Sure, criticising nostalgic countdown shows is now almost as clichéd as the programmes themselves. But this week’s Greatest TV Chat Show Moments deserves some special recognition, not least for bringing a bonus treat of unintentional comedy.
Step forward presenter Rebecca Loos, aka David Beckham’s bit on the side. Ms Loos — who has the delusional dream of presenting a show like Parkinson — was turned down recently by Dutch television after a 14-day trial on the grounds that “she didn’t have the necessary skills” to be a TV presenter. It’s not hard here to see why. In fairness, while her delivery may bring to mind images of wooden chairs, the script is also a wonder of witlessness: in one link, for example, she is seen text-messaging (alluding to her Beckham liaisons), before offering “drolly”: “Ooh . . . I’ll respond to that one later.” Mind your sides, now.
But look past the countdown’s cheap frame, and there are many reminders of why the chat show is watercooler Babylon. All the old favourites are here — the Sex Pistols’ four-letter assassination of Bill Grundy’s career, drunk old George Best on Wogan etc — but scattered around are less obvious entries, too. Russell Harty’s wincingly innappropriate questions to a recently bereaved Richard Carpenter, for example, or Alan “Homo Chatiens” Partridge accidentally shooting dead a guest on Knowing Me, Knowing You. “Ah-ha” to that.
One person who doesn’t come off so well is the venerable Parkinson — unlucky timing, perhaps, given his grand arrival on ITV next week. After clips of him being humiliated by Emu, berated by Muhammad Ali and struggling with the execrable Meg Ryan, Brian Sewell describes him as “a complacent prick”.
Now if only they’d have persuaded Sewell to write Loos’s script . . .
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Greatest TV Chat Show Moments, Thursday, Five, 9pm
Paul Hoggart is away