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Oxbridge
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Tuesday night, BBC 4: Derek Jacobi turning in one of the greatest ever individual TV performances in 'I Claudius', still fresh and brilliant after 40 years.
Monday night, ITV: Derek Jacobi, in the cringe-making new sitcom Vicious, playing one of a pair of stereotype screamingly camp bitchy gays alongside Ian McKellen, amid canned laughter, stock characters and lowest common denominator entertainment of all kinds. The Daily Fail liked it, needless to add.
How have the mighty fallen.
Lenny Bee
offlineMember
Hi (I'm new but that's not an excuse). I quite liked it. Four great actors including Marcia Warren who we don't see nearly enough on the box. Maybe 'Bitch' would have been a better title than Vicious. In my defence I was very tired and fell asleep halfway though the second new series, which was genuine crap.
Oxbridge
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All good actors, but what a waste. It was originally going to be called 'Vicious Old Queens', they presumably decided that the target audience wasn't quite that thick. The next thing, The Job Lot, I thought was OK in parts; really just a poor man's The Office.
Anonymous
offlineUnregistered
really just a poor man's The Office.
Everything on the BBC is for poor people, Oxy. If you want to watch something decent, you have to pay for Sky.
beau-jolly
offlineMember
How the mighty have fallen asleep.
Somehow I managed to miss it all. I started watching Embarrasing Bodies while waiting for Masterchef to start. How do they get away with such voyeuristic porn? EB is equally bad:
"Oh doctor I've been suffering from a pustulated flange for years as I'm too embarrassed to show my GP."
"Get yer knickers off then and pop this camera down there so 6 million people can have a gawp."
BJ - have you seen the "buttery biscuit base" Masterchef video on youtube? Well worth checking out if you haven't.
It needs to be a little bit deeper.
beau-jolly
offlineMember
Oh yes! One of my all time favourite mood lifters. Wobble Wobble WobbleWobbleWobble
beau-jolly
offlineMember
Then you may not have seen this gem either NA: My favourite bit is at 2:25
Oxbridge
offlineMember
I've been around that long, indeed, and there have been some terrible sitcoms in all eras. Not sure if I really think this is really the worst ever, hence the question mark.
However, for sheer waste of acting talent (Jacobi, McKellen, Frances de la Tour), offensiveness (all gay men are shrieking, superficial camp queens, you know, we've even cast two gay actors to prove it) and failing even to live up to its own low standards (people being gratuitously nasty to each other can be funny, but here it isn't) Vicious takes some beating.
Wayland: As you can probably guess, politics dictates that I'll never buy Sky - I feel bad enough watching football on Sky in pubs - but I'm curious to know if people generally think the best comedy or even the best TV in general is to be found there.
Anonymous
offlineUnregistered
Suit yourself, you're missing the good stuff. Sky is commissioning a lot of comedy at the moment, Moone Boy in particular was excellent. The BBC is so terrified of not being politically correct, it's comedy is horribly stifled.
As for other TV: I don't watch the news so can't comment. The US dramas (which are full of the best English actors) are unbelievably good. The BBC can't compete for some reason: it's probably because it's a nationalised industry, and they're always shit.
beau-jolly
offlineMember
Julian Clarey is gay
I deliberately avoided watching it, for all the reasons stated above. Just from the word go it sounded like a bad idea for a sitcom (or at very least, 30 years too late).
Ironically, if they had taken that premise and made a one off drama (toning down the comedy) you might have got something quite powerful from two actors of that standard. Go for a bitter/sweet Allan Bennett style of presentation.
sigmund
offlineMember
Hey, come on, what about "On the Buses"? That was real crap.
I quite liked Mind Your Language...
just read this about the bloke who played the teacher...
beau-jolly
offlineMember
OMFG! I watched as much as I could stand of Vicious last night which was about 5 jaw dropping minutes. What an absolute pile of pish! Please tell me it is some way ironic and actually very clever and subtly funny.
On the plus side lovely little cockney sparra' Natalie won Masterchef which was the correct result.
@Golgo; That's tragic. Leicester!
Sorry - did a bit more digging on Barry Evans' death.
http://jon-doloresdelargo.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/mysterious-death-of-barry-evans.html
http://www.viola123.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/barryevanscoronersreport.htm
Pretty sad/mysterious...
beau-jolly
offlineMember
Most odd. How can you have acute alcohol poisoning on only one bottle. Bloody lightweight. Also shouldn't it be "empty whisky bottle" not "empty bottle of whisky"?
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