Review 56 – Gillette Mach3

I’ve been trying to carry-off the designer stubble look for nearly a decade, so I rarely have cause to buy razors. Turns out, I’ve saved a small fortune.

The other day, I was asked to pick up some Gillette Mach3 blades for a friend. Not Mach3 Turbo blades (with advanced lubrication) or one of the many varieties of Gillette’s six-bladed offering, the Fusion (five on the front, one on the back). Just plain old Mach3, first launched in 1998.

A razor that, for the past 15 years, we’ve been told has been superseded by newer and better technologies many times over. Roger Federer, Tiger Woods and Thierry Henry have been paid millions to tell us that the newest Gillette model is the best a man can get. The Mach3 is not even second, third or fourth best. It’s way down the list.

The original ‘bondi blue’ iMac was also launched in 1998. You can’t buy them new any more; with each new revision the previous model has been dropped and consigned to the vaults of history.

But not the Mach3. There it is, bold as brass, in supermarkets and chemists across the land. It’s not marketed towards ironic hipsters who love a bit of retro, nor is it intended to evoke a Werther’s Originals style nostalgia towards a simpler, happier time.

In my local Sainsbury’s, an eight-pack of these sub-standard, ancient and laughably under-bladed things sells for £13.

More than twice the hourly minimum wage for a packet of 15 year old razor blades.

At a loss to explain the cost, I started to do a bit of digging and found an old article that suggested Gillette spent $750 million researching and testing the Mach3 before releasing it.

The only way it could possibly have cost this much is if they set up a laboratory on the moon and sent Tom Cruise with a million gallons of Evian to have a shave.

Still, those figures don’t add up. At £1.63 per unit, surely enough money has been made to recoup those staggering costs and lead to a price-drop.

And it’s not as though the Fusion cost $750 million to develop. The sum total of research and design into the Fusion consisted of:

Millionaire Gillette Employee 1: I see Wilkinson have released a four-bladed razor.

Millionaire Gillette Employee 2: Those bastards! I honestly never thought the three-bladed razor could be topped. We’re ruined!

MGE1: Hang on, how about a five… no, a six-bladed razor!

MGE2: You bloody genius, we’re saved!

As I said at the beginning, I’m not clean-shaven and this comes with it’s own challenges. Sometimes hours will pass before I notice I have fluff stuck on my stubble. I’ve been known to spend all day with an asymmetrical beard because my battery died on me. And yes, my Gran still gives me an earful for looking scruffy.

But as I look back on the £40 I’ve spent on beard trimmers over the last decade, it’s not just bum fluff you can see on my face, there’s a slightly smug smile too.

Review 55 – Derek on Channel 4

Ricky Gervais seems to spend as much time on David Letterman’s couch as he does his own. So there’s something quite sweet about him returning to Channel 4 to create, write, direct and star in Derek (Wednesdays 10pm).

Following last year’s pilot episode, the show is about the staff of a care home for the elderly. Making a low budget show, largely set in the one room for a British TV channel reminds us that Gervais has not forgotten his roots.

Unfortunately, this also proves to be the programme’s biggest flaw; nothing about Derek feels new.

For example, it’s still shot in the style of a fly-on-the-wall documentary. Still. As many before me have asked, why are these documentaries being made? Who is making them? Who are we supposed to believe is watching these? Every time Derek cuts to a talking head it’s like being transported back to The Office. Except, back in 2001 it was a novelty and slightly believable.

Arguably the best thing about the show is Karl Pilkington’s performance as Dougie, the janitor. Yet Dougie’s character appears to be entirely based on the actor’s public persona and his conversations with Derek are lifted wholesale from old radio shows and podcasts.

Finally, the show tries a little too hard to be both moving and funny at the same time (see The Office, Extras). The lingering shots of the care home’s elderly residents and the gentle piano music in the background felt incredibly forced. And, bar Pilkington’s performance, the jokes are thin on the ground.

Gervais acknowledges this to a degree and about an hour before the first episode was broadcast, he tweeted:

Derek is not really a sitcom. It’s a heartwarming drama with funny bits. Also it has a series arch & ep 6 is the best thing I’ve ever done

— Ricky Gervais (@rickygervais) January 30, 2013

For those who like a series arc that builds gradually, you’ll be disappointed to know the whole thing was pretty much outlined in the opening few minutes when council inspectors visited the care home.

Of course, whilst Derek is a Gervais solo project, many of the things I’ve compared it to were jointly credited to Stephen Merchant. Over the years people have asked whether Merchant was always the more creative of the two. Perhaps. However, I’d argue neither of them has equalled – much less bettered – The Office or their XFM shows and the under-rated Cemetery Junction was their next best project.

All that said, Derek certainly isn’t down there with Life’s Too Short. I really do hope it turns out to be great and that come episode 6, I’ll be in agreement with Gervais.

Review 53 – DVDs

You read that correctly. This isn’t a review of the latest releases or a fancy pants box set. I’ve decided to cut to the chase and review them all.

From Transformers the Movie to Geri Halliwell’s Fitness Workout and everything in between.

Every. Last. One.

I recently decided to ditch the packaging for my DVD collection and put them all in a big ringbinder-come-wallet contraption.

(The ringbinder-come-wallet actually claims to be for CDs. I could barely keep a straight face as I paid at the till knowing full well I would be using it for DVDs. “Suckers!” I shouted as I’d snatched my change and ran into the street waving my arms.)

Once upon a time, I enjoyed watching DVD cases colonise empty shelves; inching further and further along before creeping on to the next one. However, I recently reached the point I was now sick of the sight of them.

As I plucked the discs from their cases and moved them to their new home, I found the whole experience quite depressing. Not because I was breaking up a collection nearly a decade in the making, but because I realised two things.

1. How rarely I’d watched any of these discs.

2. How unlikely I was to watch any of them ever again.

I wondered what was the point of them and why I had spent so much money over the years amassing them.

Most of my DVDs were things I’d already seen and were bought so I could re-watch them. As my life got increasingly time-poor, the reason changed; now owning them meant I could re-watch them should I wish.

It had long since ceased to be a collection of hours of entertainment and had become just a stack of objects that I owned.

What starts as an attempt to amass things you derive pleasure from morphs into an eternal quest to own things for the sake of it. Whether it’s stamps, commemorative plates or beanie babies, chances are a time will come when you feel you should keep collecting, rather than you want to.

So, having ages carefully removing each disc and gently sliding it into a plastic sleeve, I’m now inclined to just give them away.

Not only will it take me an eternity to find the right cases to return them to, I’ve spent money on a ringbinder-come-wallet that I don’t actually need.

Perhaps, after a slice of humble pie, I’ll use it for my CD collection.

Review 49 – Getting On

In a TV schedule overrun with procedural crime dramas, reality shows and Jack Whitehall, Getting On was all too easy to miss. But for those who did catch the third series on BBC Four last year, they’ll have enjoyed a superbly dark and very funny sitcom.

I’ll pause while the blogosphere shouts in unison “there’s a BBC Four?!?” and goes to dig out an old TV guide from the recycling bin.

Are you back? Good.

I’m just teasing of course, but when flicking through the channels it’s very easy to lose all will to live when you reach BBC Three and decide your TV would be better off buried in the back garden alongside Gnasher the hamster. With your ex-flat screen pushing up the daisies, you’ll miss out on all of BBC Four’s gems.

Set in an NHS hospital, Getting On revolves around the staff and patients in a care of the elderly – geriatric – ward. It’s primarily told from the point of view of the nurses and ward sisters, which is quite refreshing given how often TV shows set in the medical world focus on doctors.

Much of the humour arrives from the bureaucracy and politics of the NHS where new initiatives are constantly being dreamt up to distract the staff from patient care. And yet whilst this could make for a very cynical show, it can be incredibly warm and tender.

This is largely due to the interplay between the excellent leads; Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine – who also share the writing credits. There are some heart-wrenching scenes, though as I mentioned earlier, the sadness is often played to darkly coming effect – perhaps inevitable given the setting.

Yet, there are two potential barriers to getting on with Getting On.

One: it’s so blue.

In appearance that is, not language. Whilst the colour palette of washed out blues does mirror the aging population of the ward, I’d prefer it if things looked a little brighter.

Two: shakey-cam.

Shot with handheld cameras there are lots of jump-cuts and random zooms. I watched an episode after an evening in the pub and the two pints of ale resting in my stomach suddenly felt like half a bottle of whiskey.

Having said that, whilst it does take me a moment to get used to the above as I sit down to each episode, I soon forgot and become totally engrossed. What’s more, Getting On is further proof that Jo Brand is a national treasure.

Whilst the series isn’t on the box at present, you can pick up DVDs or download episodes from the usual suspects.

Review 45 – David Attenborough’s Africa on BBC One

Africa on BBC One

Everything in life would be cooler if it played out in slow motion. Fact.

People making a last ditch sprint through closing train doors. Dropped jam jars smashing into thousands of pieces on supermarket floors. Farrow & Ball drying on a feature wall.

Clearly the BBC’s wildlife department agree, judging by the extensive use in the latest worth-the-licence-fee-alone programme to arrive on our screens.

Africa started last week on BBC1 (9pm Wednesdays) and answered the question, why is everyone suddenly talking about fighting giraffes?

The opening episode was fantastic. It looked ruddy gorgeous and the insights into the creatures of the Kalahari were fascinating.

The dedication required by the crew is beyond compare. It’s staggering to think people will stick it out for months in some of the most inhospitable environments on earth, surrounded by ravenous beasts for just a minute or two of footage (insert TOWIE joke here).

So, this explains all the slow motion. Sure, flesh wobbles look great in slo-mo, but they also help to stretch out incredibly hard to come by footage and allow time for an imaginative narrative.

And imaginative it was. During a sequence with a drongo and a family of meerkats, we’re told the story of how the bird flits between helping and choosing the mammals according to whim. Later we were told about an ‘eccentric’ black rhino. I can’t help but feel that at times the descriptions of the animal’s behaviour were pure story-telling.

And as the programme wore on, I found myself increasingly thinking about how it had been made. From what I could work out, it’s pretty much like film-making; A mixture of multiple-takes, multiple camera set ups, dubbed audio and stand-ins.

And none of this is a criticism, it just reaffirms how dedicated the makers of Africa are in bringing us something so genuinely cinematic.

But – and this is the best bit – you don’t even have to go to the cinema. It’s been made for you, to watch in your home. All that’s asked in return is you buy a TV licence (or not if you watch on iPlayer) which is also good for thousands more hours of entertainment over the year.

Review 41 – This week’s telly

I don’t generally think of myself as a telly addict, but I’ve been incredibly excited ever  since I flicked through the TV listings on Saturday.

Yes, we all know that Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant will be making their return to BBC2 this Thursday with Life’s Too Short, but it was actually the arrival three other shows that caught my eye.

First of all, Masterchef: The Professionals and figuring out when you can watch the next episode doesn’t get tougher than this. The first went out on Monday at 8.30pm. On Tuesday it switched to 7pm before it moves to 8pm for Wednesday and Thursday. Next week’s transmission times are a closely guarded secret but boffins are dusting off the machines at Bletchley Park in the hope of catching Greg Wallace performing unspeakable acts with a spoon.

Watching the first episode proved to be very distressing, and not just because Monica has a stare that could turn stone to stone. For some reason the voiceover who has been making Masterchef her own for the past six years, India Fisher, has been replaced by some bloke. This one small change has – to my mind – changed the programme beyond all recognition. I felt as though I was watching a badly dubbed version Masterchef originally intended for a distant land. It remains to be seen whether this new chap will rise to the occassion or sink like so many souffles.

Returning for a second series on Thursday night is Rev. (BBC2 9pm), the sitcom about an inner-city Church of England parish. The first series was bloody marvelous, though perhaps unsurprisingly given the subject, gained a small (but loyal) audience. However it did receive a good PR boost when the following photo taken during filming went viral. I await the return of Tom Hollander, Olivia Coleman and Miles Jupp with much anticipation.

Last and by no means least, this week saw the return of Gareth Malone with his new series The Choir – Military Wives. I appreciate I’ve already ventured into homoerotic territory this week with my ramblings about my hairdresser, but I make no apology for my adoration of Mr Malone.

The basic premise of every series is that Gareth will form a choir in an unlikely or disjointed community leaving everyone with big smiles on their faces and warm fuzzy feelings inside. This time he has set up camp on a military base and created a choir from  the wives and girlfriends left behind whilst the men are on duty in Afghanistan.

As the episode began, I wondered whether what is basically a well-trodden formula could survive another outing. I became further concerned when I noticed more and more cliches spilling out of Malone’s mouth. Then the narrator started to get on my nerves. By now, I was getting very worried that my love affair with The Choir was reaching an end.

And then the choir sang their first song and all my fears were put to rest. It’s not that they were amazing, but it’s a simply beautiful watching these people coming together to sing. Thank you Mr Malone, once again you’ve made me a very happy man.

For more choir fun…

My favourite choir from The Choir.

Who thought watching loads of youngsters singing about feeling suicidal could be so sweet?

For the record, I’ve just noticed that each one of the programmes I’ve mentioned is on BBC2. That is delivering quality first, not cutting back on creativity.

Review 38 – The Fry Chronicles by Stephen Fry

Quick witted, frightfully intelligent and incredibly talented; does anyone have a bad word to say the national treasure™ that is Stephen Fry? Yes, actually. Stephen Fry does.

For much of the 464 pages of The Fry Chronicles, the author is self-effacing, self-deprecating and incredibly apologetic for all that he is and has acheived. There’s on old joke I love – the original author of which I forget – that goes “I used to think I was my own worst critic, until I heard my friends talking about me”. Well, Mr Fry certainly doesn’t feel the same way.

Perhaps this modest style is necessary for all autobiographies. After all, who wants to read about someone infinitely more talented and successful than themselves for hours on end if they can’t at least seek solace in the fact that the subject is actually deeply unhappy? Then again, maybe you shouldn’t be reading autobiographies at all if this is an issue, as they do tend to be about talented and successful people [insert Shane Ward/Frankie Boyle/Kerry Katona joke here].

Certainly Fry’s achievements in comedy and entertainment over the years are something to admire and stand in awe of. Then again, I can feel a little bit smug knowing that I’ve written more blogs before the age of thirty than he ever did.

I saw Stewart Lee performing at a benefit gig last night and he described Fry as being – and I forget the exact words – “what passes for an intellectual on a panel show” – referring to his work hosting Q.I. I felt this was a little harsh but perhaps in a world where fame is achieved by a five minute appearance on a talent show, we assume Fry’s intelligent and articulate manner is more exceptional than it actually is. Hark back to the time of the Bloomsbury Set and would a man who has written a few passable – but nonetheless enjoyable – novels, plays and TV shows be ranked as the nation’s smartest man?

I’m playing devils advocate here as I really enjoyed The Fry Chronicles just as I did its predecessor Moab is My Washpot and I’m thoroughly looking forward to the next part of his story.

For a bit more Fry…

I begrudginly point you in the direction of his blog.

Bahhhhhhhhh!

For the record, Stephen Fry ends the book with his first dabble in the world of Class A drugs. I’ve always wondered, how do celebrities get their drugs? Do they wander aimlessly through Soho waiting to be offered some by a barely audible street dealer or do they send a lackie to do it? I suppose we’ll find out in volume three of his autobiography.

 

 

Review 31 – The Playboy of the Western World, The Old Vic

 

I love going to the theatre. Yet, with so much on offer in London – and not enough time or money to see everything that takes my fancy – some tough decisions have to be made. Sometimes this involves lots of research and applied logic, sometimes other factors come into play.

The decision to book tickets for The Playboy of the Western World is a great example of the latter. Perhaps most of the audience in the Old Vic last night held an intimate knowledge of the text and attend every production. Or maybe they’d studied the reviews and decided they were on to a winner. I, on the other hand, was there because the bloke who plays Nathan in Misfits was in it.

If you haven’t seen Misfits then as far as I’m concerned you must be some kind of masochist; deliberately choosing to make your life less enjoyable by denying yourself the enormous pleasure it brings. Act fast, you’re surely just one step away from self-flagellation.

In fairness, I understand why you might not have watched it yet. Being billed as a cross between Skins and Heroes was nearly enough to put me off; I had no interest in either of those shows and certainly not their bastard love-child. However I’m glad I put my prejudices aside as it is a wonderful, wonderful programme. The ‘birth scene’ in last year’s Christmas special was one of the funniest things I have ever seen. Most of the laugh out loud moments came courtesy of Nathan, played by Robert Sheehan; which brings us back to The Playboy of the Western World.

Written by John Millington Synge the play tells the story of a young man named Christy (played by Sheehan) who turns up at a village pub claiming to have killed his father and is subsequently hailed as a hero by the locals. Before a single line of dialogue was uttered I was completely transfixed by the incredible set, consisting of a huge stonewall pub (complete with chimney and fireplace) which revolves onstage to accommodate indoor and outdoor scenes.

Once the dialogue had begun I admit to being a little lost as it took some time for my ear to adjust to the thick Irish accents of the characters. Once I had tuned in, I loved every minute of this hilarious production which is brilliantly staged and features great musical interludes.

Unfortunately Robert Sheehan won’t be returning to Misfits for a third series, but I got enough of a fix last night to see me through for a good while.

For more hilarity…

Watch Misfits. Now.

Entirely unrelated but if you are forced to watch X Factor this weekend, Stuart Heritage’s blog will make it bearable.

For the record… the next theatre tickets I’ve got booked are for One Man, Two Guvnors but I can assure you that’s not because it’s got Smithy off of Gavin and Stacey in it.

Review 18 – Fresh Meat

Fresh Meat, Wednesdays 10pm, Channel 4

My last experience of a university-based comedy was 2009’s forgettable BBC Three sitcom, Off the Hook. It left a sour taste in my mouth, so I was wary about tucking into Fresh Meat on Channel 4 earlier this week.

I needn’t have been worried of course. Comparing the comedy output of BBC Three with that of virtually any other channel is like comparing Dan Brown and Charles Dickens; a waste of time.

Off the Hook started well enough, after all, university is fertile ground for creating laughs. The series began with a group of freshers arriving at their shared accomodation to discover they were a long way from Kansas.

However after an enjoyable first episode, the series inexplicably toned down the crudity and dumbed down the wit to the point it began to resemble something that would be more at home on BBC Three’s sister channel, CBBC. Unsurprisingly, Off the Hook is not well documented online and so I can only assume that the first episode was in fact a pilot that bore little resemblence to the commissioned series.

I dwell on Off the Hook because it shares a number of similarities with Fresh Meat. Aside from the obvious, they both have near idential first episode plots and feature an ‘Inbetweener’. Whereas James Buckley (Jay) blotted his copy book on the BBC series, Joe Thomas (Simon) puts in a sterling effort in Channel 4’s new show.

Thomas is one of seven housemates sharing digs at Manchester University. Ensemble casts usually mean a roll call of clearly defined, stereotyped characters: the nerd, the jock, the babe, the rich one etc… Fresh Meat is far more subtle than that and all the better for it. Nearly all of the characters introduced to date are erring on the side of awkward geek and the viewer can look forward to watching them develop as the series progresses.

Whether or not you’ve been to university, the show treads fairly familiar territory (sex, booze, assignments) but still manages to feel, well, fresh. This is largely due to the writing skills of Jess Armstrong and Sam Baines (the creators of Peep Show) who peppered the script with an equal measure of wit and crudity.

For those that want to find out what happened when The Inbetweeners went to university, Fresh Meat could be just for you.

For more teenage kicks…

Please, please, please watch Freaks and Geeks

Karl’s cryptic clue: beneath Blair’s?

For the record… my university days bore no more resemblance to Fresh Meat than my schooldays did to Skins.