Television
Surreal success
Simon Hoggart
Goodness, just when we'd almost given up, along comes a terrific new sitcom. Black Books (Friday, Channel 4) reaches its third episode this week, and is getting bet- ter all the time. The star is Dylan Moran of How Do You Want Me? Now he is a socio- pathic bookseller, Bernard, whose door sign says 'Closed' on both sides. He loves books and hates people, a fact signalled by his wild eyes and manic hair. The arrival of The following sitcom was filmed before a live studio audience, which is why there's no laughter ' a customer hurls him into a frenzy of aggressive indifference. The only two peo- ple he can stand are his assistant Manny, a hirsute worry-wart who once tried to soothe himself by swallowing The Little Book Of Calm, and Fran, who owns the knick-knack shop next door. She is the only example of a stock television character, the gorgeous girl who can't find a man.
Black Books is written by Moran and Graham Linehan, who was one of the two writers on Father Ted, and like that much- missed series it is very surreal (Bernard is asked how dirty his flat is. 'Well, right now I'm eating scrambled-eggs with a comb from a shoe.' When the cleaner arrives, in an eau-de-nil suit, he smudges his finger by waving it through the air). Poor Fran is taken on a date by a hunk, not realising he's gay. 'Ooh,' she says, pointing vaguely at her chest, 'will you look at these, urn, breasts!'
Moran and Linehan have decided that nothing is too improbable. They can signal a joke and make it still funnier. When the prelude to episode three showed monks creating wine from grapes growing on a rosebush — `the legend is that they are fit for the Holy Father himself — you know Bernard is going to wind up drinking the bottle. The brilliance is having him try to re-make the wine from a pretentious oenophile's guide: 'vanilla essence — "well- oaked"; get me a stick.' I won't spoil the wonderful last gag.
Heroes of Comedy — Kenneth Williams (Channel 4) was shocking — to me, at least, because 20 years ago I interviewed him on an experimental BBC 2 chat show. He was dazzlingly funny, but I looked a total dork. There I was last Saturday, stupidly long hair, still brown, and ghastly horn-rimmed glasses. Luckily I was on for only a few sec- onds, though long enough for my poor teenage daughter to recoil in horror.
Panorama (BBC 1) may be headed for the graveyard of late Sunday night, but it's raging against the dying of the light. The programme on the Omagh bomb was quite superb. I'll confess to being a friend of the reporter, John Ware, but that only increas- es my admiration — I know the detailed care and the months of round-the-clock work he puts into every programme. If only Norman Foster made footbridges as metic- ulously as that. The reconstruction of the bombing was juxtaposed with the victims' relatives talking. It was heartbreaking and enraging; icy-spine time.
The Sopranos is back on Channel 4 on Thursdays. This is cult viewing, which means that very few people watch it, but those who do like it very much. I find myself resistant to lovable murderers, which is why I hated Pulp Fiction but liked Fargo immensely, because although it was just as violent it had a moral core. The Sopranos is different from most mob films in that the setting is essentially subur- ban. Some mobster who's planning to end some other mobster's life is interrupted by a wife's cry of 'cloan forget duh pastries, will ya, honey?' If they weren't gangsters they might as well be independent financial advisers, which some of them are, though judging by this week's episode they are liable to be kicked to within an inch of their lives if they give their clients the wrong (which is to say the right) indepen- dent financial advice. Really The Sopranos is soap opera with extreme violence. If you badmouth someone on Coronation Street they'll shout at you in the pub. Do the same in New Jersey and you get shot in the head twice, with the camera lingering lov- ingly over the blood splash on the wind- screen, because we are invited to enjoy the mayhem in detail. I wonder if the same approach might ginger up The Archers.
`Hey, Kenton, you talka my wife like that, you're set-aside. You gonna be sleepin' wid der swine fever piglets, you unnerstan' me? You dig?'
`Well, I do have access to a JCB, if that's what you mean . '
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