SI'TCJOM GAVIN AND STACEY 8803, Sun 13 May, 9pm 0000
With ITV and Channel 4 still flailing around from one comedy outrage to another and dishing out sitcom calamity after sitcom calamity, it’s 8803 who can proudly wear the telly crown when it comes to making this digital nation laugh. And main plaudits go to Steve Coogan and Henry Normal for their Baby Cow stable which just keeps knocking out some good ones: Human Remains, Ideal, Mighty Boosh, Nighty Night and Saxondale for five. How other production companies and their feeder channels would kill for just a sliver of those shows’ qualities.
The next gem on their roster is Gavin and Stacey, which, on the surface appears to be a cuddly romantic dream but is injected with a cruel anthrax-tinged reality. lmagine biting into a strawberry centre only to
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The barely alive Brian Donaldson finds that dead famous people are best shown in a bad light
"It/hat on earth could be funny about a man who siaughtered millions of peopie and influenced many a nutter in the post cyanide years? Quite a lot. according to .Jacttues Peretti in his very fine Hitler: The Comedy Years IC/ranne/ 4. Thu IO I'vit'iy.
t i.():3pii: O... l. There's the hair.
moustache and slightly camp manner. which even/one from Mel Brooks to
find frog dung within. Or picture Love, Actually directed by Shane Meadows. Gavin (Mathew Home) is an Essex boy. Stacey (Joanna Page) is from Barry Island. Through work they talk on the phone most days but have never met. Now, the time has come for them to bridge the English/Welsh divide and hook up in London. Armed with a rape alarm and a cacophony of nervous tension, Stacey has brought big bad Nessa (Ruth Jones) as an extra safety net while Gavin drags along pub quiz host Smithy (James Corden) to make up the numbers. The encounter ends in acres of kebab vomit and soiled rubbers.
While the central pairing make an endearing duo, Jones and Corden are the stars, initially dismissive of one another’s charms but eventually spanking the night away. And they also happen to have written the script, as sharp as a stingray with pleasing dollops of daftness heaped on top. (Brian Donaldson)
Frank Sinatra was as contemptible of the world's media as any mass murdering tyrant. and despite his 'connections' wasn't quite in the position of haying swathes of reporters bumped off. Sinatra Under Siege (ITV-i, Tue 1:3 Mai: 9pm .0. l tells the tale of OI' Blue Eyes' 197/. Australian tour when the country's journalists ibacked to the hilt by the massively povi/erful trade unions) took exception to being roughed up by his hoods bc-iore Cranky Frankie delivered a monologue about the media bemg lull of "hookers and piinps' in front of a stunned black tie audience in Melbourne. What happened next was
lather Ted used to poke fun at the Fuhrer. Could :t be that mocking the thing we fear the most helps us deal ‘.'./lill li‘ut: en’il'?
Tell that to the Kurds who were gassed by the ex-lragi dictator who became a Joke figure to the West long before he v as found in a inousehole near likrit. Saddam’s Tribe iC/mnne/d, ihu Wit/lav. 9pm
.00 l seeks to show the years prior to his downfall from the pornt of View of daughter Haghad and while it's shot ill a very odd mid -7()s armchair theatre kind of way, it is worth watching for the excellent performance of Daniel Mays as Uday. Saddam's loose cannon of a son Who overcame a speech impediment and inferiority complex by peppering anyone Who looked at him funny With bullets.
an epic stand off With Sinatra trapped in his hotel room, blackballed by the Aussie workforce and unable to get out of the country. After the crooner sought the help of dodgy pals like Henry Kissinger and Jimmy Hoffa. union boss and future PM Bob llawke
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stepped in and got the grovelling apology his nation was after.
Time hasn't been kind to the drama of Daphne Du Maurier's life. These days. instances of a trouser-wearing woman With slicked—back hair neglecting her husband to fall in lesbian love With an American society dame are probably two a penny. With Geraldine Somemlle in the title role. Daphne (BBC2, Sat 12 May. 9pm 00 ) works better as the tale of a
writer haunted by one masswe success (Rebeccai looming over the rest of her career and fails horribly when it goes for lovelorn angst With appalling exchanges of dialogue such as: ‘I do so miss daddy': “oh. just kiss me.‘
Scout guru Robert Baden-Powell didn't have any speCitic adVice on what a yOung chap should do when dumped by his girl for another female. but l imagine the solution would have something to do With knots. He was obsessed With the things. and Scouting for Boys this masterpiece which sounds suSpiciously like a groomers charter) was riddled with unbelievably detailed sketches of everything from the Rosebud stopper to the Turks head. He wasn't quite so keen on masturbation. though, which he felt blunted ambition and which
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gives cause to much giggling in Ian Hislop’s Scouting for Boys (8801, Mon 14 May. 9pm .00 i. Entertaining up to a point. this sums up part of BBC-it's problem: too many ‘10 minute features being stretched to the hour mark. This one is the docuiméntary equivalent of Paul \’Villi(3il()ll8()'8 (]()Lli‘l'l(i(il(}(i incoherent QC in the Fast Show. as we hear yet moie tales of BP's dei'ring—do during the Boer War: ‘Snakeff Snakefl I'm afraid that l was very. \eiy drunk.'
‘th 9.1 Maj. i’a.‘ ' THE LIST 89