, a female boxer, an obsessive hoarder and a Conservative councillor (“Ooh-er,” went the voiceover). All were so clearly chosen for their foibles rather than their kitchen skills it was frankly pathetic, and the result was all too predictably cringe-making. Truly, Channel 4 must be feeling the credit crunch badly to try to pass off this cheap, tasteless tat as primetime-quality fare. Truly, I think I've just discovered the worst programme on television.
Lee (gay man who collects Barbie dolls), who's not very good at hosting, or dinner, or partying, is hosting a dinner party. He's not spectacularly and hilariously bad at those things, just not very good at them. The guests, whom Lee didn't know before, turn out to be as unspectacular as he is. There's nothing wrong with them - well, apart from Brian, who's a bit of an arse, to be honest. And a Tory. But not enough of an arse to be amusing.
Becky and Brenda I'm sure are very nice, but nothing about any of these people is convincing me they should be on television. There should be a reason for someone to get on TV - an expertise, a skill, a story, the ability to entertain or act or read the news. Or, to get on Five, an interesting medical condition, like a twin brother growing out of your forehead. But this lot have nothing interesting to say or do, no party tricks; their foreheads are sibling-free.
Lee and Becky try to guess how old Brenda is, but Brian won't comment on
a lady's age. Then, after a couple of glasses of wine, a little innuendo creeps
in. Brenda says she's very particular about what goes in her mouth. Ha ha ha. Lee gets a bit tiddly and drops a bottle of wine while trying to open it. By happy coincidence, the camera is focused right on him as he does this, almost as if it were staged. Anyway, the evening now has drama. The bottle doesn't break, but some wine is spilled on the floor and a cloth is required.
This show is not purely about entertainment, though - it's about food, too. So Lee's starter doesn't work very well. The breadcrumbs haven't stuck to the calamari. But it's not a catastrophe either. The Beef Wellington is better: phenomenal, says Brian. Brenda notices how often Brian says phenomenal. She won't eat the Beef Wellington, because she's very particular about what goes in her mouth. Ha ha ha. Becky doesn't say much at all. And then Lee's pudding, a raspberry and passionfruit mousse, is, wait for it, it's hilarious ... a disaster! Ha ha ha ha. But we can still go to the website to get the recipe! Ha ha ha.
So, basically, we've joined four unspectacular people for an evening of unspectacular food and chat. I haven't been amused, or entertained, I've learnt nothing about food or anything else. But, wait, that's not the end. Because - and this is the really clever part - we have to do the same thing all over again. And again. And again. Dinner round at Brian's place. Then Becky's and finally Brenda's. All four in one show. By the end, I'm so bored I'm angry. Who's responsible - whose idea was this? You're fired. Andy Duncan, head of Channel 4, you're fired. You're all fired.
Thursday 17 April 2008
Richard and Judy to join UKTV
They made their name as the permanently cheery husband and wife presenting team on ITV's This Morning and in recent years have entertained the teatime audience on Channel 4. But from the autumn, Richard Madeley and Judy Finnegan will move to the relative obscurity of digital television.
The pay-television network UKTV has signed the couple for a "significant sum". But what the pair gain financially, they will lose in prestige. Their Channel 4 show regularly pulls in two million viewers to the 5pm slot. They can expect a much lower audience of fewer than 400,000 on UKTV.
The decision to strike a deal with UKTV, which is half owned by BBC Worldwide – the corporation's commercial arm – and half by Virgin Media Television, suggests that more high-profile broadcasters such as the BBC, ITV and Sky did not express sufficient interest in poaching them when their contract with Channel 4 comes to an end in September.
When the couple announced they were leaving Channel 4 in November last year, after 20 years of presenting live daytime TV, many assumed that Finnigan would fulfil her long-expressed desire to write a novel, while Madeley would pursue his own projects. Leaving Channel 4 also meant escaping the taint of the television phone-in scandal after the premium-rate phone-line watchdog, Icstis, fined the phone operator Eckoh £150,000 over the Richard and Judy "You Say We Pay" competition.
But the pair said the temptation to continue working together had proved too strong. Following the successful rebranding of its G2 channel in October 2007 as Dave – aimed at a young male audience offering repeats of Top Gear and QI – UKTV is expected to relaunch its most popular pay-TV channel UKTV Gold in the summer. Madeley and Finnigan's new show will launch on the rebranded channel in the autumn in a prime time slot.
Their UKTV show will be made by Cactus TV, the independent production company owned by Jonathan Ross's brother Simon and his wife Amanda, which currently makes their Channel 4 show. It will feature the popular Richard and Judy book and wine clubs, which have been great money-spinners for their respective industries.
Finnigan said: "When we announced our decision to leave our current television series after seven years, we were very touched by the number of people – friends, family, guests, viewers and broadcasters – who told us how much they wanted to see us continuing making programmes together." Madeley said UKTV's proposal was "attractive and fun and will give us the kind of flexibility in our personal lives we've been looking for".
The editor of Broadcast magazine, Lisa Campbell, said: "Although their popularity has declined from their heyday, one would have expected them to have retained a high profile on a mainstream channel once their Channel 4 contract was up, particularly owing to the success of their book and wine clubs.
"To move to a UKTV channel which isn't even on Freeview means they'll be playing out to a fraction of the two million-plus audience they've been used to. Peak ratings on UKTV Gold so far this year have been just 380,000. So although a move to a niche channel is great news for the broadcaster, it's quite a shock move by what was once TV's golden couple."
Madeley and Finnigan defected from ITV to Channel 4 in 2001. Their show runs in rotation with The New Paul O'Grady Show, with three months off air and three months on.
The pay-television network UKTV has signed the couple for a "significant sum". But what the pair gain financially, they will lose in prestige. Their Channel 4 show regularly pulls in two million viewers to the 5pm slot. They can expect a much lower audience of fewer than 400,000 on UKTV.
The decision to strike a deal with UKTV, which is half owned by BBC Worldwide – the corporation's commercial arm – and half by Virgin Media Television, suggests that more high-profile broadcasters such as the BBC, ITV and Sky did not express sufficient interest in poaching them when their contract with Channel 4 comes to an end in September.
When the couple announced they were leaving Channel 4 in November last year, after 20 years of presenting live daytime TV, many assumed that Finnigan would fulfil her long-expressed desire to write a novel, while Madeley would pursue his own projects. Leaving Channel 4 also meant escaping the taint of the television phone-in scandal after the premium-rate phone-line watchdog, Icstis, fined the phone operator Eckoh £150,000 over the Richard and Judy "You Say We Pay" competition.
But the pair said the temptation to continue working together had proved too strong. Following the successful rebranding of its G2 channel in October 2007 as Dave – aimed at a young male audience offering repeats of Top Gear and QI – UKTV is expected to relaunch its most popular pay-TV channel UKTV Gold in the summer. Madeley and Finnigan's new show will launch on the rebranded channel in the autumn in a prime time slot.
Their UKTV show will be made by Cactus TV, the independent production company owned by Jonathan Ross's brother Simon and his wife Amanda, which currently makes their Channel 4 show. It will feature the popular Richard and Judy book and wine clubs, which have been great money-spinners for their respective industries.
Finnigan said: "When we announced our decision to leave our current television series after seven years, we were very touched by the number of people – friends, family, guests, viewers and broadcasters – who told us how much they wanted to see us continuing making programmes together." Madeley said UKTV's proposal was "attractive and fun and will give us the kind of flexibility in our personal lives we've been looking for".
The editor of Broadcast magazine, Lisa Campbell, said: "Although their popularity has declined from their heyday, one would have expected them to have retained a high profile on a mainstream channel once their Channel 4 contract was up, particularly owing to the success of their book and wine clubs.
"To move to a UKTV channel which isn't even on Freeview means they'll be playing out to a fraction of the two million-plus audience they've been used to. Peak ratings on UKTV Gold so far this year have been just 380,000. So although a move to a niche channel is great news for the broadcaster, it's quite a shock move by what was once TV's golden couple."
Madeley and Finnigan defected from ITV to Channel 4 in 2001. Their show runs in rotation with The New Paul O'Grady Show, with three months off air and three months on.
TV actor Beghe attacks Scientology
American TV actor and former Scientologist Jason Beghe has labelled the controversial religion “destructive” and a “rip-off” in a video interview posted on YouTube, writes Veronica Schmidt.
The 48-year-old is the first celebrity to speak out against the religion, telling how his 12 years with the church have damaged him. “My experience personally, and what I’ve observed for myself, is that Scientology is destructive and a rip-off,” said Beghe, who has acted on Cane, CSI and Veronica Mars. "It’s very, very dangerous for your spiritual, psychological and mental, emotional health and evolution. I think it stunts your evolution.”
The actor, who estimates he gave the church $1 million (£500,000) over 12 years, has also given an interview to New York publication The Village Voice, explaining the church’s relationship with Hollywood heavyweights. Beghe claims Scientology’s fascination with celebrities is not just a PR exercise but that the late founder L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer, had made it clear he wanted celebrities recruited to the church.
If a member could recruit a celebrity, Beghe said, they were rewarded by having the contents of their “ethics file” – the record of misdeeds admitted during “auditing” or spiritual counselling – cleared. The church, which has dedicated Scientology Celebrity Centres, counts Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kelly Preston and Kirstie Alley among its members.
Beghe has also revealed how he became frustrated with the religion after requirements for training continually shifted and an increasing amount of money was required to continue in the church.
The interview is the latest in a series of blows for the American-based church. In January, an embarrassing video clip of Cruise discussing Scientology was leaked onto YouTube. The clip was followed by a further video in March of Cruise celebrating his birthday with members of the church. The church insists it brings its members “spiritual enlightenment” and it has helped the world progress towards “the eradication of its ills”, including drugs, crime, violence and intolerance.
The three-minute-long video, posted by the prolific Scientology critic Mark Bunker for XenuTV on Monday, is to be followed by a longer interview this weekend. Beghe insists he does not have an axe to grind and has spoken out to help others who have become involved in a religion he now believes to be at best unhelpful and at worst damaging. “I don’t have an agenda. Right now I’m trying to help,” he said.
The 48-year-old is the first celebrity to speak out against the religion, telling how his 12 years with the church have damaged him. “My experience personally, and what I’ve observed for myself, is that Scientology is destructive and a rip-off,” said Beghe, who has acted on Cane, CSI and Veronica Mars. "It’s very, very dangerous for your spiritual, psychological and mental, emotional health and evolution. I think it stunts your evolution.”
The actor, who estimates he gave the church $1 million (£500,000) over 12 years, has also given an interview to New York publication The Village Voice, explaining the church’s relationship with Hollywood heavyweights. Beghe claims Scientology’s fascination with celebrities is not just a PR exercise but that the late founder L. Ron Hubbard, a science fiction writer, had made it clear he wanted celebrities recruited to the church.
If a member could recruit a celebrity, Beghe said, they were rewarded by having the contents of their “ethics file” – the record of misdeeds admitted during “auditing” or spiritual counselling – cleared. The church, which has dedicated Scientology Celebrity Centres, counts Tom Cruise, John Travolta, Kelly Preston and Kirstie Alley among its members.
Beghe has also revealed how he became frustrated with the religion after requirements for training continually shifted and an increasing amount of money was required to continue in the church.
The interview is the latest in a series of blows for the American-based church. In January, an embarrassing video clip of Cruise discussing Scientology was leaked onto YouTube. The clip was followed by a further video in March of Cruise celebrating his birthday with members of the church. The church insists it brings its members “spiritual enlightenment” and it has helped the world progress towards “the eradication of its ills”, including drugs, crime, violence and intolerance.
The three-minute-long video, posted by the prolific Scientology critic Mark Bunker for XenuTV on Monday, is to be followed by a longer interview this weekend. Beghe insists he does not have an axe to grind and has spoken out to help others who have become involved in a religion he now believes to be at best unhelpful and at worst damaging. “I don’t have an agenda. Right now I’m trying to help,” he said.
Take my child genius, please?
Last night's TV reviewed: Take Child Genius; Indiana Jones: the True Story
On Channel 4 last night, we watched a rat being dissected and were given a knowledgeable commentary on its anatomy. Which might not sound all that remarkable – except that our anatomical guide was an eight-year-old child. Gifted youngsters (or, to be more precise, exceptionally gifted children whose parents didn't tick the "no publicity" box) have long been a TV staple. The cunning twist with Take Child Genius is that it promises to follow them into adulthood. Yesterday’s four subjects ranged in age from three to 11, and none, it’s fair to say, lacked intellectual confidence. Yet, as you might expect, the programme was at least as much about their parents as themselves.
Now, I know that I should be concentrating on Adam, who spends quality time with Mummy dissecting those rats, or Mikhail, who can add 8,192 and 8,192 faster than you can blink, but I keep getting distracted. We were told at one point, for instance, that Peter's father "has given up his job as an artificial-limb painter". And immediately I found myself thinking, "Can't we see a documentary about that? And can it really be true that it's a big sacrifice for Peter Sr to have stepped off the limb-painting ladder? How high can you go in the field of prosthetic aesthetics?" And when we were shown the MP Michael Mates, harrumphing indignantly about a letter that Peter Jr, had written to him about his problems with the local council, I found myself wondering what tortuous calculations of political advantage he'd gone through to conclude that he could safely insult a constituent on camera. Can't be rude about small children, he would have thought, but on the other hand, viewers may think he's a clever dick... so perhaps I'll get away with it.
Actually, Peter – once you peel off the layers of acquired bumptiousness – seems to be quite a nice little boy, and certainly better than you might expect of a child who has to carry the weight of an entire family's ambitions. He didn't throw a tantrum when his anticipated triumph at a European chess championship failed to materialise (he came 67th out of 91, which was around 66 places lower than he'd been aiming for). He just went very quiet and looked as if he needed a hug. Which his father, still doing post-match analysis on the last game, conspicuously failed to give him. That's another distraction. What you're interested in here isn't the children, most of whose achievements are dully quantifiable. It's the parents, many of whom insist on the fact that they wouldn't dream of pushing their children but don't then explain who it was exactly who put in the application papers for Mensa.
It can be a hard world too. Mikhail used to enjoy the title of youngest-ever Mensa member but has recently been bumped by Georgia, who joined before she reached her third birthday, and will presumably now start scooping the appearances on Oprah and Countdown. Georgia's mother, Lucy– a woman who apparently sees her daughter not just as a genius, but as a possible Messiah, told us that Georgia is in a constant state of disappointment at human meanness, and “depending on what you believe about auras, a lot of pictures of her have white light around her”. Lucy also emphasised that “we haven’t pushed Georgia in any way”, although she did alert the press when the girl (presumably not off her own bat) broke the Mensa membership record. Although parental adoration is hardly the worst crime in the world, you sense that it might be toxic when insufficiently diluted. When Mikhael was first tested, his precocious maths abilities weren't matched by equivalent verbal skills, so his parents immediately put him on a remedial coaching programme and arranged a fund-raising spellathon so that he could show off his new skills in front of the local newsmen. Don't know how it is with these people who aren't pushing, but the non-pushees still seem to end up at the front in all the pictures.
Given the long-term nature of the project, it was probably wise that the makers let all this (and plenty more like it) pass without much comment. Nor did they ask any of the parents such questions as “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” They were pretty generous as well to the programme’s resident expert in gifted children, Professor Joan Freeman – despite what appeared to the inexpert eye her tendency to tactlessness. At one point, for example, Professor Freeman was brought in to measure the IQ of six-year-old Samuel, who clearly felt overshadowed by his brother, Adam (the one with the rat). With both boys present, she boomingly informed the parents that Samuel “did a lot better than I think you would have expected from what you said”.
But, of course, the professor was informing us too – and this public aspect is where the whole enterprise, however undeniably interesting, perhaps feels a bit uncomfortable. Many viewers last night will surely have wondered if these children might benefit from not being held up as geniuses all the time. Unfortunately, now they’re signed up for years to a TV series called Child Genius, that prospect seems unlikely.
Meanwhile, you definitely didn’t need the IQ of a genius to realise that Five’s Indiana Jones: the True Story was a work of desperate stupidity. Jones’s creators, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, have always said (and not very controversially) that he’s a purely fictional character. Last night’s documentary, though, decided for no discernible reason that this couldn’t possibly be the case, and set off instead to find the real-life adventurers he must be based on.
In fact, the stories of Andrews and Rahn could have made for interesting documentaries in themselves. Sadly, the sense here was that they were always being distorted to fit a thesis that was both unnecessary and entirely unproved. (At no point, for instance, did the programme even attempt to show that Spielberg or Lucas had heard of either man.) You also know a programme’s in trouble when the only thing it establishes for sure – and quite proudly – is that “the Nazis” in the Indiana Jones films were based on a German political party of the same name.
On Channel 4 last night, we watched a rat being dissected and were given a knowledgeable commentary on its anatomy. Which might not sound all that remarkable – except that our anatomical guide was an eight-year-old child. Gifted youngsters (or, to be more precise, exceptionally gifted children whose parents didn't tick the "no publicity" box) have long been a TV staple. The cunning twist with Take Child Genius is that it promises to follow them into adulthood. Yesterday’s four subjects ranged in age from three to 11, and none, it’s fair to say, lacked intellectual confidence. Yet, as you might expect, the programme was at least as much about their parents as themselves.
Now, I know that I should be concentrating on Adam, who spends quality time with Mummy dissecting those rats, or Mikhail, who can add 8,192 and 8,192 faster than you can blink, but I keep getting distracted. We were told at one point, for instance, that Peter's father "has given up his job as an artificial-limb painter". And immediately I found myself thinking, "Can't we see a documentary about that? And can it really be true that it's a big sacrifice for Peter Sr to have stepped off the limb-painting ladder? How high can you go in the field of prosthetic aesthetics?" And when we were shown the MP Michael Mates, harrumphing indignantly about a letter that Peter Jr, had written to him about his problems with the local council, I found myself wondering what tortuous calculations of political advantage he'd gone through to conclude that he could safely insult a constituent on camera. Can't be rude about small children, he would have thought, but on the other hand, viewers may think he's a clever dick... so perhaps I'll get away with it.
Actually, Peter – once you peel off the layers of acquired bumptiousness – seems to be quite a nice little boy, and certainly better than you might expect of a child who has to carry the weight of an entire family's ambitions. He didn't throw a tantrum when his anticipated triumph at a European chess championship failed to materialise (he came 67th out of 91, which was around 66 places lower than he'd been aiming for). He just went very quiet and looked as if he needed a hug. Which his father, still doing post-match analysis on the last game, conspicuously failed to give him. That's another distraction. What you're interested in here isn't the children, most of whose achievements are dully quantifiable. It's the parents, many of whom insist on the fact that they wouldn't dream of pushing their children but don't then explain who it was exactly who put in the application papers for Mensa.
It can be a hard world too. Mikhail used to enjoy the title of youngest-ever Mensa member but has recently been bumped by Georgia, who joined before she reached her third birthday, and will presumably now start scooping the appearances on Oprah and Countdown. Georgia's mother, Lucy– a woman who apparently sees her daughter not just as a genius, but as a possible Messiah, told us that Georgia is in a constant state of disappointment at human meanness, and “depending on what you believe about auras, a lot of pictures of her have white light around her”. Lucy also emphasised that “we haven’t pushed Georgia in any way”, although she did alert the press when the girl (presumably not off her own bat) broke the Mensa membership record. Although parental adoration is hardly the worst crime in the world, you sense that it might be toxic when insufficiently diluted. When Mikhael was first tested, his precocious maths abilities weren't matched by equivalent verbal skills, so his parents immediately put him on a remedial coaching programme and arranged a fund-raising spellathon so that he could show off his new skills in front of the local newsmen. Don't know how it is with these people who aren't pushing, but the non-pushees still seem to end up at the front in all the pictures.
Given the long-term nature of the project, it was probably wise that the makers let all this (and plenty more like it) pass without much comment. Nor did they ask any of the parents such questions as “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” They were pretty generous as well to the programme’s resident expert in gifted children, Professor Joan Freeman – despite what appeared to the inexpert eye her tendency to tactlessness. At one point, for example, Professor Freeman was brought in to measure the IQ of six-year-old Samuel, who clearly felt overshadowed by his brother, Adam (the one with the rat). With both boys present, she boomingly informed the parents that Samuel “did a lot better than I think you would have expected from what you said”.
But, of course, the professor was informing us too – and this public aspect is where the whole enterprise, however undeniably interesting, perhaps feels a bit uncomfortable. Many viewers last night will surely have wondered if these children might benefit from not being held up as geniuses all the time. Unfortunately, now they’re signed up for years to a TV series called Child Genius, that prospect seems unlikely.
Meanwhile, you definitely didn’t need the IQ of a genius to realise that Five’s Indiana Jones: the True Story was a work of desperate stupidity. Jones’s creators, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, have always said (and not very controversially) that he’s a purely fictional character. Last night’s documentary, though, decided for no discernible reason that this couldn’t possibly be the case, and set off instead to find the real-life adventurers he must be based on.
In fact, the stories of Andrews and Rahn could have made for interesting documentaries in themselves. Sadly, the sense here was that they were always being distorted to fit a thesis that was both unnecessary and entirely unproved. (At no point, for instance, did the programme even attempt to show that Spielberg or Lucas had heard of either man.) You also know a programme’s in trouble when the only thing it establishes for sure – and quite proudly – is that “the Nazis” in the Indiana Jones films were based on a German political party of the same name.
The men who drew Disney
Ollie Johnston, who died yesterday, was the last of nine animators who sprinkled stardust over some of the world's best-loved cartoon characters. Andrew Gumbel reports on the men who drew Disney...
For some sense of the size of the footprint that Ollie Johnston, one of Walt Disney's oldest and longest-serving collaborators, has left on the world of film animation, one could do worse than turn to Brad Bird, the writer-director of some of this decade's most acclaimed animated films, including The Incredibles and this year's Oscar-winner, Ratatouille.
Back in 1978, Bird was a young animator at Disney who looked up with an appropriate sense of wonder at both Johnston and his best friend, Frank Thomas. Both had been with the company since 1934 and formed part of a core group known affectionately as the "Nine Old Men", a group who developed the look, feel, and emotions of every one of Disney's fairy-tale titles and – whatever one thinks of the cuter-than-cute Disney aesthetic with its chirping little birds and garlands of flowers – essentially pioneered the art of putting moving drawings on to celluloid.
In 1978, Johnston and Thomas retired. They left the building on a Friday; Bird inherited Johnston's desk the following Monday. As he later recounted: "I was properly awed as I sat down in Ollie's chair, at his desk. As I was checking it out and getting the feel of it I noticed the pencil sharpener was full of shavings. Instead of throwing them out I poured them into a glass jar, labelled it and set it atop the desk. Good luck shavings ... a simple reminder of the hard work required to create magic. My own jar of real Disney dust. The last jar."
This was indeed an elegiac moment. Johnston and Thomas were the last of the nine to walk out the door of Disney's animation studios, which had started up in Hollywood in the 1920s and then moved, as the company grew in size and stature, to a nondescript facility in the unlovely suburb of Burbank. A similar sense of an era passing fell over the animation world yesterday as news spread that Ollie Johnston had died at the age of 95. Just as he was the last one of the original nine to retire, he was the last one to die, too.
Brad Bird revered him enough to offer him small speaking parts by way of homage in two of his films, The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. Two years ago, wheelchair-bound but still exuberant in spirit, Johnston travelled to Washington to accept a National Medal for the Arts from President George Bush. Thomas might easily have been there with him, had he not died the year before.
Johnston was feted for his specific contributions to the Disney canon – the character of Mr Smee, Captain Hook's feckless sidekick, in Peter Pan; the evil stepsisters in Cinderella; Bad King John (eventually voiced by Peter Ustinov) in Robin Hood; and, perhaps most memorably of all, the taboo-breaking early scene in Bambi when Bambi's mother is shot dead by hunters. The Bambi aesthetic tends to be ridiculed as much as it is cherished these days – all those big, blinking, tear-moistened doe eyes designed to tug at our emotions seem more than a touch mawkish and manipulative.
At the time, though – the film came out in 1942 – the very achievement of bringing animal drawings to life and triggering an emotional response in a mass audience was little short of ground-breaking. Blame the cheesy aesthetics on Disney himself; the technical accomplishment was all Johnston's, along with the rest of the nine. That achievement later laid the groundwork for the other big legacy that Johnston and Thomas have left to their successor animators – a book now generally regarded as the animation bible.
Called The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation, and first published in the early 1980s, it is a 600-page examination of the theory and practice of animated film, together with hundreds of stills from the Disney canon and other illustrations. Johnston and Thomas consider the long history of drawing and the attempt by artists, going back all the way to the cave painters of the Cro-Magnon era, to create the illusion of movement and life. They draw on every sort of theory of emotional expression, including Jane Goodall's work with chimpanzees (useful for animal films such as The Jungle Book).
In their view, the advent of film was an unparalleled breakthrough in the history of drawing, in the never-ending search for what they term "that elusive spark of life". "By making sequential drawings of a continuous action," they write, "and projecting their photographs on to a screen at a constant rate, an artist now could create all of the movement and inner life he was capable of. An artist could represent the actual figure, if he chose, methodically capturing its movements and actions. Or he could caricature it, satirise it, ridicule it ... what an amazing art form!"
The trick, the indefinable magic, was not to make the audience feel it ought to be responding to a cleverly crafted drawing, but rather to make the audience forget it was watching moving drawings at all and make the emotional connection easily, spontaneously, like a puppet-master making his audience forget his puppet has strings. This is what Walt Disney had dreamt of from the very beginning. "I want characters to be somebody. I don't want them just to be a drawing," he had said as early as 1927.
The "Nine Old Men" were hired more haphazardly than methodically – these were the very early days of film animation, with no certainty about the future. Johnston was a native Californian and a graduate of Stanford University and a prestigious art institute in Los Angeles when he joined in 1935. He was given just one week of training before starting on the job as an "in-betweener", a low-level artist who fills in the blanks between the most important action moments.
Others had even more happy-go-lucky entries into the business. Les Clark was an ice-cream shop owner across the street from Disney's original premises in Hollywood who caught Disney's attention because of the elegant lettering around the mirrors of his shop. Clark asked Disney if he could show him some drawings, and the tentative offer of a short-term job turned into a lifetime's work.
The nine solidified as a group in the 1930s and 1940s, the period when Disney produced such pioneering titles as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia and Bambi. None of them were really old men – they were in their twenties and thirties. The nickname derived, rather, from President Franklin Roosevelt's dismissive term for the nine mostly conservative justices on the Supreme Court who had a habit of blocking his New Deal reforms.
As a group they worked out 12 basic principles for bringing characters and scenes to life, which centred around timing, how much action to put into any frame sequence, and the degree to which they should exaggerate physical features or movements. Everything, from Johnston's point of view, started with an understanding of the character's state of mind. It's a lesson his successors have taken to heart. "He taught me to always be aware of what a character is thinking," said John Lasseter, the head of the Pixar Animation Studio who directed Toy Story and a whole production line of wildly successful computer-animated successor titles, in a statement to mark Johnston's death. "We continue to make sure that every character we create at Pixar and Disney has a thought process and emotion that makes them come alive."
For Johnston, animation wasn't just about replicating the emotions and thrills of live-action film. It was also an opportunity to create characters more wholly than any actor ever could with his or her physical limitations. Naturally, that challenge had its daunting side. "The worst thing about starting a new scene," he once said, "is have to start with blank piece of paper. It's not like live action where a director knows he has Robert Redford or Meryl Streep – a known quantity. We start with nothing."
For some sense of the size of the footprint that Ollie Johnston, one of Walt Disney's oldest and longest-serving collaborators, has left on the world of film animation, one could do worse than turn to Brad Bird, the writer-director of some of this decade's most acclaimed animated films, including The Incredibles and this year's Oscar-winner, Ratatouille.
Back in 1978, Bird was a young animator at Disney who looked up with an appropriate sense of wonder at both Johnston and his best friend, Frank Thomas. Both had been with the company since 1934 and formed part of a core group known affectionately as the "Nine Old Men", a group who developed the look, feel, and emotions of every one of Disney's fairy-tale titles and – whatever one thinks of the cuter-than-cute Disney aesthetic with its chirping little birds and garlands of flowers – essentially pioneered the art of putting moving drawings on to celluloid.
In 1978, Johnston and Thomas retired. They left the building on a Friday; Bird inherited Johnston's desk the following Monday. As he later recounted: "I was properly awed as I sat down in Ollie's chair, at his desk. As I was checking it out and getting the feel of it I noticed the pencil sharpener was full of shavings. Instead of throwing them out I poured them into a glass jar, labelled it and set it atop the desk. Good luck shavings ... a simple reminder of the hard work required to create magic. My own jar of real Disney dust. The last jar."
This was indeed an elegiac moment. Johnston and Thomas were the last of the nine to walk out the door of Disney's animation studios, which had started up in Hollywood in the 1920s and then moved, as the company grew in size and stature, to a nondescript facility in the unlovely suburb of Burbank. A similar sense of an era passing fell over the animation world yesterday as news spread that Ollie Johnston had died at the age of 95. Just as he was the last one of the original nine to retire, he was the last one to die, too.
Brad Bird revered him enough to offer him small speaking parts by way of homage in two of his films, The Iron Giant and The Incredibles. Two years ago, wheelchair-bound but still exuberant in spirit, Johnston travelled to Washington to accept a National Medal for the Arts from President George Bush. Thomas might easily have been there with him, had he not died the year before.
Johnston was feted for his specific contributions to the Disney canon – the character of Mr Smee, Captain Hook's feckless sidekick, in Peter Pan; the evil stepsisters in Cinderella; Bad King John (eventually voiced by Peter Ustinov) in Robin Hood; and, perhaps most memorably of all, the taboo-breaking early scene in Bambi when Bambi's mother is shot dead by hunters. The Bambi aesthetic tends to be ridiculed as much as it is cherished these days – all those big, blinking, tear-moistened doe eyes designed to tug at our emotions seem more than a touch mawkish and manipulative.
At the time, though – the film came out in 1942 – the very achievement of bringing animal drawings to life and triggering an emotional response in a mass audience was little short of ground-breaking. Blame the cheesy aesthetics on Disney himself; the technical accomplishment was all Johnston's, along with the rest of the nine. That achievement later laid the groundwork for the other big legacy that Johnston and Thomas have left to their successor animators – a book now generally regarded as the animation bible.
Called The Illusion of Life: Disney Animation, and first published in the early 1980s, it is a 600-page examination of the theory and practice of animated film, together with hundreds of stills from the Disney canon and other illustrations. Johnston and Thomas consider the long history of drawing and the attempt by artists, going back all the way to the cave painters of the Cro-Magnon era, to create the illusion of movement and life. They draw on every sort of theory of emotional expression, including Jane Goodall's work with chimpanzees (useful for animal films such as The Jungle Book).
In their view, the advent of film was an unparalleled breakthrough in the history of drawing, in the never-ending search for what they term "that elusive spark of life". "By making sequential drawings of a continuous action," they write, "and projecting their photographs on to a screen at a constant rate, an artist now could create all of the movement and inner life he was capable of. An artist could represent the actual figure, if he chose, methodically capturing its movements and actions. Or he could caricature it, satirise it, ridicule it ... what an amazing art form!"
The trick, the indefinable magic, was not to make the audience feel it ought to be responding to a cleverly crafted drawing, but rather to make the audience forget it was watching moving drawings at all and make the emotional connection easily, spontaneously, like a puppet-master making his audience forget his puppet has strings. This is what Walt Disney had dreamt of from the very beginning. "I want characters to be somebody. I don't want them just to be a drawing," he had said as early as 1927.
The "Nine Old Men" were hired more haphazardly than methodically – these were the very early days of film animation, with no certainty about the future. Johnston was a native Californian and a graduate of Stanford University and a prestigious art institute in Los Angeles when he joined in 1935. He was given just one week of training before starting on the job as an "in-betweener", a low-level artist who fills in the blanks between the most important action moments.
Others had even more happy-go-lucky entries into the business. Les Clark was an ice-cream shop owner across the street from Disney's original premises in Hollywood who caught Disney's attention because of the elegant lettering around the mirrors of his shop. Clark asked Disney if he could show him some drawings, and the tentative offer of a short-term job turned into a lifetime's work.
The nine solidified as a group in the 1930s and 1940s, the period when Disney produced such pioneering titles as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia and Bambi. None of them were really old men – they were in their twenties and thirties. The nickname derived, rather, from President Franklin Roosevelt's dismissive term for the nine mostly conservative justices on the Supreme Court who had a habit of blocking his New Deal reforms.
As a group they worked out 12 basic principles for bringing characters and scenes to life, which centred around timing, how much action to put into any frame sequence, and the degree to which they should exaggerate physical features or movements. Everything, from Johnston's point of view, started with an understanding of the character's state of mind. It's a lesson his successors have taken to heart. "He taught me to always be aware of what a character is thinking," said John Lasseter, the head of the Pixar Animation Studio who directed Toy Story and a whole production line of wildly successful computer-animated successor titles, in a statement to mark Johnston's death. "We continue to make sure that every character we create at Pixar and Disney has a thought process and emotion that makes them come alive."
For Johnston, animation wasn't just about replicating the emotions and thrills of live-action film. It was also an opportunity to create characters more wholly than any actor ever could with his or her physical limitations. Naturally, that challenge had its daunting side. "The worst thing about starting a new scene," he once said, "is have to start with blank piece of paper. It's not like live action where a director knows he has Robert Redford or Meryl Streep – a known quantity. We start with nothing."
Wednesday 16 April 2008
Underbelly sparks new probe
A 'hit' has been ordered on the Nine Network, with a watchdog to investigate whether controversial drama Underbelly has breached classification guidelines. However it's possible the broadcaster will beat the rap, with the investigation not likely to be completed until after the gritty gangland series has finished screening.
Christian group Festival of Light Australia says the screening of Underbelly, which traces the 1995-2004 gangland war between some of Melbourne's most notorious criminals, has breached industry code of practice classification guidelines on five separate occasions.
The group wants the show reclassified, saying there have been numerous occasions when scenes involving strong coarse language, drug use and nudity have been aired at an inappropriate time.
"I'm concerned that Channel Nine is really pushing the envelope, pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable at what time on TV," Festival of Light national research officer Roslyn Phillips said. "It seems to me as if they wanted the 8.30pm time because a lot more people are watching then ... but, of course, those numbers are swelled by young teenage children."
She said parents were lulled into a false sense of security because of Underbelly's M rating, and she wanted it reclassified. "It's quite clear if you read the guidelines that the sorts of things included in some of the scenes should be MA or AV. And if there are any scenes that are AV, and quite a few of the episodes do contain AV scenes, then ... it should be shown after 9.30pm."
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has confirmed the broadcaster is being investigated, but warns this may take several months. The 13-part mini-series began screening on February 13 in all states and territories except Victoria, meaning the show is likely to be off the air before ACMA has completed its investigation.
"It's not only a case of the horse has bolted, but really nothing happens," Ms Phillips said. "It means the guidelines don't mean anything anymore ... we've got to have a much better complaints system."
Meanwhile, Underbelly has been axed in New Zealand after it rated poorly. The Dominion Post newspaper reported the series, portraying Melbourne’s grisly underworld murders, had been taken off air from the TV3 station after screening only three episodes. “I can’t confirm at this stage when the show will return, only that it will be slightly later in the year in a different slot,” TV3 spokeswoman Jacqui Loates said. When the show first screened at 9.30pm on March 30, almost 225,000 watched the show according to AGB Nielsen Media Research, but by last week 188,600 tuned in.
Christian group Festival of Light Australia says the screening of Underbelly, which traces the 1995-2004 gangland war between some of Melbourne's most notorious criminals, has breached industry code of practice classification guidelines on five separate occasions.
The group wants the show reclassified, saying there have been numerous occasions when scenes involving strong coarse language, drug use and nudity have been aired at an inappropriate time.
"I'm concerned that Channel Nine is really pushing the envelope, pushing the boundaries of what's acceptable at what time on TV," Festival of Light national research officer Roslyn Phillips said. "It seems to me as if they wanted the 8.30pm time because a lot more people are watching then ... but, of course, those numbers are swelled by young teenage children."
She said parents were lulled into a false sense of security because of Underbelly's M rating, and she wanted it reclassified. "It's quite clear if you read the guidelines that the sorts of things included in some of the scenes should be MA or AV. And if there are any scenes that are AV, and quite a few of the episodes do contain AV scenes, then ... it should be shown after 9.30pm."
The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) has confirmed the broadcaster is being investigated, but warns this may take several months. The 13-part mini-series began screening on February 13 in all states and territories except Victoria, meaning the show is likely to be off the air before ACMA has completed its investigation.
"It's not only a case of the horse has bolted, but really nothing happens," Ms Phillips said. "It means the guidelines don't mean anything anymore ... we've got to have a much better complaints system."
Meanwhile, Underbelly has been axed in New Zealand after it rated poorly. The Dominion Post newspaper reported the series, portraying Melbourne’s grisly underworld murders, had been taken off air from the TV3 station after screening only three episodes. “I can’t confirm at this stage when the show will return, only that it will be slightly later in the year in a different slot,” TV3 spokeswoman Jacqui Loates said. When the show first screened at 9.30pm on March 30, almost 225,000 watched the show according to AGB Nielsen Media Research, but by last week 188,600 tuned in.
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