ELECTION SPECIAL
PRE-ELECTION
The first TV debate was brought to us by ITV with Alistair Stewart as the host. An hour and a half was spent with the three leaders stood in what looked like a dodgy 1970’s game show setting. The novelty of the debate soon wore off when we realised no one in the audience was allowed to make any noise or expressive movement – and also that we weren’t going to see a fight (be honest, that’s what you tuned in for). Alistair Stewart spent the evening barking names, “Mr Clegg, Mr Clegg!” followed by “Mr Cameron, Mr Cameron!” etc which would make an ideal dance remix for 'da clubs'. All we really learnt from the evening was that Nick Clegg could look down a lens of a camera and remember people’s names very well.
Sky News broadcast the second TV debate and the host was Adam “Don’t tell me what I think” Boulton*. The set looked like the view of the British Airways parking lot during the volcanic ash cloud and Boulton was randomly sat behind a desk and didn’t really do a whole lot. It could’ve been worse though, we could’ve had Kay Burley. The audience would then not have been in dead silence, as we’d hear cries of, “Sky News is rubbish! Watch the BBC!” (Sky News have really not had the best Election – here’s the YouTube link)
*And if you haven’t seen the ‘almost live punch up’ between Adam “Don’t tell me what I think” Boulton and Alastair Campbell here’s another YouTube link.
Ahhh, Gillian Duffy. The OAP who was on her way to get a loaf of bread one lovely afternoon in Rochdale. She decided to ask Gordon Brown a question and then hours later she was the most famous person to come out of Rochdale in, well, ever. Gordon had left his Sky News (yes them again) live microphone on and we heard him describe Gillian as a bigoted woman. But the big question was, who put Gordon with Gillian, “was it Sue?” he asked. It appears so. I even spotted a Facebook page which read “Don’t you hate it when Sue puts you with that bigoted woman” – which I promptly joined. All of life’s woes are Sue’s fault and not #nickcleggsfault.
The final debate came after the Gillian Duffy scandal and we all wanted to see what Gordon said. He simply said, “There’s a lot to this job. And as you saw yesterday, I do not get all of it right.” BORING! I wanted Clegg & Cameron to lay into him! Anyway, the reliable David Dimbleby was our host (vast improvement on the previous two), in what looked like a Church. We didn’t learn anything new in this debate apart from Nick Clegg could still look down the lens of a camera and remember people’s names just as well as the debate before.
ELECTION NIGHT
For the big night I mainly stuck to the BBC’s broadcast, with their huge election studio and various ‘busy’ people sat at computers. I did drift to ITV occasionally, as they did seem to have a time machine, which gave us the results about 20 minutes before they were announced.
So the BBC gave us some ‘celebs’ on a boat. We saw Joan Collins painfully confess her love for David Cameron, Bruce threw in a few catchphrases and the rest just proved how little they all know about politics. I did feel sorry for Andrew Neil being given the role of interviewing these ‘celebs’, but after seeing the Wizard of Oz themed opening titles to “This Week” – he kinda deserved it.
Back in the studio, David Dimbleby was chairing the evening, with his sidekick Nick Robinson. Emily Maitlis used what appeared to be an over-sized iPad to show us the statistics on the incoming results. Fiona Bruce read the news every now and then, whilst Jeremy Vine wandered up and down some paving slabs, which represented the local constituencies that the Tory’s needed to reach the door of No.10. The best bit was when Vine talked about the current MP’s who weren’t standing and he gave us some digital dominoes to topple! License fee was totally worth it this year.
Alistair ‘Mr Clegg, Mr Clegg!’ Stewart was hosting the ITV coverage whilst Julie Etch-a-sketch stood by a large screen that seemed to present a Labour v Tory Top Trumps game. I’m sure they had other flashy things like the BBC but they must’ve used them around 5am.
Time for the results to start coming in. Sunderland were desperate to announce their seats first, so took a load of students and made them run around with ballot boxes, before passing them in chain-like system. The excitement was almost unbearable - surely this is the way forward for “Deal Or No Deal”. Gradually (in fact painfully slow) the results came through. I got bored and dozed off to sleep around 3.30am and woke up at 11am to see that David Dimbleby was still presenting live television – I really hope he’d had a shower at some point overnight.
Channel 4’s “Alternative Election Night” gave us David Mitchell talking to a few journos about the incoming results, Jimmy Carr presenting his ‘thoughts’ on the stories of the election and the ever-reliable Charlie Brooker gave us some Newswipe & You Have Been Watching goodness. Lauren Laverne was there too. Sandwiched between everything was a “Come Dine With Me” special in which we learnt that Edwina Currie, Rod Liddle, Brian Paddick and Derek Hatton provide a good case for euthanasia rules to be relaxed in the UK. Watching them desperately try to impress the public each other was as fake as Gordon Brown’s natural smile. The night as a whole was entertaining and it seems C4 think so too as they will be doing more of this politics/comedy crossover, which can only be a good thing for us viewers.
POST ELECTION
Although Channel 4’s “Alternative Election Night” was good viewing, the most laughs that week came from quite possibly the funniest episode of “Have I Got News For You”, ever. I chose to watch the extended and much funnier version titled, “Have I Got A Bit More Election News For You” (BBC2, Saturday 8th May 9pm – 10/10) or HIGABMENFY as I choose to call it. They delayed it to a Friday evening broadcast so they could film it on the morning after the results. Of course there was no new Government at that time.
Jo Brand was the host this week; she did well with her dry humour, and coped with Ian Hislop’s questions about her video for the Labour Party. The often-overlooked comedian Jon Richardson was on Ian’s team, until they swapped and Hislop & Merton joined forces, “I might win this week” quipped Hislop. The other panellist was former-cheeky-boy-and-now-former-MP Lembit Opik who was involved in another shocking story too: he was actually quite funny. The highlight being when Hislop directed a joke at Opik and other politicians, to which Opik replied, “I’m not a politician!” Hilarious episode, and I’m so glad we’ve had this show on during the Election.
The live announcement of David Cameron becoming Prime Minister came during “The One Show” (poor Lulu got all dressed up for nowt). Then we saw live footage of David Cameron travelling to Buckingham Palace and being stuck behind a learner driver. Personally, I was hoping that The Queen wasn’t in. Although it was more likely that she’d not been allowed out since election night until they made a decision and then to make it worse, they made her miss “EastEnders” too!
On the latest edition of HIGABMNFY (BBC2, Saturday 15th May 9pm – 9/10), which was the first show with DC as our PM, NC as our DPM and GB as regular old MP, we were treated to Martin Clunes as our playful host (who made plenty of errors in this uncut version). Ian Hislop and Paul Merton needn’t have been there as Julia Hartley-Brewer and Chris Addison provided most of the laughs. In particular Addison’s tirade against journalists throughout the episode, and Hartley-Brewer desperately trying to defend herself! The other highlights of this episode were Gordon Brown’s best bits (they showed a clip of his resignation speech), the revelation that George Osborne used to be Julia’s slave and a hilarious montage of Brown’s gaffes and fake smiles.
And with that we’ve been forced to go all cold turkey on any Election news for now. “Have I Got News For You” only has a couple of episodes left this series, so we’ll have to wait until the Labour Party leadership result is announced (in September, hopefully when Hislop & Merton are back on!) or until Cameron & Clegg screw up the country. Whichever comes first.
No comments:
Post a Comment