I wrote this for the amusement of A.N. Other. Sometimes these ten minute splurges come off and sometimes they're rubbish. This one I like...
As the Daybreak audience dips below the 600,000 mark (and rumour has it that half of those are in a coma) we wonder what else can go wrong at ITV. Well a lot can go wrong if you team up with the man who gives has-beens a bad name. Yup, Griff Rhys-Jones has done it again! Twenty years of producing **** hasn’t dulled his edge. The chap who followed ‘A Pembrokeshire Farm’ with ‘A Return to a Pembrokeshire Farm’* has followed that with a thing called ‘Monte Carlo or Bust’. And you read that right. Why spend valuable time and development team money dreaming up a title when you can use an old one?
'Monte Carlo or Bust' boasts a roster of ‘celebs’ the like of which you wouldn’t expect to find in any one place other than a morgue. Julian Clary, Jodie Kidd and Ade Edmondson all possess the kind of charm that can stun at ten paces. Add Jack Dee and Penny Smith and the mix starts looking lethal. It only remains for Rory Grath reminds us that the coup de grace can be a mercy. I’ll not bother you with the ‘plot’. Suffice to say it involves going to France. Ooh-la-la! And coming back again. Quelle dommage! And a Mini Cooper bedecked in Union Jacks. FFS!
Well the tellypeep at the Grauniad has had enough. The ever-excellent Lucy Mangan has landed one on the Rhys-Jones schnozz! One imagines the Great Factotum's third croissant might have lost a bit of its bounce when his PA brought him this.....
Monte Carlo or Bust (ITV1) was the televisual equivalent of having a bucket of warm wee drizzled over your head for an hour. It is the kind of programme that makes you start casting around for a dry pen and paper as soon as it is over so that you can write to someone – your MP, an ombudsman, your religious leader of choice – in search of justice, compensation or solace of some kind....
.....And that was it. An insipid, witless trundle across northern France, conveying nothing, even in passing of the scenery, history or je ne sais quoi of the region. Precious few jokes from the comedians. Pas du vivid local characters, or anything else that might have livened up the hour. It stank like a slice of Vieux Boulogne left out in the sun. There are two more episodes – I will have to look up the French for "shoot me in the head" before we get there.
Oh, the anguish! Another promising Commissioning Editor’s career down the pan! Will ITV Towers be tempted to ‘Do a Desmond’ and ask for the money back? Will somebody at ITV realise that the whole 80s crap comedy thing has now had its day? And will Griff Rhys-Jones find something else to do? Don’t hold your breath.....
*with apologies for the asterisk, but you really haven’t suffered enough until you’ve read..... Griff Rhys Jones embarks on phase two of the restoration of his farm in Pembrokeshire. Having restored the main farmhouse, Griff now turns his attention to two outbuildings: the water mill and the miller’s cottage.
As the Daybreak audience dips below the 600,000 mark (and rumour has it that half of those are in a coma) we wonder what else can go wrong at ITV. Well a lot can go wrong if you team up with the man who gives has-beens a bad name. Yup, Griff Rhys-Jones has done it again! Twenty years of producing **** hasn’t dulled his edge. The chap who followed ‘A Pembrokeshire Farm’ with ‘A Return to a Pembrokeshire Farm’* has followed that with a thing called ‘Monte Carlo or Bust’. And you read that right. Why spend valuable time and development team money dreaming up a title when you can use an old one?
'Monte Carlo or Bust' boasts a roster of ‘celebs’ the like of which you wouldn’t expect to find in any one place other than a morgue. Julian Clary, Jodie Kidd and Ade Edmondson all possess the kind of charm that can stun at ten paces. Add Jack Dee and Penny Smith and the mix starts looking lethal. It only remains for Rory Grath reminds us that the coup de grace can be a mercy. I’ll not bother you with the ‘plot’. Suffice to say it involves going to France. Ooh-la-la! And coming back again. Quelle dommage! And a Mini Cooper bedecked in Union Jacks. FFS!
Well the tellypeep at the Grauniad has had enough. The ever-excellent Lucy Mangan has landed one on the Rhys-Jones schnozz! One imagines the Great Factotum's third croissant might have lost a bit of its bounce when his PA brought him this.....
Monte Carlo or Bust (ITV1) was the televisual equivalent of having a bucket of warm wee drizzled over your head for an hour. It is the kind of programme that makes you start casting around for a dry pen and paper as soon as it is over so that you can write to someone – your MP, an ombudsman, your religious leader of choice – in search of justice, compensation or solace of some kind....
.....And that was it. An insipid, witless trundle across northern France, conveying nothing, even in passing of the scenery, history or je ne sais quoi of the region. Precious few jokes from the comedians. Pas du vivid local characters, or anything else that might have livened up the hour. It stank like a slice of Vieux Boulogne left out in the sun. There are two more episodes – I will have to look up the French for "shoot me in the head" before we get there.
Oh, the anguish! Another promising Commissioning Editor’s career down the pan! Will ITV Towers be tempted to ‘Do a Desmond’ and ask for the money back? Will somebody at ITV realise that the whole 80s crap comedy thing has now had its day? And will Griff Rhys-Jones find something else to do? Don’t hold your breath.....
*with apologies for the asterisk, but you really haven’t suffered enough until you’ve read..... Griff Rhys Jones embarks on phase two of the restoration of his farm in Pembrokeshire. Having restored the main farmhouse, Griff now turns his attention to two outbuildings: the water mill and the miller’s cottage.
