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18 articles
Skins return pulls in nearly 800,000
2 hours ago
Teen drama enters its seventh series with a 4.4% audience share as Wimbledon dominates programming on BBC
When Skins began on E4 in 2007, one critic wrote: "They are as irritating as real teenagers, I'll give them that."
Six years later, the teen drama returned for its swansong run with 783,000 viewers. The first of a two-part story about Effy, it had a 4.4% share of the audience, between 10pm and 11pm on Monday.
It was up 20% on E4's slot average over the last three months, but little over half the 1.4 million who tuned into that opening episode on 25 January 2007. "Worth watching for the Space Invaders generation as well as the MySpacers," said another critic back then. What's MySpace?
Murray marches on – to BBC2
A peak audience of nearly 6 million viewers watched Andy Murray's straight sets win over Mikhail Youzhny to reach the Wimbledon quarter-finals.
Except watching it wasn't quite as straightforward as Murray's win. »
- John Plunkett
Rod Stewart: I won't cross the line for BBC documentary | Media Monkey
3 hours ago
Rod Stewart agreed to allow BBC cameras into his home for a revealing documentary on his hard-rocking life – but refused to allow them to film his model railway. The Sun reports that the singer told the Radio Times some things were off limits for the documentary, Can't Stop Me Now, to be broadcast on BBC1 next week. Stewart said: "There are very few places in my life that I like to keep private: that's one of them, and another is soccer on Sunday morning. Every three years Model Railroader puts me on their cover, which is better than Rolling Stone." Monkey will see Stewart tracks such as Heart Is On The Line in a new light – or should it be I Don't Want To Talk About It?
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- Monkey
Channel 4 to broadcast murder trial
5 hours ago
Documentary on controversial Scottish case is only the second time cameras have been allowed to film a real murder trial
Channel 4 is to air a two-hour documentary called The Murder Trial, about the case of a man accused of murdering his wife in 1998, marking only the second time cameras have been allowed to film a murder trial.
Channel 4 said that it is determined to televise more major court cases following The Murder Trial, which will air on Tuesday 9 July.
The importance of The Murder Trial lies in bringing to bear popular techniques used in shows such as Channel 4's One Born Every Minute and 24 Hours in A & E – where a group of cameras is trained on a number of people for their reactions at the same time – to a controversial case for the first time.
The documentary focuses on the retrial of Nat Fraser who was convicted »
- Maggie Brown
Undercover Boss; Rick Stein's India – TV review
6 hours ago
It's a shame it takes a TV show to persuade the boss to treat his staff well
Phil Couchman, CEO of Dhl, is getting in disguise, preparing to be Undercover Boss (Channel 4). Disguise means swapping the sharp suit for Dhl overalls and having his hair coloured (from silver-grey to ginger-brown). I'm a bit surprised the Ub format can continue to exist, to be honest. If someone a bit odd-looking suddenly turns up at your place of work with a dodgy back story, a lot of questions and a film crew, I think you know who he is now, don't you?
Like our new work-experience boy here at the Guardian who, in spite of the skinny jeans and the hoodie (always up), seems to know a lot about the media, be quite old for a work-experience boy (and for skinny jeans and a hoodie), and – to be blunt – look suspiciously like Alan Rusbridger. »
- Sam Wollaston
TV highlights 02/07/2013
6 hours ago
One Day Cricket: India v Sri Lanka | Gok Live: Stripping For Summer | Starlings | The Call Centre | Luther | The Fairytale Castles Of King Ludwig II With Dan Cruickshank | Dates | Imagine: McCullin
One Day Cricket: India v Sri Lanka
3.30pm, Sky Sports 1
Coverage from the tri-nations series at Kingston's Sabina Park in Jamaica. Having deprived England of the Champions Trophy at Edgbaston, India go into the three-country round robin in the West Indies hoping to pinch another shiny crown off a host nation. Today sees Duncan Fletcher's XI line up against 2011 World Cup final finalists Sri Lanka, with the Lions seeking an improvement on their poor Champions Trophy campaign, despite the withdrawal through injury of batsman Tillakaratne Dilshan. Mark Jones
Gok Live: Stripping For Summer
8pm, Channel 4
Poor Gok Wan, his work is never done. Just when it seems that he's helped every woman in the free world to look good »
- Mark Jones, Hannah J Davies, Hannah Verdier, Julia Raeside, John Robinson, Jonathan Wright, Rachel Aroesti, Ali Catterall
Michael Palin returns to TV drama in The Wipers Times
12 hours ago
Monty Python actor to star in BBC2 show charting how first world war soldiers published a newspaper from Ypres battlefield
Monty Python star Michael Palin is returning to television drama to star in the story of how British soldiers in the trenches of the first world war produced and published their own satirical newspaper.
The editor of Private Eye, Ian Hislop, has teamed with scriptwriter Nick Newman to write The Wipers Times – the name of the paper produced by the troops and named after the battlefield pronunciation of Ypres.
Joining Palin in the cast of the BBC2 show are Ben Chaplin, Julian Rhind-Tutt and Emilia Fox.
The channel's controller, Janice Hadlow, said: "Just like the original Wipers Times, this new history drama will be filled with jokes, spoofs and amazing examples of courage behind the laughs. I am delighted to be bringing such a brilliant drama and cast to BBC2."
Television cameras may be allowed to film in crown courts
15 hours ago
Filming inside courts of appeal from October is seen by the government as a first step toward greater judicial transparency
The government is risking a fresh row with the judiciary by raising the prospect that television cameras could be allowed to film crown courts.
Amid concerns from senior judges that such a move could leave them vulnerable to heckling, government sources said they hoped to allow limited filming in crown courts.
In a move towards greater transparency in the justice system, ministers hope that judges could be filmed delivering verdicts and sentences.
A No 10 source indicated that filming in the court of appeal from this October is being seen as a first step. Broadcasters will be given the right to film counsel and judges in appeal cases.
Ministers hope to extend filming to crown court cases. But broadcasters would only be allowed to film the judge during the delivery of the verdict and during sentencing. »
- Nicholas Watt, Owen Bowcott
Top Gear, Glastonbury, 10-Stone Testicles: the week in social TV
21 hours ago
What TV viewers have been discussing on Twitter, from Mumford-based banjo jokes to the continuing popularity of shock docs
Welcome to Social TV, in which we analyse what people were watching on television over the past seven days by examining how they tweeted about it. This week, talking points for Glastonbury that weren't just Mumford-based banjo gags, banter from the Top Gear "lads", and the continuing popularity of testicles.
Glastonbury
Predictably, the top 10 is dominated by the Beeb's Glastonbury coverage, though it is perhaps surprising that the most talked-about set belonged to Arctic Monkeys (BBC2, Friday), not the Rolling Stones. Their 187,480 tweets came from 107,434 individual tweeters, and the 11.13pm peak was for the strobe-heavy Brianstorm, with another spike at 11.49pm for I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor.
Presenter/comedian type Rufus Hound wasn't so convinced of their brilliance, however, picking up 265 retweets for this Macca crack:
Why is »
- Rebecca Nicholson
Comic Relief archbishop of Canterbury sketch cleared by watchdog
23 hours ago
Rowan Atkinson skit, in which he played a fictional clergyman who said praying doesn't work, did not breach broadcasting code
Rowan Atkinson's Comic Relief sketch, which prompted almost 2,500 complaints to the BBC, has been cleared by Ofcom.
Atkinson appeared in the sketch as a fictional version of the archbishop of Canterbury, comparing boy band One Direction to Jesus's disciples and saying praying "doesn't work".
The sketch was broadcast before the 9pm watershed on 15 March as part of BBC1's Comic Relief marathon, which raised £75m.
The BBC later apologised for the sketch, in which Atkinson said that Jesus said love your neighbours but "it doesn't mean shag your neighbours", and removed it from the iPlayer catch-up TV service.
The media regulator investigated the programme on grounds of offensive language and generally accepted standards.
Ofcom said that it had decided to clear the sketch because the BBC's intention was to »
- Mark Sweney
Is Your Face Sounds Familiar the worst Saturday-night show ever?
1 July 2013 4:07 AM, PDT
ITV's new entertainment format is so bad it makes Splash! look like The Ascent of Man
Watch it on ITV Player
Part of me thinks that ITV's Your Face Sounds Familiar didn't actually happen on Saturday night. Part of me thinks that I tripped and hit my head, or accidentally inhaled an industrial quantity of bleach, or flew into some sort of deranged sugar hallucination from eating too much Haribo and imagined the whole thing. I think I saw Denise Lewis flailing around as if she was trying to fend off a gigantic wave of invisible wasps. I think I saw Bobby Davro honk out Sex Bomb while dressed up as a waxwork of Fred West made of Weetabix and poo. But I can't have done, can I? Not even Saturday night ITV could be that wholly inexplicable.
Apparently, though, it did. Your Face Sounds Familiar really was a thing. »
- Stuart Heritage
Matt King's favourite TV: Justified, Prospects
1 July 2013 4:00 AM, PDT
The Peep Show and Starlings star on his telly-watching habits
Unmissable show?
I'm working my way through Justified, which has become my new favourite show. It just seems to keep getting better and better. No one has seen it, which really bugs me. There are a couple of actors in it. Walton Goggins, he's one of my favourite actors alive, basically. It's also got the scariest baddie I've seen for a long time, in season two: Mags Bennett, played by a Broadway actress [Margo Martindale]. She's truly chilling but also funny. As an actor she makes such weird choices.
TV turn-off?
I hated Homeland. People talk about it like it's an intellectually challenging show. It's less believable than 24. It had a period of believability … for about 75 minutes. I find Claire Danes's performance quite painful at times. The angst that she goes through, it's just too much for one person. Sit down for a bit. »
- Gwilym Mumford
Top Gear's return attracts 5m viewers
1 July 2013 3:32 AM, PDT
Jeremy Clarkson and co are back for a new series of the motoring show, but failed to beat Countryfile in the ratings
Top Gear returned for a new series on BBC2 with nearly 5 million viewers, making it Sunday night's most popular programme on any channel outside of BBC1's Countryfile.
The motoring show starring Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, had 4.7 million viewers, a 20.3% share, between 8pm and 9pm.
It beat ITV's celebrity edition of gameshow The Cube, which could only manage 3.1 million viewers, a 13.4% share, as well as Channel 4's Time Team which had 1.8 million viewers (7.6%), also between 8pm and 9pm.
But Top Gear's petrolheads proved no match for the rural charms of BBC1's Countryfile, which held onto number one spot with 5.4 million viewers, a 23.3% share, between 8pm and 9pm.
ITV did better with its Ben Shephard gameshow, Tipping Point: Lucky Stars, which with 3.2 million »
- John Plunkett
Wild Shepherdess – TV review
1 July 2013 3:05 AM, PDT
Kate Humble's journey across Peru to spend time with Willy, his alpacas and a fake vagina is hard to resist
Yes, I know Lucy Mangan wrote about Wild Shepherdess with Kate Humble (BBC2) last week, but there's nothing else on, so you've got me on it too. Ok? Anyway, Kate's being wild somewhere completely different this week: Peru. And, arguably, she's not even being a shepherdess, given that it's actually alpacas she's herding here. Funny creatures: as Kate says, they look like they've been put together from parts of other animals. With a hint of Humble in the blond ones, no?
Kate smiles a lot and laughs politely to her host family, which is the correct way to behave with poor people in remote villages whose language you don't speak. She talks ve-ry slow-ly and clear-ly, too, even through the translator, for additional respect. Next, she visits the factory where alpaca fibre, »
- Sam Wollaston
The White Queen: BBC wardrobe malfunction? | Media Monkey
1 July 2013 2:39 AM, PDT
Alongside its sex scenes, BBC1's The White Queen has attracted attention for another reason – wardrobe gaffes. After complaints over over-long tunics, padded trousers, anachronistic armour and even zips, the Daily Mail points out that this week's episode, set in 1465, featured King Edward in a jacket with poppers and his wife Elizabeth with a French manicure. With the £25m summer blockbuster – heavily hyped by new director general Tony Hall, among others – making news for all the wrong reasons perhaps the BBC, like its lead characters, can work some magic and get it back on track.
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- Monkey
Gromit has bad day out as Aardman animation sculpture vandalised
1 July 2013 2:03 AM, PDT
Five-foot replica of Wallace's dog, on display in Bristol fundraising event, has tail broken off
A giant statue of Aardman Animations' beloved Gromit, which was designed by actor Joanna Lumley for a charity drive, has been vandalised in Bristol.
The five foot sculpture of Wallace's canine best friend is one of 80 on display in the city as part of the 10-week Gromit Unleashed arts trail, which aims to raise funds for Bristol Children's hospital. It had its tail broken off on Friday night, according to organisers, and police are now investigating.
"We're very sorry to say that late Friday night, one of our Gromit Unleashed sculptures was damaged," said organisers of Wallace and Gromit's Grand Appeal in a statement. "We are dismayed that anyone would want to damage one of the Gromit sculptures, which have been created to raise money to treat sick children in hospital and to provide »
- Ben Child
Top Gear; Michael Bublé's Day Off – TV review
30 June 2013 11:00 PM, PDT
The Three Chumps' car v catamaran stunt is stupid, pointless and puerile – but quite entertaining
These lovely, peaceful midsummer weekends are suddenly rudely interrupted by a big loud smelly fart: the new series of Top Gear (BBC2, Sunday). Series 20, can you believe it? I have a tricky relationship with Tg. Obviously I loathe it. For the Three Chumps who present it; for the car oafs in the studio audience; for the millions of twerps in the country, and the billions of idiots worldwide, who watch it; for its phenomenal success. But I can also just about appreciate it as television.
Not the studio bits. Because the Three Chumps are indeed chumps, no wittier than anyone's uncle or the bloke at the bar in the pub. In front of anyone else they would surely die, but a hangar full of car oafs humour and encourage them. When they – the oafs – go »
- Sam Wollaston
TV highlights 01/07/2013
30 June 2013 11:00 PM, PDT
Undercover Boss | The Hungry Sailors | The Prince And His Secret Properties: Channel 4 Dispatches Special | The Town The Travellers Took Over | Burn Notice | Skins | 30 For 30: The 16th Man | Live Rugby League: Hull Fc v Wakefield Trinity Wildcats
The Hungry Sailors
2pm, ITV
Father-and-son duo Dick and James Strawbridge return for a second series of their sailing and cooking show, competitively nudging each other good-naturedly all the way. They travel round the coast of Cornwall, picking up ingredients and inviting the producers to dinner in their poky galley while the Levellers fiddle away in the background. Earlier, Gino D'Acampe and Melanie Sykes also return with their Let's Do Lunch show: him yabbering about his mama, her with a naughty twinkle for the dads. Julia Raeside
The Prince And His Secret Properties: Channel 4 Dispatches Special
8pm, Channel 4
With tax, and its avoidance, still very much a sore point for most of us, »
- Julia Raeside, Ben Arnold, Ali Catterall, Rachel Aroesti, Jonathan Wright, Lanre Bakare, Gwilym Mumford
Masterchef, House Rules, Time of Our Lives – TV review
30 June 2013 5:21 PM, PDT
If Masterchef spent as much time concentrating on the competition as it does on the brands associated with it, this could be a show worth watching
The retching groans of someone with their clammy, green face over the side of a boat is not the most obvious soundtrack to a cookery programme. Masterchef (Ten, Sunday), however, could barely contain its glee as contestants clutched the balustrades and chucked their airline dinners into the ocean off Fremantle. Dear Noelene, specs carefully clipped to her top, skin taking on the colour and texture of a squid ready for the pan, battled on as the contestants spent several hours vainly hanging on to their dignity before heading ashore to shriek at each other relentlessly.
To be fair, you could feasibly argue that all the vomiting happened during a particularly dull documentary about trawler fishing that preceded the cooking competition. But that would be being kind. »
- Vicky Frost
18 articles
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