The first week in the Big Brother House

Big Brother launched 10 days ago which seems so distant now because so much has happened in the house. For me, it has been the best start to a series since the golden era which was 2004-2006, and is a significant improvement on last year’s first civilian series on Channel 5.

What makes a series memorable and entertaining is the housemates and the casting this series seems to be pretty good. The majority of the housemates have many layers and it’s already very interesting to see them try to form little groups and then change their minds. There have been many arguments over alcohol, shopping lists and one sausage which have created some fascinating and cringeworthy television. The argument about the sausage in particular was brilliant, because in true BB style it was blown out of proportion as the sausage was used for housemates to let out their frustration as they quite openly argued with each other and bitched about each other. This led to a classic BB scene which saw Lauren standing outside the toilet listening to three other girls bitch about her while Lydia tried to be sneaky and listen in too. This bunch of housemates don’t hold back, all of them are strong enough to fight their corner and most have already been pushed into doing that. Tact is no a skill required for the average Big Brother housemate.

We’ve had the start of a ‘showmance’ between Ashleigh and Luke S which doesn’t seem to be going anywhere quickly, and maybe I’m just being cynical but it seems very forced on Luke’s part. Unless I think it’s 100% genuine then I’m not interested in seeing two housemates get soppy. I’m glad that they are the only potential couple in the house and that it isn’t your ordinary straight forward ‘we’re in love’ type situation, there is more to it which might make it quite interesting over the next few weeks. All this in a week! 

The housemates have real personality and really big opinions to match.  I have been surprised to see them discussing topics such as the monarchy and religion. The diversity in conversation is good and I’m glad it’s being shown, it makes a pleasant change to last year where the housemates only topic of conversation seemed to be who the other fancied. This diversity in each episode reminds me of the golden era, this show is once again a joy to watch. 

There have been some negatives though. I think the tasks so far have been rather poor. This week for the shopping task housemates had to not laugh, I can see where the producers were going with this as watching people try not to laugh is usually rather funny but I found the execution embarrassingly bad, and in the end it annoyed me rather than amused me. Another task in which Shievonne had to impersonate housemates was also meant to be funny but again just left me annoyed which is a shame. In recent years the tasks have been inventive but the housemates haven’t been entertaining enough, this year it seems to be the complete opposite.

I was also quite disappointed with nominations, this series housemates are allowed to discuss nominations which I love, I like the game-playing aspect  but nobody took great advantage of it. There was a lot of talk of groups voting a certain way but it never really happened, once housemates were in the diary room they seemed to make their own decisions. Maybe this is because the housemates have never seen people in previous series have a strategy and play the game so they don’t know how to go about it, I’d like it to be encouraged though, I want it to become more like the US version of Big Brother which is all about brutal game-playing.

Last Friday Victoria was evicted, a good choice by the public as she didn’t want to be there and if she isn’t going to value the experience then she doesn’t deserve a place in the house. She was replaced by Becky who I wasn’t especially keen on but she has proven herself as a housemate. She seems genuinely nice and her confidence to stand up to people makes her interesting, she also produced an amazing moment on her entrance. Who will ever forget the girl who shouted ‘Come on ya bastards’ and jumped into the pool? Amazing!

My housemate rankings:
1 Caroline - She if fun and quirky, but has a bitchy side that makes me laugh.
2 Lydia - This woman is TV gold, her facial reactions and sneakiness are brilliant.
3 Arron - People have said he doesn’t add anything to the house but I think he is the biggest source of entertainment. I really like him.
4 Scott - Pretty similar to Caroline, he is fun and has a good bitchy side
5 Becky - I was against her going into the house but she has already proven to be a good housemate. She is straight talking and up for the experience. Good on her.
6 Deana - Nice girl, slightly too emotional though. Her emotions will be her downfall.
7 Ashleigh - I find her repulsive, nice and funny all at the same time.
8 Conor - Seems like a decent guy and very much an individual. 
9 Lauren - I felt sorry for her when she heard the other girls bitching about her but she is generally annoying which which means I find it hard to like her.
10 Luke A - Seems like a nice guy. That’s as much as I can say.
11 Benedict  - Same as Luke A
12 Sara - This girl has a split-personality and I don’t particularly like either. I’m surprised, I expected her to be one of my favourites.
13 Luke S - Big game plan of using the females in the
14 Shievonne - Seems nice enough but she hasn’t entertained me
15 Adam - I don’t particularly like him and he doesn’t show any promise of being interesting to watch.

The potential problem is that Shievonne, Adam, Luke S, Luke A and Benedict are going to fly under the radar for a while meaning the series could become quite boring in a few weeks. The big characters always go early on, tonight Chris was evicted and as much as I dislike the guy I can at least say he was great entertainment and next week could be a little boring unless some other housemates develop into interesting and entertaining characters quickly.


The series has real potential and the first week and a half has been great television. It will be interesting to see if the housemates can keep it up and if the producers can match them with some better tasks and twists.

Contributed by Luke Humphries.

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Dead Boss: The best new comedy on TV

Comedies are more difficult than ever to get right. BBC1 controller Danny Cohen is desperate for the next big studio based sitcom. The  BBC's long lasting sitcom My Family was recently axed (lasted far too  long for my liking) and the BBC's latest comedy hit Mrs. Brown's Boys isn't exactly the new Only Fools & Horses, is it? 

What makes comedy so difficult? Have we become a nation of comedy snobs? In America sitcoms are culled and commissioned in equal measure but a true hit is rare. What the networks in America want is a sitcom that can go into syndication which means the sitcom gets sold to affiliates who then  repeat the show to death in non-prime time slots and the producers sit  back and watch the repeat fees roll in.

In the UK we don't have such a system. The closest we've got is perhaps a repeat on Dave or BBC3 but it's not quite the same. The sitcom is a tricky beast. We seem to love nothing more than comparing the latest comedy effort to those landmark sitcoms that have gone before it. It's good but it's hardly The Office is it? I often wonder why some comedy writers bother, the task before them is so mammoth I admire anyone who dares to give it a shot.

One of my favourite comedies in recent memory (and that's a fairly  short list) was Pulling. The BBC3 comedy about three female roommates  and their (I hate this word) "dysfunctional" lifestyles. The show ran
for two series and a special on BBC3 and was co-written by Horgan who  also starred in a main role. If you've not seen Pulling it's a difficult one to explain, which thinking about it is perhaps why I was so fond of it.  It was a show with its own unique voice. It seemed to  create a genre of its own. The characters were a believable mix of completely bonkers yet completely true to life. Horgan and co-writer Dennis Kelly created characters I'd never seen before on television. Pulling didn't fit the mold. It filled its own gap and whilst not as over exposed as other BBC3 comedies of the time, was just as stylistic and brilliant.
You can imagine my giddy excitement when BBC3 announced Horgan had  picked up her pen (or opened Microsoft Word again) for a new six-part sitcom with new writing partner Holly Walsh. The series, entitled Dead Boss, isn't close to Pulling in style but that is not to take anything  away from it. Horgan takes the lead as  wrongfully impassioned Helen Stephens, who finds herself sentenced to seven years behind bars for the murder of her a boss at a tiling company. Helen doesn't exactly adjust to prison life. Horgan says "She's an optimist and she  naively thinks that it'll all work out in the end. As soon as her alibi  turns up and as soon as the ridiculous mistake is figured out then everything will be fine so she has that on her side."

The prison sitcom is nothing new of course but Dead Boss is an interesting new take on the theme. It's a sitcom full of laugh out  loud gags, visual giggles and a lot of plot lines which give the strong comedic cast a chance to shine. Walsh and Horgan have created a real laugh out loud comedy with this. The humour may be daft at times but that's not to say it's childish or silly. Once Helen's predicament is set up in episode one the story development really kicks in and it  really starts to show its true potential.

There's so much going on and a nice little murder mystery element where we find out who is really responsible for the murder. Horgan shines as usual but this is an ensemble piece and everyone gives an equally strong and memorable performance. Jennifer Saunders is wonderful as the ruthless Governor. It's a quirky role and she plays it brilliantly. In a world of gentle or family centred comedies Dead Boss is a refreshing change with its own voice and offering something different.

Maybe comedy isn't such a tricky thing after all, maybe all it needs  to do is make me laugh and Dead Boss managed this a lot so well done Sharon and Holly and everyone involved!

More on the Show
Read our interview with Sharon Horgan

Thecustard chats to Sharon Horgan of BBC3's new comedy Dead Boss

Thursday sees the return of Sharon Horgan to BBC3. Fans of laugh out loud comedies will remember Horgan's last BBC3 comedy, Pulling with great fondness and now Horgan is back with a brand new six-part comedy co-written with stand-up Holly Walsh, entitled 'Dead Boss.' Horgan takes the lead as Helen Stephens, who has been falsely imprisoned for the murder of her boss at a tiling company. The sitcom focuses on Helen's life in prison but also features an interesting murder mystery plot as we find out who really killed Helen's boss.
I recently had the pleasure of talking to Sharon about what we can expect from the new series, what it was like working with Jennifer Saunders and whether we'll ever see a return for Pulling.

Where did the idea for Dead Boss come from?
It was something I'd had in the back drawer for ages. The idea of someone completely ordinary stuck in prison and everyone on the outside's lives are better because she's inside. Her sister has taken over her life and her flat, the creepy guy at work gets to visit her every week and her cellmate decides they're going to have a great friendship so it's best for her if she stays in so everyone's lives are sort of improved because Helen's in prison.

There's a murder mystery element to the series too how did that come about?
We (Sharon co-writes the series with comedienne Holly Walsh) started writing it as a prison sitcom and decided that we liked the idea of seeing what was going on the outside world while she was inside. It ended up being quite a good idea because you see the mystery unravel and it's nice to move outside of the prison into a more colourful and ridiculous world.

How does Helen cope with prison life? In the second episode she seems to have relaxed a little bit but how does she cope within the confines of her new surroundings?
I read an interview with the guys who wrote Porridge and it's this idea of little victories being the most important thing while you're inside. It's about getting about in the long run but it's also about the smaller victories along the way. She's an optimist and she's naively think that it'll all work out in the end. As soon as her alibi turns up and as soon as the ridiculous mistake is figured out then everything will be fine so she has that on her side.  

Did you watch any episodes of Porridge or even Bad Girls to get a feel of the atmosphere?
Yes. I'd watched porridge a lot growing up. Bad Girls I'd seen but I'm more a Prisoner Cell Block H kind of girl. 

How would you describe the style of humour in the series?
I don't really know what you'd call it actually. We don't really know. It's pretty daft but I like to think it is smart as well. It was a real challenge to write because it's got a lot of jokes and visual stuff going on which is hard to do. It was so brilliant having Holly because she's such a joke monster. We wanted to make something that wasn't a gentle comedy. We wanted to make people laugh and write kind of absurd characters that were big, but at the same time, believable.  

Jennifer as Prison Governor Margaret

Fans of Absolutely Fabulous will be delighted to see Jennifer Saunders as Governor Margaret. Did you have her in mind for that role from the start and what was she like to work with?
Once we did the pilot we thought that she would be perfect so we sort of pretty arrogantly wrote it with her in mind and luckily she agreed to do it. We sent her the scripts and luckily she agreed to do it. Our Executive Producer has worked with her before and they knew each other so we kind of had a link. She couldn't have been better. She just played it to a T and she got every little thing we wanted right and played it better. 

How was it writing with Holly? (Co-writer Holly Walsh) Was she not keen to appear on screen?
She makes a cameo appearance in episode 6. She's very excited about getting to write her first sitcom. She's established in stand-up and she does quite a lot of TV work but she was just really really interested in writing and creating the show and that obsessed her enough to not want to do anything else.

There are only a handful of comedies on at the moment. Is it more difficult now to get a comedy made?
I think it's difficult to get any show made at the moment. I think everyone is a lot more careful with their budgets. This sort of comedy costs a lot of money because it's narrative comedy compared to entertainment or panel shows so it is hard to make a case for it. You have to really prove to people that you've got a good idea but I think there's still a huge appetite for new comedy. It is the thing that people watch again, again and again. People don't re-watch entertainment shows or dramas to the extent that they watch they're comedy DVDs so if you nail it it's quite a good one to nail. 

Do you enjoy the writing process or do you prefer to be acting on set?
I like them both. Sitting at a computer with a pal and laughing all day is a brilliant job and sometimes to be acting is a bit more stressful and certainly when you're acting in your own thing. I like to do both. I like to take time away from writing and do other people's things so they're both good in different ways. When you're writing you can stay at home and be with the family a bit more whereas when you're filming you can be doing these insane long hours so that's a bit of a minus but they're both great ridiculously luxury jobs.  

Not to jump the gun too much but do you hope for a second series of Dead Boss and is that something you give consideration to when you are writing?
You don't really think about it when you're writing it. When you start putting it all together and building it in the edit you do start thinking about a second series because your brain starts coming up with ideas again. The second series is like a stamp of approval. It's people saying they liked the show and that we did well so you have to look at it from that point of view.

You were clever actually because you've put her in there for twelve years so you could get twelve series out of it!
(Laughs) There's no way I'm doing that for twelve years but I get your point!

Pulling came to an end in 2009

People would shoot me if I didn't ask you this question. Any chance of Pulling ever coming back in any shape or form?
Dennis (Co-writer Dennis Kelly) and I still absolutely love those characters. I'd be lying if I said it wouldn't be nice at some point to do some sort of ten years on thing but it's not as simple as that. Anything that sounds like a nice idea is not necessarily going to be an easy thing to do and there's so many people making decisions. I think it's best not to even think about it because then if anything happens down the line it would just be a nice bonus.

What are you working on at the moment?
I've done a Playhouse Presents for Sky Arts called Psychobitches which will be on  June 21st.  I'm doing two new documentaries for Channel 4 and I'm in Ireland at the moment shooting a film with Maxine Peake (Silk)  called Run & Jump but I'm not sure when that's coming out yet.

You can catch Sharon in a double bill of Dead Boss on Thursday 14th  June at 10.30pm on BBC3.
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The TVWEEK: Saturday 16th - Friday 22nd June 2012

Saturday
6.00pm Primeval ITV - New series of the fantasy Sci-fi drama. A vicious underground creature brings chaos to the city, and the team must race against time to track its movements and prevent it from causing more damage. When it strikes again, the ARC crew find one of their own in mortal danger. Meanwhile, a new staff member joins the team.
Sunday
8.00pm Secrets of Our Living Planet - BBC2 - Global nature series with Chris Packham. Secrets of Our Living Planet showcases the incredible ecosystems that make life on Earth possible. Using beautifully shot scenes in the wild, Chris reveals the hidden wonder of the creatures that we share the planet with. The intricate, clever and bizarre connections between the species, without which, life just could not survive.
9.00pm Plan B, Leona and Labrinth: Project Hackney BBC3 - Singer Pan B goes back to his old school in east London on a mission to change young lives. He went to a pupil referral unit in Newham where kids unable to attend mainstream school go. He joins forces with Leona Lewis and Labrinth to work with a group of teenagers at the school, gain their trust and help focus them on their future.

10.25pm True Love BBC1 - First part of a five-part improvised drama series made up of five single dramas all dealing with the theme of love. David Tennant stars in the first as a man who discovers his first love has returned home to the place they first met. Future episodes star Lacey Turner, Ashley Walters, Billie Piper and Jane Horrocks. Continues tomorrow and stars Lacey Turner and Ashley Walters and on Tuesday with an episode starring Billie Piper.

Monday

9.00pm King George & Queen Mary: The Royals who rescued the Monarchy BBC2 - A two-part portrait of Elizabeth II's grandparents, King George V and Queen Mary, which examines the lasting legacy of the couple who rescued the monarchy from potential disaster, and whose influence persists to this day. This episode focuses on King George V. George was an unlikely moderniser. Born and brought up in the Victorian age he was conservative to his fingertips. Yet in the face of unstoppable social change, he turned out to be a remarkable innovator, creating the House of Windsor, embracing democratic reform, and reinventing many of the royal traditions that we know today. When he celebrated his silver jubilee in 1935 the monarchy was more popular than ever. 

10.00pm Chris Moyles' Comedy Empire BBC3 - Chris Moyles hosts a gala evening of comedy to kick-start BBC Three's coverage of the London 2012 Festival. Recorded at the iconic Hackney Empire and featuring some of the funniest names in comedy including Jason Byrne, Andrew Maxwell, Mark Watson and Ava Vidal, alongside some fantastic comics born and bred in Hackney. 

Tuesday

9.00pm Joely Richardson on Shakespeare's Women BBC4 -  Six Shakespearean actors and directors go in search of the greatest dramatist who ever lived by revealing the stories behind and the wonders within some of his greatest plays. Joely Richardson uncovers Shakespeare's early career, looking at how personal tragedy may have inspired one of his greatest hits and how the extraordinary female roles in the plays were actually created for young boys to act. With her mother, Vanessa Redgrave, Joely revisits the iconic RSC 1961 procduction of As You Like It and reveals how all today's actresses owe a debt of gratitude to the great female heroines of Shakeseperarean comedy. 

Wednesday

9.00pm Silk BBC1 - The final episode of the second series of the law drama.

9.00pm Cherry Healey How to Get a Life BBC3 - After a year of sleepless nights following the birth of her daughter, Cherry Healey wants to get back on the rollercoaster of modern life - but wonders if she's been left behind. Throughout the series Cherry meets a wide range of young people living in modern Britain, getting a taste of what it's like to live in their world before inviting them into her life. In the first episode, Cherry investigates what a modern relationship looks like in a world where anything goes. She spends time with identical twins, one single and one married, teenagers who are into threesomes and a young man who is desperate to meet 'the one'. 

9.00pm The Strange Case of the Law BBC4 - Series in which barrister Harry Potter tells the remarkable story of English justice.
Friday
9.00pm Simon Schama's Shakespeare BBC2 - Simon Schama argues that it is impossible to understand how Shakespeare came to belong 'to all time' without understanding just how much he was of his time. Schama explores how in his history plays, Shakespeare created a vision of England that still rings true today. Against the backdrop of the Reformation, Shakespeare began to dramatize history and character in a new and unprecedented way.
9.00pm David Bowie and The Story of Ziggy Stardust BBC4 - Documentary that tells the story of how Bowie arrived at one of the most iconic creations in pop history. Ziggy's instant success gave the impression that he was the perfectly-planned pop star, but it had been a momentous struggle for Bowie to hit on just the right formula. Narrated by Jarvis Cocker, it reveals Bowie's mission to the stars through the musicians and colleagues who helped him in his quest for fame - a musical voyage that led Bowie to doubt his true identity, eventually forcing the sudden demise of his alien alter ego, Ziggy.

9.30pm Would I Lie To You? BBC1 - Rob Brydon, David Mitchell and Lee Mack return for a new episode of the panel show.

The Custardtv Podcast: Gordon Behind Bars, Louis Theroux, Dead Boss and Football scores

Join Luke and Gary as they look at a week of TV filled with Football. A preview of Sharon Horgan's new series Dead Boss and what happens when Louis Theroux attempts another Porn documentary.



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Desperate Housewives finale: not so ‘Wonderful, Wonderful’

Last night's Desperate Housewives finale left us cold; clichéd, contrived and rushed, it was more of a nostalgia-fest-cum-crowd-pleas

er instead of a satisfying end of a story arc. With old characters returning for contrived endings, it left an overwhelming, lingering sense of desperation. And not in a good way.

I've been a fan of Desperate Housewives since I delved in early Season 2. I never saw Mary Ellen shoot herself and the significance of her death doesn't seem to have had much of a bearing on the denouement of what became essential viewing in my household. But after (for most people) 8 years of ups and downs, laughter and tears, the writers have a responsibility to their characters and their audience. A responsibility that wasn't taken seriously enough.

A simple switch of the two back-to-back episodes (that were presented as two separate episodes to E4 viewers in the UK) would have been more than enough to placate my ire. But this last, filler hour was dull and lifeless coming after the powerful and poignant reinvention of Lynnette and Tom Scavo. Anything after that just paled in comparison; lacking pizzazz and genuine emotion.

The typical mistaken identity storyline in the first hour was forgiven as we watched Lynette realise that Tom was mistaken: the man she was in love with was "you, you, you". This would have been a more than fitting ending – keep the viewers in suspense and give them the saccharine happy endings they really crave: tie up the loose ends by all means, but end on something meaningful - the closure of Tom and Lynette, the most realistically portrayed couple I've ever seen (never have a couple deserved a happy ending, or each other, more).

Harking back to the emotional moment they reunite, we see the writers falter, wanting to inject a bit more uncertainty and suspicion into their relationship, with Tom wondering if his wife will ever be happy. But that soon finishes when Lynette chooses the moment of her Maid of Honour speech to smooth things over and things, just like that, are back to how they were. Tears did come, again, for me, but nothing like they were when Lynnette dropped that bag of ice. It was emotional manipulation, disingenuously crowbarred in when they realised this last hour lacked feeling.

I'd already accepted a contrived finish to Bree's trial; a case that had great potential for truly exploring the limits of friendship, loyalty and great scope for betrayal - a storyline that could have really been squeezed for anticipation, tension and meaning, in the hands of a better storyteller. 

Instead we got a convenient ending and a waste of a much-loved character: Karen MacClusky, significantly exacerbated by the death of the actress who played her, Kathryn Joosten, on June 2nd. Karen's death and final hours and days were given little meaning once her use as a ‘get out of jail free’ card was over. We simply saw her instruct Roy to play her chosen record, Johnny Mathis' 'Wonderful Wonderful' and she slipped by, mostly unnoticed by the cast who were fawning over Julie's new baby or celebrating at Renee and Ben's wedding. Shame then, that Wonderful Wonderful includes the lyrics “This world is full of wondrous things it's true 

But they wouldn't have much meaning without you”.

And what of a new baby whose arrival made Julie and Porter parents and Lynnette, Tom and Susan new grandparents? How did Porter feel? Will he face up to his responsibilities? How does he feel about his new family skipping town? We missed out on a key part of a family's reaction to a newborn - all the joy, fear and anticipation, glossed over in montage.

Yes, there would have been a few tweaks required to the episodes to switch them - if the writers had truly needed Bree and Trip to be together then they could have had her show a bit of understanding to the motives behind Trip putting Gaby on the stand. Bree had no issues accepting Renee's explanation that she was trying to protect her fiancé, so why not Trip, trying to save his client and the woman he loves?

Renee has always been a tricky character for me - she's never really escaped Ugly Betty’s Wilhelmina Slater character - her behaviour and mannerisms are too similar to really escape the typecasting, so I never really saw her as part of the core cast. And, it seems, neither did the writers, even though they saw fit to dedicate a large part of their last ever episode to her wedding. She’d never really infiltrated the close-knit group of women, who failed to invite her to their last poker match – she was forever on the outskirts until she became part of a useful plot point ora comic foil.

The closing 10 or so minutes of "this is what happened next" and Susan's departure from the Lane was seemingly tacked on: a nod to the nostalgia of the cast rather than a fitting ending for the stories of what were great characters. Gay BFF neighbours Bob Hunter and Lee McDermott were largely ignored (even though they first appeared in Season 4) and we're supposed to believe that Bree has a future in Kentuckyconservative politics despite her self-confessed 'murky past' which included a murder trial. I might believe her, but I'm betting her US constituents, even ones of the future, might balk at the idea of a woman with a past as a representative.

Instead of a truly wonderful finale, we got a ghostly ending, the dead characters watching silently, dressed resplendently by a collaboration of The White Company and GAP, as Susan drove a lap around Wisteria Lane for the last time. I couldn’t have felt more let down.

Give your series some credit, some gravitas, some respect, by allowing the characters to go out with an emotional bang. A montage is for new beginnings: a wardrobe makeover, trying on wedding dresses, a reinvention of a flabby body into an athlete, not an ending. It felt cheap and worthless; marred and tarnished by overwhelming disappointment at a desperate end.

Contributed by Tannice Pendegrass

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