Out of The Frying Pan, Into the Fire

 "Can you promise I will come back?" I asked.

 "No", replied a grave Ian McKellen "And if you do, you shall not be the same". I bid farewell to my humble surroundings and set off for the much anticipated first instalment of The Hobbit trilogy.

 Much has been made of the fact that the Hobbit will be split into three films - universal opinion suggests that this is a mistake, not least because the Hobbit is around a third as long as the first Lord of the Rings book - which alone made for one movie 'episode' the last time that Peter Jackson took Tolkein to the cinema.

 It's good that Jackson has the reins on this one again - he clearly has a very dear love for Middle Earth - although he might have grown a little tired of it and if his other 'blockbusters' are anything to go by (King Kong, featuring an ice-skating gorilla with mother issues) and The Lovely Bones (about some dead bird and featuring similar pap throughout to that seen in the gorilla ice-skating scene of King Kong) then Peter Jackson might just have lost his touch. The Lord of the Rings was clearly a labour of love, whilst audiences can't escape the feeling that by splitting The Hobbit into three films, there is already less love in the film and more of a desire to make a little extra doe-rae-mee; let's face it, whatever I say in this review, I'm seeing the next two Hobbit films.

 What do I say in this review? As Tolkein often wrote within the text of the Hobbit "poor old Bilbo Baggins..." - for the Hobbit himself is really the only redeeming factor in a film that lacks love, aim or development - which rather seem vital to a quest narrative don't they?As anticipated, Martin Freeman makes for an excellent Bilbo Baggins.

Aw shit!

 Masterful at playing any role that requires him to be the 'quintessential Englishman', Freeman has the perfectly mild manner & gentle spirit that one might expect from the home-bug Bilbo Baggins. It is a shame then that for a film called "The Hobbit", there is very little of 'the hobbit', in this three hour film.

 The problem with The Hobbit, is that it suffers from 'Jar-Jar Binks Syndrome'. Where Star Wars IV, V & VI were of galaxy-wide importance, full of likeable characters with depth and… actually, if you think about it, Star Wars was pretty terrible, but also, it was great - and then on the delivery of Episode I, the excitement was replaced with a film rife with moments of needless wackiness, courtesy of Jar-Jar Binks, that undermined the rest of the entire storyline, both within the film itself and in regards to the canon. In much the same way, twelve dwarves make for a series of wacky cartoon figures, whose depth of character stretches only to singular personality quirks, voices & sayings. But, in the film's defence, this was never about dwarves, it was about a Hobbit, taken away from everything he knows. So why focus so consistently on these twelve "characters" - I know Dwarves live under-ground, but shallow doesn't even cover it. A Dwarven hymn, does not count as depth of character or motivation, for any of them. Making one fat, one silly, one a joker - it just doesn't cut it, it's not good enough - I started looking around for Doc & Grumpy. I half expected them to starting singing "Hi-Ho" as they left Bag End.

"Wait, which one are you? Oh forget it, what's the difference.."

 This lazy character design, is further magnified in the supporting cast and all those word things that they say, words that seemed to be trying to masquerade as dialogue. Set amongst the dwarves were characters like 'the albino Orc', 'the aristocratic Goblin King' & 'the wacky wizard'! Were these characters invented by rolling 'character dice'? Roll one: it comes up with "Albino"... second dice: it comes up with "Orc" - well gang, there's our antagonist!

 And antagonist he is! Covered in scars, seemingly dead but also, shock horror, NOT actually dead and with a hatred of the dwarves based in absolutely nothing, the Albino Orc (whose name I forget and who I swear is not actually in The Hobbit text) makes your standard James Bond villain look vivid and interesting.

 Meanwhile, the wacky wizard was a being a hoot nearer the beginning of the film. Boy howdy, was he ever a hoot! Aesthetically well designed, the costume department and artists did a great job with creating the fairly minor Radagast the Brown...but would he truly be quite as mad and loony as they made him out to be? Would he really have named a hedgehog Sebastian? Would he be able to fight off a necromancer, but also be covered in bird-shit? And why the constant hints at him smoking 'Old Toby' and eating 'mushrooms' - yes, hilarious, he's a hippy - well done Peter Jackson, for weaving a stoned hippy into the fabric of The Hobbit, how creative!

 And he was a real whack-job old Radagast! This is a guy who offers to save the group from the onslaught of those Warg-rider type fellows; great, you think! Rather than leading the enemy away from the party however, he insists on circling them on his sled! Round and a round he went, forcing the dwarves to keep halting and checking their escape - just fuck off Radagast! That doesn't count as 'leading them off', because you're staying in the same place, you great tit. Incidentally, he has probably conversed with a few great tits in his time and perhaps they would have offered a more plausible inclusion than some of the other characters. Here's a side-note, Radagast just fucking disappears! No goodbye, no discovery of his fate, the camera just stops following his progress. He zooms behind a rock and then the film grows as bored of him as we quickly were and we never hear from the bloke again. Brilliant.

 We do hear from the Goblin King though! Oh Goblin King. Oooh, Goblin King. He looked cool didn't he? Well animated. Good design. Another cartoon character with little reality though... again. The Lord of the Rings leant a reality to all of the characters, throughout - they were all people with their own wants and their own fears and appeared to be part of their world - and as such, it was entirely immersive, which is why we all cared so much about the outcome and why when, in the first film, the entire cinema I was in applauded when Aragorn chopped of Lurtz's head. Brilliant.

 Whereas no applause was heard during The Hobbit. The Goblin King is symptomatic of The Hobbit's problems. He was just, stupid; an "okey-day" short of being Jar-Jar Binks. Barry Humphries is a fantastic voice actor and it's a great pleasure to listen to him playing the part of the Great Goblin... but he was perhaps a too theatrical choice of actor for the role (although it must be said that he can only read the lines he was given).

 And what lines! Let's get straight to the best example! Just short of their escape from the goblin kingdom, BOOM, the Goblin King lands right in our heroes path. "So" says the Goblin King to Gandalf "What are you going to do now, wizard?" - at which point Gandalf slits his throat and cuts his belly "That'll do it" says the Goblin King, before falling dead and breaking the bridge they stand on.

 Sorry, are we meant to believe that Tolkein thought to himself as he was penning his fantasy classic "now, what would this great goblin say as he died - ah! I know" he thought with some satisfaction, putting pen to paper "he'd come out with a witty quip, worthy of films not yet made in my lifetime and rife with comic wackiness." Oh how I bet Tolkein laughed and laughed to himself. What larks!

 Such lines were prevalent throughout the Hobbit and have no place in the Middle-Earth catalogue, whatsoever. It's not how the film was marketed and it's not how the previous Lord of the Rings films were made or presented.

 And if it's not ridiculous, uninspired lines of that nature, it was stuff that was beyond cliche. I counted three times in There & Back Again when a character wailed the following:-

 "Nooooooooooooo!"

 Brilliant. Really? Really Peter Jackson? A long pained no? Not once, but on three separate occasions. Carrying on the story (or starting it) of one of the most popular trilogies of all time and that was the best way you could come up with to express woe in your characters. Excellent, let's get you an oscar. Thorin Oakenshield, a wholly dislikable fellow, is guilty of two of the "Nos" and while he is one of the characters with the most easily understandable motivations for this journey, he is also part of one of the most typical movie developments - "I do not trust this Hobbit"... "I do not trust this Hobbit"... "I do not trust this Hobbit"... "Now I trust this Hobbit" - have a second oscar, Peter Jackson, you Hollywood idiot.

 No, wait, make that three, because if you like exposition, you'll love the Hobbit. Nothing was left to chance and everything was explained for the audience about species, places, why who was going where, all explained to one another, but with one eye on those idiots watching the screen, you and me. Not that those reasons were much cop, but it was like having little pop-ups at the bottom of the film, little info-boxes that came up whenever something was said:- " i: in Middle-Earth, Dwarves & Elves do not always get along" - that wasn't actually one, I've just forgotten all my examples.

 Not unlike how I forgot what New Zealand looks like. Famously the setting for all things Middle-Earth, New Zealand disappears during The Hobbit. Much is made of the fabulous, sweeping landscapes in Lord of the Rings and much was also made of the speed of the filming or something... like, inside the camera, it was faster or something - I didn't notice any difference, but who could, almost every, single, thing, was CGI. There was constant CGI and the film suffered from the same thing that made the Tintin film so terrible, that is, it was a constant series of set-pieces that made you wonder where your xbox controller had gone because you were surely in the middle of playing a video-game.

 This wasn't an unpleasant film. It was fine, sort of and it was kind of fun - but other films are more fun, more of a romp, because that's what they're setting out to do from the off. The Hobbit has a responsibility to address the expectations of an audience who have enthusiastically consumed The Lord of the Rings films and Tolkein's written work, none of which, is particularly comic or wacky. It is artistic, poetic, epic... none of which the The Hobbit is.

 The film spends three hours trying to establish why Bilbo Baggins runs out that door and it happens at the very end. Because he has a home and they don't. Well yes but surely you must have felt that way when you left, otherwise, why go? Ah yes, exposition, sorry, Gandalf explained to us that you were an exciting youth! Bollocks, shut up, don't give me that - what's the old creative writing saying that they hammer into writers? Show, don't tell. And we got an awful lot of telling in this film.

 The point of The Hobbit, was missed. This was a quite fun and I will greedily watch this film in a few years time, when it receives it's network premiere on Channel 4 - which is where this film belongs. Perhaps it was the new filming technique, perhaps the excessive light-heartedness and hammy dramatics, but The Hobbit, minus it's excessive CGI, suits the realm of television, far more than that of the cinema. Cinema has a much greater responsibility to serve fans of any franchise and residents of Middle-Earth will cringe at the way in which the trolls are dealt with and the fact that Gollum claims to have nine teeth instead of the six he has in the book.

 What does Bilbo Baggins get out of all of this in the end? Nothing, about as much as the audience itself. Martin Freeman is a real delight as Bilbo, he really is and naturally the scene with he and Gollum was quite enjoyable (although predictably, Gollums wackier, more schizophrenic side was played up a lot more in this film). The moment when Bilbo spares Gollum was great I thought, calling back as it did to Gandalf's conversation with Frodo in Moria during The Fellowship of the Ring. And perhaps I am being unkind - it is possible that this new trilogy has been made for a younger audience, new to this 'franchise' and they need it to be accessible in the ways that this film is - but everyone else with half a love of Middle-Earth will come away feeling disappointed and a little bit betrayed. Indeed, it is symptomatic of the film's problems that I have had to refer to it as a 'franchise'. It is held so dearly by so many people and is so widely influential, that it should not be treated as a franchise in any way and unfortunately, The Hobbit has been made lazily and with much less love than it deserves. To split it into three films, is indicative of the shallow, money-making motivations, with which the films have been made instead. Not unlike these:

One of the producers.

...OH, and those fucking eagles saved the fucking day again didn't they! I suppose in the last film it'll turn out that all of this was one of Radagasts hallucinations. That'll be the final 'up-yours' to the audience won't it. God we're idiots.

Hotel GB? More like HELL-TEL GB! Am I right!? No? Oh fine.

"A staggering one in five Brits are unemployed" gargles Paddy McGuiness, who probably can't believe his luck to have landed this gig after hosting Take Me Out for the last few years over on ITV. And frankly he was the best candidate, because in Take Me Out he was subjected to hundreds of women covered in plastic...well, not covered, what they were covered in, was leather and cheap lace, the plastic had been injected into their lips & boobs. And the specialist managers at Hotel GB are largely the same. They are ridiculous, fake characters who y'all will recognise from all of your favourite and also vapid Channel 4 shows! Fashion, food, health, etc - the grizzly fat of the glossy magazine, it's all here! Channel 4 don't miss a trick and they were clever (or, is that cynical?) to grab at the olympics home-team brand suffix, "GB" and gaffer-tape it onto the end of the word 'Hotel'. Hotel GB? Remember the summer? Good, now watch this.

"The first thing I'm looking for, is hunger" says Gordon Ramsey in his introduction, a chef by trade, so of course he's looking for hunger, without it he'd have no business, the crinkly faced tit.

 A hell of a lot is at stake at Hotel GB. In fact there is almost as much at stake as there is riffy guitar music throughout. Almost constantly.
 First off, all of the employees are unemployed & fairly yooful.  In classic Channel 4, ITV form, Hotel GB wastes no time in establishing the 'dramas', the 'heartfelt-stories', the 'HUMAN INTEREST' and we realise that these people have backgrounds of all things! Arrested, alcoholics, embarrassingly & socially inept! Hot-dog, entertainment in a bottle!
 And so in addition, for the unemployed turned employed, there is a permanent position with Gordon Ramsey and Mary Portas for the lucky winners! Although at no point has the prospect of an actual 'competition' been introduced, by the concept of a winner has. I smell a vote. And nail-biting, lots of nail-biting. But hopefully not from the Hotel GB employees, because that'll lose their job! Maybe? What are the rules? Who knows.

 What I do find funny is that Gordon Ramsey is in the kitchen, Mary Portas is a retail-marketer or something and it makes sense to have her running a business. And so, naturally, Gok Wan, well-known fashion guru is also there to...run the bar and mix cocktails. Ah. Of course. The master.

 As a recent graduate of being a yoof myself, I found myself having some personal investment in the fortunes of these young employees. Not a lot, but certainly some. So it was rather horrible to have to watch these poor kiddos completely freeze up in everything they did. I could relate. It was cringey, it was certainly that. And with all the cameras everywhere, there was more than a little 'Big Brother' in all of this.

 As that point, I wanted someone to tell Paddy McGuiness to stand-still and stop taking his fifth walking tour of the hotel. He's not the best person to choose as a narrator. "It's MARY Portas, Paddy, MARY Portas, not Muuurie Portas"

 Phil Spencer pops up half-way through the programme, "a porperty guru", Paddy tells us, pronouncing guru correctly and also just like the name Mary. As a property guru, Phil Spencer was of course the ideal candidate to...be front of house? Hm. Actually that's quite a good joke. Touche Channel 4. It genuinely was a nice touch to throw a well-known face into an environment that he, like the new employees, had little experience of. Gordon thought he was rubbish, which invited Paddy McGuiness to go with a joke, that for me, was quite worthy of repeating here: "Stephen's SHIT!? That's a bit harsh isn't it? I'd like to see Ramsey get rid of a semi in Bolton!...and God knows I've tried"

 I have to say, that the whole programme made me sick and nervous. In...a good way? We've all seen Hells Kitchen & Big Brother & X-Factor and all that stuff, but  this was so much more relevant in the way that the show chose to use unemployed & essentially young 'contestants'. And if it wasn't making me sick it was boring the pants off of me because despite the different sections of the hotel being run, it's actually a rather dull programme, because working in a hotel, is dull, isn't it? That's just a fact. Why not make a show where Heston Blumenthal tries to work in a Little Chef? What's that? Oh. Someone just told me they did that a few years ago. Excellent.

 As such, I somehow don't see me returning to this programme. I don't care how it turns out. EVERYONE is unemployed, not just these eight berks. The reason that it will be hard to care about this show over a long period of weeks, is that their experiences are a small drop in the ocean. So is all television of course, but this is explicitly a drop in the ocean, focusing on a topic dat is wicked prominent right now. But of course then we have Kim Woodburn straddling Doctor Christian Jessen; are we supposed to care and take this seriously or am I supposed to be enjoying these wacky, wacky characters? Who knows? I guess I'm fired. At least when I'm on the dole I know how to take it...I'm supposed to enjoy the wackiness right? In short, Hotel GB is fine, it's ok......but I have my reservations!

Boom-boom.

The Comedy World Cup

 The Comedy World Cup, illustrated many top line comedians during the trailer that was run for it; Bill Bailey, Sean Lock, erm...good ones, anyway, they got turned into little animations and zoomed around the screen. And even upon airing, the introduction put on show many loved British sitcoms. So as we can see, it's not entirely unlike the actual build up to a football world cup, wherein the excitable media coverage shoves intoxicating hope up all of our collective noses, before late, the teams actions on the pitch, encourage us all to angrily sneeze it out and get nose-bleeds.

 This underwhelming failure in the face of something that looked to be jam-packed full of success, will not be unfamiliar to England fans. But for those who do not follow the national football team, fear not, because there is The Comedy World Cup.

 The opening 'episode' of The Comedy World Cup, is about as thrilling as a qualification group, Jo Brand, Dave Spikey and Shappi Khorsandi representing Andorra down one end, whilst Jason Manford, Nicholas Parsons and Paul Chowdhry, represent San Marino down the other. If you recognise all six of these comedians, you win a prize. I have not prepared a prize, because no one will earn said prize, so please do not enter as calls may still be charged.

David Tennant showing off his acting skills. They call this the 'resigned to his fate', look.

 I would rather not go in to criticising the comedians individually (although I will say the sooner this country produces a good female comedian, the better! I am sick of seeing Khorsandi & Brand in particular, get pushed through the door every week for being female, as opposed to actually funny - whilst I have no doubt that some excellent female comedians are out there somewhere waiting to be picked up). But this is not an A List. Can a programme be criticised for that? Yes, if it markets itself as having an A List, which The Comedy World Cup did. If it had advertised itself as The Comedy League Cup, I might have left it alone.

 The premise is simple; a quiz show, where the questions are all about comedy. This is communicated via several clips of what are genuinely funny comedy moments and stand-up clips. But it's not produced by the show, it's just being exhibited for the purpose of point-gaining amongst low-standard comedians. Channel 4 is also the channel that brought you Rude Tube, the programme that makes you watch YouTube on television - meanwhile no one has seemed to grasp that YouTube is actually You've Been Framed in disguise, but for some reason watching Rude Tube is cool, because it's hosted by Alex Zane.

 Likewise, quite apart from tagging this weak show with the mass-appeal of being a 'world cup', it is also fronted by Doctor Who a.k.a David Tennant a.k.a Hamlet, who was recently voted the most likeable person in the entire channel 4 studio! So, we have lads who like the idea of a world cup, fat girls who think David Tennant will love them for who they are - I smell a hit.

 I'm wrong though. David Tennant looks completely out of place (despite his being the funniest person on it) and struggles to add some much needed energy to a very slow quiz show. This programme is designed to generate disinterest. The studio basked in dull red light of the kind you see when you rub your eyes very hard (which I did a lot during the run time, mostly out of disbelief & exhaustion). In addition, when you are showing clips of things like 'Allo 'Allo and Sean Lock's stand-up at the Apollo, its very unfair (and stupid) to show the audience the far superior quality of comedy that they could be watching. On Gold. Or Dave. It's like eating in Pizza Hut, taking a window seat and being given a tantalising glimpse into the Pizza Express opposite. At which point you look down at your food and realise how bad stuffed crust is.

 It's a shame really; like stuffed crust pizza, the show is not entirely a bad concept. I took some small pleasure in being able to answer the questions at lightning quick speed (spotting a scene from Annie Hall, completing lines from Areoplane) and I imagine those older than myself might enjoy the brief moments of nostalgia in seeing long dead comedy clips from failed sitcoms of their greater youth.

 But the show is half an hour too long and as if it wasnt dull enough, it drags on like an episode of Lost. It seems very regrettable that even with the charming David Tennant at the helm (although charm is very often being another word for 'bland' in television), that the entire show is bereft of any chemistry whatsoever. It has less chemistry than a...than a...than a monkey in a suit! Hm. I guess it must be hard to be funny.

 I was reminded by a friend that Shane Allen (Head of Comedy at CH4) recently defected from Channel 4 to the BBC. I smell sabotage. The Comedy World Cup is the bomb that he has left in order to sink the ship, whilst he makes his getaway in the dingy.

 For a good comedy quiz, I suggest sticking with QI XL. Or for a good sitcom, turn to The Thick Of It. Both follow The Comedy World Cup. On the BBC. Not that I'm bias; the BBC is also responsible for Mrs. Browns Boys and the Miranda Show. In fact, fuck it, go and read a book, stupid.