WITHOUT A PADDLE

Jonathan Creek: The Case of the Savant’s Thumb, should have been a scrummy Easter TV treat. Instead it was like one of those really cheap Easter eggs you get which have the thinnest of shells on the outside and absolutely nothing at all inside.

I’m sure it must have seemed like a good idea at the time to build a story around a group of psychotic nuns at a 1960’2 girl’s school who decided it would be acceptable to drug their charges with LSD so as to induce a vision of Jesus. Add some nonsense with bees in jam jars and then fast forward to present day and have the adopted daughter of one of the girls behead her father after he died during a bizarre chainsaw accident. 

The accident, of course, wasn’t an accident, it was orchestrated by two of the most ridiculous and inept Secret Service Agents in the world who thought a comedy sketch show was a real recording of politicians behaving badly and set out to bump off anyone connected with it. Still with me? Good. The beheading by the dutiful daughter was necessary in order to fool her mother into believing that her husband’s body disappeared from a locked room, thus proving the existence of some higher power because her faith in such things had been eroded by those psychedelic nuns. Throw in a ludicrous rustic Magic Circle and a lusty farmhand and voila, Jonathan Creek rides again.

Except he didn’t. The biggest mystery here is not the barmy collection of old tosh that posed as plot, but why David Renwick has decided to treat his most memorable creation so shabbily. Conan Doyle at least had the decency to chuck Sherlock Holmes off the Reichenbach Falls when he wanted to kill him off. He didn’t turn him into an Accountant and let him die a slow, lingering death from embarrassment.

The thing about Jonathan Creek is that he’s always been a misfit. A duffel coated genius who lived in a windmill and devised seemingly impossible illusions for an ego-centric magician.  This time around, Renwick decided to have him grow up, get married to a token blonde, move to suburbia and take a job as a corporate dogsbody in his father in law’s business empire with back to back meetings and presentations instead of doing what he was born to do.  The Jonathan Creek we all know and love would have gone bout of his mind in five seconds. 

The odd social faux pas aside, (did I mention the transexual married couple at the posh cocktail party? Sorry, must have slipped my mind), I began to wonder if this wasn’t some gigantic set-up and the Jonathan Creek we were watching was actually some evil doppelganger bent on ruining our hero’s reputation. But, no, it was all for real apparently. The duffel coat did make a triumphant return and seemed to be the only member of the cast who had a clear idea of what they were doing.

It seems clear from this mish-mash of disconnected and ludicrous ideas that the inspiration boat has well and truly sailed. On this evidence, another Jonathan Creek episode seems remote. If it does happen it will be a resurrection worthy of Lazarus. Now that would be a trick worth seeing.

BOYS VERSUS GIRLS

Mrs Brown’s Boys and Girls are the two top rated, award winning sit-coms on our screens at the moment, but they couldn’t be more different.

Girls is the latest, sassy, whip smart, now generation, in-reference laden  American import. Created by Lena Dunham who also takes the lead role of Hannah, it focuses on four twenty-something New York women struggling to find their place in today’s pressurised, multi-cultural, relationship minefield society. It has expensive production values, makes the most of its New York location for atmospheric exterior shots and handles nudity in an ironic way. No wonder it’s successful.

Compare and contrast with Mrs Brown’s Boys, an Irish sit-com, the brain child of Brendan O’Carroll who takes the titular role of Mrs Brown in a style that hasn’t been seen since Les Dawson. Shot in a studio before a live audience with scenery that looks like it would be more at home in a village hall, it is crude, vulgar, obvious, old fashioned, downright silly and childish and regularly breaks the fourth wall as Mrs Brown storms off backstage to deliver some ridiculous punchline. And yet, it too, is successful.

Despite the many differences between the two shows, the only difference that matters in my opinion is this:

 Mrs Brown’s Boys is funny, Girls isn’t.

Despite its budget and production values, Girls is a situation comedy that is all situation and no comedy, which rather defeats the object. On the other hand, Mrs Brown presents us with a ludicrously flimsy situation and then says, right, that’s that out of the way, now let’s have a laugh, which is exactly what sit-coms are supposed to do.

Watching Mrs Brown I’m moved to laugh out loud several times, which is a rare occurrence for any program.  I watch Girls with a studious frown, making sure I catch every nuance and reference so as to get the full intellectual impact of the show as I try and decipher the American accents of the fast talking cast. There is one character in the show whose speaking voice is so peculiar I can barely make out one word in ten. Maye she’s the funny one.

The cast of Mrs Brown all look as though they are having  a great time and frequently ‘corpse’ on camera. This sense of fun and enjoyment comes across not only to the studio audience but through the screen to the viewers at home. The cast of Girls however, all look as though they are auditioning for Stanislavski. This too comes across with predictable results.

As both shows will no doubt enter the twilight zone of endless repeats that is satellite TV, I know which one I’ll still be laughing at in ten years’ time.

Do you?

LESS IS MORE

Every successful TV series has its 'Fawlty Towers' moment:  that moment when the original creators have neither the time or the inclination to continue writing every episode even though the show may be at the peak of its popularity.

For 'Stella', the Ruth Jones vehicle set in a small Welsh town, that moment came at the end of the first series.Whereas John Cleese took the bold and wholly correct decision to 'leave 'em wanting more' after just 12 episodes, Jones has decided to plough on regardless.  Although she continues to star in the show, she no longer writes it, having handed over the creative reins to a team of other writers with inevitable results. Instead of the close focus of series one, we now have a growing cast of supporting characters who, already broadly drawn, have degenerated into caricatures and grotesques.

The same deterioration in quality afflicted Paul Abbot's 'Shameless' when Abbot stopped being the principal writer, but since that ran for 11 series and spawned an American clone, no doubt Ruth Jones is keeping her fingers crossed fo a similar result.

Having a Ripping Time

Nobody actually twirls a waxed moustache or ties a hapless heroine to the railway tracks, but in every other respect BBC 1's Ripper Street is just a Charlie Chaplin kick up the bum away from being a Mack Sennett comedy - with sound!

True, in last Sunday's episode, Paul McGann looked as though he desperately wanted to do some moustache twirling and, as the villain of the piece, he did get  his just desserts on a railway line - electrified in this case -  but the regular cast keep remarkably straight faces throughout. In Matthew Macfadyen's case, as the troubled Inspector Reid, I suspect it's simply the face he was born with. He has the sort of face that looks like it wants to be lugubrious when it grows up, but in the meantime will settle for being immobile.

Jerome Flynn continues his renaissance after his sterling work on Game of Thrones as Reid's trusty sidekick, Detective Sergeant Drake, a man whose preferred method of interrogation makes the Sweeney look like pacifists.

Whether it's the end of the pier melodrama, the violence or the mock Victorian dialogue that grabs you, the whole thing is quite superb and just the thing to liven up a Sunday evening's viewing. If you haven't given it a go yet, I can thoroughly recommend it.

Pass the Marmite

Some performers are just like Marmite (other brands of yeast based foodstuffs are also available). You either love them or you hate them.

Often there is no logical reason for your dislike. Everyone else thinks they are the best thing since sliced bread as you sit there pondering how such a talent free zone was ever allowed anywhere near a television studio.

Which brings me to Sarah Millican. As she begins her latest onslaught to become the Queen of TV comedy (never going to happen as long as there is a breath left in Miranda Hart's body) the question that comes readily to mind is: Why?

She seems nothing more than a real  life Mrs Merton but without Caroline Aherne's wit or knowing irony. A dumpy Northern lass with a squeaky voice whose idea of television charisma is to stare straight into the camera like a startled owl and recite her lines with little or no inflection as though she is reading them from an auto-cue for the very first time.

She attempts to liven things up by talking about slightly rude subjects and her guests play along gamely when she channels her inner Mrs Merton to ask pointed or embarrassing questions that a 'real' chat show host could not get away with.

And people laugh, as you might when your favourite Auntie does her party piece at Christmas after a few too many sherries. Hard to imagine Milllican surviving on the club circuit, quelling hecklers and dodging thrown pint pots. 

And yet, is there more here than meets the eye? Is this a cunningly crafted mask, honed to perfection and capable of turning aside the most virulent heckler whilst simultaneously winning the hearts and minds of the family audience?

Since she seems omni-present on the box at the moment there will be plenty of opportunity to investigate further. I will report back if a definitive talent sighting presents itself.

Laugh and the world laughs with you

Spike Milligan was the best thing about the New Yes Prime Minister which debuted on Gold this week. He wasn't actually in the show you understand, but I'm sure  the used the laughter track from one of his shows. Q9 I think it was.

Who'd have thought it...

Following on from my last post, it seems that Disney, who now own Lucas Films, have decided that the time is ripe for more Star Wars movies (were they not listening?). Expect Star Wars VII in 2015. No details yet as to whether any of the characters from previous films will be featured, but it should make for one heck of a theme park ride!