Ideal Home: Bickering

Steve Coogan is all cowboy-ed up to play a demanding celebrity (who is shooting a Western-themed episode of his cooking show) in The Hollywood Reporter's first look at Ideal Home.

The comedy stars Coogan and Paul Rudd as a bickering gay couple whose lives are turned upside down when Coogan’s character’s grandson that he never knew he had shows up at their dinner party. The couple, who live an extravagant life, decide to take in the new addition after he crashes their lives.

Ideal Home, which began shooting May 11 in Santa Fe, New Mexico, is written and directed by Andrew Fleming. Aaron Ryder, Gabriella Tana, Maria Theresa Arida and Clark Peterson, Maxime Remillard producing...

First Look, Hollywood Reporter.

A bickering gay couple?

Oh fuck, it's going to be a middle-aged version of Vicious.

And there's a child, too, just so the straights can relate.

Fagburn: Countdown To Christmas

Nothing of much interest today.

Might be gone for a while. x

 Mirror: She looks made-up!

A Christmas message from Cliff! x

Remember, before donating to any 'needy cause' this xmas, always check their accounts.

PS Think it might be what is known as a 'slow news day'. No, hang on! Deffo loads of serious shit going down in the papers today.

PPS But it's not all bad news, according to The Sun, ITV have finally decided to put Vicious out of its misery. Yay!

PPPS I'm presuming this is a real public information festive fun warning about cock rings and handcuffs from the London Fire Brigade.

Telegraph: The bastard!

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.

Vicious: Christmas Special

What have we, what have we done to deserve this...

TV Viewing: Anything But Jeremy Clarkson

"Here's a funny one, dear, they've only gone and given us another series..."

How attractive is Jeremy Clarkson to lesbian, gay and bisexual TV viewers? This question was indirectly raised by a just-published BBC survey, which set out to find the favourite shows of 1,000 members of the Corporation's audience research who identified themselves as (in a definition of the target group that is the BBC's, not the Guardian's) "LGB".

The discoveries included the revelation that 36.6% of the 16-34-year-old males who watched Vicious, the ITV sitcom about two ageing gay men, identified themselves as gay. This was well ahead of interest in the show among the general population, but may be about as surprising as the revelation that the Pope had been caught watching tapes of Songs Of Praise. Other LGB favourites were The Great British Bake-Off and Splash!, although the overall winners exactly matched those among the overall audience: soaps such as EastEnders and Coronation Street.

My blog, my choice of photos.

The subject of sexuality-specific broadcasting is – in common with the related issue of racially targeted shows – sensitive and treacherous, and one which, as a heterosexual white male, I feel some trepidation in entering. But the announcement that gay viewers (or, at least, a section of those who were asked) most enjoy [sic] watching a comedy about two outrageously camp showbiz figures, a series about cake-making and a competition in which Tom Daley and the contestants appear in swimwear risks being counter-productive by perpetuating stereotypes of gay taste, especially as Vicious itself cheerfully trades in cliches of homosexuality.

Admittedly, the fact that the BBC's LGB viewers were disproportionately keen on two of the most widely disliked series among the critical community – both Vicious and Splash! were trashed – does suggest a possible gap between mainstream taste and one section of the audience. But the whole project raises the troubling question of to what extent audiences, performers and programmes should be defined by sexual preference...

Mark Lawson writing for Guardian TV & Radio Blog.

Note this now includes a correction at the end; "The original stated that "36.6% of the sample had watched Vicious". In fact 36.6% of the 16-34-year-old males who watched the show identify themselves as gay."

Fagburn is used to the gay media getting things hilariously and tragically wong - as indeed did both Gay Star News and Pink News with this one - but when I read the earlier version of this Guardian article where the mighty Mark Lawson implied the survey was about gay men's favourite and best-loved TV shows I had to check with the author of the original BBC blog, Adrian Ruth.
Maybe I'd finally flipped or there was some other secret survey I hadn't seen...

Just to check with you before writing about this again - and making a fool of myself if I've got this hopelessly wrong - your survey only showed what share of any programme's audience identified as gay/bisexual, yes, and did not ask about people's favourite programmes or how how much they enjoyed them?
Also was the list of programmes in any chart an actual rundown of shows with the highest LGB audience shares?

"You've understood correctly (unlike many of the journalists until we corrected them!) It was based on an analysis of actual consumption.
"It was indeed a rundown of the highest LGB shares. Note that the shares could also be high because a particular programme was a "turn-off" for straight audiences - by default the LGB share would then get higher.
"We also separately asked our sample a one-off question to get examples of good and bad portrayal. We haven't published this as it's a lot more subjective, and not as comprehensive. 

" Nevertheless it's interesting that several titles (including Vicious) were cited as both a positive and a negative example by different people in our sample."

PS The rest of Lawson's article makes some interesting points about TV viewers and sexuality and that, from the perspective of a very liberal member of the so-called heterosexual community who works in medialand. 

I may return to this later, but the laundrette beckons...

Gay TV Viewing: Tom Daley's Splash! Inexplicably Popular

Many of us probably have a strong hunch on what LGB people watch on TV – fuelled by personal experience or broad assumptions. But there has never been any comprehensive research to support or disprove our hunches. Until now.

Why does it matter? Because LGB [sic] people are licence payers too, and the BBC, as a national public service broadcaster, has a duty to serve all audiences.

Before we get into the research, I’ll explain how we got here. Three years ago, the BBC undertook a big project looking at how lesbians, gays and bisexuals are portrayed on TV and radio. Diversity is moving up the agenda in broadcasting, and as the leader of the BBC’s LGBT staff network BBC Pride, I’m pleased to report that the BBC has been leading the way (in recent years, the BBC has carried out similar research on age).

As part of that project, we carried out a large survey asking what people thought of LGB portrayal on TV and radio. The scores we got back were the equivalent of a poor to middling school report – improving, but could still do a lot better. LGB audiences wanted not only more portrayal, but also for that portrayal to be more authentic.

The smart people in the BBC Audiences team realised that we’d have an even richer understanding of LGB audiences’ views if we could analyse actual viewing and listening habits, in addition to perceptions of representation and portrayal. So they made a small tweak to a standard BBC survey to ask people about their sexual orientation. This survey regularly captures the views of 20,000 people – and just over 1,000 of that sample have identified as LGB, spread across the UK.

As a result, we can capture and analyse every programme that this LGB sample have watched or listened to – and also ask how much they’ve enjoyed them.

The main headline isn’t going to set the world on fire – when it comes to the biggest shows, we are no different to the rest of the population. The big soaps dominate our consumption – Corrie, Emmerdale and EastEnders.However, dig a little deeper and some interesting differences do emerge. LGB audiences seem to be a little bit happier with what they watch – when it comes to appreciation of all TV programmes, on average we tend to score them a little bit higher than straight audiences of the same age (this was true for all LGB groups except younger lesbians).

Compared to the population as a whole, we watch more arts, entertainment and music programmes – but are less enthralled by children’s, current affairs, news, religion and sport.

Having this scale of data means we can really dig down, letting us look at the differences between gay men and lesbians, and also segment it by age. This is really useful for making meaningful comparisons – for example, young gay men against young straight men – to see what difference being gay makes to consumption.

The results make for fascinating reading. They confirm that LGB audiences are drawn to LGB (or gay-friendly) talent and portrayal – whether as presenters or contestants (Great British Bake Off, Alan Carr,Celebrity Big Brother), subjects, actors or characters (Downton Abbey, Being Human, Modern Family,Vicious, Glee, Kenny Everett and the soaps). While we can all probably hazard a guess as to why ITV’s celebrity diving show Splash! proved such a hit with gay men of all ages, the reasons behind lesbians’ apparent fondness for panel shows such as Never Mind the Buzzcocks and QI may not be quite so obvious. The high percentages simply mean that these programmes appealed much more to lesbians than to straight women of a similar age. While the research can’t explain what drives people’s programming preferences, the beauty of using the panel for this research is that we will keep on accumulating examples, enabling us to gain over time an ever deeper understanding of LGB audience behaviours and tastes...

Adrian Ruth, chair of BBC Pride, writing on the BBC blog.

Note this chart shows the share of a show's male audience who identified as gay/bisexual, and doesn't tell us what gay and bisexual men actually thought about the programme.
So, for example, although a high proportion of male viewers of Vicious identified as gay or bisexual, it doesn't follow that a lot of young gay men thought Vicious was any good.
Or that a lot of us watched it.
[Edit: People were not asked to name their favourite programme, as Pink News claimed].
Other charts can be seen here.

Thought For The Day: Ian McKellen

If we were to not hold the [Olympic] games because of the internal politics of the country in question, probably they would never take place.
I mean, people would find enough to argue about in America's foreign policy...

Well said, Sir Ian.
You are now - officially - forgiven for Vicious.
x

Gay wet liberals and Tories brains EXPLODE!!! with confusion as Ian McKellen says he doesn't support boycotting Sochi, and this outrage just after Elton John says he still wants to play some concerts in Russia in December. 
Two of their "gay saints" - respectable knights of the realm, no less - become sinners in the blink of a blinkered eye.
How dare the quisling traitors deviate from the neo-colonialist queer consensus and consider what actions might actually be useful and/or not completely useless??!!
Will we ever be the same again... etc etc.

PS Russian anti-gay groups DON'T want Elton to perform there, just like...

Tom Daley: Badly Drawn Boy

At last... our Tom's got her own comic book!

Yes, that's right, there's bum-all going on that's worth commenting on today, really.
But Fagburn's got some more smokin' hot shirtless pics of dishy Dave Cameron on the beach that we're just dying to share with you, plus our exclusive interview with the eminently sane Lauren Harries from CBB is, as they say, in the bag!
Plus we hear ITV have commissioned a second series of that Springtime for Hitler of sitcoms, Vicious!
Sometimes life's just too good, eh boys?
So we'll be right back quicker than you can say; "Let's bomb Russia!"

Vicious: You Hit Me With A Flower

Veteran comedian Barry Cryer has hit out at ITV's gay comedy Vicious, labelling it “homophobic”.
Cryer said the comedy, which stars Sir Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi as long-term lovers Freddie and Stuart, squandered the enormous potential of the subject matter and the cast.
“A sitcom with two old gays could be really good and moving,” Cryer writes in today’s Radio Times magazine. “With two great actors in Sir Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi it should be fantastic. But it was insult, insult, insult every other line. You don’t believe in them. You don’t like them, for a start. It was positively homophobic! It made John Inman look restrained.”
Vicious ended its run last week and ITV is not expected to commission a second series, according to sources, although a Christmas special is understood to have been filmed and will air. A spokesperson said that no decision has been made over a recommission and declined to respond to Cryer's comments.
An ITV source said that it was a "shame" that he thought this way and pointed out that the Gay Times was a "big supporter of the show".

Radio Times.

Well done the Gay Times.
And that's your actual the Radio Times there.

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...

Brian Sewell: 'I've Become A Spiteful And Vicious Self Parody'

Controversial art critic Brian Sewell has attacked himself as "a spiteful parody", Pink News can reveal.
Writing in his weekly Ooh... Get Her! column in London's Evening Standard, Mr R Sewell claims; "Vicious? A vicious old queen is precisely what I am — I've turned into a laughable self-parody that could not have been nastier if I had been devised by a malevolent and recriminatory heterosexual.”
The 93 year-old continued; "Why oh why do I always behave like a pantomime dame at an audition - an endless source of venomous barbs, constantly falling into limp-wristed attitudes, and all too ready to huff and puff in pretended hurt.
"Just like I am now," he flounced.
Sewell - whose second volume of memoirs, Bugger Me!, appeared earlier this year - says he reminds himself of a less progressive period for gay people and that the bitchy humour displayed in his writing disguises the pain of not being able to fully embrace being gay.
“Heaven forfend that my endless posturing, and my determination to make my plummy voice heard, may revive the pernicious prejudices against pooves so long familiar to men of my wonderful vintage.
"I fear for today's young generation who might see me being fruity on television admiring a particularly striking male nude and think such silly camp old queens still exist."
“I really am just an exaggerated old joke."

Fagburn: From The Sunday Papers

Zionist loon Julie Burchill still likes a drink, gets drunk, admits she's written "a lot of bullshit", but doesn't regret that transphobic article in The Observer one little bit; "I’d do it again, and I’d do it bigger!” • More obligatory TV critics queuing up to give those Vicious old queens a good kicking.    "I really wasn’t prepared for quite how much I would dislike and, by the time the credits rolled, despise this hammy bitches’ dinner" AA Gill, The Sunday Times. "Forget the cast, where are the gags?" IoS etc etc • Obligatory Sunday broadsheet interview with a gay actor - this week Zachary Quinto. So brave etc etc. •  Obligatory Sundays features about The Gays and The Sports. It's the last taboo! etc etc. This week football. The Observer has not one, but two. Over in the Mail, it's cricket's turn • Obligatory article in the Mail On Sunday claiming Ukip's local election successes had something to do with gay marriage, accompanied by obligatory photo of Nigel Farage drinking a pint. Also the subject of a leader in the Sunday Express, who manfully break with tradition and show Nigel talking into a pink (!) mobile phone • Obligatory "heartwarming" lifestyle feature about having gay kids, Sunday Telegraph (Sadly there isn't one about gay people having kids this week) • Obligatory very hastily cobbled together thing explaining who Nigel Evans MP is • Obligatory Nigel Slater recipes Observer Magazine only • Obligatory token and random gay story in the Independent On Sunday that's of absolutely no interest to anyone. This week - the Finnish Eurovision entry! It's the World Cup for gays! etc etc. It's a protest song about gay marriage - except it isn't, really. Zzzz...

Vicious: Well, Do You?

Eh?

Tom Sutcliffe on Independent Voices on the TV show everyone's talking about!
Was it actually funny, why was it so divisive, and what does this all mean?
Blah blah blah... snore!

PS Today's Telegraph proposes a new conspiracy theory;

"On first viewing I couldn’t understand why, in the year 2013, two gay men – Gary Janetti and Mark Ravenhill – would create a comedy about gay men who conform to almost every homophobic stereotype: bitchy, vain, melodramatic, lecherous, rude, sulky...

"Then it struck me. Vicious was a wind-up, its aim to enrage bilious homophobes by rubbing their faces in their own prejudices. “There! See!” the bilious homophobes would splutter. “Homosexuals are every bit as seedy and unpleasant as I thought! God, they make me so angry, I could… Arrrgh! My chest! Call 999! I’m having a heart attack!”

"I suppose there is an alternative possibility, namely that Vicious is just a load of hackneyed old rubbish. But I’m sure that can't be it."

Fagburn wonders how many Telegraph readers are in the "bilious homophobes" camp?
And lest people think I'm obsessed with this show I'll leave the last word to their Gerard O'Donovan.

"Last week’s opening episode of ITV’s much trumpeted Vicious – a camp-as-custard comedy about two lovably acid-tongued old queens, Freddie (Ian McKellen) and Stuart (Derek Jacobi), living out their twilight years in mutually vitriolic bliss – rather divided critical opinion. Mostly, it must be said, between whether it was just plain awful or unforgivably abysmal." 

Update: Seems I spoke too soon.
The show has another fan - Garry Bushell in the Daily Star! 
"Proper stars in an orgy of put-downs – what’s not to like?"

But - quicker than you can say "Some of my best mates are poofs" - Gazza notes; "But it’s hard to keep up with PC thinking on these vital matters.

"For decades we were told that Mr Humphries was an insulting caricature, yet now ITV, the gayest of all networks, has decided he’s funny again. Newsflash: he always was."


PS Having now endured watching Vicious all the way through, here's my two cents:

If they got in a decent script editor, who could start by cutting half the "How old?!!" lines, and if Ian and Derek toned down the hammy over-acting - how can two great gay actors make "acting gay" look so laboured? - and if they lost the laughter track, which only serves to over-emphasise the lamer gags, it might have been just about bearable. 
Just about.

Vicious: What The Papers Said

"I’d agree [this show is a landmark], if Vicious was remotely funny, but it isn’t, and that’s its fatal flaw. While representing something important and laudable the show is simply abominable" Daily Express. 

"A particular letdown" Daily Mirror. 

"The least funny new comedy in recent memory" Daily Telegraph. 

"Even Sirs Ian McKellen and Derek Jacobi can't rescue Vicious, ITV's feeble, old-fashioned comedy" The Guardian.

"The only laughter it provokes is canned" The Independent.

The Times was so-so; "It's not really to my particular taste."

Got that?
The main problem these reviewers had with Vicious was they didn't think it was funny.*
Crap gags, overacting worthy of panto, and annoying canned/idiots' laughter were the most common gripes. 
None didn't like Vicious because the lead characters were old, but several thought the programme was rather old-fashioned.
No-one had any problem that it was a gay sitcom - or, if you prefer that it was a sitcom that just happened to be gay - just that it wasn't a very good one.
And none thought it problematic that the "vicious old queens" were somewhat stereotypical - though this was a popular saw with some gaybores on Twitter.
And besides, an ITV prime time sitcom probably isn't the best place to go looking if you want some of EM Forster's "well-rounded characters".
In a Guardian online article about how Vicious shows how TV has changed since the 70s - when "the only regular TV appearance of a male homosexual [was] flouncing Mr Humphries in Are You Being Served?" - Ben Summerskill claimed that "some autopilot activists have been outraged at its caricatures."
Have they?
Who Christopher Biggins!? 
You could say it's a sign of the times that Vicious was not pre/judged on it being gay, be it with bigoted sneers or wanky liberal cheers, but on whether it made for good television.
And the verdict is clearly it wasn't.

*Actually one paper really loved it, The Daily Mail; "Outrageous, frank and slapstick, all at the same time... this show is an instant classic."
Make of that what you will.

PS Screen shots from BBC News and Wednesday's Daily Star.
It's unusual for the media to review the reviews - perhaps they thought the response to Vicious was newsworthy in itself?

Update: And from the Daily Mail message boards...
Just the first two posts from the top of the page, so please don't accuse me of bias and that.
The author, Philip Hensher, also valiantly fights against those who said Vicious had stereotypical gay characters.
Although - again - only Christopher Biggins appears to have made this a criticism of the programme in the mainstream media.
Maybe it's a "thing" for dinner party queens?
Fight the non-existent power!

The Independent: Question!

The Independent - which has the same answer to everything...

"Err, why don't we do another online poll?"
"Brilliant, Ollie. Pub?"

Not sure if the current total of 100% votes for "No" is because the answer's too obvious to even bother asking the question in the first place, or because Fagburn's the only person who's bothered to vote.

Please read the accompanying twaddle by one Daisy Wyatt.
Guess what she's thinking?
"Could Vicious, then, despite its disappointing original title of Vicious Old Queens,  open the eyes of TV commissioners and start a new trend where characters happen to be gay, rather than are typecast as “gay characters”?"
Oh FFS!
I know I keep going on about how hopeless, clueless and patronising The Independent's coverage of gay issues is - sorry, of issues that just happen to be gay - but there must be someone there who is capable of doing more than just regurgitating the first dumb thing they found when they Googled it?

PS And who do you think Radio 4's Today get in this morning to comment on Vicious and the state of the gay cultural nation?
Who else could it be but...
Christopher Biggins!!!

Daily Telegraph: Astonishing!

It’s astonishing, given what’s happening in the real world, that TV comedy still consigns its gays to a fictional ghetto. A remarkable (yet almost silent) change has taken place in British attitudes over the past few years. The vast majority of straight people now barely notice the gay people in their midst, and gay marriage – which would have been unthinkable not 10 years ago – looks likely to sail through Parliament with hardly a murmur.

From the Daily Telegraph.

Yes, from the same Telegraph that's spent most of this year screaming like a dying banshee against gay marriage. 
Cut to uproarious canned laughter.
This is from an article using Vicious to gallop through a short, potted history of gay characters in British TV comedy, which contradicts itself at every turn. 
The journalist, Neil Midgley, is looking forward to Vicious because he doesn't like to see gay stereotypes - so I'm not sure what he'll make of these Vicious Old Queens.
He likes his gay characters to be "normal" and "ordinary", and not "camp and effeminate".
So just like straight people, then?
Little Britain though is singled out for praise for the "delusional" character Daffyd, because - apparently - they "used it to poke fun at gay people who still tediously insist on being special and different."
Zzzz... 

Thanks to Darren. x

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.

Ian McKellen: Family Values

“It’s a fairly traditional sitcom which reminds me of The Golden Girls or I Love Lucy.
“It’s not aiming to shock people. It won’t alarm anyone. It isn’t a satire or an exposé of gay life. These characters just happen to be gay.
“For me, it is as if TV has grown up.
“In the past, gay characters in sitcoms have been figures of fun. They were funny because they were gay. But I like the fact that these characters are funny because of the people they are. That’s a real advance.”
“It’s a family show that will get the broadest possible demographic. Everyone will be able to relate to the characters."

Ian McKellen in The Sun on Vicious.

And talking about people who "just happen to be gay" just happens to be a vacuous cliche.
Art that attempts to be "something for everyone" usually ends up meaning nothing to anyone.
Vicious starts on ITV next Monday.
From this painful clip it looks like a "comedy" in the loosest sense of the word.