All entries for Wednesday 04 July 2007

Relief

I have to say I’ve never been so relieved to change a poxy bit of HTML.

After 114 days, I can drop the ‘Free Alan Johnston’ banner I had on my blog. I suspect I wasn’t the only journalist who pumped my fists with relief this morning.

It sounds like the experience was pretty traumatic, as you’d expect. I hope he gets some rest and is back on our screens when he’s ready for it.

: 04 Jul 2007 14:49 |  Tags: Alan Johnston BBC Gaza Journalism |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Am I bovvered, Doctor?

My initial reaction seemed to be from another TV comedy… “Are you havin’ a laugh?”

Catherine Tate’s bringing back her character Donna to be the full-time companion to Doctor Who. She was in the last Christmas special, and put in a performance that many people found slightly, well… annoying.

She screeched through most of it, and her character seemed to have been ripped straight out of her sketch show.

But having thought it over for a few hours, I’ve changed my mind. I think this could be genius casting.

Quite frankly, people were getting fed up with the Doctor/Companion having a bit of a romantic quandary, as witnessed with both Billie Piper and Freema Agyeman. Having an older character – who we know already doesn’t fancy the protagonist – will let the relationship be a bit more productive.

And, despite the vitriol you’ll read on the internet, Tate is actually a classically trained actress with some pretty serious roles behind her.

Russell T Davies, head honcho of Doctor Who, suggested in the past that Catherine Tate’s Donna was too annoying to be a permanent fixture in the series. I suspect this means he’s planning to tone her down.

So I’ll reserve judgement until the new series starts. But unless the character’s made a bit less ‘screechy’, viewers won’t be bovvered for much longer.

: 04 Jul 2007 14:34 |  Tags: BBC Catherine Tate Doctor Who Television |  Comments (4) |  Close comments |  Report a problem