Untold Kitsch

Alan Bennett performs Philip Larkin's Aubade (with added New Order soundtrack). It's enough to make one sore.

Childish Glee

And so, for another year, we say goodbye to Doctor Who. I seem to have picked up a habit of missing the series finales, this year because I was at the cinema, watching Pirates of the Caribbean 2 (a film ostensibly aimed at children) rather than the much more respectable Doctor Who (a series ostensibly aimed at children). They both had their faults. In Doctor Who's case, awful cliched tripe dialogue (Said the Dalek to the Cyberman: "You are better than us at only one thing: dying"). And at two and a half hours, Pirates of the Carribean is tortuously long, for no real reason (certainly not for the plot's sake).

But both are redeemed by their sheer audacity. Gleefully, I watch as five million daleks descend upon London and exterminate everything in sight; and a band of rummed feulled pirates fight a Kraken and army of fish-men. In both mediums, there is nothing else that offers such wonderful escapist abandon.

Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive

I've just seen the first episode of Rob Brydon's awesome new show within a show comedy series. Basically it is a British take on the Larry Sanders Show, the great 1990s comedy which starred Garry Shandling as late night talk show host Larry Sanders. Rob Brydon, with team captains Dave Gorman and Jane Moore, presents Annually Retentive, a comedy panel show which has as its subject recent history. The first show focuses on 1997 and has as its guests David Mitchell, Lucy Porter, Richard Bacon and Gail Porter.

But that is only half of the series. The panel show segments, which were filmed as an actual panel show in March, are intercut with scenes detailing the production process. Here Rob Brydon is a a grotesque monster driven by ego and vanity, grumbling that he cannot make jokes about Gail Porter's baldness and seering with jealousy and paranoia that David Mitchell is dominating his show. I can imagine the series only getting better as it continues and plots begin to develop.

Anyway, its really good and if you enjoy things like Peep Show, you'll like this. And, best of all, as it's the BBC, you can watch it online.