The Cutprice Guignol

The Ninth Year: The Haunting of Swill House

Tag: stephen fry

May 16, 2013

The New Doctor

Well, it’s time. Me. I’ve decided to bloody sort out Stephen Moffat. Not in an Robert de Niro way, you understand; no, I’m going to help the wonderful bastard. Yes, I’m going to give you my well-considered and positively not a result of drinking seminal ideas about who should take on the mantle of Doctor Who.

1. Sue Perkins

Everyone’s favourite lesbian. It’s Doctor Who, not Doctor Him, and this eccentrically coiffed and comedically bespectacled British institution would be delightful at the helm of the Tardis. She’s got the manic energy of Matt Smith, and I reckon she could pull out the dark side if we needed-just really watch her make another somehow classy innuendo on The Great British Bake Off. You can see the thesp within. In this scenario, Sandi Toksvig would be the assistant, because I want to see them in an enclosed space  together for a long time. It’s the closest thing Radio 4 will ever come to hardcore lesbian pornography.

2. Will Smith

Throw him a bone. He’s a solid actor, and something Doctor Who has been missing of late is the genuine cool factor-yes, Matt Smith gave us bumbling charm, David Tennant gave us goggle-eyed presence, Christopher Ecclestone gave us glowering angst-but genuine, all-out cool? Will Smith could pull that off. Go on. Give him some gravitas. You’d just have to keep reminding him the sonic screwdriver wasn’t his mind-wiping gadget from MIB.

3. Barry Lydon

He’s sarcastic, he’s horrifyingly intelligent, desperately funny and he’d bring something very, very new to the show. Have an old, tired, pissed-off Doctor, sick of the endless rotation of foreign planets and cheap whores (Catherine Tate excepted, because she’d probably gank me). I’d really love to see this happen, purely because it’s a pet theory and I’ve grown up with his brandy-swilling brand of warm cynicism for as long as I can remember. Do it.

4.  Alan Davies

He can do the adorable puppy thing beautifully, but in Johnathan Creek he pulled out a very nice brand of thin-lipped humour which would make a perfect Doctor, but a new one. He’d could bring the bouncing-off-the-walls thing and the bang-on comic timing with ease, then go all Black Ops on their asses just as convincingly. And he’s fascinatingly, terrifyingly, somehow unfairly ageless. Clearly in this scenario, it’s a toss-up between Caroline Quentin and Stephen Fry as the assistant.

5. Stephen Moffat

Because anyone who gets involved in Doctor Who on any level secretly wants to be the Doctor. You’re fooling no-one, Moffat.

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April 11, 2013

The Great British Television Revival

Britain, eh? Just sitting there, in the middle of the sea, getting the craic. My home and native land. What may not strike you about this teeny little craggy island drifting about like a philosophy student is that it’s television has suddenly become….well, very British.

You can’t click on anything on BBC iPlayer just now without being faced with some gurning “quintessentially British” personality or other fronting another show prefixed with “THE GREAT BRITISH” *insert seemingly arbitary activity here*. The Great British Bake-Off. Great British Railway Journeys. The Great British Sewing Bee, for Christ’s sake. Victoria Wood, grandmother of all British female comedians, can currently be found peering coyly out from the front page of iPlayer presenting a show about tea. The final of The Great British Bake-Off last season was watched by 6,743,000 people-just to put that in perspective, more people tuned in to watch Paul Hollywood make accidental double entendres about buns than live in the country of my birth. That’s mad, but also kind of understandable; I’d rather watch people baking than live in Orkney. It’s not just over here, either- Doctor Who, the gleaming jewel in the crown of the BBC’s schedule that’s celebrating it’s fiftieth anniversary this year, has been regularly broadcast in 48 countries-that’s means pretty much one in four countries in the entire world enjoying the exploits of a space cowboy with a light-up dildo.

So what’s brought this on? Well, we’ve got the obvious patriotic nonsense that’s we’ve been fish-slapped with over the last year-the Olympics, the Jubilee, the impending birth of a royal sprog. The whole year has been spent trying really, really hard not to talk about the Good Old Days-Christ, I’m surprised the Spice Girls weren’t strapped to a taxi emblazoned with “THE SUN NEVER SETS ON THE GREAT BRITISH EMPIRE”. As a nation, the BBC wants to think that we’re shakily saluting the flag with our eyes glistening with tears, and it’s reflected in their dredging up of every British insitution-cookery, industry, Stephen Fry- while we still care. And you know what? I’m alright with it.

Bloody hell. Anyway, next time: lols.

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