TV
preview
500 Bus Stops
BBCZ, Tue 24 Jun, 11.15pm.
If your idea of a night of fun in front of the cathode ray tube is laughing so hard that your sphincter implodes into bloody carnage, then John Shuttleworth's latest vehicle 500 Bus Stops may not tickle any part of your fancy. 'It's not side-splitting stuff,’ admits John's creator and body double Graham Fellows. ‘Sometimes in the stage shows people are laughing a lot but that’s an atmosphere you can build up. This is more like the radio show [The Shuttleworths] — it's a private thing. You watch it and get from it what you can. It's almost Last Of The Summer Wine in places. A family show.’
A family show about a Sheffield- based singer/ songwriter whose agent and neighbour, Ken Worthington, sets up a tour of libraries and community centres, and which nods forcibly at the on- the-road drug and groupie frenzy of Frank Zappa in 200 Motels.
‘It was supposed to be 501 bus stops but we got fed up and came home,’ confesses Shuttleworth. 'It was to tie-in with the darts, you see. I have heard this Frank Zappa allusion, and l don't like it at all. He's dead now, isn't he? Don't talk ill of the dead!
So who are the rock gods who have moulded the lifestyle and career of Yorkshire’s finest exponent of the Yamaha? 'Chris Rea, naturaHy,’ says Shuttleworth, followed by a long pause. ‘I think that's about it. Michael Ball, a little bit, though he's gone a bit foppish now being a pilot. He used to be a bit more together, physically.’ Right you are John.
Sterling physicality could have been invented for the cheesy organist whose career blossomed on the wireless, and was consolidated by exhaustive circuiting. From the tip of his slicked barnet to the toes of his grey
0n the buses: John Shuttleworth and his roll-neck sweater
slip-ons, Shuttleworth exudes a class and stature which only comes close to being ruffled by an incident which makes the antics of the Gallagher brothers seem small been
’Ken tried to create a situation by getting me on the bus without paying and ringing up the local press to cover the story,’ he recalls. ‘So I get on the bus without paying and he follows me with the camera and he thought the driver would say "eh, where you going?" and there’d be a confrontation. Fists flying and everything. Unfortunately, what Ken forgot is that when two people get on the bus it's automatically assumed that the second person is going to pay so I sat down and Ken had to pay.’ Wild, man. (Brian Donaldson)
2020 vision: Keith Barron and Liam Cunningham in the futuristic cop drama
Police 2020
gentrification,
and say, this is where we think we’re heading.’
Described as an ensemble piece, Police 2020 features Keith Barron as Longshaw, a crazed gunman who blames the new generation of immigrants for the TB epidemic which has devastated his family. Seeking revenge, Longshaw has taken Russmn hostages in a housing estate called Little Moscow. Tackling the situation are Irish cop, O' Connell (Liam Cunningham) and his rival for promotion, Muir (Rachel Davies).
Shot on location in Manchester and Sheffield, the one-off film is intended as a pilot for a new series. ’We thought we could say quite a lot about the country as a whole by
Scottish, Sun 22 Jun, 9pm.
Manchester, ZOZOAD. Britpop IS 30 years old. Sir Liam has retired to spend more time Wlih' his family; while Lord Noel lives in tax eXile in Monaco. The city is full of Russian emrgre’s, a Virulent new strain of TB is sweeping the land, police and health servrces are largely privatised, and Moss Side’s drug-riddled warzone has been swept away by a new phase of
That‘s the near-future Vision offered by Cracker scriptwriter Paul Abbott in Po/i'ce 2020, a new two-hour drama made by Granada on a chunky £12 million budget.
’lt's high-profile, it's set in the future and it made sense to spend the money and put it on the screen,’ says producer Joanna Gueritz, ‘The good thing about setting it twenty years in the future is that yOu can extrapolate from where we are at the moment
talking about Manchester,’ says Gueritz, whose preVious work includes Cold Comfort Farm and David Hayman’s psychological drama The Hawk, ’For instance, we’re saying there's a rising middle class of blacks who have come up in the world; while the new refugees from Eastern Europe are the ones who get all the stick.’ (Andrew Burnet)
PS: the bit about Liam and Noel is made up
preview TV
Fred MacAulay
BBC Radio Scotland, Mon-Thurs, 8.45am.
There is more riding on Fred MacAulay's new morning radio show than the affable presenter is willing to admit. For BBC Scotland, giving MacAulay this high-profile slot is part of a drive to revamp the station's image and attract a new audience. No fewer than eight shows are scheduled to start this month and, among the new voices, MacAulay, who steps into Tom Morton's slot. typifies best the station’s shifting priorities.
The former accountant, whose popularity as a stand-up comic has extended to regular guest appearances on TV shows They Think It's All Over, Have I Got News For You and Channel 5's Bring Me The Head Of Light Entertainment, steers a chat show with a gang feel where the stress is on fun rather than chewing the fat on topical news subjects.
Winning more female listeners is another target for the station but far from going all girly, MacAulay is determined to be his natural, laid- back self. 'Entertainment's the name of it,’ he says. 'There's no agenda about me being the boss, and everyone — whether here in Glasgow or by link-up from another studio - is perfectly at liberty to chip in.'
The first show on Monday 9 June got off to a smooth start with Mhairi Steven providing a cheeky TV review of ER and Murder One and Alistair McIntyre giving the lowdown on vintage jeans from a shop floor in London in ’Twentieth Century Icons'.
Diabolical diva Margarita Pracatan was given short shrift. Things got into gear, though, when MacAulay, comedian Mark Little, writer James Morton (whose latest book examines cat-burglars eluding the police) and Andrew Jack (a British accents coach for foreign actors), hit on the perfect nonsense subject: outdoor barbecues.
Comparisons with the zoo-style format pioneered by Steve Wright, and taken to the atom-splitting max by Chris Evans, are inevitable. But all indications suggest the show will make its mark without resorting to the mouthy clatter of the Ginger One, given good chemistry between MacAulay's inbred wit and the right mix of guests.
Getting the younger, hipper breed of radio listener in Scotland to
retune their dial is the real
it a, _ Fred MacAulay: breakfast 13—26 Jun 1997 ‘I’HELISTBS
with comedy