Pop Buzz UK

Blackadder was one of my favourite television shows growing up in the 1980s. Featuring Rowan Atkinson as Edmund Blackadder, and Tony Robinson as his sidekick Baldrick, the show also had the cream of British comedy talent providing back-up, including Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, now a huge success playing House in America.

Now, it could be about to make a comeback, with Tony Robinson revealing the possibility of the show returning to our screens in 2010. Before that happens though, the cast are meeting up later this year to celebrate he 25th anniversary of Blackadder II - I assume they just forgot to celebrate the first series last year…

According to Digital Spy, Baldrick told Teletext:

“We always had a fantasy of doing it again in 2010, so we’ll be having that conversation. I would love to do it and suspect Rowan Atkinson would too.”

However, it seems Atkinson may not be as keen as Robinson had hoped because it has now emerged that he is refusing to attend the reunion, which was to form the basis for Blackadder Exclusive: The Whole Rotten Saga and Blackadder’s Most Cunning Moments, two shows set to be aired on UKTV Gold.

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Catherine Tate is currently appearing in Doctor Who, and some would say ruining the show. Although I’m still enjoying the series, it seems to have been turned in to a combination of a bad sitcom and a bad Sci-fi show since Tate’s arrival. And what is it with all the running? I know David Tennant is fit, in more ways than one, but does he really need to run in every episode?

But Tate may soon be returning to her comedy roots, as reports suggest Mathew Horne and James Corden want her to appear in their newly commissioned sketch show for BBC Three. Horne and Corden are the two geniuses behind Gavin and Stacey, and Horne also appeared as a multitude of characters in two series of The Catherine Tate show, including the grandson of the sweary grandma.

Mathew said:

“I would love to find Catherine a role and I’m sure she would do it,”

Meanwhile, Corden has denied the rumours that Lily Allen, his new love interest/best friend (no-one is quite sure whether they’re together or just playing with the press) will be involved in the show. Having seen Allen’s own BBC Three show, which while having some good ideas, fell down due to Allen’s own crappy presenting style, I personally hope she isn’t involved.

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Last October saw the Fox television network in the US announce plans for a Spaced remake. At the time I wrote a piece urging the network to get the original creators involved, but it turns out the pilot for the remake is being made by an American team instead.

The original show was created and written by such luminaries as Simon Pegg, who has gone on to be a big-time Hollywood comic actor with Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz and the upcoming Star Trek movie to his name, Nick Frost, who appears with Pegg as his fat sidekick, Edgar Wright, who directed Shaun and Hot Fuzz, and Jessica Hynes (formerly Stevenson) who went on to appear in the Royle Family.

With people as creatively genius as these involved in the original show, it seems madness not to involve them in any remake. But more than that, Fox failed to even credit them for the UK made sitcom.

Pegg and co. do not own the rights, and so Fox were able to sneak in and steal the whole concept from under their noses, but they could have at least offered some kind of involvement or bit part to the creators.

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I’ll tell you right here and now that I am not a journalist. I am a freelance writer, and a professional blogger, and some of my work comes close to be what you’d describe as journalism, but still I would never assume to call myself a journalist. I don’t earn enough from what I do for starters.

However, I am more of a journalist than Coleen McLoughlin ever will be, which makes it slightly absurd to learn that is what she has entered as her occupation on the wedding banns for her forthcoming marriage to England footballer Wayne Rooney.

This is a joke right? Coleen McLoughlin is a WAG, nothing more, nothing less. Good on her for bagging a young footballer who went on to become a great player for Manchester United and England, but I think its time for a reality check.

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The BAFTA Television Awards took place tonight at the London Palladium, and the ceremony was full of surprises, as a series of unexpected winners took home the trophies.

The ceremony is an annual back slapping for the cream of British television, with actors, directors and programmes being awarded for the last twelve months.

The big winners were the cast and crew of Gavin and Stacey, a little sitcom which has built a cult following on BBC Three over the past two years.

The show, currently on its second series, won programme of the year, while its star, and co-writer James Corden, who is rumoured to be dating songstress Lily Allen, won the award for best comedy performance.

The series beat The Apprentice, Strictly Come Dancing and Britain’s Got Talent to the title, while Corden beat such illustrious names as Stephen Merchant (Extras) and David Mitchell (Peep Show).

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Do you remember Big Brother 8 star Chanelle Hayes? You know, the one who thought she was Victoria Beckham, even though she looks nothing like her, and has a northern accent. I know she was pretty forgettable, but rack your brains, as she now has her very own sex tape, and surprise surprise, it’s leaked on to the Internet.

Well, I say sex tape, when what I really mean is a sad 40 second clip of her cavorting on a bed in underwear. If this isn’t a faked sex tape which has been purposely leaked on the Web in an effort to become more famous, I’ll eat my hat, and yours too.

I can’t put the video here on Pop Buzz UK, because it hasn’t appeared on YouTube, or any of the other sites which offer embedding , quite yet, but it is only a matter of time. Until then, you can view it on The Sun newspaper’s website, although if I were you, I really wouldn’t bother… it’s not worth the effort.

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Britain’s Got Talent started very ropily last year, but was saved when Paul Potts came on stage and blew everyone away. This mild mannered mobile phone salesman got over his crippling lack of confidence to win the final by singing opera like an Italian tenor.

Since then Potts has gone on to have a best selling album and is playing venues around the world. But that was last year, and we need another winner of his calibre. Unfortunately, based on the first episode which has just aired on ITV, that ultra talented individual is going to take a bit of searching.

Don’t get me wrong, there were some good performers on show tonight. The dog was talented, the Christina Aguilera-alikes were nice in their own right, the electric string quartet called Scala were brilliant, and beautiful too. And last but not least there was the Pie Jesu singing 13 year old bully victim.

They were all very good, and the latter even made the hairs on the back of my neck tingle in the same way that Potts managed 12 months ago. However, his voice will break, and then he’ll just become another average singer who Simon Cowell will abuse till kingdom come.

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I’m as much a fan of the Carry On series of films as the next man, having grown up with the repeats of them every Sunday evening on television, but I’m not sure how I feel about the possible return of the series, and who is being lined up to appear in it.

It seems that a new film is being planned, called ‘Carry On To The Next Round’, and comedian Russell Brand, along with Girls Aloud singer Sarah Harding are just two of the big names being lined up to star in it.

For those who don’t know, the Carry On films were bawdy, rude, and slapstick movies which basically revolved around trying to fit as much sexual innuendo in to a 90 minute film as possible.

The series did very well during the 1960s and 1970s, with the ever present cast of people like Sid James, Hattie Jacques, Charles Hawtrey, Kenneth Williams and Barbara Windsor. Although they were low budget parodies, us Brits used to love them… simple times.

The 1980s brought with it a whole new generation of people, and with Margaret Thatcher leading the country, and yuppies ruining it, the clamour for cheap and cheerful laughs came to an end, and so did the series.

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I was absolutely gutted when Iain Lee quit his brilliant show on LBC Radio, and changed my schedule due to him no longer being on air 6 days a week.

This all happened at the end of November, and no-one really knew when he would be back on radio.

Luckily, it didn’t take long for Virgin Radio to snap him up, although he only secured one show a week, that of the 10pm - 1am slot on Sunday nights.

I can fully understand why Virgin chose that slot for him, and only gave him one show a week, because it’s a music station, whereas Iain specialises in talk radio. The good thing is he’s gone from local radio to national radio, which is a definite step up.

Iain started on the 6th January, and has now done two shows on the station, both of which I have listened to. So far, I’m quite impressed, although it’s obvious Iain is going to take a bit of time to settle in, and get a feel for both the station, and time slot.

Agent Chris, Iain’s producer and sidekick on LBC has unfortunately gone, and it’s now Dave or Dayyyyve in the assistant’s chair. I actually quite like him, but it’s obvious he’s not used to speech based radio. The chemistry between the two is gradually getting better, and as long as it continues to improve, I think it could work.

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Who would have thunk it? The Queen, yes that dear old 80 year old woman who somehow manages to get her face on our stamps, is a closet gamer, and enjoys a bit of Wii every now and again.

According to reports this week, she became fascinated with the Nintendo Wii console after seeing her grandson William playing with the one he received from on-off girlfriend Kate Middleton for Christmas. So she did what any self respecting grandmother and pensioner would do, and had a go.

The game in question was Wii Sports, and she was said to specifically enjoy the ten pin bowling mini game.

According to Blorge, a royal insider told tabloid news reporters that:

“When she saw William playing a game after lunch at Sandringham she thought the Nintendo looked tremendous fun and begged to join in. His only difficulty now is prising it away from the Queen’s clutches. She showed all the signs of becoming a Nintendo addict.”

I just can’t see this happening so it’s either made up entirely or an invention by Nintendo to keep their console in the news.

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I live in the UK, and at times it’s bloody depressing. It DOES rain all the time, we don’t seem to belong anywhere in the world, kind of being European, but not, having a friendship with America, but disagreeing fundamentally on some policies, crime is rising, immigration is continuing at a pace that our island is struggling with etc etc.

And it seems that I’m not the only one getting a bit down on the whole thing, as anti depression tablets are now being prescribed at a massive rate.

A News of the World study found that over 32 million anti depressant prescriptions are issued each year in Britain, which roughly translates to one every SECOND.

Middlesbrough, a town in the north east of England has it worse than anywhere else, with people fromt he area taking £7.58 worth of the drugs each per year.

The whole of the north east of England does badly, with neighbours Gateshead, Redcar, Cleveland, and Newcastle coming next on the list of the saddest places in the country.

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Almost two weeks ago, lanky funnyman Iain Lee left his job as a talk show host on LBC Radio, and I wrote a long post telling the story of his time there, and imploring someone to employ him sooner of later. Well, I’m delighted to tell you all that someone has, with Virgin radio giving him a show on a Sunday night.

From January 6th 2008, Iain will be hosting his own 10pm-1am show on Virgin. This is the same timeslot in which Iain used to host his Triple M straight to air experimental programme, although we don’t yet know what format the new show will take.

It also puts Iain in direct competition with former LBC colleague and friend Clive Bull, who took over the timeslot when new LBC owners Global radio decided that Iain’s face didn’t fit any more.

Iain and Clive have an interesting relationship in that Iain used to ring Clive’s show under different pseudonyms well before taking the job working alongside him.

This is the first hire by Virgin Radio programme director, David Lloyd, who was a big fan and supporter of Iain Lee when he was at LBC. He left his role as LBC managing director around two months ago to join Virgin, and has now seemingly decided to take Iain with him.

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Iain Lee has been one of my favourite radio presenters for the past 2 years, ever since my brother told me I should check out his show on LBC Radio. So I was gutted to find out yesterday that he had quit LBC, and won’t be on the radio for at least a few months.

When I started listening to Mr Lee, he had an afternoon show on the station, and had a lot of freedom to experiment with the talk format, which he continually did very successfully. Most of the show would consist of a free form approach with the odd topic thrown in here and there. Although this sometimes lead to a lack of callers or the odd off show, most of the time it lead to very funny callers and classic shows which I could listen to time and again.

There was also the beauty of Triple M, a half hour segment on the weekday show, and a full show on a Sunday night, which saw Iain take calls straight to air. Even with the 7 second delay, some gems could be heard, and it was often the best part of the show.

At the end of last year, Iain was moved to an evening slot of 7pm until 10pm, for reasons which I still can’t understand, but which were explained at the time as to reach the niche audience better. Unfortunately, most of us (although not me) are doing other things between those times: watching crappy soaps like Eastenders and Coronation Street; eating dinner; putting their kids to bed, and so some callers disappeared never to ring again.

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Spaced was a British sitcom which virtually launched Simon Pegg’s career and also starred a host of the finest comey talent on this side of the Atlantic.

It was created by Simon Pegg, Jessica Stevenson and Edgar Wright and ran for two series on Channel 4 between 1999 and 2001.

I loved it’s blend of surrealism and pop culture piss takes, and was very disappointed when the show ended after such a short space of time.

Now it’s been announced that the show is about to make a comeback, but in the States this time, rather than in the UK.

The Fox telelvision network has ordered a pilot episode to be made of the show, which could hopefully lead to a full series being commissioned.

It is not known if any of the original creators will have a hand in the new adaptation of the show, with American producers instead being hired to oversee the re-imagining.

I think it’s mad if Pegg and Wright at least don’t have some input in to the show, so that the essence of the comedy remains true to the original. But even if they do, I’m not sure America will take this comedy to their hearts as the Brits have done so.

It’s become somewhat of a cult, with a massive Internet community built around the show and it’s characters.

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Ugly Betty and Desperate Housewives fans in the UK will be able to watch their favourite programmes for free on their PCs from tonight.

Channel 4 has signed a deal with Disney ABC which means that all ABC Studios shows will be available on the online 4oD service for 30 days after they have originally aired.

Tonight’s Ugly Betty episode will be the first of the shows available to watch and the deal will cover subsequent seasons of Desperate Housewives, Brothers and Sisters, Reaper and Dirty Sexy Money.

Jeff Ford, Channel 4’s director of acquisitions and Film4 said:

“We want Channel 4 viewers to be able to see our shows in a format, time and platform to suit them and to make the process as simple as possible.”

“This deal means that viewers can now catch up on some of their favourite US shows, alongside home grown product, free of charge at a time convenient to them which can only be good news.”

The programmes will be free to watch, and the service will be supported by video adverts and sponsorships from multiple companies.

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