The Bill (1984-2010)

'We've all got it coming son, today's your turn.' Detective meadows uttered to the last caught murder suspect on the final episode of what would sadly be the end of 26 year old 'The Bill', one of the longest running series in British TV history. The end for a great show is always sad but some are inevitable...they will end...most things do. However in the case of 'the bill', it's end was more to do with change destroying it, as oppose to cutbacks.

'The bill' was originally a half an hour slot, like most TV shows into the 90's, an hour was now the standard format and so it followed. With it's initial first line 'okay Carver, let's do it.' The ending titles sequence of the police officers feet walking down the street, was always pictured as it official image, even after it was dropped for a more upbeat, uptone, "modren" title sequence. 'The bill' was about police officers, the law and their work. The bill may have had storylines over the years with certain characters but essentially the bill was not a soap, which made it stand out from all other British TV programmes.

I throughly enjoyed watching it over the years, I always knew I could come back to watching it after a long period, not worried about missing any huge continous plotline, because there usually wouldn't be one. I was tuning it for a gripping story, based on people living in London, a crime, suspects, investigation, solved, end. No gimmicks, no music to disguise the reality, in fact using ambience sounds to their advantage, creating high realistic drama.

The most remembered and favourite TV year of the bill for me is quite recent with 2008, in which they had a very ambitious and extremely successful eight parter titled 'witness', which focused on knife and gun crime within young children on a council estate. 'Witness' was unrelentless, gripping, powerful and thoughtful drama. Later that year, a two parter 'Hold me tight' tackled the murder of a eight year school girl and the main suspect a young boy around the same age. In the end, the boy was convicted of the crime after confessing but the officers were not sure weather to file the crime under murder, accidental or manslaughter. 'Over the limit' focuced on PC Sally Armstrong, who drunk a bit too much at a nightclub and crashed her car into another, the episode focused on three of the officers as they attempted to avoid anyone else at the station finding out about the incident and Sally being involved. The episode ends with Sally not being found out. As the bill carried onto other episodes and other storylines, this was never referred to again, PC Armstrong never got her comeuppance, noramally forbidden in the TV world.

The bill changed it formats over the years, adjusted to the times, sadly it was change that brought about it's demise and sudden lowered viewing figures. The change was to happen in September 2009, in which the format changed the gritty cinematography to glossy, from handheld to dolly. With a title sequence, devoid of it's original music of 26 years, now replaced with a confusing other track, murky ambience and pointless fast images. It was a sadly a matter of time, as the Bill now, was no longer gripping, exiciting, relevent or interesting. With an ambitous final steadycam one shot through the station, moving outside the station, crane shot up and end credits, the final epsiode entitled 'respect' dedicated it's long TV run to the men and women of the Metropolitan police force, past and present, as the final words of detective Meadows echoed...

'Today was one of the good days.'

The bill, ordinary people in a uniform, taking a responsibily for society.

R.I.P. You're nicked!

French film-maker Claude Chabrol dies

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/sep/12/claude-chabrol-dies

When does it end? You decide!

In the great words of George Constanza 'It's a show about nothing.'

On the 14th July 2000, after the milluenium didn't crumble the world away, TV was about to take a leap into another direction and would never look back. Orwell's 1984 created the name for what was deemed originally as a social experiment, ten people unknown to each other, entered what was only known as a house back then, and were watched by the curious small public of audience over a half an hour slot, six nights a week. The show rattled along, people drinking tea, dinner, breakfast, taking care of the chickens, running around naked, playing games, arguements, flirting, likes and hates. It wasn't until the cheating scandal that rocked the nation and the front pages of the newspapers then, in which Nick Bateman manipulated hosuemates to vote his way by writing housemates names on pieces of paper, a house quickly became a big brother house and the reality TV show was born.

You could argue that without Nick Bateman, there wouldn't have been a funeral and a celebration for Big brother at it's demise on the 10/09/10. At the end of series one, the winner Craig Philips donated his winning prize of £70,000 to his Down's syndrome friend Joanne Harris to help pay for her heart and lung transplant in America. This all made it seemed so important, like the show had a purpose, that people had been watched, examined, judged, reflected on, and in the end, a hero was chosen and a life was saved. Watching it at the time, it changed the way I saw soaps, I stopped watching Eastenders, I was instead enjoying 'reality.' The editing of the show was incredible, how they mangaged to create narratves through hours of nothing, each day, for every night's show.

As Big Brother continues a year later, BBLB was born, a pre show to the main show, there was an episode of the main show on now everyday of the week, and once again, people sat around and mainly did nothing. Big brother would continues onto his most sucessful series three in 2003 and into it's least sucessful four, at which point it all changed. The idea of people doing nothing, suddenly wasn't so interesting anymore and big brother had become dull. A revamp was born, the evil big brother, where everything and everything was thrown at the show, like a overloaded garden shed.

Back in the days of 'the word', the greatest talk show ever created, where a section titled the hopefuls where indidivuals would do anything to be on TV, was now what Big Brother had become. BB was now an event, a show where people's lives were edited and played with, to create an entertainment. The show became a platform to gain instant fame, get your magazine deals, do a few TV jobs, some other reality TV shows, including making small appearances on shows related to big brother such as big mouth. Social quickly turned into ego, followed by hungry, followed by freaks. It's quite fitting that for the last series of the show, the house was created and decorated as a circus.

In January 2007, Big Brother would make world headlines and be at the front of what is ignorance and what is racism. The infamous race row, detroyed the career of the most famous housemate to come out of Big brother and challenged the public and disturbed ofcom in weather they were right in what they were broadcasting and how. Big Brother would later start to donate a part of the viewers phone phone call votes to charity, to show some charity.

As the old saying goes, all good things come to an end but let's not forget one thing. If someone says, 'I don't watch reality TV', they are sadly mistaken, as Big brother spawned all that defined the genre of what is considered to reality TV. From the farm, to I'm a celebrity, get me out of here, masterchef, the apprentice, survivor, come dine with me, love island, X factor, Britain's got talent, Big Brother created the idea of putting individual strangers together in front of cameras, the rest continues to dominate the TV ratings.

With it's brilliant advertising for the final season, in which past housemates bury the diary room chair from the first series, the show has ended on a rather simple note, celebrating what it once was and is today. BB, the show that changed the way TV is watched and made, whether you like it or not, the father of new genres, always goes first. The social experiment is over

R.EYE.P. Big Brother is no longer watching

But you have alot of friends...

That's the first thing she said...as Anamaria Marinca stood there in the corner of the Young Vic stage in July 2009, dressed in jeans and a white vest top, standing against a background of a wall with two narrow exits each side ,nothing more, nothing less. And so 4.48 Psychosis Psychosis began...my first experience of watching a one person stage play. I had loved Anamaria Marinca in '4 months, 3 weeks and 2 days', was surprised to see her pop up in the brilliant 'five days of heaven' and found it to be great pleasure when I got to meet her at the 2009 world cinema awards, as she gave a heartfelt thank you speech as herself and Cristian Mungiu accepted the best film award. At first I thought she was nervous and didn;t know what to say as she followed Cristian's speech with 'this film is for all the lost ones...we shall never forget you.' I ran into her during Berinale 09 a few months later, at an incredible Romanian party!

4: 88 Psychosis kept my attention, I throughly enjoyed it. After about an hour and fifteen minutes straight performance, she never moved from her one spot on the stage. It was a truely challenging and fantastic role to see her in.

My first stage play to be written with a one person would only come recently, as it coincided with me seeing Meera Syal act it alone in 'Shirley Valentine', a very talented woman whom I always enjoy watching, it was fantastic.

The one person stage play is a challenge...I plan to see more and hope that my first one person stage play, is the first of many more to come...

2 days in Paris

Marion: "It always fascinated me how people go from loving you madly to nothing at all, nothing. It hurts so much. When I feel someone is going to leave me, I have a tendency to break up first before I get to hear the whole thing. Here it is. One more, one less. Another wasted love story. I really love this one. When I think that its over, that I'll never see him again like this... well yes, I'll bump into him, we'll meet our new boyfriend and girlfriend, act as if we had never been together, then we'll slowly think of each other less and less until we forget each other completely. Almost. Always the same for me. Break up, break down. Drunk up, fool around. Meet one guy, then another, fuck around. Forget the one and only. Then after a few months of total emptiness start again to look for true love, desperately look everywhere and after two years of loneliness meet a new love and swear it is the one, until that one is gone as well. There's a moment in life where you can't recover any more from another break-up. And even if this person bugs you sixty percent of the time, well you still can't live without him. And even if he wakes you up every day by sneezing right in your face, well you love his sneezes more than anyone else's kisses. "

Chequered History

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/sep/22/fashion.middleeast

Somewhere in-between sunrise and sunset

'Memory is a wonderful thing, if you don’t have to deal with the past…'

My mate took a girl to his place for a date once, whilst we were at uni, to watch Before Sunrise. I had never seen it up until to this point. My mate told me 'oh you'll love it, it's just two people walking around a city and talking.' Sounded great to me!

I don't recall the frist time I saw the film...I think it was on videotape, perhaps the same one my mate used for his date...uni is a strange time, framented in places. A few years later, I heard about a sequel, Before Sunset, much to my sickness. A film which is originally about two people finding something in each other, the bravery of trust, the magic one night can bring and what really is love. In the end, is love a few hours spend together, leave it at that, make love, share and say goodbye, cut all strings loose?

And so Before Sunset seemed like it was to cut all this away, as it intruduced with the tagline...'what if you had a second chance, with the one that got away.' Before Sunset became the most commercial of the two films, confusing new audiences over which one film came first (America entitled the second one, Before Sunset 2) I remember the first time I saw Sunset, I had just finished my degree and gone back home, from Farnham, to London. My house was in a decorated mess, I had no bedroom, nowhere to really work, no job, only a laptop and a library down the road currently with an offer of free DVD's. As I watched Sunset, something came over me, as I ended up watching the film five times in a week. Was it the joy of seeing two people having the chance to be happy, did I just fall in love with Julie Delpy's character, was it the city of Paris, did it encourage optimism for love within me?

Being in a relationship at the time, I showed it to my girlfriend, who had not seen the first one. After watching it, she said...'it's not real.' What did she mean? Can two people not find such chemistry as is shown in the film or did she mean the film is so polite about the idea of chance, romance, chemistry?

I recently showed both the films on a date...perhaps if the date was the bit better, I might have got a better response than the one I got, which was that 'the first one was better.' It was at this point that I knew this date was over, perhaps I have the 'Before' films to thanks for this realisation.

When I saw Julie Delpy's on a panel discussion in Berlinale 2008, an audience member said to her, 'before sunrise and before sunset are two of my favourite films of all time, will there be a third one?' Julie Delpy was currently promoting her directing debut 'two days in Paris', a film which attempts to capture what a real relationship is like, can be argued in a more pessimist way, she replied to the audience member 'well, you're a romantic.' Perhaps that said it all...why I watched the second one five times in a week and why I'm writing this blog...

To end...

Jesse: Oh, God, why didn't we exchange phone numbers and stuff? Why didn't we do that?
Celine: Because we were young and stupid.
Jesse: Do you think we still are?
Celine: I guess when you're young, you just believe there'll be many people with whom you'll connect with. Later in life, you realize it only happens a few times.