Live action from the Street

Channell Hopping
OF course, only two things are dominating television coverage in Ireland this week – Budget 2011 and Coronation Street. Now, at the time of writing, the live episode of Coronation Street has not been aired yet but the tram crash has just occurred and to say that people are awash with emotion is not an understatement.
Laughter at some of the acting is, of course, the overriding emotion but a genuine sense of shock and awe is lingering in the background. I only hope that students in ITs, colleges and universities gathered in their local watering hole to watch the event. These are the true moments in history, forget the budget and its doom and gloom. If you want harrowing, if you want real depression mixed with a healthy dose of drama then fix your eyes on Tyrone’s wife, clutching her clearly fake child by the arm and dragging it after her in an attempt to survive.
Also, watch the tram driver as he realises the unavoidable. This is high drama. Not since Gail’s millionth husband tried to drown them all by driving the car into a lake has so much adrenaline pumped through my veins. It has been years since we gathered in college to watch the drama of the car, the baddie and the woman with the largest hairdo known to the small screen plummet into the body of water and yet I remember it as well as any of my own dramatic experiences.
Yet here the producers of Coronation Street are doing it again, creating family memories and trivial pursuit questions for the decades to come. Of course, what happens next is anyone’s guess. Unless of course you have passed by the shelves of any newsagent this week where you are likely to find the words ‘shocker’, ‘horror’ and every name and scenario imaginable hashed out across Soap Weekly or whatever they call it.
Coronation Street may be 50 years old and it may attract some high profile names to endorse it in its newest series of advertisements on television but by and large, it is only playing catch-up to Eastenders. Despite the fact that Coronation Street is the lesser of two evils, the fact that a live episode has been done already takes from the glory of the Rovers Return and adds a little bit more lustre to the crown of the Queen Vic.
Of course, soap addicts and aficionados alike will deride my interpretation and call me snobbish but the fact is one can only call it as it is and hammy is the best way of describing tram-gate. Of course, even the dogs on the street are howling about the latest plot, so I guess I cannot fault it too much as any discourse that does not surround the IMF bailouts and cuts is very welcome indeed.
Far from the delights of Coronation Street there is another city. The city of London and in it live two rather dysfunctional men, who let us into the innermost workings of their mind on a regular, in fact, weekly basis. These two are inept in various ways, most outwardly in the ways of the heart, but they are exceedingly funny and thankfully have returned to our screens for some wonderful insights into the male perspective and how not to do things. What am I talking about? Why Peep Show, of course.
Fresh from the inky pens of David Mitchell and Robert Webb, the newest series of Peep Show has just begun on Channel 4. The show, which is told from the boys’ perspective, as though we were living in their brains, is wonderful. It has been consistently funny since it first began over three seasons ago. The secret to its success is not just in the acting and the chemistry of the crew or indeed the camera perspective, although they all have something to do with it. No, no, its genius lies in the fact that none of us ever say what we are really thinking and the clear understanding among most people that if others were able to hear our innermost thoughts and reflections, we would all be cited as being quite mad.
The newest series picked up directly where the last left off with Sophie having Mark’s baby and Jeremy getting over his broken heart. Mark’s inner monologue while dealing with the hospital officials, a screaming Sophie and a selfish Mark are hilarious. The very way in which he narrates his eventual escape from the pressures of the hospital are wonderful and it is hard not to think that he may have known someone who did something very similar himself.
Mitchell and Webb also star in their own sketch show; talk of which has graced the pages of this newspaper many times. They are perfect for a chalk and cheese oddball routine in that they even look amusing when standing together. David Mitchell reminds me of a caricature of an English teacher or a secondary higher-level maths teacher; not the teacher you want to get but the one that gets the higher class not because of teaching ability or mathematical prowess but because there are too many students. Webb looks like your drop-out cousin or friend’s older brother, who will invite himself along for drinks and manage to drink for free for the entire night by just looking gormless. A winning combination you agree.
The Peep Show series are usually quite short and this is also a winning trait. The point is made, the quips are passed and then it’s on to something else. Check out the remainder of the series on Channel 4 on Fridays at 10pm.
One to watch: The X-Factor final has come around again and since we have lost Mary from Dublin, it has to be ‘Go Niall from Mullingar’ and his incredibly happy head every week. Surly British rapping teen take note.