Hysterical presenter Davina McCall needs sedating on ITV’s A&E Live
WATCH any amount of telly and you cannot help but notice silent approval of the NHS is no longer enough.
Presenters must tilt their head and go all gooey whenever they mention this “National treasure”.
Quiz show contestants are given a special ovation just for revealing: “I work in the NHS.”
There are awards shows in its honour now on both BBC1 and ITV, whose version was attended, last week, by a glittering array of tax exiles giving eulogies that would make Kim Jong-un blush.
Some of it is undoubtedly sincere. Some is also done to shut down anything other than the argument that says “It needs more money”, while other bits are there just because TV executives have noticed it’s the NHS’s 70th birthday and think they’d better do something to look caring.
Like, for instance, ITV’s A&E Live, “from the frontline”, at Leeds General Infirmary.
A self-defeating three-day experiment which, on the one hand gleefully promised us all sorts of carnage: “It’s hotting up here.” But on the other was swift to assure viewers they were operating on a time delay in case patients refused filming consent, thereby ruling out most of the drunks and any possibility of a bloke being wheeled into reception with a Hoover attachment up his fundament.
An actual visit to A&E is a real, vivid, frightening, frustrating, disturbing, impressive and unforgettable experience that can leave you weeping with gratitude for the NHS
Ally Ross
I’d avoid describing LGI as the most sedate-looking A&E unit in Britain, though, because ITV had attempted to redress the noise balance by having it hosted by human Tannoy system Davina McCall, who lost little time in telling us: “I had to get hypnotised to do this job, can you believe it?”
Yeah, I can, actually.
“I saw my granny sever her toes with a lawnmower,” she went on to explain, “and it made me squeamish.” If you thought for one minute, however, it sedated her, you either overestimate the powers of hypnotherapy or you haven’t been watching Davina’s career closely enough.
The woman was in full Street Mates mode from the moment she clocked a young couple in the waiting room. “Are you going out?” said Davina, without so much as checking their vital signs.
“We were on a date . . . our first date.”
“AH-MAY-ZING! THIS IS GREAT. And it’s something to talk about when you have children . . . ”
Silence. “I took it too far, didn’t I?”
You did rather, Davina, though I get the squeamishness thing and actually flinched when she then told us: “A 23-year-old man, Tommy, is being brought in by ambulance after being rear-ended at high speed.”
You’d hope Tommy got some of Davina’s meds as well, ’cos a weird thing happened on Wednesday and Thursday’s broadcasts.
She actually calmed down a bit. To the extent I finally noticed the staff, who turned out to be naturals in front of a camera, which really shouldn’t have been a surprise given TV’s insatiable appetite for this sort of show.
Among other recent TV offerings, we have: A&E Live, A&E, 24 Hours In A&E, The Real A&E, Sun Sea & A&E, A&E On The Road.
And that’s just the ones with A&E in the title.
There’s a whole load more with the words ambulance and emergency, which you may also have watched but entirely forgotten.
Why?
’Cos an actual visit to A&E is a real, vivid, frightening, frustrating, disturbing, impressive and unforgettable experience that can leave you weeping with gratitude for the NHS.
TV, by contrast, generally offers a dumb, censored, antiseptic, grovelling, uncritical, cult-like, agenda-ridden version, with this sort of dialogue.
Davina (to ambulanceman Gavin): “How important is it you get there early.”
“The sooner we get there the more chance the patient has of surviving.”
“And that’s so important, isn’t it?”
Thank you, live TV. Where would we all be without you?
Optimist of the century?
Good Morning Britain’s Piers Morgan: “I leave a lot of phones in my bedroom, ’cos you never know when you’re going to get THE call when your manager says, ‘Got it. Prime-time America. You’re back on’.”
And it’s go go go with My 600lb Life.
NOTE: In order to avoid Britain’s Got Talent Live, I’m heading south of the border, down Mexico way. Column returns in a fortnight.
Scandal really is the nuts
BBC1’s version of the Jeremy Thorpe murder plot saga, A Very English Scandal, is nuts.
It’s very entertaining as well, but it is nuts, with CGI badgers running around in episode one and a couple of Yucca plants shoved in some sand dunes to try and make us think North Devon is actually “California,” on Sunday night.
The main issue, however, is that A Very English Scandal can’t quite decide if it’s a comedy or not. So it’s deadly serious whenever Thorpe’s commenting on Europe, immigration or gay rights, but pure Carry On when his ex-lover Norman Scott starts having it off in a caravan with the bird out of Torchwood.
It’s more than saved, though, by the incredible storyline and performances of the brilliant Alex Jennings, who totally vanishes into the part of Thorpe’s sidekick, Peter Bessell, Patricia Hodge as Ursula Thorpe, and Ben Whishaw, who’s got the most difficult role of all as the insanely irritating Scott, but does it well enough to make me wish he’d been shot on Exmoor rather than his dog.
In that sort of company, of course, it was also incredibly brave to give the lead role to Hugh Grant, who never quite convinces me he’s anyone other than Hugh Grant, yet I will say this for a performance that stands out from anything he’s ever done before.
He’s wearing a hat.
Deaf subtitle of the week
Courtesy of ITV’s Lee Dixon on England’s World Cup goalies: “You’d be down to one goalkeeper and a nervous one.”
“You’d be down to one goalkeeper and a Neville Swan.”
INCIDENTALLY, who claimed the following, last week: “People always get excited about cockchafers.”
Was it A) Springwatch’s Chris Packham?
Or B) Newsnight guest Max Mosley?
I predict Mo of the same
EASIEST gig on the soaps?
EastEnders’ Big Mo, who’s just set herself up as Walford’s resident psychic and fortune teller.
A job with my name on it, frankly, as I wouldn’t need a crystal ball, money or much encouragement to tell the locals: “This old craphole will be locked in an ever more depressing cycle of baby abductions, love triangles, disrupted weddings, head transplants and escaped animals from now until kingdom come. Get the hell out, while you still can.”
Walford CID might also want to put me on a profiling retainer as well, given they’re the only people who haven’t noticed that every single street crime, including – surprise, surprise – last week’s stabbings of Keanu and Shakil, has been carried out by a white, working-class male with a bad stage school Cockney accent.
I guess Big Mo’s probably safe in the position for the moment, though, as she seems to have foretold the re-appearance of Shane “Alfie” Richie in The Vic, earlier this month.
However, at roughly the same time, she also predicted: “Jean (Slater) will get a job with teeth.”
So until such time as actress Gillian Wright is sat on the Loose Women panel, with Janet Street-Porter, mark me down as a sceptic.
Great TV lies and delusions of the month
The Royal Wedding, Dermot O’Leary: “Afua (Hirsch), I could listen to you all day.”
This Morning, “Earth Angel” Sarah Rebecca Vine: “I am a spiritual life coach and healer and, I feel, a messenger to wake people up.” Zzzzz.
And First Time Mum, Ferne McCann: “The hypnotherapist session definitely calmed me down and emptied my mind.” Of what?
QUIZ show bone domes of the week
The Chase, Bradley Walsh: “On the flag of South Sudan blue represents the waters of what major river?”
Scott: “The Indian Ocean.”
Bradley Walsh: “What UK Prime Minister read geography at an all- women’s Oxford college?”
Jackie: “Tony Blair.”
Bradley Walsh: “In a hospital, the H&N unit refers to the head and what other part of the body?”
Jackie: “Nose.”
And Ben Shephard: “In Australia and New Zealand a ‘long black’ is a variety of which hot beverage?”
Teri: “Beer.”
Random TV irritations
The BBC’s Friday night schedule offering us two left-wing panel shows (HIGNFY and New World Order), featuring The Guardian’s Mona Chalabi, when one was far too many.
The A&E Live caption writer responsible for the spelling of “interupt”. Channel 4’s Goggleboxers and all the other people who seem to think The Handmaid’s Tale is a documentary.
Car Share lacking either the brains or the balls to make a preview copy of its finale available.
And Good Morning Britain without that oaf Piers Morgan, on Thursdays and Fridays. An experience which really is as pointless and empty as Tight Fit performing The Lion Sleeps Tonight, without Steve Grant on lead vocals.
TV Gold
Brilliant performances from Alex Jennings, Patricia Hodge and Ben Whishaw, as Peter Bessell, Jeremy Thorpe’s mum and Norman Scott, on A Very English Scandal.
BBC1’s Motty: The Man Behind The Sheepskin, revealing an even odder character than I was expecting. Dave’s How The Young Ones Changed Comedy (not entirely for the better).
And The Chase offering up my favourite quiz show moment of the year, so far.
Bradley Walsh: “Which astrologer published a colouring book called The Art Of Astrology?” John: “Galileo.” Bradley: “Russell Grant.”
Great Sporting Insights
Glenn Hoddle: “It’s difficult to run off a shoulder injury.”
Gareth Bale: “I haven’t seen the goal back yet, I’ve only watched it again now.”
Steve McManaman: “It’s a surprise that Bale’s not playing, but it’s not a surprise that he’s on the bench.”
And Rio Ferdinand: “Win the Champions League and it’s chance to be forever mortalised.”
(Compiled by Graham Wray)
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Lookalikes
THIS week’s winner is Britain’s Best Home Cook’s Mary Berry and Gary Oldman as Dracula. Sent in by D Boyd of Leeds.
Picture research: Amy Reading