Andy Shatang is on holiday this week, so Frank Strangeworld gives you the lowdown on BBC3’s afternoon and evening schedule for this coming Friday:
| 4:00 |
FOOT-BULL |
Animated adventures with the Spanish soccer-playing bovine. |
| 4:15 |
SQUAWKY BEAVER |
More cartoon capers with the goofy bird-cum-woodland mammal hybrid and his friends. In this classic 1972 episode, ‘PUMP HAMMER’, Squawky Beaver, Spider-Kid, Julius Pizza and Moonboob are on the run from a giant humming-bird covered in cake. |
| 4:35 |
IN A NUTSHELL |
New series with Terry Nutkins. Each week he will endeavour to explain, in child-friendly terms, some of the great concepts and institutions of the world. The show takes place in a giant nutshell where Terry dwells with his two chipmunk friends Ipso and Facto, in which they eat fact-pie and drink information-juice. This week; Nazism. |
| 5:05 |
TIMOTHY FRUIT |
His toes are turning into strawberries, melons are growing underneath his armpits, his lips are already bananas, and even worse is happening down in his nether regions. As a result, Timothy’s school work is suffering and girls just aren’t interested in him. What is more, there is a world fruit shortage on, and the local food retailer’s produce manager is very keen to get a ripening Timothy round for tea. An interesting, if alternative, meditation upon the traumas of burgeoning adolescence. |
| 5:40 |
DOGS |
Dogs. |
| 6:00 |
NEWS BALLOONS |
Yet another ill-advised re-packaging of the news. Anna Ford and John Sissons are situated at opposite ends of the country, suspended in hot air balloons directly above the location of breaking stories. If a new story breaks somewhere nearby, then they are reasonably mobile enough to get there to cover it - literally. However, the format is ridiculously cumbersome and both newsreaders look desperately ill at ease with the whole situation. But try telling the BBC that they’ve got it wrong when it comes to the news. Do they listen? Do they hell. |
| 6:35 |
GOOSE, BITCH, WEEVER AND TOSS |
Drama. Goose is dead, Bitch is dying, Weever’s gone missing and Toss is in traction. Plus no one is home. A dull episode. |
| 7:00 |
HORSES DRIVING CARS |
More equine road madness, with Martyn Lewis. |
| 7:30 |
BIRDWAR |
Is this the worst idea for a television programme to have been commissioned ever? Craig Charles looks horrendously drawn and depressed (patently realising that his agent has landed him another deadend, lightweight presenting job) as he invites us, with no enthusiasm whatsoever, to ‘sit back, relax, and watch birds give birds the bird.’ Men in boiler suits then proceed to place hungry and aggressive seagulls into a specially prepared room filled with ‘animal anger gas’ to do battle with militant geese. Woeful. |
| 8:00 |
JOOLS HOLLAND INVESTIGATES: ‘MUM, I’M TURNING INTO A
BEAR’ |
This week, Jools Holland’s enlightening series takes us to Martlesham Heath in Suffolk in order to highlight the extraordinary case of 19-year-old Chris Foster, an unfortunate victim of the extremely rare condition arctomorphia. Chris is slowly turning into a bear. Surprisingly, Holland finds the teenager quite undistressed by his condition. Covered in thickening hair and with a protruding muzzle beginning to take shape, a sleepy Chris, wrapped in a duvet, is filmed answering Holland’s questions, interspliced with footage of him clumsily rummaging around the family home for food. Mum Maggie says, We’ve reconciled ourselves to the situation now. An expert told us he’s due to go into hibernation soon, so what with him being unemployed at the moment and sleeping a lot anyway, there couldn’t really be a better time for him to become a bear. At one point Holland asks Chris how he really feels about what is happening to him. I suppose you’ve just got to accept that things like this can happen, replies Chris, his voice occassionally breaking off into Chewbacca-like roars. |
| 9:00 |
DR WHO'S WHO |
All the currently still living actors who had the honour of playing Dr Who on television meet up for a drink in a London pub to discuss the role, and their task is to ultimately agree by the end of the night who they thought was responsible for the worst portrayal of the eccentric timelord. Tom Baker, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and even that McGann brother, who played the Doctor in the ill-advised television movie a while ago, are there. Peter Davison is absent due to work commitments. Tom Baker expresses his disappointment at the fact that William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee ‘couldn’t even be bothered to turn up.’ Tom, Colin Baker corrects him, they’re dead. As the beer flows, the criticism begins to mount for Peter Davison’s Dr Who, which is wholly unfair, cowardly yet predictable seeing as he is not there to defend himself. I never agreed with the whole cricket outfit thing, grumbles a boozed up Tom Baker. Yes, it leant him an unnecessary campness that I didn’t think befitting of a timelord, surmises a fat Colin Baker. Thus the final judgment is passed with Sylvester McCoy, of all people, saying that Peter Davison was ‘undoubtedly the crappest Dr Who.’ Thanks for that. |
| 9:40 |
FRANK'S PLACE |
Chat show and comedy vehicle for amiable former boxer Frank Bruno. Set in a mock-up of his house, replete with a scaled down boxing ring in the lounge, Bruno receives numerous showbiz guests. This week Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and Dave Lee Travis are the guests. If Bruno dislikes someone, he will force them into the ring at the end of the show for a light beating. Urged on by Mini-’Arry (a talking figurine of the boxing commentator Harry Carpenter, continually perched on Bruno’s shoulder) the king of panto casually pummels Stephen Fry into oblivion to close out the show, much to Hugh Laurie’s delight. |
| 10:25 |
THE COMEDIAN THAT DOESN'T
SPEAK |
Stuart Heavechester is the comedian that doesn’t speak. His act consists solely of standing stock still on the stage for the duration of his performance, saying nothing. This is the joke apparently. His audiences writhe in hysterics. He has been wowing postmodern ironists in London all year. This is a specially recorded performance that he gave in Shepherd’s Bush in June. Critic Hosannah Bell enthuses, It’s the perfect joke - that’s why it’s ceaselessly funny. It’s anti-comedy. It’s a rejection of the norm. He’s daring us to laugh by presenting us with something that essentially has no ‘comedy’ value, yet that absence of ‘comedy’ must in definition be the ‘comedy’ because that is the product he insists he is pedalling. It’s to do with supply and demand culture. He’s basically birching the concept of capitalism with the harsh and prickly branch of surrealism. The result is hilarious and delicious slapstick-like irony. Anyone fancy a pint? |
| 11:05 |
WHAT THE HELL DID EVER
HAPPEN TO THE LIKELY LADS? |
You’d think they’d know better, wouldn’t you? Rodney Bewes and James Bolam, for some reason, reprise their roles in a conceptual nightmare of a sitcom. Bewes’ character has become the crazed and manic manager of a Torquay hotel, whilst Bolam’s character has evolved into a shifty market dealer of dodgy goods from Peckham. Tom Baker stars as himself (his second appearance on TV tonight - his agent must be working hard), a permanent resident of the hotel who is desperate to reprise his role as Dr Who in some sort of capacity. I’ll be a kind of novelty figure around the hotel, he pleads to Bewes. Not the best thing I’ve ever watched on television. Then again, Mr Craig Charles, not the worst |
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