Category: Show

“No, I’ve started being a boss. What about my Danish sofa and my new keyboard?” says Mark (David Mitchell) after learning that he’s just lost his job at JLB in the first 10 minutes of the new series of Channel 4’s peerless award-winning comedy of errors. It’s been six years since Peep Show hit the screens and if this opener is anything to go by there’s no sign of it losing any momentum as it remains as pant-wettingly funny as ever. Suddenly staying on a Friday doesn’t seem so bad after all.

Peep Show Series 6

After the scene where all the staff, including Jeremy (Robert Webb) who has only been at the company for three hours yet pretends to be deeply affected, are told by Johnson (Paterson Joseph) of the office closure Mark sets up a JLB survivors group and performs a skit where he dresses up as the German boss of the company, complete with a permanent marker Hitler moustache, only for said boss to turn up and offer Mark a tidy redundancy package if he calls off the protest.

It’s hard not to laugh as his initial giddy thoughts of “I’ve single handily re-launched the satire boom” suddenly becomes the pop-culture referencing awareness of: “I’m Russell Brand and Steffan is probably Andrew Sachs”. There’s also something pleasantly schoolboy about seeing David Mitchell running around with a Hitler moustache for half of the episode.

Super Hans (Matt King), last seen joining a Scientology-like cult and destroying Mark’s precious new HD ready television set, is back to his typical useless druggie self and offers the boys a bit of cash-in-hand work as “men with ven”. There were better moments of course but some of the funnier quotable lines contain language unsuitable for a family website such as this one. …

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At last, the real Jamie Oliver is back! After hanging in ‘da hood in week one, and playing cowboy in week two, the Naked Chef returns to what he does best – cook. He’s not trying to play out a childhood fantasy or live the life he’s seen on TV; he meets, he greets, he investigates new tastes and, most importantly, whips up some inspiring dishes.

And here in New York there’s finally a real sense of cultures coming together, adding twists to dishes brought from the old country, and coming up with proper American cooking. Real food that real Americans eat, just not from some ubiquitous chain restaurant.

Nothing Posh Except The Nosh

The Big Apple also provides genuinely new dining experiences, as opposed to Manhattan’s latest “in” restaurant, where who you’re seen with is more important than the food. After a quick taste of Egyptian fare, complete with a visit to a “live” butcher, Jamie heads to an underground restaurant, literally run from somebody’s house and surrounded by barbed wire.

This is nobody’s idea of a Michelin-starred eaterie, but the friendly atmosphere and home cooking leave a big impression on Jamie. “The last restaurant I fitted out cost a million quid – you know, nice bogs, nice floorboards, nice window, nice etching … this looks like Louisiana after a hurricane. The place is not smart, but all the value is on the plate.”

All Hail The Chicken And Rice Man

And where there are immigrants, unfortunately, there is also poverty. Another bit of New York most definitely not on the tourist trail is Jackson Heights, home to dozens of illegal Columbian immigrants, many of whom are homeless. Luckily help is at hand in the form of George, himself a former “illegal”, who makes the half hour drive each …

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Is there anybody who doesn’t know about Henry VIII? In the history of Britain he is the one of, if not the, most famous (and infamous) monarchs for his problems with the church, the unsubtle approach he took to marital crisis and his obese appearance. The story of him and his six wives is known by most school children and there are countless films, books and television programmes chronicling his legacy.

Surely there’s nothing else to learn about the man but not according to David Starkey, TV’s top Tudor expert, in this “search for the real Henry”. Starkey has written numerous books and presented other shows about the Tudor king but here he attempts to dive into the mind of the man behind the legend to mark the 500th anniversary since his accession to the throne.

The Young Prince Henry VIII

Most of this first episode of Henry VIII: Mind of a Tyrant, which focused on the young Prince Henry before he became the autocratic ruler, featured a lot about his family and the political structure at that time more than the boy himself perhaps as a way of setting the scene for what is to come in this series.

But there were some interesting conclusions made in this opener. After his thorough investigation of early letters and documents held in library archives Starkey’s theory is that the transformation from a joyful youth to the bloodstained tyrant came from conflicts in his own family, saying that in the 16th century “politics and family are the same thing”.

Starkey sees the turning point as the moment his mother – who was also his teacher – died at childbirth when he was only 13. It could be viewed as a dull hypothesis to simply blame the parents and his loneliness when …

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Recently, Sarah Barnett, EVP and General Manager of Sundance Channel and Man Shops Globe host Keith Johnson spoke to the Television Critics Association about the new reality show. Johnson has been with the Anthropologie stores since the beginning and has brought countless treasures home from around the world for their customers.

“Keith Johnson’s unique eye for the fresh and the new takes us around the globe as we join in his adventure to tap creativity,” said Barnett. The show is “part travelogue, part treasure hunt,

[and]

part artistic quest.” She added, “As we follow Johnson’s journey to bring home amazing objects to the novel space of the Anthropologie retail chain, we (the viewers) become fascinated by Johnson’s way of looking [for items], and it opens our own eyes to a novel way of looking at the visual world around us.”

This is a unique show in that it follows an actual buyer for a popular retail store that is famous for interesting and unique items.

Traveling Around the World to Find Interesting Products

“I think my job is fairly unique in that I’m buying for a creative team back in the States who are going to reinterpret lots of things that I buy, and designs, [and I am] also buying antiques just to have in our stores as props and as things for sale. So the particular mix of what I do is, I think, pretty unique. And it affords me an opportunity to go to places around the world for different things that, if I were just an antique dealer, it would be hard to justify. But I can do so many different things because my brief is so large,” explained Johnson, who obviously enjoys his job.

“A lot of who we are as a fashion company is driven …

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Irish comedian Dara O’Briain makes light during his stand-up that if he had known that presenting Have I Got News For You would have got him the Mayor of London job he wouldn’t have settled for Mock the Week. Although it’s a great joke it does serve an example where the truth is far more bizarre than the set up.

Boris Johnson One Year Later

Dispatches, Channel 4’s long running investigative journalism programme, has tackled many controversial topics over the years such as religious hatred, war and poor school teaching. Now it’s the turn of journalist-cum-politician Boris Johnson (real name Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson) who went from foolish appearances on HIGNFY to the top mayoral job in the UK.

It doesn’t seem like it but a year has passed since Bo Jo was elected Mayor of London by beating Ken Livingston. Here reporter Antony Barnett examines Boris’s time in office and his plans for the capital’s future, such as his contradictory environmental policy and the shaky build-up to the 2012 Olympics.

Boris and the Bendy Buses

Regardless of his image Boris is of course no stranger to TV portraying him as stupid and clumsy but he does know how the media works. This documentary depicted Boris as a master at creating an image and pandering to opinion although exposed that what he says and what he does are completely different.

There was a small selection of interesting clips showing Boris being grilled at meetings about his intervention in calling for Ian Blair’s resignation as the nation’s top cop and the Damian Green arrest, which he was told about in advance. Barnett talked to many groups and other party politicians, who obviously would disprove of Johnson’s actions, but besides a short interview with Barnett there was very little input …

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