The great thing about having Sky Digital is the sheer wall of tat that invades your living room. I'm a huge fan of Takeshi's Castle on Challenge TV , half an hour of Japanese madness with no point whatsoever. Unfortunately, the UK producers have actually managed to edit out half of the good stuff before it hits our screens - it's worth searching out just to get rid of the Craig Charles commentary.
However, I've been dragged in by the television phenomenon that is Most Haunted on Living TV. It is essentially a televised ghost hunt, where a bunch of idiots led by ex-Blue Peter girl Yvette Fielding and former Liverpool footballer turned psychic Derek Acorah spend the night at a crumbling old mansion in the middle of nowhere and scare the living shit out of each other.
I'm still trying to work out whether it's serious scientific study or the televisiual equivalent of scary campfire tales, and have given up speculating whether Mr Acorah is genuine or not. He's such a star, it doesn't matter if he's faking it or not. Uri Geller - you can tell straight away he's mugging for the cameras (or any audience of more than one person, I can tell you from dreadful, sweary personal experience), but Acorah plays it straight from start to finish. Especially in the bits when he's possessed by evil spirits demanding that Yvette Fielding gets her tits out. Quality TV moment that.
It's so bad it's brilliant, and my Tuesday nights would not be complete without seeing a former Blue Peter presenter running screaming down a corridor, swearing like it's going out of fashion. And she used to be such a nice girl. The whole crew gets involved, from the terrified sound recordist to the girl who makes the tea and launders piss-stained trousers. Night after terror-filled night is spent in draughty, dirty, cold rooms screaming "Argh! It's an orb!" every time a speck of dust drifts past the camera, running for their lives as an unexplained knock is heard in an adjacent room.
I watched it last night - a bunch of idiots running round a haunted hotel in Co.Durham screaming blue murder in abject fear. It was ace, mainly because Yvette said "Fuck". You'd never got that from Valerie Singleton.
Is there anybody there? Even dead people get their fifteen minutes these days.
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