TcV His Life In Pieces

Children's Telly is sometimes spoilt on the children.

I have been off sick most of the week and I haven't watched too much actual telly. But I caught a fragment of a CBBC programme Hedz and I was very impressed. It has actors with huge cardboard cutout heads on their heads. they do satirical sketches that are incredibly well done, I hope they would do a grown up version as the sketches were better than ITV's Headcases.

I said not much actual telly, this is because I recently bought The Beiderbecke Trilogy on DVD; it has all three Beiderbecke series from 1980s, an earlier series called Get Lost, written by same Jarrow born writer (Alan Plater). I have watched most of thess excellent serials. It is amazing just how much Britain has changed in the past few years.

In the same consignment I received Shõgun, which is incredible even now.

6 Weeks ago, sorry for the slight delay, I had the good fortune to see Richard Herring's Headmaster's Son at the Tyne Theatre. I liked it a lot, I must declare that I do quite regularly read his non-blog blog warming up. It was his final practice show before taking it up to Edinburgh.

It was blasphemous, Jesus's ascent to heaven on coloured arse gases. Touching, reading out sections of his teenage diary and a discussion / arguement with his 16 year old self. Confessional, He confesses about spying on his sister's friend. But very funny. I got to meet him after the show and he was pleasant friendly and funny.

He has featured in the news recently because he wrote disparaging remarks about IF awarding the spirit of the fringe award to all of the comedians (putting on a free bar the day after the fringe had finished for those lucky winners). And he had also broken an audience member's mobile phone during a show, that Lee Hurst went on to repeat recently.

The day after Richard Herring I was indeed fortunate to catch the incredibly talented Martha Wainwright, coming from the incredibly talented family, Rufus is her brother and Loudan wainwright III is her dad.

She did mostly do stuff from I Know your married, but also did some of her "hits" from her eponymous debut album. Boy can she sing. The show ends with her in full on torch singer mode with Smoke gets in your eyes. 10 out of 10.

She did disappoint some by not coming out to meet the fans after the show as her supporting act Dawn Landes had earlier. I wasn't too bothered as I have met Martha before after her Carling Academy show where I found her to be charming.