Ally Ross delights in EastEnders’ decision to cheer viewers up with a cancer suicide plot
Soap makes bold decision to lift prevailing mood of grief across the nation with suicide storyline
IT must be, what, over a month since someone really famous died?
An eternity for Britain’s ever-growing army of grief junkies to go without a display of emotional incontinence for someone they never knew or even met.
Thank goodness, then, for Peggy Mitchell’s trippy demise last week on EastEnders, which is probably the only TV show in the country that would consider trailing a terminal cancer storyline, like it was Royal Ascot week, and definitely the only one that could actually lift its prevailing mood with a suicide.
That prevailing mood, obviously, is dark and very preachy 98 per cent of the time.
The nuts and bolts of it mainly involves just two types of character — feisty women and weak men — juggling an endless cycle of five different but equally miserable storylines: Blackmail, violence, right-on health/social issues, infidelity and more blackmail.
Current versions of these themes include: Child psycho Bobby Beale running amok with a hockey stick, Claudette rising from the dead after being buried alive by her son, Vincent, and blackmailed Les, the transvestite undertaker, wearing the far-away look of a man who knows he must dress up as
This Morning’s Ruth Langsford at least once every financial year.
The soap’s only alternative setting to this bleak one, of course, is camp and bonkers.
So it’s a bit of a relief to report that Dame Barbara’s grand exit was about as camp and bonkers as EastEnders will probably ever allow its pompous self to become.
It was a karaoke-fuelled riot, in fact, and also featured a special guest appearance by Pam “Pat Butcher” St Clement, whose alternative soap career, as This Morning’s problem pet adviser, never really recovered, I felt, from that border collie who loved “munching carpets”.
Pat arrived back, naturally enough, with a puff of cigarette smoke, in ghost form, to see Peggy on her way.
The far more welcome spectre for me, though, was the return of the only man who has ever successfully escaped Walford.
Grant Mitchell, as interpreted by Ross Kemp who, let’s not forget, has built a brilliant and award-winning career as a documentary-maker and needs EastEnders a lot less than he needs an assault rifle jammed up his nose in Papua New Guinea.
The big challenge for Ross here, after a decade away from acting, was to avoid delivering his lines like he was narrating a film about Kenya’s Mungiki gangs.
Which I’m pleased to say he did. Except on those rare occasions . . . when he didn’t.
“You don’t have. To pretend to me. That everything. Is all right.” Here. Among the street kids. Of Nairobi.
At the end of all this rogue punctuation, karaoke and haunting though, there was still no escaping the fact Peggy died. Or at least, I assume she did.
She had a mastectomy once and they’d grown back within six weeks. So you can never be entirely sure with EastEnders.
However, she certainly appeared to go with some style and a million extra viewers.
An incredible tribute to Britain’s enduring love for Barbara Windsor and women of her generation, rather than bog standard EE nightmare Peggy Mitchell, who was nothing like as fascinating as the real thing.
The huge challenge for the show now will be keeping those viewers by looking beyond its narrow, miserable PC agenda and jollying up not just itself but the whole BBC1 channel.
Early signs don’t look good, though. At time of writing, Bobby Beale has just battered Jane Beale senseless with a hockey stick next to an enormous cake.
And if that doesn’t give the next Bake Off contestants ideas for their first show-stopper round, this past week really has been a total waste of time.
— UP Late With Rylan interview of the week, with pop band Lawson.
“I know Nashville’s all about the music, but what is it about Nashville?”
“Musicians.”
Spot the barking mad men
BEFORE disappearing on holiday for a week, I just want to throw a stick in the direction of one of the most deranged documentaries I’ve seen in 15 years of professional TV watching.
It’s a classic piece of Channel 4 voyeurism called Secret Life Of The Human Pups that’s been dressed up as a plea for tolerance, understanding and Pedigree Chum chewy cubes on behalf of the – made-up figure alert – “10,000 British men” who get their jollies dressing as puppies.
One of them, a lighting engineer from Tring who goes by the dog name of “Spot”, as well as his human name Tom, even heads off to Antwerp, with the rest of the continent’s leg-humpers, to represent Britain at the annual Mr Pup Europe contest – an event which is a bit like Eurovision but with slightly less bondage and howling.
You can judge Secret Life Of The Human Pups for yourself on Channel 4 tomorrow at 10pm. But in tests, eight out of ten owners said: “Holy s**tcakes, Spot.”
THOSE Samira Ahmed Have I Got News For You highlights in full.
9.03pm: Interrupts eight minutes of anti-Brexit material to say something about Boris Johnson’s hair.
9.15pm: Says “bumhole”.
9.30pm: Smiles sweetly, credits roll, the end.
But hey, as long as the BBC’s precious boxes are ticked, that’s all that matters, isn’t it?
GREAT Sporting Insights. Michael Owen: “In a lot of finals you either pick up the trophy or you don’t.”
Charlie Nicholas: “If Rafa does take the job, I’m of the opinion he won’t take it.”
Glenn Hoddle: “The penalty was a positive miss.”
And Mark Lawrenson: “How can I describe Jimmy Hill without going over the top? He was like a Messiah.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray).
Oh yes, that’s... y’know?
AS Sunday night’s Britain’s Got Talent semi-final demonstrated, the judges have developed a neat new way of telling contestants their act sucks like rotten goat entrails on an Albanian abattoir floor.
“I like you a lot, as a person.”
An expression they’ve needed to use often on a series where there has been only one universally acknowledged positive.
The X Factor would be in a lot less trouble if it was presented by Ant & Dec.
The rest?
Well, Sunday night was quite typical for the series, apart from 100 Voices Of Gospel, the professional turn.
We had some bad singing, Welsh ballroom dancing, youthful t**tting about from the likes of Total TXS, a camp, OTT nuisance called Richard Bayton and a misfiring crossbow roulette stunt that didn’t kill anything, apart from Ben Blaque’s career.
The real a**e of it was, though, impressionist Darren Altman who promised us “Things you’ve never seen before”, and was good to his word.
Television’s first ever Brendan from Coach Trip impression. The show’s first ever nervous breakdown.
And the first ever funny response from Amanda Holden, even if it was unintentional.
“I think,” she thought, “The people at home probably knew who they were.”
Not a clue, to be honest, Amanda.
But I like him a lot, as a person.
FILTH Corner
Euro-sport’s excellent diving commentator, Chris Snode: “Jesper Tolvers. Pulled it and he’s too eager to get his hands up into the entry.”
Super-injunction pending.
Lookalikes
— THIS week’s £69 winner is Jamie Vardy and Judderman from the Metz alcopop advert.
Sent in by John Johnstone, via email. Picture research: Alfie Snelling. This should not be used as a cue to send me Jamie Vardy/Albert Steptoe. Again.
— TV GOLD: Hibernian FC ending a 114-year-old Scottish Cup Final joke in the most thrilling manner imaginable, on BBC Scotland.
Loose Women guest Harvey Price summing up Twitter in one four-letter word. Ant McPartlin’s miracle basketball throw on Britain’s Got Talent.
And Good Morning Britain’s Piers Morgan going the full Partridge, at 6.23am on Wednesday: “If you’ve got any mad health and safety stories from the East Anglia area, I want to hear them. This has incensed me.”
Let battle commence.
— GREAT TV lies and delusions of the month. Rylan Clark: “Good news, I’ve still got my own show.”
This Morning: “Abbey Clancy is a woman of many talents.” (Will settle for one).
And Lorraine Kelly to Ferne McCann: “One day you’re going to have that Oscar in your hand.”
Yeah, just as soon as he’s out of that South African prison.