TV Heaven, Telly Hell

Posted on August 6, 2007 
Filed Under PROGRAMS

TV Heaven Telly HellTV Heaven, Telly Hell is another formula night-time show that’s really just an excuse for a chat-show. The normal crowd that turn up as panelists for all comedy shows take a turn being interviewed by regular panel-show member and team-leader Sean Lock, taking his turn as host. 

The premise of the programme is that the guest chooses four programmes that they either love or despise and then they have a chat about it. The show finishes with a reconstruction that the guest would have liked to have happened. Previous guests have included Alan Davies (QI), Bill Bailey (Never Mind the Buzzcocks), Nick Hancock (They Think It’s All Over), David Mitchell (Would I Lie to You), and in this series Alan Carr (The Friday Night Project).

Tonight’s show starred Lee Mack (They Think It’s All Over and Would I Lie To You). 

First choice was a TV Heaven of ‘Stars in Their Eyes’. This may seem a surprise, to say the least. A programme where the checkout girl from Tesco’s impersonates Bonnie Tyler may not seem like heaven to many but it was one specific occurrence. Some poor soul was doing an impression of Chris de Burgh singing ‘Lady in Red’ (bit of a surprise there). Meanwhile Mathew Kelly, the show’s host let the real Chris de Burgh come on stage behind him and start singing. A genuine piece of surreal television. 

Next up was Rod Hull and Emu, seen initially brutalising Michael Parkinson and on another occasion throwing himself into a supermarket freezer. For the uninitiated, Rod Hull was a comedian who had a dummy emu. Emu was mute and fine for a short period of time before he turned nasty. This normally resulted in him attacking Rod Hull but if there is anybody else around it will attack them as well. The weird thing is to imagine the Hull without the dummy on his arm attacking himself and other people. 

Telly Hell was ‘Are We Being Served?’, where host Arkin Salih shows that we aren’t being served properly in our stores, as if we didn’t know. To prove his point he intimidates the poor minimum wage workers and deliberately sends them on wild goose chases. 

Finally, with more TV Heaven, it’s back to the Seventies with ‘The Indoor League’. This was a programme of pub sports set in Yorkshire, hosted by professional Yorkshireman Fred Trueman, smoking his pipe and drinking a pint. Due to changes in schedules this went out at 5:15PM: children’s television time. As the two point out, this is in stark contrast to having a squeaky clean youth in a broom cupboard with a puppet. Nowadays it could only be shown after the 9pm watershed. 

Finally, the reconstruction had Lee Mack doing ‘Stars in Your Eyes’ as Limahl from Kajagoogoo, whilst Sean dressed as Mathew Kelly and threw the real Limahl on behind him.

The show is good, harmless after hours entertainment and Sean Lock is a very amiable and humorous host. He manages to strike up a good relationship with all of the guests, but then he should, as he appears on all of their shows.

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