What I also wanted to do with the book was to shatter the myth that 60s pop culture was just one hundred people in London and therefore didn’t really mean anything, which is the Dominic Sandbrook line. Of course he’s fucking wrong, because you have very efficient distribution of ideas and images and sounds through the mass media. You have Top of the Pops every week, which is probably watched by a quarter of the population. You also have an incredibly fertile youth media sector, which probably in total sells over a million copies every week. And this is all disseminated throughout the country.
Category: Life
Coping through art
Hi, Chanelle!
That Wretched, Jumped-Up Costermonger
Shelving the 24-episode series would have meant millions of pounds of production work being wasted. After much internal agonising, BBC bosses agreed to run the series but told Banijay to re-edit the programmes to reduce the viewers’ exposure to the shamed presenters.
An insider said: “They looked at all the options like erasing the presenters altogether and relying on voice-over, but that wasn’t practical, they are so integral to the show.
“The best solution was to keep the Wallace and Torode shots and banter to a minimum and focus as much as possible on the contestants so their journey becomes more foregrounded.”
Editors were on the lookout for any presenters’ jokes that might have a sexual element, which would hit the cutting room floor, The i Paper understands.
I have written out what they should have done below, in script form.
TITLE SEQUENCE - 30 SECONDS
CUT TO:
INT. EMPTY MASTERCHEF SET. DAY (OR NIGHT, YOU CAN'T TELL)
V/O
(BRIAN BLESSED, SCREAMING)
YES
CUT TO:
INT. MASTERCHEF SET WITH PEOPLE IN IT. DAY
ROW OF CONTESTANTS, SOLEMNLY NODDING
CUT TO:
INT. UNIDENTIFIABLE BIT OF SOMETHING THAT MAY BE A WALL
V/O
(BRIAN BLESSED)
YEEEEESSSSSSS