The Great Outdoors, by longtime writing partners Andy Riley and Kevin Cecil, is a new comedy series getting a trial airing on BBC Four as part of the digital network’s The Call Of The Wild season, a celebration of the loopy British love affair with the countryside – whatever the weather.
A brief synopsis of The Great Outdoors reveals a simple premise. Each episode, we follow a walking club, headed by recently divorced Bob, along a different scenic rural route. Each member of the raggle- taggle band of misfits is there for his or her own reasons but none of them, bar new-to-the-area walking superfan Christine, is really enjoying it very much.
The Great Outdoors is laugh-track free, which is an eminently good choice for an comedy set predominantly on the public thoroughfares of rural England. A sudden eruption of alien laughter after some picturesque tramping through the woods would be inappropriate and disruptive.
This is a gentle sort of comedy anyway, and one that is not likely to provoke the sort of belly laughs, guffaws and fnaars common to the cabin-fever atmosphere of a studio audience. With no great plot to speak of - there are a few set-piece incidents along the walking route - we are mainly listening in on the interactions of the six or seven main characters, and so the show relies on a strong, subtle script and some good ensemble acting from a troupe of familiar names and faces from British comedy.
You will know Katherine Parkinson (as frazzled and frustrated candle entrepreneur Sophie) from Graham Linehan’s IT Crowd, Steve Edge (as burly, simple and sweet-natured deadbeat Tom) of Phoenix Nights and Star Stories and possibly Joe Tracini (as shambling lovesick student Victor).
Tracini is actually very charming in this, barely recognisable as the obnoxious child he plays in godawful BBC Three yoof-sex-shouting comedy Coming of Age. To me, his nervous, hopeful cusp of manhood turn in The Great Outdoors is a good marker of the superior quality of the show.
Victor and his love interest, the very adorable, slightly feisty Gwyneth Keyworth as Hazel, are young people that you might actually meet- a bit confused, desperate and constantly in love - rather than a gaudy ‘Coming of Age’ style reflection of da kidz and hoodies that the papers insist on.
It’s also a good yardstick for the tone of the show; The Great Outdoors doesn’t have a lot of bite, bile or venom. It is not mean, nasty, loud or controversial. It is perhaps a little overly warm and comfortable, a little bit too polite and middle-class. This is BBC Four though.
The casting masterstroke of TGO is in its twin lead actors. Ruth Jones (Gavin & Stacey, Nighty Night) and Mark Heap (Spaced, Green Wing) are both terrific.
Jones plays Christine, an experienced walker who has moved to the area and wants to make new friends. This character is a world away from her scenery-chomping turn as boozy, foulmouthed gargoylian sex assassin Nessa, and it is a credit to Jones that she is so believable at the opposite end of the spectrum. Here she is uptight and straitlaced to the point of dullness, and though the character shares a coldness with Nessa, Christine is crying out for someone to bring warmth into her life. Jones does a fine job making a empathetic lead out of a potentially obnoxious rambling bore.
Christine’s arrival, and her attempt to usurp him as leader of the walking club, threatens to push Mark Heap’s Bob character over the edge. We’ve seen Heap play hyperbolic eccentrism and the cartoonish madness of an outsider artist before, but with Bob you really get the feeling of a human being on the point of collapse - the walking club is the final prop holding his life upright and it is slipping away.
After two episodes the characters are evolving, back-stories are starting to fill out and The Great Outdoors is becoming quite compelling. Though more good, honest storytelling than riotous laugh-fest, this slowburning comedy will leave you feeling good and optimistic without making you feel like you’ve freebased a packet of parma violets and taken a sherbet suppository.
Rating: 
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Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)
Category TV and Film |
- Sandwich nuns: manly
It is a popular maxim that a camel is a horse designed by committee; the point basically being that the purity of the design is lost, and the idea becomes distorted and diluted by the various and varying opinions and egos involved in the decision making process.
On the other hand, a paella sandwich is a butty designed by the staff of middle-of-the-road tabloid rag, the Daily Mirror.
Following the surprise success of the Mirror's suggestion of a lasagne sandwich, Tesco have taken a leap with a limited edition run of Spanish paella sandwiches. Each sandwich comes with an Oprah's book club style sticker of endorsement. If you can't decide what to eat or read for yourself why not let a low rent, vaguely left leaning red top choose for you. Mmmm...that's some delicious cross promotion.
In a box emblazoned with the yellow and red of the Spanish national flag, and for an introductory price of £2, you get a paella-lite mix of prawn, chicken and chorizo and dried tomato bread. This in itself would have probably been a fairly decent sandwich but, in order to fufill its paella brief, there is a unsettling additional layer of flavour- an mixture of turmeric flavoured rice and a bland, ketchupy tomato sauce.
Texturally, rice is an odd thing to find on your sandwich and the rice brought very little in terms of flavour, contributing mainly to the sensation of a sandwich of leftovers that you'd knock up in a rush on a hungover Friday morning.
The other ingredients were clearly not cooked as part of a cohesive paella dish. The chicken was pristine white and the chorizo was uncooked. The sliced chorizo sausage was absolutely the dominant flavour, totally overwhelming everything else.
The prawns were large and plentiful but again did not really taste of anything. They were just cold and firm to the bite.
The sundried tomato bread was probably the best bit of the whole sandwich and if used to house more suitable ingredients, would be a great base for a lunchtime treat.
The Tesco Limited edition Spanish paella sandwich was a sickly disappointment which hung around uncomfortably for several hours after the eating. I won't be trying the Italian lasagne version, no matter how many beguiling stickers, colours and slogans they slap on the packaging.
Rating:
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Rating: 0.0/5 (0 votes cast)
Category Food and Drink, Shopping |
Brandon Thomas’ historic farce Charley’s Aunt (first performed in 1892) is generally excellently received by audiences, and this was certainly the case when I caught it at the Manchester Royal Exchange Theatre recently.
This time directed by Braham Murray, the play was a huge hit at the Royal Exchange. Too much of a hit, in fact, as the braying donkey of a woman sitting nearby - laughing disproportionately loudly and hysterically at every facial expression on stage – threatened to ruin the entire experience for me.
This perhaps hints at the first and main problem I had with this interpretation of Charley’s Aunt. By nature, farce is silly, good-natured slapstick buffoonery, but there should also an element of wit and clever verbal trickery. It was a combination of both physical and verbal good fun I was expecting from Charley’s Aunt, but the balance really wasn’t there. For me the failures of the play highlighted the difference between farce and pantomime, and the crucial importance of this difference.
- Oliver Gomm as Charley's Aunt
The star of the show was undoubtedly up-and-comer Oliver Gomm as the cross-dressing imposter posing as Charley’s aunt. He started off amazingly well, with an unpredictable, free-spirited performance encompassing impeccable comedy timing and physicality. He even managed to jump headfirst into his dress in one swift move...impressive.
However, my pleasure at the aunt’s antics suddenly transformed into frustration and, I have to admit, disappointment, mid-way through the second of three bitesize acts. Simply put, Gomm’s performance became far too self-indulgent and tired; he was permitted to run too wild.
Even the critically acclaimed ‘piano scene’, which has been described as a hilarious ‘bit of extended business with a piano’, disappointed. I didn’t laugh once, but instead suffered with a sinking feeling made worse by a cackling audience who would have laughed at anything at that point. Charley’s Aunt appeals to the majority anyway, but Gomm was very much playing for cheap laughs by the end.
I think the problem was that as a spectator, you want to lose yourself in the silliness of a farce, but I really couldn’t relax into it. I fear I may have let my problems with fellow audience members spoil the experience for me, but there were other magic-shatterers such as the hysterical and far-too-modern “Oh, Mr Darcy!” that Gomm screams on stage.
On a more positive note, the supporting cast were superb and the costumes and sets– designed by Johanna Bryant – were opulent and stunning. Against this backdrop – into which a lot of effort has clearly gone - the buffoonery seemed too low and at odds with the setting.
I could go to a Christmas pantomime if I wanted to see a man in a dress blowing raspberries at a piano, whereas I’d pop on something like the exceptional P.G. Wodehouse TV adaptation of Jeeves And Wooster
if I wanted high quality farce.
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Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)
Category Manchester, Theatre |
Pinch Hitter 3 is, as the name suggests, the third installment of Mousebreaker.com's cutesy-looking baseball sim.
Though much the same in terms of the mechanics of the game, this baseball threequel is a definite evolution for the series. The first two Pinch Hitter games were mission based, so you had to complete a set goal within a limited number of pitches - hit a home run, score a set number of points, get x number of consecutive hits and that sort of thing - before you could advance to harder levels and bigger stadiums.
Pinch Hitter 3 keeps the animations, the stadiums and the game physics, but scraps the missions and instead takes its cues from one of Mousebreaker's best and most succesful sports sims, Jumpers for Goalposts.
Jumpers for Goalposts sees you carve out a career as footballer, moving from a kickabout in the park with your mates to the stratosphere of the Premier League and possible international glory, all with a few well-timed clicks. Pinch Hitter nicks this career aspect wholesale; like J4G you get 10 years to prove yourself and to accumulate as much money as possible. Unfortunately, there is none of the cheeky humour of Jumpers... which saw you wine, dine and ditch a series of girlfriends and get in the papers for a fistfight in a pub car park; your success in Pinch Hitter is very much based on your individual performance on the field.
- It's a hit!! Pinch Hitter 3
In this way, PH3 is true to life, for there are few sports more obsessed with statistics. Rack up the RBI and home runs and keep your batting average (hits ÷ at bats) high and you'll be rewarded with contracts offers from better teams who are willing to pay you more money.
Your agent will negotiate you a contract every year, and you'll have two to choose from.
It's a big decision too. Do you take the big money and try and carry a weaker team? Or do you join a bigger team, take a salary cut and hope your win bonus makes up for the shortfall? It's definitely easier to win if you earn a contract with one of the more prestigious franchises as you benefit from your teammates' superior pitching and run support.
Ultimately, playing for a better team will help keep your batting average up too, because you won't be in so many high pressure situations and have to hit for power so often; just get the ball in play and put another layer of win on your stat sandwich. This approach will pay off later in your career too; if you keep your batting average up in your formative years playing pee-wee and minor league baseball it will be easier to attract the best and richest franchises when you're old enough to enjoy the trappings of your steroid-addled fame.
The switch of emphasis in PH3 to a career mode has meant a rejig of the gameplay too. As you're now part of a team, facing off against teams full of other little roundheaded baseballists, you will find yourself playing some defence (deeeeefence to our North American friends).
If the opposition batter hits a flyball or a line-drive in your direction you are presented with a button marked "Catch It!!" By judging the height, depth and power of the hit, positioning your outfielder and clicking at the proper time, you can deny the opposition a base hit.
This feature does much to connect you to the gameplay and to your team's season - it's not just about you and how the hits stack up, you're doing it for Big Bill, Juiced-up Johnno and the rest of your anabolically enhanced 9 year old friends.
The catching system is a bit hit and miss, and can be a bit frustrating. Sometimes you'll catch everything, and other times - despite no discernible difference in your technique- the ball will zip right past and be behind you faster (but less racistly) than Mel Gibson's career. A misfield doesn't always cost you, and you can't qualify for a golden glove or anything like that, but nobody wants an error next to their name, do they?
- Slides rule: Running is new to PH3
But wait, Pinch Hitter 3 is a triple threat, for there is a third element to the gameplay. While batting - simple enough: position your batter, the height of your bat and time a click to swing at the pitch - you might mistime your swing and duff the ball into the turf. Normally this sort of infield groundball would mean curtains for you, but PH3 gives you something of a reprieve.
By clicking rhythmically (once a second) on an all-new running subgame, you get the chance to beat out the throw and steal a hit by sprinting to first base.
If if seems a lot to master three skill sets then fear not, because you can practice on special training screens at any time between games, and for as long as you like. This is most crucial in learning how to swing at different pitches, so that your batter can hit the long ball for game-winning home runs and stand-up doubles.
Pinch Hitter 3 is very intuitive, and perfectly for an online flash game you can pick up and play instantly without being scared off by the difficulty. There is a gentle learning curve so you familiarise yourself with the simple controls and the quirks of the game engine before the difficulty gets amped up and you find yourself genuinely caring about your seemingly irretrievable death-dive of a batting slump.
The game data is stored on your local drive so you can play in short bursts and come back to a half-finished season or career, a really nice feature which means you can play over a series of evenings or lunchtimes.
Easy to play and nice to look at with its cartoony graphics, Pinch Hitter 3 is a 'nearly there' sort of free online game. It does have replayability and longevity, but the focus on pure stats means that it doesn't quite have the heart to make it a winner. Pinch Hitter 3 is the Conference champion, rather than the immortal World Series winner. Now where's my digital syringe?
Our Rating:
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Rating: 4.8/5 (8 votes cast)
Category Games, Internet, Sport |
There’s no such thing as a free lunch....but this is close
- A selection of Aldi's sangers
If you are working in Manchester city centre and you’re looking for a cheap lunch you could do much worse than head to Aldi in the Arndale Centre.
Though easily accessible- either from within the Arndale itself or from the city’s famous Market Street - and comfortably within lunchtime walking distance of Manchester’s various business centres, Aldi probably isn’t the first place you’d think to go to get a sandwich, a wrap, soup or a readymeal. They offer a limited range in their chilled section, competitive in comparison with other urban supermarkets but perhaps not with specialist sandwich shops, and as you’d expect of Aldi the prices are the real draw.
I picked up their real lunchtime sandwich bargain, an egg mayonnaise and salad cress sandwich for the ridiculously low price of 59p, and guess what? It’s good.
At that price you might worry that you’d get a sandwich full of watery mayonnaise, with a few cursory bits of smashed up egg white and some green bits. And for 59p, you’d probably still be quite pleased.
The truth is a much more welcome surprise. On sliced wholemeal bread, you get a lot of actual discernible egg, thickly cut into discs, rather than chopped microscopic, with a healthy amount of yolk; why it's almost as if someone took a whole egg, sliced it up and put it on a sandwich, like a real person would do. The mayonnaise is thick and sweet, and lets the egg speak for itself rather than dominating the sandwich.
The cress is just cress.
It’s a basic egg mayo sandwich so it’s difficult to rhapsodise, but as a budget city centre lunch it’s hard to beat. It’s cheaper even than ferreting around in Tesco, Sainsburys or Waitrose for sandwiches on the cusp of their sell-by date, and unlike those ones it won’t be all wilty and wet.
The Aldi 59p egg mayonnaise sandwich: it comfortably fills your hungry hole, it tastes nice, it’s fresh and it’s cheap. What’s not to like?
Our Rating:
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Rating: 1.0/5 (1 vote cast)
Category Food and Drink, Manchester, Shopping |
