The Thick of It BBC4
Stalking Pete Doherty C4
Elvis by the Presleys ITV1
The South Bank Show ITV1
Very Occasionally I find myself thinking 'Why did I recently squander such a lovely big bunch of superlatives on something which looks like Monkey Tennis, compared to this stunning work of unparalleled comedy genius?
Armando Iannucci's New-ish Labour satire, The Thick of It (BBC4, for, ooh, probably about five minutes) is, perhaps, even better than the wildly fawnsome previews may have led you to believe. So fabulously funny is it, indeed, that the description 'fabulously funny' is insufficiently gushing, not least because I've probably already employed it in the context of everything from Black Books to The Office, via Curb Your Enthusiasm and The Day Today.
After about three minutes of viewing I discovered just how funny The Thick of It is when a spontaneous audible exhalation issued from somewhere deep inside a previously dormant organ. A cross between a sea lion's bark and the urgently expressed 'Fuck-fuck-fuckity-fuck-bollocks!' of a Tourette's sufferer or character in a Richard Curtis film, this unlikely and almost unprecedented emanation surprised me so much that if I hadn't been doing so already I would have had to lie down with a tube of Pringles and a glass of Rioja.
Frankly, I can't remember the last time I laughed out loud at something that wasn't either my son shouting 'you are a poo-poo-face, Mummy Elephant!', a letter from a reader asking why I've never reviewed Family Affairs or an email from a top BBC executive ('Wrong, wrong, wrong, you moronic bint. The next time you deign to show your face in Shepherd's Bush... blah blah...'). But The Thick of It made me laugh out loud properly eight whole times, with at least six smaller assorted snorts.
A Yes, Minister for our more cynical age - one in which the power of civil servants has long been replaced by that of the heavy-handed spinmaster - Chris Langham plays the almost entirely incompetent Minister of Social Affairs, Hugh Abbot ('I love doing things the right way - that ethical stuff, I love it. We all do. But...') - while Peter Capaldi is Malcolm Tucker, the 'PM's enforcer' ('Seriously, the PM likes you personally, I like you personally. None of this negative stuff is coming from us. But endless headlines chipping away at our confidence makes us look weak. And you don't want us to look weak, do you? So that's why you have to go...'). Amazingly, with just the simplest addition and subtraction of letters, it turns out that 'Malcolm Tucker' could be an anagram of 'Alastair Campbell'.
Attempting to make some sort of impact in Social Affairs, Abbot comes up with the entirely plausible Anti-Benefit Fraud Executive (or 'Asbee', or 'Snooper Squad' or 'Scambusters') and, after a brief chat with the PM ('this is exactly the sort of thing we should be doing'), decides to leak it to the Evening Standard and announce it officially at a press conference.
Unfortunately it turns out that, according to Tucker, 'exactly the sort of thing we should be doing' doesn't in fact constitute a 'yes'. Indeed, it is probably just a prime ministerial acknowledgement of how far policy has strayed from political ideals. Cue much fevered plot flip-floppery before the (invisible, but omnipotent) PM eventually decides that the Snooper Squad is a good thing after all, and 'fuck the spending implications'.
As soon as it finished I rewound the tape and watched it again, laughing at all the bits I'd not caught the first time. Profoundly unmissable. I'd be surprised if The Thick of It hasn't already been shortlisted for the 2006 Baftas it will inevitably go on to win, but don't let that put you off - the hype is entirely justified.
C4's Stalking Pete Doherty, in which a former Bafta-winning film-maker turned bi-polar media studies lecturer attempted to resurrect his career by making a gonzo-style documentary about the former Libertines frontman, turned out to be a rather tragic (and occasionally tragi-comic) self-mockumentary, with levels of viewer squirminesss rarely experienced in the post-Spinal Tap era.
Having had his documentary wrestled from him by Channel 4 (perhaps after running out of tape during his only one-on-one interview with Doherty), the not-awfully-well-really Max Carlish was presumably banned from calling the shots, much less sitting in the edit suite and stopping himself being made a complete arse of.
Mind you, that would have been difficult, given that a great deal of the footage, gathered over months of trailing the singer and occasionally hanging out backstage at Babyshambles gigs, featured Carlish comparing Doherty to Marilyn Monroe and Kurt Cobain, singing 'You're Gorgeous' and making the kind of painfully obsessive overtures ('Pete, I've got a present for you... What are you doing now? Can I come with...?') that would inevitably invite insults and rejection, along the lines of Doherty's introduction of Max to an audience: 'This is Max. We've beaten him up a few times because he's a bit of a c**t.'
Not that Max much cared because at this stage, Pete, like all the cool kids at school, was still putting up with the weirdy fatso who had insinuated himself into the posse. But before too long he did what the cool kids at school always do to the 'weirdos', 'fatties', 'freaks' and 'four-eyes', which is to treat 'em even meaner. At which point Carlish sought revenge for his rejection by selling footage of (the by-now Kate Moss-dating) Doherty chasing the dragon. Cue tabloid meltdown, fisticuffs and yet more professional setbacks for Carlish.
As a study of mental illness, obsessive fandom and the timeless, if also rather tired, cliches of youthful rock'n'roll excesses taking place in grungy dressing-rooms, this was a classic, if exploitative, piece of car-crash telly. But if you wanted to find out anything about Doherty (or even catch sight of an off-duty Kate Moss), it was a distinct disappointment.
Patently I'm too old to be beguiled by the current babyfaced rock'n'roll bad boy, having sort of seen it all before, but I would've enjoyed a bit more backstory. Still, it turns out that Doherty is the privately educated son of an army major, and with that kind of baggage he's presumably going to carry on rebelling very publicly until the point where (if only in his dreams) he has a hysterically weeping Moss hurling herself on his coffin.
Meanwhile, Carlish is apparently still teaching media studies and living at home with his mum while preparing to make a film about his foreskin, or lack of one, which is provisionally (and rather marvellously) entitled 'Circumcise Me'. It's not a film I'm desperate to see, admittedly, but I wish him well - and weller.
ITV1's Elvis By The Presleys was the film of the coffee-table book. Given the level of anodyne anecdotage it was almost impossible to recall that Presley died on the loo, aged 42, after ingesting a super-size cocktail of cholesterol-burgers and prescription drugs.
There wasn't much in the way of Fat Elvis, thankfully, but there were plenty of hitherto unbroadcast home movies of the King and his consort picnicking at the beach, hanging out, having fun, playing with little Lisa Marie and generally living the plot of Clambake, plus enough fresh images of Presley in his prime (including an awesome outtake from the '68 Comeback Special which made me feel a bit flushed and hormonal) to ensure you could only mourn for the career he might have had, had it not been scuppered by the Colonel.
Finally, last Sunday's South Bank Show (ITV1) featured an interview with Paul (Corrie, Cracker, Clocking Off, Linda Green, State of Play, Shameless) Abbott. Not much work for Melvyn, here: just pour a glass of wine, offer the merest prompt and Abbott's off, talking exactly as he writes (as all the best writers invariably do) disarmingly honestly about money, writing, writing for money and his by now well-documented chaotic upbringing. Not to mention the fact that he started State of Play with no idea where it was heading ('I killed off two people in the first two minutes. I didn't even know why') and how 'writing that taught me how to write Shameless: it had to not apologise for itself.'
With helpful interjections from big sister Elaine, former Smith Johnny Marr, Bill Nighy, and fellow writers Russell T Davies and Jimmy McGovern, this was must-see TV for anybody who either watches telly or writes and a riveting masterclass for those of us who write about watching telly. I won't say this is a man at the top of the game because apparently the implication that the only way is down panics him a bit. Either way, my awe for Abbott's skills knows no bounds.
