Bovey Traces

If there’s one thing guaranteed to enliven a dull sitcom (or even a great one), it’s a scene that locks two or more characters in combat across a table, playing a board or card game. Whether it’s ludo or Cluedo, poker or pontoon, the games people play in sitcoms allow writers to explore the competitiveness and pettiness of their characters in often hilarious detail. “Should there not be some cards in here?” One sitcom holds the record for the time its characters spend playing board games  –  Father Ted . With fathers Ted and Dougal having so much free time as priests, they spend much of it playing the likes of ludo, Cluedo, and snakes and ladders. (In the original Father Ted DVD commentary,   writer Graham Linehan explained that he and co-writer Arthur Matthews ensured that Ted and Dougal played the most unskilled games.) When Ted thinks he’s finally about to play a game that challenges the old grey matter, chess, he has to concede to Dougal’s choice, Buckaroo. “ I th...

This was a commissioned article for the theatre programme of the Comedy Theatre Company's production of dinnerladies (2011). Victoria Wood has been the nation's favourite name for over a quarter of a century. Ever since she made her television debut in 1974 on ITV talent show  New Faces , she has been delighting audiences with her wry eye for the foibles of everyday life, filtered through well-drawn characters and rich dialogue, which led one  Guardian  critic to describe her as "the lovechild of Alan Bennett and Pam Eyres". Wood first made a name for herself performing comic songs on the BBC consumer affairs series  That's Life  in 1976. Although the songs would remain part of her repertoire (most famously, 'The Ballad of Barry and Freda'), Wood's background as a drama undergraduate led her to write her first play,  Talent , which was adapted by Granada TV in 1979. Two more plays,  Nearly a Happy Ending  and  Happy Since I Met You , s...

This was my TV review of the sitcom Pulling, first published on a now-retired blog on 19 May 2009. Last night saw the final 60-minute special of the brilliant  Pulling  on BBC Three, after the channel announced it was, ahem, pulling  the cult sitcom last year. For anyone who’s never seen the show, it follows the dysfunctional relationships of three female housemates, Donna, Karen and Louise. In the previous two series, episodes have mined some pretty dark areas for a sitcom (think  Sex and the City  as conceived by Joe Orton), including suicide attempts, copious drug abuse, stalkers, flashers and feline euthanasia. The final episode continued in the same vein, with themes of obsessive love (Louise returns from abroad several pounds lighter but burdened with an unwanted partner, whom she discovers she prefers comatose to conscious), terminal illness (Karen’s ex Billy reveals he has cancer and wants to go swimming with dolphins before he dies) and domestic abuse...