The Pryordurkins

Posts Tagged ‘ITV’

I settled down to watch a little TV this evening and immediately regretted it.  If there were ever two programmes competing for the title of Most Depressing Depiction of Old Blighty today, it would be the BBC Britain’s Youngest Grannies programme and Channel Four’s The Family.  Britain’s Youngest Grannies had someone living in Peterlee aged 34 baking cakes with her grandchild prior to snogging the face of a lad before going out clubbing.  In The Family, we had two teenage girls completely out of control, one of them whose sole ambition it seemed was to sell alcopop shots in a nightclub for £3 to presumably drunk teenage blokes.

What happened to sitting down in front of the TV, to be a) entertained, b) educated or c) informed by talented actors and presenters.  It all seems to be going ‘Pete Tong’ with this reality TV stuff now and don’t get me started on X-Factor. It’s simple abuse of vunerable people to make money for so called celebrities and TV companies in the name of public entertainment in my view.

Is it me?

We settled down for a night in front of the box and found ourselves watching Britain’s Got Talent on ITV.  Date. 25 May08

After the usual collection of sweet (sickly) kids, a singing (badly) magic act and a little boy telling Christmas cracker jokes the show ended with Faryl Smith.

What a fantastic powerful voice from a very young girl.  Faryl Smith is an amazing raw and natural talent.  Make sure you vote for her and Simon Cowell, if you have any sense, sign her up with a record deal as soon as possible.

UPDATE 31st MAY.  There is no justice.  Faryl loses out to a young guy who likes to dance in the rain.  We watched the final, albeit by speeding past the adds using our digital recorder (have you noticed how a two hour programme can be condensed into 20 minutes if you skip the adds and judges comments – don’t get me started on Ant and Dec, who should be confined to history) and found the good old British telephone voting public get it wrong again.  Instead of choosing someone with raw talent who has a clear and long term future, they opt for some young guy who can do a turn in a shower of rain.  Whatever happens though, we think a star has been found in Faryl Smith and wish her all the luck she can get in the cut throat world of Simon Cowell and the music business.

I’ve reached rock bottom.  It was bound to happen soon.  After receiving the phone call from Paul to say he was going into York to meet up with some colleagues from the University for a few drinks, I turned on the TV thinking I would have another relaxing night in my hotel room.

A glass of wine later and I was laughing and cringing at the same time, while watching the British Soap Awards 2008 on ITV.  The Sexiest Male category was won by some such person who was clearly embarrassed by the whole episode and I could only imagine he was there because it was in the ’soap’ contract he had signed.  Mumbling something about, “it’s great to be recognised for my acting talent” sarcastically, I really felt for him.

The show continued with Sexiest Female (I went to the loo at this point as there is only so many ways to pout) and rolled on into several more categories while Phil and Fern tried to make reading from an autocue interesting and jovial.  It was day time television brought into the evening slot.  Awful.

The one notable exception was Liz Dawn who won a Lifetime Achievement award and had the grace not to take it all too seriously.  I suspect with her own real life issues, she had a better perspective on this whole sorry event than the rest of us.