Reviewed
by Chris Arnsby
Gary Davies: “Hello. Good evening. I hope you're well. Welcome to an
action-packed Top of the Pops. As you can see tonight I'm all on my own so
they've enlisted a little bit of help. Who have we got in the studio tonight.”
Mystery
Lady 1: “Beatmasters and De La Soul.”
Mystery
Lady 2: “And the Fine Young Cannibals and Yazz.”
Gary
Davies: “But to start off with, at number eleven in the charts, with a song
called Requiem, the London Boys.”
In these days of media saturation,
it is rare to go see a film with no expectations as to what it might be like and
come away very impressed but that was the case last week with Alex Garland’s
latest Civil War. The film imagines breakaway states battling the US
Army in a revolt against an authoritarian government. Considering what happened
in Washington not so many years ago the idea of divided United States tipping
over into civil war does not seem as far-fetched as it may once have been. This
film deliberately seems to avoid too many details of why such an event has
happened and is much more interested in its effects on individuals though it does
show a President who relies on meaningless but patriotic soundbites to rally
his cause. It sounds worryingly familiar.
I recently spent several days in Devon visiting Paignton, Torquay, Brixham, Kent's Cavern and Totnes so here's some pictures from the trip. Its an interesting and beautiful area and there's a lot of steep hills!
Words: Chris Arnsby
13/04/1989
Mark Goodier: “Good evening. Welcome to Europe's top pop show. It's Top of the Pops and we've got a good one tonight with the brand new number one in the UK, plus you get the chance to see the U2 video, and first a band who just can't wait to get on, with Edwin Starr joining them, it's the Cookie Crew with Got To Keep On.”
[21] COOKIE CREW: got to keep on. Edwin Starr is not the same as Alvin Stardust. I'm not sure how I got the two confused.
Why
just Mark Goodier? He is the only presenter listed in the Radio Times so
the plan was always for him to go solo. Out of curiosity I went back to find
the last time there was only one host, it was 04/02/1988 and Mike Smith. While
I don't believe there was any serious interest in turning Mark Goodier into the
new Mike Smith, I started wondering about Goodier's television career outside
of Top of the Pops. It's basically a single episode of forgotten quiz Scruples
(“The game of moral dilemmas”) hosted by Simon Mayo (at the time much more of a
candidate to be the next Mike Smith). And an appearance on UP2U which
was the summer replacement for On The Waterfront, which was itself the
summer replacement for Going Live, but only ran up to the start of July
for some reason.
It
looks like solo hosted shows are coming back. It's presumably a good way to
spread out the presenting pool and also save a bit of cash.
Words:
Chris Arnsby
Simon Mayo: “Hi. Welcome to Top of the Pops. BBC1 and Radio 1 together one more
time. In order of alphabetical things coming up today we have Paula Abdul, and
Cold Cut, and Simply Red, and Anthea Turner.”
Anthea
Turner: “Thank you very much, Simon! Hello! Listen can you keep a secret!”
Simon
Mayo: “Only on Thursday nights.”
Anthea
Turner: “Okay! At number 22 it's Brother Beyond they're on stage now!”
[22] BROTHER BEYOND: can you keep a secret? Simon Mayo can keep a secret on Thursday nights, what a shame Top of the Pops is recorded on a Tuesday. I know this fact, among others, thanks to a link to an auction house sale of five Top of the Pops camera scripts, forwarded to me by commenter mumu03; https://content.easyliveauction.com/auctions/images_lots/59C27F972E0E337C9017486B42435C8C_bou01/1100329224.JPG
Episode five
A gripping episode sees
this season really earn its spy points courtesy of three separate yet
intertwining strands. Alex is sent on what seems like a traditional mission to
infiltrate a house to lift the contents of the safe. Yassin will be joining him
and needless to say there aren’t any funnies on the way. Yet this turns out to
be different from expected – after all Scorpia don’t specialise in conventional
crime- challenging Alec’s moral stance over killing people as he watches Max Grendel
being shot. After Alex is incensed by this he uses some of the kit from the job
to break into Julia’s office which of course he was expected to do. Scorpia’s
sneakiness knows no bounds.
Though it doesn’t always
seem to receive a lot of high profile support in the media Alex Rider is
a class show. Compared to how much publicity and hype other shows have it has
slipped in though a side entrance rather like its main character might do. It hasn’t
helped that the show has had to sprawl over a lengthy period due to actors’ availability
and the pandemic. This time there seems
to have been a more concerted effort to push it though this is the final season, partly I imagine because the teenage characters are now being played by actors
in their mid twenties, and promises to complete Alex’s story.
It’s not just the
actors who are maturing, the production this time seems geared towards a
slightly older audience – and I note that Otto Farrant gets an executive
producer’s credit too. Whereas we had the school setting of season one and the game
background of season two, this third offering is less contained and wilier as a
good agent would be. There is a layer of
sophistication to things, the kids are no longer fumbling about but this time are being more proactive and prepared for things. They’re
operating on their own too unaware of the Department’s dealing with a new
Scorpia threat. There are lies and deceptions but played out in a very human context
with a pleasing minimum of unlikely ideas. Of course, a James Bond adventure is
done and dusted in less than half the run time this eight part series of 45
minute episode so the pace is slower though this only adds to the tension. Along with the
series’ trademark understated electronic score it also helps distinguish Alex Rider
from other spy genre material.
Last week's watches!
If you like huge
monsters constantly battling each other you are a match for this film. So over
the top that you can’t actually see the top, Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire is a
chaotic noisy stew of various giant creatures in successive dust ups levelling
cities as they go. Any characters or messages that might be lurking are swept
aside by relentless monster action edited so sharply we leap from one scene to
another. It works fairly well for the first half but the longer it goes on and
the more creatures turn up the more repetitive it becomes.
