We were working with our first year students on pitches for programme ideas, when I noticed something very strange: my 18-19-year-old first year students knew who Bradley Walsh was. And more surprisingly (and perhaps shockingly) still: they loved him. Don’t get me wrong, I too love Bradley Walsh.
It’s been over a month since the monumental shock that was Brexit as well as its immediate and messy aftermath of public confusion, political backtracking and the general media frenzy that could hardly keep up with the initial developments and shifting agendas.
During a recent trip to New York City my TV nerd colleague and I attended two show tapings. If you never have done this, I can highly recommend it – the TV lover’s equivalent of looking inside someone’s bathroom cabinet to see what makes them tick. Not that I’ve ever done that last thing – seriously- honestly. Well, maybe.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (2015-) is a Netflix comedy produced by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, and follows the life of 29-year old Kimmy Schmidt (Ellie Kemper) in New York City after her rescue from an underground cult.
I like old things. When I was a teenager my granddad entrusted me with my great grandfather’s fob watch, and it always gave me a thrill to think that I was holding something of (it seemed at the time) inestimable age. It was probably only manufactured in the early twentieth century, but I carried it to school with pride;
The hit television comedy Absolutely Fabulous is set to hit the big screen as a movie (July 1 st 2016), and as such it is worth considering the hype, the paratexts, and the anticipation that surrounds this venture.
Entertainment television programmes help shape the public discourse on politics. As American political communication scholar R. Lance Holbert pointed out, these shows can play a vital part for the public understanding of politics and the public discourse on current issues.
It is quite a joy to discover one of your personal fetishes on the internet. Indeed, I was beginning to feel that I was the only one with a dark, long-term fascination in sitcom studio floorplans, but in recent years there have been one or two articles that have started referencing similar fascinations.
British television fans need no convincing of James Corden’s smiley, shiny, naughty wonderful. From host to writer to actor to bloody nice singer and dancer, he’s annoying good at many showbizzy things (plus, he seems just annoyingly nice generally). Gavin and Stacey was when I really got to know him.
For his portrayal of Jack Donaghy, GE Vice President of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming, in NBC sitcom 30 Rock (2006-2013), Alec Baldwin has won a (to use the technical term) smorgasbord of accolades, including two Primetime Emmys, three Golden Globes and seven Screen Actors Guild Awards. In our view, he would pretty much deserve this acclaim on the strength of his work in the episode ‘Jack-Tor’ (1.5) alone.