Vicious: What Fresh Hell Is This?

Inexplicably returning for a second series tonight.

'Ooh, that's a big one, ducky!'

[Sound of raucous canned laughter] etc etc.

If there is a god - which there isn't - he must really hate the gays.

PS Sireena in the Sun; “We have not yet had a scene seeing the two of them in bed together, and I don’t see why that couldn’t be the case.

“At the top of the stairs on the set there’s a bedroom that we never see, and I used to say to the audience in the breaks, ‘So is it a double bed up there or two singles?’, and everyone was agreeing it was a double bed."

“In the past, gay characters in soaps have been quite unbelievable and you couldn’t imagine them in bed.

“But Freddie and Stuart have sex and are rude about each other.”

Let's not go there.

Update: It's a rave one star review in the Telegraph!

Presumably it took almost two years for Vicious to return in order to negotiate high enough fees to coerce such accomplished actors to come back. We must hope that in future their many, infinitely superior, other projects delay the process even longer.

Derek Jacobi & Ian McKellen: The 50 Year Phase

What they’re both rather delighted about is that we now live in an age where you can debate the portrayal of gay couples on mainstream telly. They talk about their own experiences of being gay in an age where such a thing was illegal. It’s sobering stuff.

Jacobi says he came out to his mother when he was at university. ‘She said, “All young men, go through this phase, don’t worry.” I remember saying, “Don’t tell Dad.”’ He doesn’t know to this day if she did. ‘I think she did, but I don’t know. But they were wonderful, my parents, not much was said but they kind of knew, they got it.’

McKellen hasn’t heard his friend talk of this before. ‘That’s the first time I’ve heard that,’ he says, genuinely moved. ‘I never came out to my family. Biggest regret of my life.’ It turns out he didn’t even come out to Derek at university, even though it’s always been reported that he had something of a crush on him.

‘Yes, I did fancy Derek, but I didn’t act on it, God, no. It was illegal, remember. I do get on my high horse about it, because it was so difficult. There were no gay clubs you could go to. No gay bars, no gay newspaper, nothing. What there was was a bit sleazy, I suspect. One of the reasons I became an actor was that you could meet gay people. Even then everything was difficult. When you went to America they asked, “Are you now, or have you ever been, homosexual?” I lied on the form. It was a different world.’

His anger propelled him into the gay rights movement, and he’s still a very vocal campaigner. Jacobi, on the other hand, took the opposite route. When he finally gets the chance to talk – McKellen is definitely the chattier of the two – his story is no less compelling. ‘No, I wasn’t open. I just lived my life and people responded to me.

'If they knew, or thought, I was gay, that was fine. If they didn’t, that was fine. I’ve never been on a Gay Pride march. It doesn’t mean I don’t feel as strongly about it, I just don’t talk about it.’ In fact, he’s been with his partner Richard Clifford for nearly 40 years (they got together just after his first major TV role in the BBC’s I, Claudius), and they entered into a civil partnership in 2006.

What’s their secret? ‘Oh God! I don’t know. It is a long time, isn’t it? There’s a certain amount of work, but there’s luck too.’ McKellen fills in the gaps. ‘They adore each other, and are a very good match.’ ...

From an enchanting profile of Derek and Ian in the Daily Mail, which they put in the Femail section natch.

Quite bafflingly, Vicious returns for a second series on Monday June 1st.

Ian and Derek during their Cambridge days.

Alexander McQueen: No-Holds-Barred!

The fashion world is bracing itself for the revelations in a no-holds-barred biography of the late designer Alexander McQueen.
The book, by his close friend Nick Townsend, is predicted to cause rifts within the industry as it will lift the lid on McQueen’s controversial private life and reveal details of a ‘physically abusive’ relationship he had with a leading figure in the London scene.
‘The relationship was very violent,’ says Nick, 45. ‘I was always patching up Alexander’s boyfriend. There were missing teeth, ripped clothes, and blood. It was serious...’

Mail On Sunday.

"Close friends" don't write "no-holds-barred" dirt-digging biographies about their deceased "friends" - and only a gay sewer rat would talk to the Mail about it.
Good day, sir!

The small print in the article points out the book has not been written, nor does Townsend have a publisher!

PS The MoS is also serialising Derek Jacobi's autobiography. Oddly they've chosen some rather boring bits.
Sir Derek also chooses his favourite albums in the Sunday Express; Barbra Streisand, Noel Coward, Timi Yuro...
As Kris Kirk famously remarked your music collection will always out you.

Vicious: So Farewell Then...

Fagburn was saddened to hear of the end of the first, and hopefully the last, series of Vicious - the only TV sitcom in history where even the laughter-track booed.

• ITV have set up a helpline for the millions of people left devastated by this news. Call 0800 1234 666.

Vicious: Sitcom Hell

It is with a heart as heavy as plutonium, that I hear according to Digital Spy Derek Jacobi says they're thinking about a second series of Vicious.
Thankfully, it's not clear if one has actually been commissioned. 
"It's a whole new world for me - I'm in sitcom hell now! We've done a Christmas special to remind people that we're still around, because Ian, of course, is a movie star.
"He goes off and does the movies, and he's not free now - God damn him - 'til this time next year, so we can't do another one until he's free."
Paul O'Grady has some advice - the vicious old queens weren't vicious enough.
“I think it needs livening up a bit.
“I know theatrical queens I’m terrified of. It’s like going into a shark pit.
“I can hold my own, but they scare me.” 
It also wasn't good enough.
The reception to Vicious was so hostile, and viewing figures promptly plummeted, you wonder if anyone will commission a "gay sitcom" again in the next few decades.
Though maybe Russell Tovey and Danny Miller should make one about a young gay couple who are too busy shagging like buggery to bother making a load of lame and tired queeny put-downs, THAT'S IF YOU ASK ME, MR ITV!

PS And it's bad news for Nick Grimshaw...

Fagburn: TV Times

 
“The joke is that these people happen to be horrible to each other even as they love each other, and they happen to be gay. These guys aren’t funny because they’re gay, these guys are funny because of their wit and humanity.” 

Ian McKellen on Vicious in The Sunday Times, which starts on ITV tomorrow night.
Unfortunately "just happens to be gay" just happens to be a vacuous liberal cliche, and particularly silly when you're talking about a sitcom about a gay couple.
Could a male and a female actor have been slipped into the two lead roles?
And even more unfortunately, the word is Vicious happens not be funny.
David Benedict was hilarious - ironically - previewing it on Saturday Review; "The script is sooo bad..."
Looks like all those who said Ben Elton's The Wright Way was "the worst sitcom ever" could soon be revising their opinions.
Oops.

Grimmy - everyone loves Grimmy, don't they?
Did you know he's got lots of top showbiz mates?
Funny he never talks about that.
Anyway, he's got his own TV show!
Apparently, on Sweat The Small Stuff on BBC3 "he and celebrity guests argue the toss over things that don’t really matter. It is perfect for Grimshaw, and for the version of youth he embodies: celebrity-obsessed, fast-moving, dismissive, reductive fun. It is Twitter for the telly. Grimmy opted for it because, he says, 'I am fickle about pop culture. Like, I’ll love something one week, and then, yeah, I’m so over it.'”
Hope that's not tempting fate, Nick.
Oh, and good news, girls - he's still single!
But he quite "likes" James Franco.
“He’d be good, wouldn’t he? Like, older. Casual. And smart. I got a National Geographic subscription so that I could say things like: ‘Yeah, you know the blue whale’s spine?’ I thought he’d like things like that.”
Nick sounds quite a catch, doesn't he?

Update: Little parlour game. See if you can see any connection between this headline in Monday's Star - Nick Grimshaw Bans Harry Styles Over 'Gay' Jibes - and the story beneath it.

And not last but lust, another plug for Russell Tovey's new sitcom, The Job Lot.
Unfortunately it's on ITV on Monday straight after Vicious.
Let's hope everyone hasn't changed channels.
Russell plays a bloke who works in a job centre... who just happens to be straight!
Typecasting?
“Every character I play is straight, which is unique, my agent says, because it’s not really been done before that someone who is completely out is able to play straight roles. So for me to play gay it has to be something special, because it might actually be more of a risk. So I’m waiting for that role – I want it to be something that moves things forward.”
Can't wait.
Doesn't she look gorgeous right now?

And finally, the Sunday People has an interview with Scott Thorson, former lover of Liberace - "the bling-loving piano player".*
Scott's life fell apart after he split up with Lee, and he's spent the time since on and off drugs, and in and out of jail.
He let go the rights to his memoir, Behind The Candelabra, years ago, so may not see a cent from the TV movie.
Scott's now in prison - again - awaiting trial on credit card fraud and burglary charges.
Poor sod.

* There's a more revealing interview with Larry King from 2002 here.

Vicious: Oh My Dear, My Old Dears

Obviously it would be wrong and unfair to judge this series on a thirty second clip but this doesn't bode well, does it?
Is it the creaking "gags", the luvvies shouting like they're in rep, or maybe it's just the audience - presumably real - howling and clapping like drunken chimpanzees?
If gay men are well-known for their wit, then why do so many gay comedies turn out to be shit?

Derek Jacobi & Ian McKellen: Vicious Old Queens?

Newsflash! I rang the ITV press office and was told this story was "pure speculation" (which doesn't mean that it's not definitely going to happen). As always, depressing how many gay websites ran this without questioning it or checking it.  


ACTING legend Sir Ian McKellen is to swap movie blockbusters for primetime telly.

He will star in a major new ITV1 sitcom, Vicious Old Queens, alongside Sir Derek Jacobi, 74.
The show, scheduled for Friday nights starting next April, will feature the two as elderly gay men living together in London’s ­Covent Garden...
Six half-hour episodes have been commissioned, written by American Gary Janetti, executive producer [and writer] of long-running US sitcom Will And Grace.

This comes from Daily Star Sunday, and I can find no other reference online, so one could doubt its veracity (I'll check on Monday).
Can't remember the last British "gay sitcom" - though that may be because I've blotted them from my mind.

Update: I phoned Sir Ian's agent and asked about this, and was told "We have no comment to make" so emphatically and repeatedly, I wonder if something is in the pipeline...

Update 2: Only took eight days for someone else to bother to check this story - Media Guardian suggest it's happening. Here's their earlier take on it - churnalism that I've been pestering their Reader's Editor about. A victory of sorts. Ho hum..

Thought For The Day: Derek Jacobi

“The word [marriage] doesn’t mean anything to me. It’s a squabble over nothing.
“Richard [Clifford] and I have been together for 35 years. We’ve been in a civil partnership for five years. It doesn’t matter what you call it. We don’t think of it as marriage, it’s a partnership. People are getting hot under the collar at the moment because of this word...
“It’s just this word. The Church is the problem."

The Daily Telegraph.
Well said, sir.
That some people - both pro and anti - can get so animated about such trifles tells us nothing but the debasement of political debate in our culture.

PS Not too sure when she came out. Anyone?