16.Jun.2011 TV Review: Why I love Coronation St, The Apprentice and Embarrassing Bodies
Coronation Street
If you want gritty realism and an excuse to slit your wrists, then head over to Walford, to Albert Square and watch the Mitchells scream at each other to vacate their tavern.
No, not for me are the doof doofs of Eastenders – my soap addiction is reserved for Corrie. The legends who include Bill Roach, (best known as Ken Barlow), celebrated their 50th year in the business in 2010 and proved themselves worthy of the several television awards they’ve won to date (sadly not including 2011). The tram crash, aired in January, cemented Corrie in my mind as a true soap winner. It wasn’t just the sad irony of the menfolk of the street professing their love for their significant others just before they got squashed under the rubble that had me rubbing my hands with glee. This was to be the denouement of the Sally-Kevin-Tyrone love triangle. Sally was finally to hear the truth! The tram crash and its fallout, still being felt today by Tyrone, baby Jack and real dad Kevin was a fitting tribute to Corrie’s 50 year birthday.
Whilst tram crashes aren’t everyday fodder in Coronation St, laughter surely is. That’s where it differs from misery filled ‘Enders. From the bunny-boiler antics of Mary, professing her undying love for Norris amongst the Kabin’s Parma Violets, to the tragi-comedy of John Stape’s disastrous accidental murders, Coronation Street will be my favourite soap for years to come!
The Apprentice
Sergei Prokofiev’s Dance of the Knights holds a special pull on my family and I. Once hearing its opening strains, silence descends on the usual rambunctious cacophony of telephone calls, door bells and dog barks. For The Apprentice is on.
Telephones are turned to vibrate, or even off. The television is turned up. The ultimate job interview is on and we become arm-chair business gurus.
Humiliation of deluded egos who deign to call themselves businessmen or women is what we thrive on. It’s the new Victorian freak show. Cringe-worthy statements combine with clever editing to show us what the face of Britain’s brains really looks like: 2010 gave us a man who contends that his first word ‘wasn’t mummy, it was money’ and another who appends ‘The Brand’ to the end of his name. How we laugh.
Their tasks vary from flogging DVDs of ‘experiences’; little more than jolty, grainy videos of skiing or driving, to designing new bottles of alcohol, one of which, in the latest series, resembled a weapon. The candidates’ incompetence, bickering and backstabbing makes for the bulk of the show, until we reach the boardroom, where we meet the real star of the show.
That star is Surallan (or, now known as the less catchy Lord Sugar) whose apparent distress at these bumbling idiots’ results in the boardroom is knicker-wettingly funny. His consternation and ire, when directed in one individual’s direction, leads to their ejection in a black cab, where they curse Lord Sugar’s short-sightedness in firing them.
Nowhere else is the adage ‘it’s not the winning that counts, it’s the taking part’ more apt than here. For us, it’s the 12 week process, rather than the final winner, that delights.
Embarrassing Bodies
‘Don’t be ashamed; we’re all the same’ goes the voice over. Only, the point is, we’re not all the same. Quite clearly, if the trailers are anything to go by.
Wonky bits, inflamed pustules, growths and protuberances are the bread and butter of this Friday fright-night show. We’re so not the same: I don’t have bits sprouting out of my head, resembling men’s dangly bits, nor do I have a suppurating leg wound that threatens to stink out the surgery.
What surprises me the most is that anyone should ever want to appear on the show. We’re introduced to scores of patients who’ve not revealed their disgusting ailments to anyone, not even their doctors, who’ve hidden their secrets for years… who then peel off their underpants and show the entire Channel 4 demographic their naughty bits. One can only imagine the water-cooler conversations they’ll have once they return to work on Monday morning.
It’s shows like this that make me realise how normal I am. Yes I may have eyebrows that need plucking more than average, or perhaps a slightly wonky left big toe, but I, thankfully, don’t have any of the ailments that are given airtime here. And I thank my lucky stars for it every week.
