Bovey Traces

Review  –  Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (BBC One, 6.10 PM, 25 December 2024) As with The Morecambe and Wise Show in the 1970s and  Only Fools and Horses in the 1980s–1990s, you could argue that Christmas Day isn’t complete without a Wallace and Gromit adventure. Yet it’s been 16 years since the stop-motion duo’s last film ( A Matter of Loaf and Death ), although it feels like they’ve never been away. Vengeance Most Fowl sees cheese-loving inventor Wallace and his faithful dog Gromit facing a familiar foe – the rooster-impersonating penguin Feathers McGraw (last seen in 1993’s The Wrong Trousers and surely one of TV’s most iconic villains). After being imprisoned in a zoo for stealing a precious diamond, McGraw seeks revenge on our heroes by reprogramming Wallace’s “smart gnome”, Norbot, his latest invention and business venture. With a clueless chief inspector (voiced by Peter Kay) pointing the finger at Wallace, it’s up to Gromit to save the day again. ...

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...

  When I was cataloguing my CD collection during the COVID lockdown, I came across several that my parents had bought. One that I found in the “various artists” section, Sixties Mix Two , reminded me of a late ‘80s musical trend that is little celebrated now – digital megamixes of rock-and-roll-era tracks, which peaked (or reached a nadir) with a short-lived phenomenon involving a cartoon rabbit... The 1988 compilation  Sixties Mix Two boasts on the sleeve 60 “original recordings”, implying that this wasn’t something to be taken for granted. This was probably due to the glut of cheap '50s/'60s compilations at the time featuring re-recordings of the original tracks by the original artists, but it also points to the predecessors of these types of megamixes. The early '80s saw several disco-style medleys hit the charts. The most famous of these were the Stars On 45 releases by Star Sound (which launched a wave of pastiches by contemporary acts such as Squeeze, Captain Sensi...

This was a commissioned article for the theatre programme of Phoenix Theatre's production of Bend It Like Beckham (2015). As well as his skills on the football pitch, David Beckham is world-renowned as a style icon. Whether on the ball or at the ball, Becks has given us some bold (and bald) fashion choices over the years. Curtains For England After becoming a crucial part of the Manchester United and England teams in 1996–1997,   with his bendy free kicks, pinpoint crosses and goals from the halfway line. It was all beginning to gel for Becks – including his heavily gelled ‘curtains’ hairstyle. By the time the 1998 World Cup in France arrived, his barnet was blonde; but he saw a different colour – red – when he got sent off in England’s match against Argentina. Going For A Sarong When Becks flew to France, his new fiancée, Victoria Adams (aka ‘Posh Spice’), travelled along with him. The Spice Girl supported Becks at all of England’s matches, and the couple were spotted at ...

This was my TV review of the sitcom The IT Crowd, first published on a now-retired blog on 7 February 2006.   The IT Crowd Channel 4 – 9.00 P.M. Even with a pedigree like Graham Linehan’s ( The Day Today , Father Ted , and Black Books ), Channel 4’s decision to show the first two episodes of his new sitcom The IT Crowd  back-to-back is unclear. Perhaps they felt, as with Father Ted , it needed a couple of episodes to get to know the characters. So the first episode was spent mostly setting up the situation of Jen (Katherine Parkinson) disrupting the geeky world of computer nerds Roy (Chris O’Dowd) and Maurice (Richard Ayoade). Despite the inevitable IT clichés early on (technophobe Jen forgetting to plug her computer in) the show had got into gear by the second episode. Chris Morris was reminiscent of Reggie Perrin’s C.J. as the overbearing boss Denholm, and there was evidence of the surreal, knowing plot-telegraphing that Linehan excels at (involving a barefoot Jen and a Japa...

This was a c ommissioned article for the touring theatre programme of Theatre Royal Bath and Rose Theatre Productions' production of Stones in His Pockets (March–July 2019). From its breathtaking countryside and colossal cliffs to its quaint villages and bustling capital city, Ireland has provided film-makers over the years with a ready-made set. Hollywood in particular has been a regular visitor, with everything from Technicolor romances to intergalactic epics filmed on location in the Emerald Isle. The first Hollywood film to be shot in Ireland (and indeed outside the USA) was Sidney Olcott’s A Lad From Old Ireland (1910), marketed by the Kalem Film Company of New York as a “great trans-Atlantic drama”. A Canadian American of Irish descent, Olcott drew on his own experience as an emigrant to play the part of a poor Irish farmer who dreams of a better life in the USA. The film’s authenticity came not only from the eschewing of typical Irish stereotypes (the labourer and the dom...