First on this tape, an episode of Mr Bean. It starts with Mr Bean in Room 426. I wonder if that’s an Aliens reference.
Michael Fenton Stevens makes a guest appearance.
Oh look, hotels with actual keys, how quaint.
Ah, hotel buffets.
A few years ago, while I still worked at the BBC, I was put on attachment to the iPlayer team, working on iPlayer for XBox 360, and the team was in Salford. I worked in London, live in Hertfordshire, so I had to travel up to Salford every Monday, work there for three days, then go back and work the rest of the week from home. So the BBC put me up in the hotel right next to the office I was working in.
The hotel supplied breakfast, so at first it was brilliant, as I could have a full English breakfast each morning. But I have discovered that I can, actually, get a bit sick of full English breakfasts. Something I had hitherto thought impossible.
This episode also features an appearance by Danny La Rue, which seems weird, as I always think of him as an early 70s performer, so to see him still working in the 90s seems almost anachronistic.
After this, a programme that’s part of a series of comedy pilots on Carlton called Comedy Playhouse. This is The 10%ers, and the reason I recorded it is that it was written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor, creators of Red Dwarf.
It features Denis Lill, better known as the creepy Charles in Survivors.
Also, Colin Stinson appears as one of the agents – familiar from A Very Peculiar Practice and new Doctor Who.
There’s a funeral scene, and although nobody falls into the grave, someone does drop a bunch of album covers in, so that almost counts.
One of the agency clients is a prominent actor, and he looked so familiar but I couldn’t quite place him. It’s Simon Oates, who played Dr John Ridge in Doomwatch.
It’s not a bad pilot. Extremely dark in places – death, suicide and stabbing all feature. It eventually ran two series.
After this, recording switches to BBC1 and an episode of Omnibus as part of its 25th anniversary. It’s West Side Story, which follows the process of recording the show, conducted, for the first time, by its composer Leonard Bernstein.
I have to say, not to detract from the genuine excellence of this programme, but as the singers enter, I am inevitably reminded of the superb French & Saunders sketch which parodied this exact documentary (and many subsequent ‘opera does musical’ projects it inspired). And while the music of West Side Story is sublime, that moment at the end of the sketch when we finally hear the piece they were rehearsing, and it’s “I should be so lucky” is a genuinely perfect musical moment, as well as being brilliant comedy. That might be one of my favourite sketches ever, and I think part of that is that I also genuinely love this documentary.
I do like the way it’s honest enough to present the performers as fallible. Jose Carreras is nervous about his role, a Spanish speaker playing an American, and worried about songs with a lot of words sung very fast. During rehearsal he struggles with a fast piece, and Bernstein does get quite grumpy with him.
In fact, I don’t really think Bernstein is being helpful, when they’re listening to playback in the booth, he’s sitting alongside Carreras, smoking away. I wonder if he was a bit of a bully.
OH WOW! Is Jose eating ice cream? “It’s for the throat, darling. Air conditioning is our enemy.” In fact, Kiri Te Kanawa does comment on the air conditioning wrecking her voice, but she’s far less pretentious than the F&S performers.
I love this bit, where Kiri Te Kanawa watches Carreras singing and just smiles because she’s enjoying him singing.
There’s a famous part, where Carreras is trying to get the song “Maria” right, he stumbles a bit, wants to go back but the session is over, and he looks very cross as he gets his stuff together and leaves the hall. Bernstein too looks exhausted and frustrated. This could easily be ‘diva behaviour’ but what I see in Carreras is a great performer who is, nevertheless, worried that he’s struggling to keep up. It looks like Impostor Syndrome to me, something I can fully empathise with.
In comparison, Kiri Te Kanawa is cool as a cucumber at all times.
BBC Genome: BBC One – 23rd February 1993 – 22:30
There’s a very tiny presentation gaffe at the end of this. The presenter starts doing a trail for the next Omnibus, but it’s still showing the Omnibus 25 title card. He then pauses, the picture switches to the title card for the next episode and he starts the blurb again.
There’s a trailer for The Detectives featuring a guest appearance from John Nettles.
Then there’s the start of What’s New Pussycat – wonderful titles, animated by Richard Williams.
The tape ends shortly into the film.