Monday, August 30, 2010

Revolution: Televised


The BBC autumn television schedules will shortly sidle up, chalk an ominous "M" on our overcoat and move on unnoticed through the broadcast spam.

It's time to offer some creative solutions to help the BBC counter its critics' most common - in every sense of the word - charge that it is politically correct and consensual, like some sort of gay, Obama-admiring test-tube offspring of Butler & Gaitskell.

So, before the House of Boyo heads back to Wales for a week of mushroom interface and owl baiting, here are my suggestions for some primo programming:

1. Pride or Prejudice. You, a bigot, have a choice. Either set out your views to the audience, possibly armed and made up of the object of your ill-considered scorn, or tell it to a pride of lions.

This week, the Sunday Times's gin-shy food bully A "A" Gill dons a kilt and has a full and frank exchange of bones at the Meibion Glyndŵr annual tombola and fundraiser (pensioners, children, Monmouthshire - half-price), and is then fed to the big cats anyway.

Filmed in Belarus, where this sort of thing is either legal or at least cheap.

2. Boundary Commission Question Time. Like regular Question Time, except that the panel is made up of MPs who will lose their seats through This Glorious Coalition of Ours's planned constituency cut'n'shut. They've been in the Green Room since teatime and don't give a Manxman's elbow for the wet-cheeked "opinions" of the producer's mates' bedfellows in the studio audience, and are ready to say so at great, vivid and drunken length.

3. Vanderpump & Wellbelove: Porn Detectives. Bent Vanderpump and Trixie Wellbelove are a couple of Dutch hardcore stars who incidentally solve crimes by using insights gained from years in the porn industry.

Episode 1: The Whacker Man. Filmed on Anglesey. "We'll be loving the both of you".

4. Shmooks. The BBC's hit spy series "Spooks" goes to the real Middle East, where Alexei Sayle, Tom Paulin, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and Lauren Booth are kidnapped from the Beirut Book Festival by al-Qaeda bad hats who nonetheless have a refined sense of irony.

Only Israel's Mossad can save them, and our heroes have to decide whether to boycott their own rescue. May contain scenes of pseudo-liberal angst and some naches.

5. One Man and His Dyke. A Jeremy Clarkson/Littlejohn/rugger bugger tries to persuade a lesbian that it's time to get back on solids. And we mean a real Diesel, not one of those BBC2 costume-drama waifs. May end in the Clarkson type breaking down and confessing to unspeakable urges towards Kelly Jones out of The Stereophonics. He's dreamy.

6. Baboons in a Room. This idea comes courtesy of The Dog of Decei(p)t and Hypocrisy. Just baboons, in a room. This week the baboons' guest is Polly Toynbee.

7. It's My Dream Home, So You Can Fuck Right Off. (Courtesy of Dazza.) The BBC gives a member of the public (Dazza) a wodge to do up a castle/villa in a warm part of Europe where taxes are something that happens to other people.

A year later Dazza sends us a postcard, with his guard dogs and Maltese heavies featuring prominently. We get the picture. Followed by studio discussion about accountability and the Licence Fee.

8. "Long" Jack Lang. The new UN piracy adviser stars in a Mogadishu-based dark comedy, much against his will. Also stars Captain Ahmed's Crazee Bastards. May lead to spin-off series featuring Captain Ahmed and a mermaid fashioned from the remains of Lang.

Over to you, readers.


17 comments:

M C Ward said...

Reminds me of Alan Partridge's "Monkey Tennis" and "Youth Hostelling with Chris Eubank" - only much, much better. (Lies awake, smirking at the ceiling).

Gorilla Bananas said...

Why does A.A. Gill use his initials instead of his first name, like a Boer? He seems like an odd fish - I wonder if he actually has gills.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Re #6: I hope that the baboons (and Polly's) private bits will be pixelled out. And no infra-red shots in the dark, please.

Dewi said...

You are posting often - i think that might be a sign - is the balance ok?

No Good Boyo said...

MC, delighted to be in the company of the Mighty Alan. Only the chatshow host Harold Wilson might have become.

GB, AA is aamusing and frank, but needs to learn to embrace Cymreictod. We'd send him a Charlotte Churchogram but suspect he might be more in the market for a churchwarden.

Snoop, I'm sure they'd just discuss the plight of social workers and how common that Harriet Harman is. Before the hurting begins.

Dewi, "balance" is not a word I like to hear. Is this an irregular haiku or are you trying to tell me something?

Yours from the Boyo Bunker under Llyn Cregennan.

Ian Plenderleith said...

Excellent line-up. To cash in on the 80s nostalgia boom (if there is one - if there's not, I'm sure one will be along soon), I'd like to add Thatch of the Day, in which a bug-eyed, deranged, far-right pensioner gets a few things off her chest every night after the ten o, clock news in the form of a rabid five-minute monologue on any given issue.

No Good Boyo said...

Excellent idea, Pop. There's not enough proper Tory madness around these days, what with the general rosy decency of This Great Coalition of Ours. I'd also like to see Dennis Skinner debating current affairs with the La Thatch over a bottle of scotch. It could be the beginning of a realignment of politics, or Skinner's spine. Either way, must-see TV.

sackcloth and ashes said...

'Celebrity Top-Cover'. A bunch of non-entities and 'Heat' magazine stalwarts sign on for what they think is a 'Big Brother/I'm A Celebrity' junket, only to find they've been drafted into the Gurkhas for a six month tour of Helmand.

Hilarity ensues when Peter Andre does an Auberon Waugh and shoots himself with his own machine gun. Highlights will also include Jodie Marsh discovering a camel spider when she uses one of the portaloos, and Stan Collymore's 'Oopps was that an IED moment?'.

No Good Boyo said...

I like it, Sackcloth. "Peter Andre did not recover from the major head injuries caused by his misfiring of a firearm and went to to remarry Jordan."

Blognor Regis said...

"Stig of the Dump" property renovation show where ex-racing driver does up a dilapidated abode whilst wearing a crash helmet.

sackcloth and ashes said...

2Lt Waugh's 'accident' with his machine-gun is recorded here. This incident should come as no surprise to anyone who has seen some of the utter morons who get commissioned in Her Majesty's Armed Forces:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1318349/Wit-wisdom-and-a-hint-of-ridicule-from-the-pen-of-a-satirical-genius.html

I am not entirely sure as to what constitutes the most damaging mistake as far as body and mind are concerned. Is it putting six 30 calibre rounds through your innards, or deciding to get physically intimate with Ms Katie Price? Speaking personally, I'd take my chances with the Browning.

Rod Warner said...

Just finished spluttering coffee all over the place, mercifully missing the laptop screen... thanks for a great laugh on a wet grey morning! With a lineup like that, I might even be persuaded to buy a tv and pay the licence fee... Actually, re the immortal Skinner, who has given me so many cheap laughs down the years, maybe he could go in with the baboons? Or would the RSPCA step in...

No Good Boyo said...

Excellent suggestion, Regis. The BBC pays enough, and so should make more use of The Stig. How about Stigosaurus, in which the petrolheaded man of no mystery tries to mount large, bad-tempered women, protected only by his famous helmet?

Ashes, the Browning has the advantage that it could miss and its wounds are treatable with penicillin. Now so Ms Price.

Thanks Rod, I'd forgotten about Skinner and his petulant sidekick Baddiel. A show in which they have to persuade their chubby, horse-breathed fans to play sport rather than sing about it would be passably entertaining. Then comes the Baboonogram...

Unknown said...

How about Stash in Your Attic? In this delightful family-based show, members of the public are confronted with their long-forgotten (or not) collections of pornography, toe-curling love letters and deviant literature and asked to explain themselves before their wives and family. Followed by Looser Women, where the denizens of Corby drink 10 Bacardi Breezers and describe the shortcoming of their many and varied sexual partners, even the ones who aren't American servicemen.

Unknown said...

That should, of course, be "shortcomings". Or perhaps not.

No Good Boyo said...

Practical and in the public interest, Stephen. There could be a gay-friendly version of the latter called Corby Trouser-Press.

Anonymous said...

Strictly Scottish Morris Dancing? It's got all the bells and whistles and no underwear.