I was on my own last night and as we have Freeview in our bedroom I watched TV into the early hours. I was intrigued by a couple of programs called TV on Trial on BBC4, where 2 of my favourite presenters discussed the relevance of some recent Telly Success stories. I'm not sure what I missed but I saw the presentation of a Little Britain episode and that of one of the Footballers' Wives series.
Discussing the programmes were John Humpris and Janet Street-Porter. It was extremely entertaining - John was clearly unused to having to watch lightweight programming and struggled to find relevance and morality in the examples but clearly enjoyed the humour especially in Little Britain. As usual he came over as trying to be pompous in an old fashioned way, but finding it difficult not to be amused and titillated underneath it all. He's a screen gem! Janet was her usual effusive self enthusing about even the smallest insignificant detail - overplaying the trendy libertine trying to defend filth and blasphemy to her uncle-like companion. They clearly had a ball - and I'm sure I wasn't the only viewer who did too!
Having just checked out the BBC website and found oodles of stuff about TV on Trial at http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/tvontrial/ I see that it's a regular series which looks at TV history in search of the best era for TV etc. It's an interactive idea where viewers get the chance to be the jury at the trial.
It's a great idea and if the programming is as as good as last night's then I'll be tuning in for more.
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