In the UK: Wednesdays, 9pm, ITV1

What's that? Is it the sound of something precious and beautiful being trampled underfoot by philistines and idiots?

Erm, no. Surprisingly, it's not and we have yet another miracle of the post-Grade age: an ITV1 primetime drama that doesn't suck, doesn't insult the intelligence and actually makes you hunger for more.

Any more of this and it'll almost become ordinary, expected even, that ITV1 dramas won't make you feel like you've been hit on the head by a six-pack of Kestrels on a night out in Malia.

Anyway, it is a truth, universally acknowledged, that all women of a certain temperament love Pride and Prejudice, particularly that bit with Colin Firth in the water. Many are the women who know it almost word for word; and no doubt there are many who wish they could be in it, particularly during that bit with Colin Firth in the water.

So Lost in Austen is quite a clever idea, even if sounds a bit daft at first: what would happen if somehow you ended up in the novel Pride and Prejudice, having taken Elizabeth Bennet's place. You're a big fan, you know what's supposed to happen, who's supposed to end up with whom and how.

But what if you ballsed it all up?

Continue reading "Review: Lost in Austen 1x1"

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And so it is we have a new regular series of audio plays at Big Finish: The Companion Chronicles. As we all know, Big Finish has been creating monthly, full cast plays featuring the television Doctors and companions for over a decade now. Not all the Doctors, mind, because some have passed on to the great Matrix in the sky – and one's a complete mentalist.

The Companion Chronicles was an attempt to (cheaply) fill that gap, by having two-handed dramas featuring just one of those missing Doctors' companions relating a tale featuring him or her and the missing Doctor – usually as they're about to kark it.

Two series in and the idea's proved so popular, Big Finish have gone monthly with it and decided to extend it to later companions as well. Up first is Susan, the Doctor's first ever companion and only known (proper) relative.

Continue reading "Review: The Companion Chronicles 3x1 - Here There Be Monsters"

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I'm back. I think. Let me check.

Yes, I'm back, returned from the birthplace of Zeus and frequent haunt of Noel Edmonds. Gone from 37ºC down to 17ºC in one fell swoop with only a mild tan as compensation. Curses.

As you might expect, I got through plenty of books on my sun lounger and I thought I'd give out a few awards to them.

The "worst book written since we evolved from slime molds" award: Run, by Jeff Abbott
"Why don't I try one of those holiday reading books? That'll be fun," I says to myself as I trawl through Waterstone's in my lunch break. "Ooh, 'The Bourne Identity for the 21st century'. That should be good." Oh, how mistaken can one man be? Don't get me wrong - it has a cracking plot. Absolutely ludicrous black ops/secret organisations/man caught up in the middle of it all rubbish, but it does get through the requisite thrills and spills in its allotted span. It's just that yes, up and down the country, there are slime mold writing groups that can come up with better dialogue and better written paragraphs than Jeff Abbott can. Physically painful to read at times, it's also bound so cheaply that a clump of pages fell out before I'd even got to the end of the book.

The "Really? He's still writing them?" award: Making Money, by Terry Pratchett
Not having read any Pratchetts in about 15 years, I thought I'd tune in to see what they were like these days. Turns out, the joke count's about the same, but the number of pages in each book appears to have tripled in the last 25 years so oddly less satisfying. Some interesting ideas, but 'Adora Belle' could do with a few more dimensions. I suspect this was a sequel of sorts, too. Not bad though.

The Whimsical Alan Bennett novella award: The Uncommon Reader, by Alan Bennett
Really rather lovely book about what would happen if the Queen suddenly became an obsessive reader. As much a comedy as a treatise on the power of the written word to change people.

The Socrates award for corrupting the nation's children: Gods Behaving Badly, by Marie Phillips
After being enjoyed by all, our paperback copy got placed on the reading exchange pile for others to enjoy. Whereupon it was picked up by a 13 year old girl. We tried to stop her and warn her that it wasn't for innocent kiddies, but… How do you take your hemlock, Marie?

The Déjà Vu award: Angry White Pyjamas, by Robert Twigger
Not that I've ever been to Japan to train in aikido with the Japanese riot police, but I spent the whole book thinking "Christ. This is all a bit familiar." It turns out that martial arts instructors and students are pretty much the same all over the world - ie full of characters, some of them quite nutty. Great fun though, particularly if you're a martial artist of any variety. Just sort of peters out at the end, though.

The ridiculously overwritten but still interesting award: The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver
Lovely wife and I both agreed that while this Sliding Doors style plot was very interesting - there are two chapter twos, etc, to investigate what would happen depending on a particular choice - the whole book should have been half the length, except Lionel Shriver's verbal diarrhoea took over and made it slightly tedious to read. Ended up having to explain what "ersatz", "geodesic", "fungible" and "obsequious" mean to poor lovely wife whose sun lounger came without a dictionary for some reason. Plus, show don't tell, Lionel. It really is so important.

Casting's a funny old game, isn't it? You can ruin a production with it, or make it a triumph. You can make thousands flock to it, or send them running for the hills.

Take The Death Collectors for instance. It's been sitting on my metaphorical shelf for the best path of a month now, glowering at me sinisterly. I say sinisterly purely because it's a Sylvester McCoy story and I find them about as appealing as an emergency tracheotomy performed with a Pizza Hut knife and coke straw. This one doesn't even have Hex (or, shudder, Ace) to make it slightly more appealing.

Oh, but what's this? Katherine Parkinson is the guest star? The sort of red-headed one with the nice voice off The IT Crowd?

Ah. Now, I really think you should have made more of that Big Finish. Maybe written it in giant letters across the cover and relegated Sylvester McCoy to the small print perhaps?

Pass me my iPod…

Continue reading "Review: Doctor Who - The Death Collectors"

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Time for a third-episode verdict on The Cleaner, A&E's attempt to kickstart a new habit among viewers of watching original shows on its network. Starring Benjamin Bratt, it's about one man (and his team of former addicts)'s mission to get drug users clean.

Although dealing with an interesting subject matter, The Cleaner is surprisingly uninteresting, as is populated with not desperately exciting characters. Bratt spends all his time bickering with his family who, of course, don't understand his new compulsion and why they come second to it. Couldn't have a happy family, could we? That might be too original.

Very little time has been spent fleshing out the supporting characters or indeed what Bratt actually does as a Cleaner, other than follow people around to prove that, yes, indeed they are addicts. It seems he basically palms them off on rehab clinics then follows them around afterwards to make sure they stay clean. 

There have been a few decent guest stars – Annabeth Gish and Tate Donovan in the latest episode, for example – and the situations involved are different and unusual. It's just the format itself that's preventing the show from becoming something more than 'druggy of the week'.

Today's Joanna Page is Very Annie Mary, a little movie set in Wales that features just about every Welsh actor in existence. It stars Rachel Griffiths, an Australian actress who impressed everyone right up until she joined the cast of Brothers and Sisters, as Annie Mary, the frustrated (in every sense) daughter of Pavarotti-impersonating baker Jonathan Pryce. 

She wants to help her best friend, the seriously ill 16-year-old Bethan Bevan, get to Disneyland and singing in a talent contest might be the only way to get the money. And despite being 22 at the time, Joanna Page played that sick teenager.

Continue reading "Today's Joanna Page: Very Annie Mary"

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