14/03/2016 Too Much TV

The Top Gear Boys have been breaking the rules again,

Tom Hiddlestone's Night Manager bottom broke the internet,

And Eric the dog broke all our hearts on Crufts

There's been a lot going on in the world of TV.

Here are just a few of the weekend's highlights.

It has been the best thing that ever happened to me. We've had an

incident. Worst nightmare. Claimable.

I look forward to working with you and smashing every door down. This

is the champion. It really is that simple. This is a very hard hill to

cycle up and I'm using no effort whatsoever.

I've lost everything. You still have yourself. And I love you.

Coming up, she's put down her petri dish and taken a break from the lab

especially to join us, Silent Witness star

We celebrate the life and career of one of Britain's best comedians

and entertainers, Bob Monkhouse, in this weeks Trailblazers.

Plus, she's best known for her part as French waitress Yvette in the hit

sitcom 'Allo 'Allo, actress Vicki Michelle joins us to talk

about her glittering TV career...ooh, Renee!

I hope she brings the picture of the Madonna with her. It takes me back.

It was a big week last week, and there's more drama to come

In this clip, Vincent, played by Richard Blackwood,

is trying to convince foster sister Donna that their mother

It is not some kind of murder. You are way off. She admitted it. I

won't believe anything you say until she tells me herself. She won't

answer. I'm her daughter. She's not going to just walk off and never

speak to me again. She just has. Something else is she thinks her mum

is dead in the basement but at the end of the basement, she was found

at the side of the road and taken to accident and emergency. She is not

in the basement. But in Coronation Street, Cal is buried in the

basement. It is tonight. I'm glad I've not got a basement.

A little later, over on Channel 5, at 9pm it's the final

This comeback series, 14 years after the last one,

has seen Mulder and Scully encounter more extra-terrestial activity

and unearth even more gruesome murders.

Tonight, they face a fatal pandemic that's sweeping America.

Not one contagion but a variety. If the flu does not kill you then

something else will. You are describing it as a fast moving

virus. Who will be worst hit? The people we care about. He is the

voice of authority? Is this at all plausible? It is already spreading.

I love her. Calm down. I have been assessed with her. -- obsessed. She

is quite a good actress as well. You saw Gillian Anderson there and,

of course, David Duchovny has been in this series as well,

but also in that clip were FBI There's a lot of speculation

that they could take over The show's creator, Chris Carter,

has neither confirmed or denied the rumour, but the truth

is out there...somewhere. It's been great having them

back on our screens, but it's had mixed

reviews hasn't it? Yes, people are still loving Mulder

and Scully's chemistry, but some critics have

found the new series If you are a fan though,

you can catch the final episode of The XFiles on Channel

5 at 9pm tonight. And if you want to go

right back to the start, there's a channel called Spike that

will air every one of the 202 original episodes from the very

beginning, starting from 10pm They are 50 minutes long, that will

take you 168.3 hours, six days. Go on!

Congratulations to Countryfile, the weekend's highest rated show, 6.9

million viewers. Luther star, Idris Elba,

had cause to celebrate this weekend, after receiving an OBE

at Buckingham Palace I don't think you can say that I

knock about with the Royals, I've hung with the queen occasionally.

I've got an MBE, I don't know why. It is only a matter of time until

you are a dame. Can you nominate me? I'm not sure.

Fans of BBC Drama, The Night Manager, will be pleased

to hear that executive producer Stephen Garrett is plotting to bring

He's planning to adapt a novel called the Pigeon Tunnel.

Sounds boring, but then so does The Night Manager -

And the BBC are going to bring it back for a second series. I don't

want to hear anything about last night because I've got to catch up

with it. And finally Chancellor,

George Osbourne, was having trouble writing this week's Budget,

because of Top Gear filming "Trying to write my Budget,

despite noisy episode of Top Gear being filmed outside

on Horseguards' Parade. If you want to get in touch with us

about anything TV related, then get tweeting hashtag toomuchtv

or visiting bbc.co.uk/toomuchtv. Now, our first guest is not only

a writer and comedian, Best known for her part

as sarcastic, but super-efficient forensic examiner

in Silent Witness - Here she is starring

as Clarissa Mullery.. Can I help you? I hope so, he is not

capable of it. I'm trying to find the laboratory. Am I not

enunciating? Who are you? Clarissa Mallory. Perhaps it means something

to the person in charge. I'm the person in charge. You have an

appointment? Could you is scored her from the building? He always talks

about you, he is a shocking judge of character. I work with him and I

make him look clever. Did I forget to mention Clarissa? Please welcome

Liz Carr. Such a huge show. I know. To be a nest -- in it is amazing. I

watched it 20 years ago and now I am in it. Did they welcome you when you

joined? Of course. I did not know what I was doing. I had never done

any TV acting before, I did not know the terms that they used or how to

act. I think I've got better. The role that you have started is so

small, watched by nobody. It is amazing that it is so successful ten

years on. I think it is because we like dark stuff. People stop you in

the street who love the series and say it is their guilty secret. It

seems all ages. The demographic that tends to stop me is 50, 60,

whatever, but I know that it is a show that people tweet about,

younger people as well, cross generations. Great character, she

does not suffer fools gladly, but there is a warm side to her as well.

I love her sarcasm. She does not take any prisoners. That is what I

like about her. She is prettily, but we still love her, and I think she's

very realistic, do you know what I mean? We know people like her and

often people want to know her because she is fun to work with. I

was going to ask if you are like the character but you just said that. I

don't think it was a great acting stretch! David Caves who plays Jack,

are you good pals In Real Life? Yes, but they did not audition us at the

same time, it was just manufactured at first, but we have become as

close as they are. We have a lot of fun. You know what filming is like.

You need to make it fun. Often we want to take it further. There had

been a body in the suitcase and there was mulch in it, and Jack gets

it out and he wants to throw it on me. I think you would do that in

real life. I guess if there is lots of dead bodies. Do they ever get the

giggles? They do. I am less around the bodies, I am in the viewing

gallery. I could not do that lying and not breathing. I would be

panicking. How did you get the job? You sound surprised. I am a little!

You did not even turn up for the audition. I live in central London,

it can either take five minutes to get somewhere or 90 minutes. I am

quite bad with time, I was late, so I'm in the car and Irene them up,

you do not turn up late. I did the polite e-mail and said if you don't

find who you are looking for please bear me in mind and two weeks later

they wrote back and said they would like to audition me. I did not think

I would get the job. I really did not. Why did you think that? I was

40, I'm not this bright young thing. There are not that many disabled

characters on TV that look like me, I'm just not going to get it, I had

nothing to lose. None of us knew what to do. Because there are so

few, use our lives in EastEnders, she is a great friend, she tells me

what to do. Directors did not know whether I should move. My chair

clicks, there is a sound. They did not know, if something was on the

workbench, they were like, you just stay there and looked down at the

microscope. They were worried about movement. Four years later, I've

worked with a director who did the first series and he said it is a

different game now. I'm better, I've improved, I know how to improve, I

know how to ask directors. Argue back for the new series? I hope so!

They've not killed me off. This will be the 20th series. I cannot believe

it. I want to be part of it, I think the team are great fun and I want to

see what they've got lined up. My mum thinks you're the best thing in

it. There you go. Thank you very much, lovely to meet you. Time to

celebrate the extraordinary career of one of the kings of TV showbiz,

Bob Monkhouse. I play quizzes at home, we have

quizzes. My wife asks me questions like where the hell were you. .

Monkhouse ruled the TV airwaves in a career that spanned six decades. I

wake up and go to the bathroom and want to throw up, I say, what is

wrong with me, the doctor says, your eyesight is perfect. I know it's

strange but I was going to be an athlete as a teenager. Hard to

believe. You could see me striding over the sports field with easy

grace. I forget why we called her that. Aged 20, he got a contract at

the BBC. I am a TV fan and I think it is

wonderful. It was his ability to adopt smoothness that made him stand

out from the crowd. His quick wit made him a natural.

Health and say the nightmare, this programme was broadcast nightly to

17 million viewers. And the game show host, Bob's

greatest invention was born. Celebrity Squares, the big square

himself, Bob Monkhouse. I came into the business in 1845... In order to

get laughs. That meant inventing the persona offering something, which is

not necessarily me. It's an invention, a construction. Here is

your host... Bob's skill as a standup was legendary but his

dexterity as a game show host is often down played, as though TV

quizzes are a poor relation Give a good reason for men to dig a hole in

the road. Name it. Gas men. Looking for the gas main. Grave digger. He's

digging a hole in the road... LAUGHTER

But as the heap of failed hosts will testify, making a TV game show look

easy and fun is a dark art and in this Crucible of potential

catastrophe, Bob worked pure alchemy. What was the name of the

dog if Peter Pan. Wendy It was Nana. It was bad enough when Captain Hook

wiped with the wrong hand. In later years his love of new talent add the

quality of his humour cemented his incarnation as the elder statesman

of comedy. It was his unbridled love of laster that kept him going to the

last I can't stop the cancer, that's incurable. I can control the way I

look at the cancer, so here's the joke... I said how long have I got

to live. He said ten. What months, weeks? He said nine...

LAUGHTER But it was the trail that he blazed through more than 30 TV

game shows that moulded the formats and fabric of the shows we watch

today. Bye. What a comic God. That made me a bit

emotional. Made it look so effortless. My favourite gag,

everybody laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian, they're not

laughing now. Very good. Time to say bonjour to an actor best known as

Yvette in' Allo' Allo Does somebody want me? Yes, I do! My little

cabbage. My big sprout! Parsnip. Carrot! Broccoli! Curly kale.

Oohhh... When we are too old to make love, we will make wonderful soup.

LAUGHTER It's Vicky Michelle! How do you feel when you look at those

clips? It was just a fabulous time of my life. The script writing is so

good. You laughed outloud. It was fantastic doing such a fabulous

series. So iconic as well. Exactly. It's become iconic. It's on all the

time still. I was very proud to have been in it. How did you get the job

in the first place? Actually, my sifter and I went, my sifter is an

-- sister is an actress. We went back for a part in Cock back Mrs

Noah. David Croft couldn't make up his mind whether to use me or Ann.

Then I played a French maid robot in this series. Then Jeremy Lloyd and

David Croft are writing the show and French oh, Vicky, so I went to read

from Michelle of the resistance and Yvette. You were perfect. There you

are with all the cast. On paper, it was a strange concept, but a huge

hit. When did you realise it was taking off. We did the first series,

when I read the script I was laughing out loud. I had been for a

lot of comedies for the BBC. This one you laughed out loud. Then we

did the pilot that was really good. A lot of people watched the first

series, watched the pilot, watched the first series, but when they

repeated it, because everyone had gone out and said, "Have you seen

this show, it's off the wall." That's when it took off. And filmed

on location, somewhere glamorous? It was in Norfolk. I wondered if it was

in France. No, Norfolk. Everything shuts at 9pm. That was the skierior.

Then the intierior were at the BBC centre. Such a great role to play.

Did you find as a young actress that you were always offered, because

you're still so beautiful, that you were so pretty then, were you always

offered the role as the pretty, cute girl in comedy. Yes, always the

Dolly birds, then. I did play some really serious roles in different,

Softly Softly and those kind of things. I fell into the comedy side.

People said I had good timing. That was it. That took off. It was

glamorous Dolly birds. Before that, you worked with incredible names.

Dick Emry and the Two Ronnies and less. Doesn't get better than that

-- Les. No. Amazing. I worked with Dick and I did a few episodes on his

series. From that Ken Dodd saw me and I got a series with Ken. We had

an amazing love scene on Skegness beach, French love scene. I'll never

forget it. That was brilliant. Then Ronnie Barker saw me with Ken and

said, oh, I'd like to meet this girl. I worked with them. They threw

me in at the deep end. They dressed me up as a Victorian newspaper boy

with a moustache and huge cleefage. Cleevage. Les Dawson, I did a series

with. He was a lovely man. Was he incredible, popular with his peers

as well. Lovely. I was talking about him the other day, you didn't just

like Les, you loved him. That was the difference. He was just a really

lovely person. It's great when people become greats and they're

really nice as well. Do you mind that people always talk about' Allo'

Allo, even all these years on. You've been in Emmerdale and you're

on stage. Yes, I'm playing Marilyn Monroe, but she's a 76-year-old

woman, Marilyn, that's faked her death and she's been living in Essex

for half a century. She decides to go back to America to reveal she's

still alive. That's not what really happened! It could be true. You're a

blonde Marilyn? Grey. We have a younger Marilyn in it. But it's a

great show. We're going to make that into a telly series later on in the

year. Where is that? Finsbury Park theatre. One more week - but it's

brilliant. Go online to get tickets. Brilliant show. It's been really

lovely catching up with you. A round of applause for Vicky Michelle.

APPLAUSE Here's what you had to say

about the return of ITV's Saturday night hypnotism gameshow -

You're Back in the Room. Welcome to You're back in the Room.

A bonkers game show, unlike anything you have ever seen before. On

Saturday, I watched You're Back in the Room. It's the first time I've

watched a programme like that. I didn't think it was going to be my

kind of thing. The person I'm touching now, you will believe you

are a T-Rex. I have to say about halfway through I did comment to

myself, oh, my goodness have I really got to watch this for another

30 minutes. I reckon Philip is flirting with me. This is one of my

favourite programmes. If you could stop flirting with me, that would be

handy. It's family entertainment. It's something that the age of six

to 60 can look at. You are doing really well. I will watch every

week. I've set it on record. If I hit a low point in the week, I put

that on. The human brain has a complex system that can be hacked

and manipulated. The hypnotist is rather dishy. I wouldn't mind him

knocking on my door and trying to hypnotise me. He can do it tomorrow,

if you like. Time to reboot some brains. Take off your slippers, I

say! Words fail me. If it was the most ludicrous show I've ever seen,

absolute nonsense. I've watched a lot of rubbish TV in my life. But

then I did find myself laughing in certain places. Personally I don't

think the people on the show are hypnotised. I think it's fake. I

think they're told to put it on. But I do like Philip, he has the aura

about him being a silver haired fox. He engages with people. He's really

good. The ladies, I thought they were Game For A Laugh. Are you

saying I have a saggy bum? You have, yes. I have never seen anything so

fake in all my life. I never knew that Phil had a saggy bottom. I

loved your face as you were watching that. What were they rubbing on

Linda's face. If you want to tell us what you think of your favourite

telly or the stuff you don't like, get in touch.

Now, we've got a couple of wildcards that we think you might like.

If you can get it, why not try and find

the National Geographic Channel, where at 9pm, there's a show called

It follows British gem hunter Guy Clutterbuck -

great name - and his A-class team of miners, engineers and mechanics,

as they journey to find the world's most precious gemstones.

This week Clutterbuck's in Colombia on the hunt for a crystal-clear

-- That sounds like a medical condition, I've got a touch of the

clutterbucks. He's on the hunt for a Chivor emerald. He has to agree a

price with the mine owner. He's been very hospitable. I don't wish to

offend. But tell him, we have to be realistic. Guy has been quoted a

price for $20,000. He thinks it will make a two carat stone. I say

$5,200. Proper poker faces there. This promises to be a good watch.

Guy has been in the industry for 30 years. He definitely knows his

stuff. Maybe he should change his name, I don't know. The show deals

with the ethical side of the mining business. They take you inside the

mines and show you the way the precious stones are sourced.

That's Mine Kings, National Geographic Channel at 9pm.

Over on the W channel, great documentaries on there. That's 9pm

tonight. It's called Get me to the Church.

Every week a bride or groom-to-be is dropped in the middle of nowhere.

With no possessions, no local knowledge and no way

of speaking the language, their task is to race home in time

And if they get there on time, they win a honeymoon.

Tonight groom-to-be Pete and his pals find themselves

They're dropped in the middle of nowhere. There's nowhere to go. It's

like Middle Earth. They have three days to get back in time to say I

do. We may have bitten off more than we can chew. They have to battle the

elements. Rely on the locals. And face every obstacle thrown at them.

Come on, we have a wedding to get to.

Just a few days to make it back to the love of his life in Kent. This

is the first series. It's tonight on channel W at 9pm.

But before we go, what TV theme tune are we going to play out

Join us tomorrow, where we're joined by comedian Brian Conley

and Susan Calman meets Richard Osman.

Also Alexander Armstrong behind the scenes at Pointless.

Plus, we get ready for one of the TV events of the year:

Star of the show Robert Emms is here.

Enjoy your evening and tell us what you think of all tonight?s

telly on bbc.co.uk/toomuchtv or tweet using #TooMuchTV.

I'm 52 years old... HE CLEARS THROAT

..and I want... HE MAKES CLICKING NOISES, GRUNTS