Old published stuff

The prospect of BBC bigwig Alan Yentob fumbling with his spectacles while wittering on about a cutting-edge contemporary dance troupe is usually the sort of thing which has me grappling for the remote control quicker than you can bellow “Isadora Duncan”. But against all odds, Save the Last Dance for Me is actually well worth an hour of your time. The documentary follows the progress of dance group Company of Elders over six short weeks as they prepare for a high-profile performance at Sadlers Wells theatre. It’s no mean feat, for as their name suggests the group has a rather impressive average age of 79. While most OAPs are busying themselves elsewhere up to their cardigans in “bingo and cups of tea and biscuits”, as one dancer puts it, this group of oldies are flouncing around with abandon in the name of art. The Company of Elders is funded by Sadlers Wells, the spiritual home of all things contemporary dance, and it’s easy to see why. As well as being “utterly disarm...

Thanks to the recession, the number of people in the UK living on the streets has risen sharply over the past 12 months – and those community-spirited folks at the BBC want to pay lip service. And this being 2009, a boring old documentary about the plight of the homeless simply won’t cut the mustard. You guessed it; we need a bunch of misguided, simpering celebrities to show us what life on the streets is like. Enter journalists Rosie Boycott and Hardeep Singh Kohli, tennis star turned Treasure Hunt presenter Annabelle Croft, aristocrat James ‘Marquess of’ Blandford and finally Bruce Jones – better known as Coronation Street reprobate Les Battersby – as our game volunteers. As an aside, despite his booming “homeless people are bums” speech, the latter even starts the programme looking like he permanently resides on a bench at Waterloo Station. Oops. After a bizarre Apprentice -lite opening, all swooping shots of the capital with Big Issue founder John Bird stepping into Si...

Posted by Stewart Turner When Wally Tynan retired to his spanking new Spanish villa a few years back, it’s fair to say a life spent sweeping up used tampons and stray faecal matter wasn’t exactly what he had in mind. But since upping sticks from the UK, he lives a life which is something of a cross between that of Sisyphus and Bob the Builder as he plasters, paints and does the plumbing on his Basra-esque apartment complex – because the builders went bust. Of course, the desire to spend your twilight years in sunny Spain has long been the dream of many a British pensioner, wowed by the thoughts of endless days eating full English breakfasts washed down with pints of warm John Smith’s while the temperature barely dips below the 70s. Whether some of the horror stories on show last night will put paid to that remains to be seen. The Spanish coast has seen a glut of development over the last decade, a building boom fuelled partially by us Brits. Before the property crash, when anyone “wit...

Ah, the scent of freshly-cut grass in the air, newborn lambs gambolling giddily in the rolling hills and the gentle sound of a hacksaw slicing its way through the carcass of a newly-slaughtered veal calf. Yes, it’s summertime down at River Cottage , and floppy-haired foodie Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is back with another bellyful of delicious recipes, fun foraging tips and bizarre homebrew concoctions. Oh, and bit of campaigning on the way, of course. A keen champion of welfare rights, Hugh seems to have given veteran Irish comic Jimmy Crickett a route out of the dire comics’ retirement home to lend a hand with the script. As a result, you’re never more than a few minutes away from a pun more excruciating than being smashed round the head with a Le Creuset skillet pan. Particular lowlights include Hugh booming “Give peas and chance!” after dealing with some freshly picked legumes and “Simply the zest!” after grating some lemons. You’ll be familiar with the cosy-as-a-hairshirt...