Tag Archives: TV

Griff Rhys Jones Interview

Posted on by

This summer, Griff Rhys Jones is hosting a brand new comedy panel show on Channel 4, A Short History of Everything Else. This six-part series uses brilliant, hilarious and downright weird archive clips to challenge contestants to remember key moments from our recent history, and provide new and irreverent perspectives on our past. Team captains are Marcus Brigstocke and Charlie Baker.

Here, Griff talks about the ageing process, his love of box sets, and the joys of filming indoors for a change.

You said in an interview a while back that you were always too busy because you couldn’t say no to things. How’s the work-life balance shaping up these days?

Not bad, actually. The trouble is, a long time ago, I started doing all sorts of different types of programme. I think if a finger had pointed at me and said “You will be brilliant at pulling faces and doing silent, exaggerated comedy, and everyone will admire you for that,” [like former comic partner Rowan Atkinson] I would have stuck doing that. But it didn’t quite work out like that. So I put myself about a bit. I do lots of different things, and that’s rather exciting. It’s given me a new lease of life. I’m happy to do it. But I don’t say ‘no’ very easily, it’s true. In fact, I rather like having work, because it gives me the opportunity to say no to things.

What was the attraction of doing A Short History of Everything Else?

I’ve always quite fancied doing what I’d call a desk job. I’ve spent quite a lot of time on the road. And they sent me a pilot they’d made, and it just worked. There are a lot of these comedy panel games, and many of them, I have to say, are based on false premises. Often they’re too complicated – people get themselves really worked up creating a complicated structure, and the audience doesn’t have the faintest idea what’s going on, and nor does anybody playing it. This is a very simple idea – to revisit fads, moments in our past, look at them again, and answer questions and see what we can remember, about everything from the whole ‘video nasties’ scare to Boris Yeltsin and his extraordinary drunken career. We show clips, and you watch them and go ‘Wow, I’d forgotten all about that!’ And when it all comes flooding back, it really gets people talking. It’s a sort of nostalgia piece. I suppose that’s why they chose an ancient figure, old enough to have forgotten everything, to introduce it.

The programme only deals with very recent history, doesn’t it?

Yes, because we use archive footage. I don’t think we go much further back that the 70s. I’m afraid I suffer from the affliction of being nearly 60, which means I find myself going ‘The 90s? That’s not history!’ They did a recent TV series about the 70s, and I watched it going ‘Wow! All of these things were going on, with the unions and everything, I don’t remember any of that. I remember it being rather dull and wet and grey for a lot of the 70s.

What recent period of history was your favourite?

My favourite era of recent history was about 1965 to 1970, because I was growing up then. I spent my time in an awestruck state, looking at people like Jimi Hendrix, wandering around thinking there was some sort of nirvana in central London that I was denied access to, because I lived in Brentwood. So the train out of Brentwood and into town was the sort of Yellow Brick Road. We’d get into this world where people wore funny sunglasses and had frizzed out hair. That was our dream, which we fulfilled by going to the Roundhouse and things like that. After that I became an adult, and realised that you get on with life, get married, have kids, grow up, try to follow a career, do things, and the tide of history is just washing past you. Which is one of the reasons why this series is fantastic, you can watch it and go ‘Oh yes! Was that really 20 years ago?’ I went to , and they read a piece by him and he said “as you get older, the most terrifying thing is how quickly it all goes – how it seems to all speed up.” And I do find that the last ten years have gone alarmingly quickly. I’m not ready for what it is I’m supposed to be ready for!

Are you quite pleased to be presenting a programme in a sharp suit rather than your anorak?

The sharp suits were very, very nice. Of course, I’d already been doing It’ll Be Alright on the Night, which had obviously been a huge success, because I got a nice suit out of that. I would also like to say that the red anorak that I wear in other shows is not just an anorak! It’s actually a jacket that was designed for the Italian racing drivers in the Mille Miglia in the 1950s, and it’s an object of great veneration. People write in to the manufacturers saying ‘Please, please make one for me – because Griff looks so good wearing his.’ It was made in limited edition, and I have two of them. But I must say, to be able to sit and wear a suit, and totter the journey from the dressing room to the studio is pretty good. There was a time when Mel and I were finishing off filming Smith and Jones together about 15 years ago, when being in a studio was my life. And as we finished, I thought ‘This is crazy. I’m really good at this. Changing out of a costume really quickly and getting on to the next set. I can really do that! Not many people can.’ And it’s quite nice being back in that environment. The only difference is that now I have to wear glasses to read the autocue. I did notice during filming that I look a bit like the old man from the film Up. I was really disappointed about that. That’s not my self-image at all.

Is there anything you enjoy about getting older?

Everything, absolutely everything. All that slightly furious business of peer pressure goes away. It’s fantastic. I’d really recommend it. I’m really glad that I’m still getting work. They’re probably desperate to fire me. My wife would like me to do less work – but in the last two weeks I’ve done less work, and now she wants me to work again. My wife and I were 26 when we got married. We had kids at the tremendously early age of 30. Most of my friends seem to have decided to wait until they were about 50. We go round and they’ve got toddlers everywhere, and they’ll go “Oh, oh, oh, Griff,” and hand me a child, and I’ll say “No, it’s okay, I’ve done that! I remember when you used to come round to my house and play loud music and stay up drinking til 3am while we were trying to get the kids into bed, and I don’t care about your kids!” I do a little bit of babysitting from time to time, and I have godchildren, but my kids have now fled the nest, and believe me, there’s no better time in life.”

You’re not tempted to go round to their houses and play loud music until 3am?

Luckily, that’s the other thing that happens. You suddenly think ‘Why did I ever go to stadium rock? Why did I do that? What was that about? Is there a less entertaining experience than sitting on one of those ridiculous bucket seats, peering at a sort of mini-picture of the Rolling Stones four miles away? Some of my friends still go to Glastonbury! I can’t think of anything worse. At the moment I’ve been trying to get into 40s jazz, because I’ve realised that some people are obsessed with 40s jazz, so there must be something in it. So I’m listening to a lot of that.

Back to A Short History of Everything Else – what sort of a host are you? Are you strict?

Yes, I’m quite schoolmasterly. No mucking around, please. It’s quite difficult getting them to shut up. We ran a programme which was part chatty and part quizzy – Marcus would go off on these long tangents, and Will Self, who’s a guest, was unbelievable. I’m no slouch in terms of yakking on in a non-stoppable way, but I found stopping people the most complicated thing. But I did have to be a bit schoolmasterly at times.

What’s it like being back in front of a studio audience?

Quite interesting, for me. It was quite a big transition. I was talking to Mel about this. We used to parody presenters, and then, when I started doing restoration, I had to talk to a camera. As an actor, I’d only ever looked into the camera in character, and suddenly I had to be me on camera. Now, of course, love it – I can’t go anywhere without a camera. And I now talk continually to the camera, which causes great problems for the editors, who wish I would shut up from time to time, and they could film me walking or looking at stuff. So that was quite a transition for me. And now I have to undergo another transition, being in front of a studio audience, and speaking more slowly, and getting the audience to join in.

Who are the guests you have on the show, and who would be your ideal guest?

The guests we had were all ideal guests! Robin Ince was brilliant, we had Kirstie Wark, and she was fantastic, absolutely marvellous. Not only did she have more knowledge about everything, but she was great on what I call the argy-bargy as well. Bob Mortimer was fantastic – very, very funny. And of course each guest brings a slightly different flavour. Bob was surreal, so he’d take the whole thing and push it off in a different direction. And, of course, as team captains, Charlie and Marcus were absolutely fantastic. Marcus is remarkable – his capacity to take the audience with him was really asomething – and he has such strong opinions. And Charlie was just very, very, very funny. But, to be honest, everyone was really good – it’s going to be very difficult to edit. I know it’s quite commonplace for these quiz shows to do long recordings, but we were doing three-and-a-half hour recordings, and they were pretty high energy all the way through. We’d walk off exhausted. I haven’t seen any of it, so I shall wait to see which of my gems has been cut, and then complain furiously.

Which is more difficult, being a contestant on a panel show, or being a host?

Well, they’re rather different. This has been a learning curve for me. What you’re involved with is what they call the housekeeping. If you’re a guest, there’s a lot of waiting around, and maybe a bit of preparation. But all the top guests and the top team captains don’t actually prepare anything – if you go on Have I Got News for You, Paul and Ian always tell you not to prepare stuff. They never do. They allow spontaneity to happen. One of the keys, whether you’re hosting or on the panel, is to be relaxed enough to let it happen – which is quite a challenge for me!

Does it feel like a comedy gig? Do you get heckled by the audience?

We did a lot of appeals to the studio audience. Actually, I remember Will Self heckling the studio audience, which was a bit frightening. He rounded on them and shouted “You voted for them!” I wondered whether they’d stay for the rest of the programme!

What makes you watch on TV at the moment?

I spend most of my time watching films and HBO. I’ll sit down and think ‘Oh good, they’ve made something called The Wire which goes on and on and on. And Mad Men as well. I’ll get annoyed because for some reason it takes a long time for Mad Men to come out on DVD now, which is the only way I can watch shows now. I can’t bear watching things on Sky Atlantic – it’s the principle that bothers me. You’ve paid a subscription and they’re putting in advertisements. If that’s the future of television, we’re all doomed. The future of television is being able to watch a long series one episode after another and have to say ‘Look, we cannot sit here in the middle of the afternoon and watch a fourth episode. We’ve really got to get out.’

A Short History of Everything Else is on Channel 4 on Wednesdays at 10pm from 13th June.

Desperate Housewives Actor Dies.

Posted on by

Kathryn Joosten, who played Karen McCluskey in Desperate Housewives, has died aged 72.

In an art-imitating-life twist Kathryn died after a battle with cancer, just like her character.

Publicist Nadine Jolson said Kathryn, who had lung cancer, died on Saturday in Los Angeles.

Kathryn also appeared in The West Wing and won an Emmy.

Desperate Housewives co-star Marcia Cross tweeted a tribute to her close friend:

“Thank you Kathryn. For your courage, your humor, your fight and your talent. We were so lucky to have you.”

Nuno Bernardo Interview; On Collider

Posted on by

Nuno Bernardo describes Collider as “Lost meets Terminator”. At Frost Magazine we are super excited about this multi-media story. Nuno is very inspirational and, according to BBC, “Nuno Bernardo is a leading world expert in New Media”.We also have the web series exclusively before anyone else does, so keep an eye out for it and check out our interview with the creator.

Catherine Balavage: How did the idea for the project come about?

It came about more than two years ago. We had been doing lots of projects, and the thing that connects all of our projects is that they are multi platform, in digital and online media. They start on the web and they move to television shows, etc. We had made Sofia’s Diary that also used this format of the multi platform We decided we wanted to make a new journal, but [do] something that we hadn’t done before. So we came up with a story that was about six characters that wake up in the future. They never met, they have nothing to connect them, and they need to learn to work together and to overcome the challenges of being in a place that is a possible colloquial world.

We started with hiring some writers from different backgrounds. We had a script writer, we had a comic book writer and we developed a story further. Changes changed and the characters changed, and the universe around the story was evolving . One year ago we were comfortable with the world we were creating and then we moved ahead. Then we started developing the comic book, developed a feature film , started developing some games and then the story started to get in shape.

Do you think in the future all films will become multi-platform? Is it possible for a film to just be a film?

I think it is. If you had asked anybody three or four years ago if a black and white movie [The Artist] could be done commercially everyone would have said no. I think there is always space for nicely told stories. A good, nice story in just one medium. You can also do the same in different mediums. The advantage if you do something in multi-platform is it works for marketing. You get different opportunities and different windows for your story but also at the same time different ways to connect with your audience. No everybody watched or reads the same story in the same way. The multi-platform allow you to create different experience. If someone wants to go and watch the film at the cinema they can just go and buy a ticket and watch the movie. If they want to play a game on a more interactive level, or they can read a novel or a comic book. We don’t want to exclude any medium. It is not saying that any medium doesn’t work alone. We are trying to create experience that are more in-line [with the fact] not everyone reads the same story or watches the same story in the same way.

Was it hard working with all of the different writers?

Yes. Because what was more important for us in the first year of developing the story was trying to get different writers who knew the story well, trying to write for a format, bringing roles of this world, bringing characters, bringing ideas and at this point everyone was working as a stand alone. It was like a big brain storm if you want because what we were looking for was more and more ideas, and some if them would contradict each other, but others were more complementary. After this first year of a chaotic process we somehow said; “okay this makes sense, this can interact, and connect with the other part of the story”. So then we start collaborating and after that moment everyone starts working together based on the same story and the same skeleton.

Have you taken anything from real life and put that into the story to create this fantasy world?

We kept with this, we based our concept, the starting point was the real Hadron collider experiments. and the fact that man, mankind are trying to replicate god or replicate the beginning of the universe. We picked [up] that experiment where they try and replicate the black hole and replicate the actual big bang event. What if all of these experiments are not just experiments and they are putting the world out of balance? Based on this theory we then developed our own story.

What happened in the process was around the same time last year, we were working full time on the project and we hired a film director to start working on the feature film. One or two weeks after we hired him he emailed us and said; ‘You guys are genius”. And on his email he put a link to an article that was published on CNN, and was all around the world, and on news agencies, about this guy that went to CERN and started to protest because he said he was from the future and all of the Hadron collider experiments were very dangerous. The director thought it was marketing genius to create these news stories to create a buzz about the project, but, no, it was just a coincidence that someone went there and protested. There is someone in the world with the opinion that these experiments at CERN may be creating some chaos and some problems to the planet.

Have you cast? Did you cast first or write first?

No. The casting is still ongoing. We cast the web series which will be out at the end of next week. And we cast one of the characters, which is the part of the scientist, Peter, who discovers this big problem, and we cast Ian Robertson the Scottish-English actor to perform the role. We are now at the process…we had a casting session last week in London, we are casting the other five characters of the story and we hope to have the cast finalised by the end of June.

What kind of inspiration have you taken from other Sci-Fi and time travel projects. Did you give the writer any reference points?

In our marketing pitch materials we call this Lost meets Terminator. In the first place dropping six character in an abandoned island, in this case it is not an abandoned island. It is in the future in a place that isn’t known and in a time that isn’t known with no way to control the environment that surrounds them. There are all of these challenges and interactions from a story point of view, and from the other point of view, what six people will do together to overcome their difficulties. So that is the part that you can pick that story and adapt it to other type of movies. We want to adapt six people in an unknown and challenging environment to the sci-fi framework.

Watch Collider Preview here.

How do all of the parts link together?

We have a time line. Our story start in September 2012 and the narrative goes to 2018. So what we have is these two narratives where, through this period through six years, lots of stories, sub-plots and characters will have lives in present times and in the future. What we did was to divide this time in small chunks of story so we have the web series. The web series is an initiative, which starts the story is when Peter is fired from CERN and he tries to alert the world of what is going on and then when nobody listens to him he tries to sabotage the Hadron collider and without knowing it, it creates a time machine that makes him and five other characters jump to the future.

So it is this moment of present time, when all began. and then we have each comic book which tells the background story of each of the characters. Because in the feature film the characters have already been featured but they have a past or a present and things happen to them that have an impact in the future. So this next story where things happen in 2012, 2013 in the comic books so the audience can know a little more about the characters.

Then we have a game. The game is the stuff the characters have to do in the feature film so ahead of the feature film you can get familiar with the character’s , the location, the setting and the mission of the characters and you can do it yourself by playing this game.

Each piece of content tells a little bit more and the big story line which we created over the six years, and all the elements are part of this timeline. Of course you have to be very careful of each element so if you just want to watch the web series you will be able to watch the web series and enjoy it as a stand alone, if you just want the comic series you can read about the beginning, middle and end, and if you just want to watch the movie you can just go to the theatre and buy your ticket. You can watch the movie and you will understand the story. But of course if you pursue all of these pieces of content you will have a better grasp of the story and know the characters much better, and you will be more engaged with the universe that we are creating.

Whereabouts are you filming?

We start shooting mid September and we are shooting the movie in Dublin, Ireland.

Tell me a bit about you

Yes, I started to be active ten years ago and my previous experience was first in the advertising world so I was doing producing ads and then I worked for interact television company where we worked in the late 90’s, early 2000’s. We were trying to do the first interactive television. It was when the internet bubble just exploded so most of these interactive [projects] weren’t done. We see them coming back nowadays with the television being connected with the internet, When this interactive television project ended I based my experience in advertising and because some of our clients at the time started to worry about the internet, and that viewers where not watching the ads on TV anymore they started feeling that the world was changing and just putting ads in traditional media was not enough anymore.

Communities and sub communities were developing. Cable TV was exploding and expanding throughout Europe, so in 2002 we put these two expertise together to create a company that specialised in entertainment that was multi-platform and that was focused in telling stories on different platforms, and benefited from the tools and the relationships that audiences had with different platforms to tell a better story.

How did you get funding?

Initially we had some venture capital when we started the company and, with our success and the fact that some of our multi-platform shows are being sold around the world, in TV and publishing, and mobile and licensing in different platform that we distributed our content, recently we managed to secure additional funding from Jill Banks in Portugal that allows us to fund and self-fund from the development and the early parts of this project.

So it is web series, comic, games in that order? What is the scheduled time-line?

First release of the projects is the web series, the comic and the game will all be released by June 4th and we have a second game planned in the Fall. We also are shooting a film in September for a 2013 release. We are also working on a follow up to the comic books. So between now and to the end of 2013 we have a schedule, a planning of releasing the different content, sub-plots and characters. So this time-line which is our universe between 2012 and 2018 we are working on a novel so different products will come out based on this project about one character and then two characters or one moment in this journey.

Are the people from CERN involved?

They are not involved but if the story gets popular then they will probably not be very supportive of the story [laughs] It doesn’t portray them in a a bad way but it creates a story which says that what they are doing will probably create problems with the planet. So if I was them I would probably not be happy with the story. So we are not working with them.

Thank you Nuno

Cardinal Burns Video Interview

Posted on by

Cardinal and Burns, the blokes behind E4 comedy Cardinal Burns, have a chat about, well, E4 comedy Cardinal Burns.

Cardinal Burns is a new comedy sketch show written and performed by Seb Cardinal and Dustin Demri-Burns. Catch it Tuesdays at 10:30pm on E4. It is brilliant. (Thank God they didn’t call it Cardinal Demri-Burns though).

7-49 UP DVD

Posted on by

Arguably the best documentary series ever made for British television and certainly the longest running factual programme in the history of UK TV, The release of 7-49 Up is now out on DVD. The flagship ITV series about children from different social backgrounds made between 1964 and 2005 as they evolve through life will be available to buy on DVD for the first time in the UK in a 6-disc set,

The first instalment of 7-UP was broadcast in 1964 as a one-off World in Action special, featuring children talking about their hopes and dreams for the future. As members of the generation who would be running the country by the year 2000, what did they think they would become? Inspired by World In Action founder editor Tim Hewat’s passionate interest in both the Jesuit saying: “Give me the child until he is seven and I will show you the man,” and the rigid class system of 1960s Britain, Seven Up set out to discover whether or not the children’s lives were pre-determined by their background.

This forward thinking television show – the very first example of a programme recording real people living real lives – and the follow-up documentaries – have won an array of accolades and awards. Director Michael Apted, who has since moved to Hollywood to direct films, has returned every seven years to chart the children’s progress through life. Over the past five decades, the series has documented the group as they have become adults and entered middle-age, dealing with everything life has thrown at them in between.

 

Homeland Series Two Coming to Channel 4.

Posted on by

If you have just watched the last episode of Homeland, you may not have heard the continuity announcer declare afterwards that Channel 4 signed the rights to show season 2 as well. You may have been hiding behind the sofa, rocking backwards and forwards, sobbing softly at the unbearable tension of it all. And now you’ll have to go through it all over again.

So there we have it. The brilliant first season of Homeland is at an end, and what an end it was. Who saw THAT coming? Nick Brody is actually a CIA agent/alien/woman. Carrie Mathison is David Estes’ brother/imaginary friend/car. And Saul Berenson’s beard ended up being made of high explosive/cheese/bees. (Okay, I’m writing this before watching the last episode, because call me old-fashioned, but I like watching stuff on the telly when it actually transmits).

Speaking of watching it on the telly, the British viewing public, in their infinite wisdom, have been tuning in in droves. A consolidated weekly figure of over 4 million watched the show (including figures from the Monday repeat). That’s 4 million heads that are fried, eight million eyes that have popped, and 40 million fingernails chewed down to nothing (80 million if it’s a very flexible 4 million viewers and they are chewing their toenails too. Or chewing each others’ toenails).

I think, when we start talking about toenail chewing, we can probably leave it there, don’t you?

Bye then.

 

[thanks to Channel 4]