Video: “It Smells Like Christmas Cake”, The Apprentice Hopefuls Attempt To Sell Wine
"It's definitely wine"
If you are hoping for a nice quiet evening in, curled up in front of some inept businessmen and women as they attempt to pry some cash of Alan Sugar’s pocket, you are in luck! This week’s episode of The Apprentice (BBC One, 9pm) features more ineptitude than ever before and the puns…even more diabolical.
The remaining eight candidates are tasked with creating a new image for English sparkling wine – and begin their search in Tesco. Goggle-eyed Stephen’s first mistake? Asking a sales assistant for advice about the “one million and one wines” he perceives to be on offer in the supermarket. Best to just have a shifty at the labels mate.
Across the city, Tom and Adam enjoy a wine tasting session in a bid to “get a taste for the product”. Bear in mind at this point that Tom is a wine expert by trade while Adam, the market trader, sniffs an anonymous glass of vino decreeing that it “smells like Christmas cake”.
Tonight is also the night of the long-awaited directorial debut for this year’s cohort. A “corking campaign” (the script this evening appears to have been written by my dad?) led by Jenna, which involves toffs toasting each other is surely destined for the annals of Apprentice failure…
Take a peek at an excerpt from tonight’s show below:
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Starlings Preview (..From Steve Coogan and ‘Peep Show’s Super Hans)
“They are well-read, they want to investigate the world and they want to contribute to their community”, says Lesley Sharp of her new on-screen clan, the Starlings. Blimey, she’s right. This northern blue-collar bunch are of the lesser-spotted variety when it comes to TV land; they don’t smoke, they don’t all argue all the time and daddy Terry certainly doesn’t refer to his “arse” every five minutes.
“Actually, to present a really positive image of a northern working class family is no mean feat – there’s usually some kind of terrible thing on the go”, Sharp adds, apparently happy to play the role of proud matriarch both on and off the set. “This isn’t a family who’ve got cash to burn but that doesn’t mean to say that they’re not capable of being generous and kind and also that they’re not unintelligent.”
Starlings is the latest comedy offering from Sky 1HD and like the excellent Stella, it avoids the comfy middle-class ground so regularly seen on screen. It’s something that Sky have been doing frequently of late and BBC1 controller Danny Cohen has been spouting a desire for the Been to follow suit.
Judging by a sneak peek afforded to a select audience at Bafta earlier this month, Starlings could be the Sunday night game-changer the channel has been after. For one thing, it’s funny. For another (northern-working-class-stereotype-smashing aside) it is an endearing sitcom about the bizarre routines of family life – kind of like Darling Buds Of May crossed with The Royle Family, with a bit of Gavin and Stacey thrown in for good luck. It is about a clan who – like the eponymous bird of their surname – flock together through thick and thin.
“We wanted to write a Sunday vibe, family show and when we say family we mean, the whole family. Even something that an 18-year-old boy could enjoy”, says Matt “Super Hans” King. Since finishing up with Peep Show crew, he has turned his hand to writing and Starlings is his first effort. The show is produced by Steve Coogan and also co-written by Steve Edge (Star Stories) – some impressive names are driving it forward and their experience shows.
Like all the best sitcoms, Starlings has the potential to make you giggle, and make you sob; plots about serious health problems cosy up to the banality of a lost pet in every episode. Coogan reckons they’ve pitched it right, commenting: “We are very excited about this smart but accessible new television series which will make people laugh and cry in equal measure for all the right reasons.” What with the astronomical success of BBC’s Call The Midwife and ITV’s Downton Abbey it seems that Sky is making its own bid for comfy Sunday night success. “We just wanted to write a feel-good, non-cynical family comedy drama based on some of the experiences that me and Matt, and people we knew, have had growing up”, said Edge.
The loving couple at the centre of this family are made up of Downton Abbey’s Mr Bates (Brandon Coyle) as dad Terry and Lesley Sharp of Scott and Bailey, who plays beleaguered but loving mum Jan. And they make quite the convincing pair *nudge nudge*…“I liked the notion of a couple who aren’t in the first flush of youth who still really love each other and find each other attractive”, says Sharp with her professional hat firmly on her head, “it’s actually about a family who like each other”.
Calling their Matlock Bath home with the couple are a bevvy of acting talent including Finn Atkins as footy mad Charlie; John Dagleish as shirking son; Rebecca Night as young mum Bell. Then, of course, there’s the extended family to which writers King and Edge add an important bromantic element which leaves room for some of guilt-free gags.
The feel-good factor is undeniable. But it is the glimpses of everyday stress that plague ordinary people, and the programme’s recognition of the way that families deal with those stresses, which makes this exempt from blustering cliché.
Starlings is due to launch on Sky1HD at 8pm on Sunday 13th May.
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Girls Trailer: Forget Sex And The City, This Is The Real New York..
If television has taught us anything, it’s that people who live in New York are usually very successful and live in implausibly large apartments (despite being waitresses or unemployed actors) but that all looks to change in HBO’s new drama/comedy Girls. It may not be the most imaginitive title for a TV show, but it has won rave reviews in the US for being an honest portrayal of being a twenty-something living in the Big Apple.
Expect to see this one on Sky Atlantic in September..
“Something Needs To Be Done” ..OTB Meets Foxes Live Attack Victim
May 7, 2012 by Sean Marland
Filed under Features
The second episode of Foxes Live: Wild in our Cities hits our screens tonight and as you may have gathered, the issues that Channel 4 are dealing with have divided the nation straight down the middle. Some think that the animals need to be protected as they roam our streets and others would happily set a pack of dogs on them.
But few members of the public have a better understanding of the topic than Natasha Davids, who appeared on the show last week. Two years ago she was attacked by a fox while sleeping in her house and as you can imagine, she’s now a relative expert on the subject..
Hi Natasha. So you were bitten twice by a fox a couple of years ago and the second incident left you with some serious wounds on your foot. Did the attack affect your opinion on foxes?
It did. I’m from the country where fox-hunting was pretty much the norm and I don’t have an issue with it, I’m an animal lover as well (that may sound a bit weird!) but since being bitten by the fox I feel quite strongly about the issue. Something definitely needs to be done. The reason I called The Sun about the news story in the first place was because it came two weeks after the twins were attacked and their parents got death-threats from animal rights activists. They had to have security at the house and parts of the media slated them, so that’s why I decided to explain that if a grown woman can be attacked, then two babies can definitely be attacked..
Exactly. Does it annoy you that some animal rights activists play these incidents down by insisting that they are rare?
Well yes, because the fact is, they do attack people. The same fox that bit me tried to bite my boyfriend while we were sitting at the back of our house one afternoon and he’s 6 ft 2, so that fox really didn’t have any fear. I live in Imperial Wharf and I don’t think the property developers were pleased with me because ITV came round and filmed a piece for the news. I think they killed the foxes which is why I haven’t seen this one since! It’s quite a posh development and they didn’t want any negative press that might put off potential buyers. I know they put fox repellent down as soon as my story was in the papers anyway.. Read more
Would You Rather Wait For The Box-Set?
Is the popularity of 'The Wire' down to the fact that most people watched the series box-set?
When you compare that figure the average audience BBC4 attracted for the show a couple of years back, you realise that around 300,000 fans have decided not to subscribe, but to either get their hands on the episodes over the net, or as is increasingly common, wait for the box-set to be released.
One of my colleagues actually subscribes to Sky, but is recording the show so that he can watch them all in one go once the series has finished. That way he can enjoy the whole season over the course of a weekend, rather than rationing himself to one a week and forgetting small plot details along the way. In a similar way, as good as Homeland has been, I found it frustrating to have to wait a week between episodes and often wished that I had followed his example. Spoilers aren’t as difficult to escape as many suggest and as anyone who’s lost days at a time to box-sets will know, you often get more from high quality drama when you immerse yourself in it over a short period of time. Read more
Clip: James Cracknell Escapes Death Valley
Everyone’s heard of the San Francisco 49ers and if you didn’t know where their name comes from, then you will after watching the latest episode of World’s Toughest Expeditions with James Cracknell. Let’s just say that it has something to do with the Gold Rush to California over 160 years ago. Here you can see the famous rower following in the footsteps of William Manly, who traversed Death Valley on his way out West. After seeing this clip, we think you’ll agree that his name is quite apt..
World’s Toughest Adventures with James Cracknell continues on Sunday 6th May at 9pm on Discovery
Gold Rush Clip: Gold or Bust..
Things have come along way since the 49ers first headed out West to seek their fortune, but the lads in Discovery’s Gold Rush are still hoping that there’s “Gold in them there hills”. In the face of the economic meltdown, these determined men risk everything to strike it rich mining for gold in the wilds of the far north. Todd and Jack Hoffman, the Schnabel family and the Dakota Boys are all in search of the American dream and a new frontier.
Gold Rush starts on Discovery at 8pm on Tuesday 8th May
Video: Game of Thrones Opening Credits.. In Lego
First we had The Simpsons doing a Game of Thrones opening sequence, then we had some violin toting-maestro doing the whole opening tune himself by splicing videos together and now someone’s gone and recreated the epic opening credits in Lego form. It was only a matter of time. Well we say ‘someone’ but it seems reasonable to assume that bymatthewP is the person responsible, because, you know.. it was posted using his YouTube account. Enjoy..
More Videos: The 10 Best Inception Spoofs..
Trailer: James Cameron, Voyage to the Bottom of the Earth
You may have heard about James Cameron’s trip to the bottom of the Mariana Trench (the deepest part of the ocean – as illustrated by this fabulous diagram) a few weeks ago and his epic journey is coming to National Geographic this Sunday. As you can see from this video, he descended nearly 11,000 metres in just two hours to see what the hell was going on at ‘The Bottom of the Earth’. We’ve got our fingers crossed for a Giant Squid, but if one of them doesn’t turn up then at least there’s a bloke called Terry Garcia. You heard us..
James Cameron: Voyage to the Bottom of the Earth is on National Geographic on Sunday 6th May at 7pm
Dear ITV. Why Is The ITVPlayer So Terrible?
When ITV announced plans to start charging people for specific online content last year, there were a few eyebrows raised in the OTB office. Whether you enjoy the channel’s programming or not, the idea was made laughable by the fact that the ITVPlayer is easily the poorest of all the ‘players’. As such, the idea of paying for it was about as enticing as the idea of forking out to use one of those unspeakably grotty public toilets in Kings Cross train station.
Adam Crozier and his cronies (crozies?) have quietly put the aforementioned plan on hold, but they don’t seem to have done much to improve the quality of their online viewing portal, which sadly, is still rubbish. The excessive adverts (far more than you find on 4OD) don’t help but what really grinds our gears is the way the content stops, starts and spends ages buffering. The image quality isn’t great either. Why ITV don’t pull their fingers out and improve their service is a bit of a mystery, because with more and more people watching their TV online, they’re lagging behind the competition.
