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The first, of course, we could ignore if the show had a few twists up its sleeve, or had managed to struggle out from the monolithic shadow of Four Weddings and a Funeral. Alas, with the usual cast of shagging bridesmaids, smug marrieds, drunken best men and happy endings, the chances were meagre.
But the second premise holed and sank the project ten minutes in. Tom Goodman-Hill? Tom Goodman-Hill? Who’s going to have a last minute wobble about ginger pheromone-bomb Tom Goodman-Hill? Any woman, on sighting his beautiful moony face, would sprint down the aisle, naked — ready to be impregnated the minute the big red guy gave the sign. Even his name’s a tip-off — he’s from the top of a hill of Good Men. You could march up and then march right back down again. O Tom. Tom! The only last-minute doubt I’d have about you is if my love might be too powerful, and could kill you. And whether I’d set the video to record Spoons during our honeymoon.
The first whirling flake of festive fluff arrived with Bring Back the Christmas Number One (Channel 4, Saturday), which took the idea of VH1’s Bands Reunited and ran with it, all the way down the Yellow Brick Road and off to Narnia. The idea was that, sorely vexed by the lack of Christmassy Christmas singles these days, the presenter Justin Lee Collins tried to put together a supergroup, consisting of people who’d had previous, classic Christmas hits. They would then unite in the studio, and record a Christmas single that would show the young whippersnappers how it should be done.
In practice, this meant Lee Collins roaming around the Home Counties in a people carrier, trying to track down former members of Mudd and Boney M in their double-garaged duplexes. Jona Lewie, of Stop the Cavalry “fame”, was the most entertaining. “His agent has given us the green light to hit him,” Lee Collins explained, running up his driveway, “but warned us that he’s mad as a dog in a bungalow.”
Lewie refused to open his door until Lee Collins showed him some kind of TV “ID”. Eventually, with the crew standing on his doorstep, he relented.
“You look trustworthy,” he said, letting them in. Lee Collins is a six-foot ginger Bristolian with a gigantic beard, wearing a “Christmassy” jumper.
In the end, Lee Collins managed to get half of Mudd, half of Slade, Showaddywaddy (“The Waddy! You came!”) and David Essex, whose presence was quite moving. He was rung only the night before, when one of Boney M dropped out at the last minute. Personally, I think it takes balls of showbiz steel to admit, on television, and by your very presence, that your schedule is “flexible” enough to record a Christmas single at 12 hours’ notice. I big up the Essex man.
I also suspect Lee Collins — previously a stand-up and DJ on XFM, the station that “discovered” Ricky Gervais — has a long and healthy TV career ahead of him. He appears to have found a way to be an excited 12-year-old who is both amusing and oddly heartwarming, rather than the kind of thing that makes you want to fashion a spear out of flint and kill a casting director.
On Saturday, BBC Four had a “Bus Night”, featuring five hours of programming about buses.
Of course they did. They’re BBC Four. I’m sure we’re all surprised they haven’t done it before now. Indeed, when you think about it, it all feels a little last-minute. Hopefully the Four’s “Small Brown Sparrows Night” and “Former Curators of the Horniman Museum in Conversation Night” are soon-come, lest we worry about the Four selling out.
The Arena film Little Platform, Big Stage was a satisfying hour of vintage footage of Routemaster buses whizzing around Trafalgar Square in 1962. Buses in smog being guided into the depot with burning torches, buses in snow, buses in the endless Beatles summer. The “clippies” explained how they were autonomous city-states — “You’re your own boss” — and the hour ended with the Routemaster, and all the clippies, being decommissioned, as London goes full self-service. This was the bus stop.

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