rocket2 wrote:Just finished watching this documentary on Thai brides by Louis Theroux (Paul Theraux's son). Anyone else see it or hear about it? I really have no idea what to think about it. Was wondering if anyone has seen it or has heard anything about it?

no re-runs of these documentries to be shown, thank bhudda.

that show was simply a selection of 'highlights' of the last series
used as prequel to his new series, the first of which was shown the
other night here in farangland.

Soft targets for one-trick knifeman
By Victor Lewis-Smith, Evening Standard 13.11.02

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And we welcome you now to the Celebrity Put-Down Awards 2002, with news that the late Auberon Waugh has just received a posthumous citation from the committee for his classic line: "Anyone might become homosexual after seeing Glenda Jackson naked." Competition this year has been fierce, and third place was shared earlier by Joan Rivers ("Elizabeth Taylor's so fat, she puts mayonnaise on aspirins"); Storm Jameson ("John Hurt looks like Joan of Arc, after she'd been burned at the stake"); and the anonymous author of the line: "Mike Smith is living proof of the need for ejector seats in helicopters."

Dame Edna received la bougie d'argent for her remark to Judy Finnigan ("tell me the story of that frock Judy, it's obviously an old favourite... you were wise to remove the curtain rings"), which brings us now to the presentation of le speculum d'or for the supreme put-down of the past 12 months. And the winner is...Barry Cryer, who has announced that he's considering writing Kylie Minogue's biography. "And I think I'll call it Superstar? Jesus Christ!"

Public put-downs like these succeed because they highlight the vanities and vacuities of celebrities, and are accurately targeted at those who deserve a modicum of ridicule. People who live inside the magic rectangle are notoriously prone to encephalitic swelling (and consequent delirium), and need their pomposity pricked from time to time, but Louis Theroux seems to specialise nowadays in hitting the wrong target, again and again.

He always was a one-trick pony, but at least he had natural justice on his side in the early days, when he took on the likes of the Ku Klux Klan and Eugene Terreblanche. But in recent years he's found it easier to mock faded celebrities in series like BBC2's The Entertainers (of which he is executive producer), and the misanthropic delight he takes in mugging them is becoming increasingly distasteful to behold. In short, we've all seen Theroux your act Louis.

Whether through laziness or cowardice I cannot say, but he's now sending out directors Helen Sage and Simon Draper to do the dirty and laborious work of gathering raw material. Last night, that consisted of following Tony Blackburn to Ibiza, Leo Sayer to Stuttgart and Frank Carson nowhere, and trying to trick them into uttering silly jokes or indiscreet remarks, or simply into playing the idiot for the camera.

Louis doesn't need to be there for that part, because it's in the edit suite that the knives come out and the School of Theroux character assassination takes place, with the hours of normal behaviour being pared away until only the moments of embarrassment, foolishness, and pathos remain. Which is why the montage that ends up on our screens depicts a pitiful group of over-the-hill wretches who are hopelessly out of fashion and down on their luck, when, in truth, they're merely out of fashion with television, and doing very nicely thank you. Probably a lot better than Mr Theroux, if the standard fees the BBC pay their executive producers are anything to go by.

Only Tony Blackburn is immune to such treatment, and that's simply because he's impossible to humiliate. Like a human version of the infant wibbly-wobbly toy man, he cannot be knocked down, so even when the director made him analyse one of his own feeble jokes last night ("a Gecko?...I used to have one of those, but the wheels fell off"), and admit that it was unfunny and meaningless, not so much as a single bead of sweat escaped from beneath his perfectlycoiffeured nylon hair hat.

But old-variety performers like Frank Carson and Bernie Clifton were cut so that they emerged looking dim and anachronistic, while Leo Sayer was endlessly encouraged to talk about his many female sexual partners (none of whom ever seemed to be present), and to parade his fearsome heterosexuality to the point of absurdity.

Even Suzi Quatro got the same contemptible treatment in a passing scene, being filmed singing "I love bananas because they have apeel" when, according to her face, the former leather-clad queen of rock presumably also loves lard straight from the packet. Oh dear, I seem to have caught a touch of Theroux-itis.

True, the old guard of comedians were pretty loathsome in their heyday (almost as appalling as the alternative comedians were during the 1980s), but taking revenge on them now they're in their anecdotage leaves a funny taste in the mouth. The interviewing for this series is disingenuous, and when one finds oneself starting to sympathise with the vile Bernard Manning something is clearly rotten with the entire production. Behind his goofy grin and faux-na'f demeanour, Theroux is still a chippy and arrogant sixth-former at heart, and I know whereof I speak, because I too went through such a phase in the 1980s, when I was a BBC producer.

In fact, I remember one day openly mocking the lead singer of Mungo Jerry, who'd popped in to sing his one and only major hit, In the Summertime, but instead of hitting me (as I deserved), he led me quietly outside to the TV Centre car park, and pointed at his brand-new Porsche. "That's from the royalties I still get for In the Summertime," he told me, "so what's your BBC salary?" That put me firmly in my place.

ady wrote:gosh! that told me!

my humble apologies there as i missed the second program that night
as i'm burdened with work for the next 30 years!

i consider myself well and truly hand-bagged, i mean how can i carry
on any further now i have made an error?!

sounds like you've had a bad day, what with your suggestion that
'people should get off there arses'.
perhaps you might want to loosen up a bit yourself as those people
are probably not passing any judgement on your life.