Clincher

Clearly BBC2 mockumentary W1A will do wonders for BBC tours of Broadcasting House. But how will other nearby premises be feeling ?

The venue for the lunch attempting to woo Carol Vorderman into co-presenting Britain's Tastiest Village with Alan Titchmarsh was Great Portland Street wine bar and restaurant Iberica. I have to warn you that the tables are generally more tightly packed than in this picture, but there are some good food deals.

The Daily Stew is £7 at lunchtime, the Daily Stew plus one Tapa from a selection is £10, and three courses of selected Tapas come in at £15.  I highly recommend the black rice with cuttlefish, prawns and alioli (Catalan spelling), as long as you are not surprised with the digestive consequences.

Cheapest wine by the bottle is a white Navarra, at £20; most expensive is Pingus, a tempranillo from Ribera del Duero, at £800.

Creative carpets

Life continues to mirror art at the BBC, as we await tonight's first episode of the comedy/documentary, W1A.

A member of staff has complained to staff organ Ariel about garish new carpets on the sixth and seventh floors of New Broadcasting House, replacing those just 18 months old, and the appearance of railings around a kitchen area.

A chief adviser to Danny Cohen (how many advisers does he have ?) replies that the changes are in response to staff feedback that the areas in question "did not feel like creative spaces, and lacked character".

"Once the work is completed in the next month, the sixth floor will have a 'Welcome to Television' theme and the seventh floor will have the feel of an outside street scape. The committee also made the decision to change the flooring to give these areas a unique sense of identity and the previous carpet is being re-used elsewhere in the building. The railings around the hot desking area on the seventh floor will be part of 'Albert Square' with the outside of the meeting room branded as the 'Queen Vic'. We want to make our space feel inspiring and creative - a home for BBC Television that reflects our ambitions as the very best broadcaster and producer in the world."

I remember workshops from more than five years ago when we sort of agreed that the BBC was too territorial and impermeable - staff moving between departments found hostility if they walked through "other people's space". All this set dressing is nonsense - especially trying to enshrine "tv" spaces when the future is, we are told, multi-platform.  I try not to be too rude here, but I suggest people will know that the sixth and seventh floors belong to television because they get busy late, finish early and close at weekends.

Gently amusing

Congratulations to Myfanwy Z Moore, back at the BBC as Head of Comedy, after a sojourn at ITV which brought forth Plebs and Vicious, and regurgitated Birds of a Feather.

She succeeds Mark Freeland, who's appointed her to this new role. She was previously Editor of New Comedy at the BBC - when partner Mobashir Dar, now an independent producer, was Head of New Comedy.

Scorpio with Leo rising and many planets in Libra, Myfanway studied drama at Bristol University, and was part of a comedy night entitled "David Icke and the Orphans of Jesus", alongside David Walliams, Dominik Diamond, Barnaby Power and Jason Bradbury.  Myfanwy brought Walliams and Matt Lucas to tv screens for the Paramount Comedy Channel, as Gareth Peas and Danny Mash in Spoofovision, and went on to produce the tv version of Little Britain.

Dominik Diamond is now a morning radio host in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Barnaby Power still mixes comedy sketches and acting as a career. Jason Bradbury hosted the much-missed "Don't Scare The Hare", and, despite that, can still can be seen on C5's Gadget Show.

Walliams offers this review of Myfanwy's student days in his memoir Camp David: "Myf had a very likeable on-stage persona, and was gently amusing as a stand-up, with material like a humorous column you might read in the Guardian".

Niff

Last night's fourth episode of The Musketeers on BBC1 dipped to 4.8m viewers - the average audience for the last series of Ripper Street, which, unlike The Musketeers, wasn't recommissioned.  Babylon on Channel 4 got 1.6m - but doesn't return until much later in the year, which may give Pathos, Athos and Aftershave some respite.

The first two episodes of Belgian crime thriller Salamander on BBC4 on Saturday night returned audiences of 1.03m and 928k. Salamander provided the second highest rating of the year when it was first shown in Belgium in 2012, with the final episode attracting 1.8m viewers.

Neiling

The curate's egg comedy slot on Radio 4 at 6.30 last night saw the return of comedy impression show Secret World for a fourth series. Its heritage runs clearly from DeadRingers, which lionised newseader Brian Perkins as The Godfather.

The Secret World team have now lighted upon R4 announcer Neil Nunes, and had some fun as he offered to "turn up his diversity" whilst renewing his contract at Broadcasting House. Edgier stuff in real life than establishing Perkins as a contract killer. Nunes' posh Jamaican accent has irritated some listeners; and Radio 4 is still struggling with diversity, at the microphone and in production offices. Will he be a regular feature of Secret World, and where will the gags take us ?

Ben and Jamie

So nice when old chums re-discover each other across a crowded social media landscape. Perhaps they can write each other some scripts.

@ActualBenMiller it is. I am. Yes.
— James Purnell (@jimpurnell) November 17, 2013

The play's the thing

Breaking news: I got the wrong play.

Whilst Chris Patten did adapt The Frogs, he actually played the part of Queen Victoria in the Balliol Players version of Aristophanes' The Women at the Thesmophoria, subtitled "We are not amused".   The record suggests only a short tour - one performance at Charterhouse.

In a huge cast, Christopher Moxon, who went on to a career in theatre administration, played Prime Minister Harold Wilson; John Adams, now a theatre director, played Mrs Wilson.

Richard Lambert, ex FT and CBI, now "Sir" and Chancellor of Warwick University, played Sir George Ponsonby-Trollope.

Stephen Jessel, former BBC correspondent, played Lord Franks, at that time conducting one of his many commissions, into the structure of Oxford University.

Co-author Edward Mortimer played Sherlock Holmes.

John Hamwee, then a law student, now a specialist in acupuncture and "zero-balancing", played David Frost. John Nicholl, later to run the UK end of the Yale University Press, played 'Hindu' Stan Carruthers. Roger Silverstone, later first Professor of Media and Communications at the LSE, played Disraeli.

Hamilton MacMillan, later to run MI6's counter-terrorism operations, played Euripides.

Immortalised

Additional important news about the historic importance of Daventry, for those of you who have been following, from a regular reader.....

The comedy duo Flotsam  and Jetsam, a 1920’s/1930’s forerunner to Flanders and Swann, recorded their most famous song “Little Betty Bouncer” in 1927, which contains the lines:-

It’s the voice that announces with a lot of passion in it 
“The Daventry Shipping Forecast will follow in a minute”. 
Little Miss Bouncer 
Loves an announcer 
Down at the BBC..

Flotsam was Bentley Collingwood Hilliam, a Yorkshire-born pianist, with the tenor voice (and the songwriter), and Jetsam was Australian concert basso cantante (with a three-octave range), Malcolm McEachern.

Charlie Adams

I reckon most readers of this blog will have laughed at a Charlie Adams gag without ever realising. There'll be no new ones, as, sadly, he died last week.

Inspired by the Dick Van Dyke tv series - a sitcom about writing a comedy show - he realised early he wanted to write great punchlines, and started by submitting work for the Radio 4 show Week Ending, and thence to the News Huddlines on Radio 2. He went on to write for countless comedians, including Bob Hope, Bob Monkhouse, Les Dawson, Jimmy Tarbuck and Bruce Forsyth - and pepped up a vast range of panel shows. Like 280 episodes of Call My Bluff.  13 series of Telly Addicts.

He was also responsible for the creation of Mr Blobby. Alan Nixon, who worked with Charlie from the days of the Huddlines, has written a tribute to his partner and friend. Read the whole thing, but here's the Blobby bit..

I was walking through Glasgow Central station on the day Charlie passed away, the town where we were both born, as a live brass band was playing ‘Someone to Watch over Me’. I suddenly remembered Charlie telling me that Mr Blobby, who had no words just bubbly sounds, and would try to hug anyone at inappropriate moments was, underneath it all, really a drunken Glaswegian who wants to be everybody’s pal.

Do they mean me ?

I wonder how many BBC types will take this show in at the Edinburgh Fringe ?

"Making News" is the latest topical offering from Islington councillor and lawyer Robert Khan and his writing partner Tom Salinsky (who admits to having run some corporate training courses for Auntie); they wrote "Coalition" in 2012, and say they started work on this before George Entwistle was appointed.

It stars Phil Jupitus as Roger Seabright, BBC Director General - 'very much the old school patrician, a safe pair of hands'; Suki Webster plays Rachel Clarke, newly-installed acting head of BBC News; and the action follows the 24-hour news cycle as a major story is poised to break about the corporation. Other characters include an apparently 'assured 6 O'Clock News presenter, who's more panicky off screen', and a Panorama reporter 'crossing the line from current affairs to news'.

Funny ha ha ?

Nowt or summat ?  I occasionally fall into conversation with people who actually like programmes constructed from the BBC's entertainment archives, dressed up with machine-like interviews with current stand-ups and micro-celebrities.  One such well-meaning chap has noticed that an offering entitled Funny Business, billed as a series of three, narrated by Eddie Mair, seems to have stuttered and stalled at Episode 1 - Gags to Riches.  Part 2 - Deal Makers, and Part 3 - Waves of Laughter, have evanesced from the schedules.

The programme's executive producer is Anne Gilchrist, who left the BBC in December to join Ruth Jones' independent production company; the producer and director is Richard Marson, once editor of Blue Peter.

Harrumph

Just wondering - has Lord Patten watched Mrs Brown's Boys ?  The most recent episode featured fellatio, foreskin and Dial A Dick jokes. At 2130, it's well into the watershed, but still attracts around half a million viewers aged 4 to 15.

Inquisitor

The man-more-involved-in-running-the-BBC-than-you-think, Alan Yentob, has found time to spend as interlocutor for an HBO special with Mel Brooks. Here's a clip, with a searching Yentob question ignored.

Hail, Cesar

In some of the many dark moments of last night's football, memories of Carry On Cleo and other films drifted in and out of my mind.

Rare plug

If the Leveson Inquiry is not providing you with sufficient fun from journalism, then may I suggest an evening of stand-up by journalists next Tuesday ?

It's at the Wilmington Arms, EC1R 4RL, promoted by the Bright Club, which is "A Beacon of Public Engagement".  Usually, its performers are University of London lecturers and researchers, trying to get the funny side of their chosen field over to a wider audience - and learning stand-up techniques on the way.  The turns this Tuesday include someone who moderates comments for the Guardian website; a press officer for the Methodist Church; a sub from the Independent on Sunday, and a reporter for the Fife Herald.

Body bag

If the Sun is to be believed, the written-in-pencil commission of a second series of The Royal Bodyguard is about to be rubbed out.

I suspect Controller BBC One Danny Cohen will also seek to amend his official biography, which currently reads...

Biography:  Last updated October 2011

Danny Cohen has been Controller of BBC One since October 2010. His early commissions have included The Royal Bodyguard starring David Jason and Call The Midwife starring Miranda Hart.

In the press pack for the series, Danny's personal culpability is clear.

"I am absolutely delighted to welcome David Jason back to a leading comedy role on BBC One. David is a hugely talented performer and much loved by British viewers. When I read the script I knew he would be perfect for this role.”

Yes, he read the script and still commissioned it.  And Hat Trick comedy maestro Jimmy Mulville must share some blame.

"When Cheryl Taylor got behind this brilliant script by Mark Bussell and Justin Sbresni, creators of The Worst Week Of My Life, and Danny Cohen suggested David Jason for the starring role, I thought I'd died and gone to heaven!”

Emerging talent

Zai Bennett, Controller of BBC3, has commissioned eight thirty-minute comedy showcases to be called Live at the Electric, hosted by Russell Kane. "Our ambition for Live At The Electric is to give emerging comedy talent a new home where they can really experiment with characters and comedy. We hope that this show will not only be an incubator for the stars of the future, but also a brilliantly funny watch in its own right - no pressure Russell...".

The pilot was hosted by Russell Kane (Avalon management) and featured Joe Wilkinson (Avalon management), Nick Helm (Glorious management), Lady Garden (United Agents), Roisin Conaty (Avalon management) and comedy group Jigsaw, made up of Dan Antopolski (Avalon management), Tom Craine (Avalon management) and Nat Luurtsema (Avalon management). The series will be produced by comedian Dan Atkinson (Avalon management) and Beth Garrod (Avalon - Tinderbox) working under series producer Robyn O'Brien (Avalon - Tinderbox).

Having a laugh

An interesting story in Broadcast today - a suggestion that "scripted comedy", the most expensive variant of the genre, is on its way back to Radio 1.  Their source would appear to be Jane Berthoud, Head of Radio Comedy, who hosted a Xmas party for "talent" on the slopes of the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House earlier this week.  Broadcast says Jane has "earmarked an early evening slot and is already weighing up ideas".

I suspect the idea will raise eyebrows up Great Portland Street with the BBC Trust, who reissued Radio 1's service licence in April this year.  1224 words in all - none of them "comedy".

Broadcast finishes its story "A Radio 1 spokesman declined to comment".

Alan Dick ?

I've finally caught up with Holy Flying Circus - probably the last big commission by Controller C4 Richard Klein, who allowed himself to be ferociously lampooned in the film, as a coke-snorting hip-hop lover.  The only character that doesn't initially seem to be rooted in reality is BBC "Head of Talk", Alan Dick, played by Jason Thorpe, channelling Rik Mayall as Lord Flashheart.

He's clearly not mean to be the real producer of "Friday Night, Saturday Morning", the chat show that provides the climax to film. That was Iain Johnstone.  In the script, Alan comes in to the production meeting, saying he's replacing "Trevor" who's died.  Credits on the Python v Muggeridge and Stockwood episode of "Friday Night, etc" are just for Iain Johnstone and Frances Whitaker.

According to Wikipedia, "Friday Night, etc" was conceived by Iain Johnstone and Will Wyatt.  Hard to believe that Will, aide-de-camp to John Birt, was the model for Alan Dick.  Was he ?

Time passes

A good call by Radio 4 Extra: getting the subversive Eddie Mair to present a re-run of selected episodes of On The Hour, starting today.   The Chris Morris/Armando Ianucci anarchic parody of news style-over-substance should still sparkle twenty years on - one suspects the re-runs are selected because some are too strong for today's even more pc times.

Mind you, the passing of time has other impacts. Left, Eddie pictured by Radio 4 Extra ready to record his introductory show; right the image Radio 4 currently uses for the newsmeister.