The Sex Education Show

There's a favourable and very fair review on The Guardian website about The Sex Education Show. Bearing in mind the painful and just downright strange conversations I had about sex and relationships with my parents this is what caught my eye in Heidi Stephens piece:

This is not my kind of thing, as a rule - people talking openly about sex, how much they're getting it, what kind they're getting. I'd rather clean the oven. But this show claimed to present both teenage and adult perspectives on all matters sexual. And because I have both a 16-year-old son and a nine-year-old daughter, any advice on how to broach this stuff in a way that is less likely to scar my offspring for life is gratefully received.

As it turned out, I didn't need to make notes, because teenage son decided to watch it with me. Which I guess was what Channel 4 intended when they gave it a pre-watershed 8pm slot, but was entirely unexpected and potentially horrifically embarrassing (no, for ME, not him). He wandered in at the start, asked what I was watching, and decided to "give it five minutes". By the end he admitted it had been "interesting" and "useful". And in the mumble-heavy vocabulary of a 16-year-old boy, I believe that counts as a glowing review.

You can see it on 4oD. Alone. With your teenager. Or even with a parent.

The Channel 4 Sex Education website is here (and it's well worth checking out).

Four Wives, One Man

I always mean to watch these True Stories docs on More4, but then find something easy and trashy on another channel and give them up. But last night when I got in and switched the TV on it just happened to be tuned to More4 (I think I'd probably been watching a repeat of a Grand Designs I'd seen before) and this doc was about half an hour in. And I was completely hooked. It was absolutely fantastic.

It follows a family in an Iranian village: a man, his four wives, twenty children and his mother. The women all have a story to tell of divorce, sadness and betrayal and watching the man squirming when they nag him or answer back is at least a little pay-back for the beatings they say he gives them. The mother pitches in with her view that her husband was a real man, who loved only her, while all five of her sons are 'just sheep'... And yet it isn't ultimately a tragic story. It is full of humour and banter between the women.

What's great about the way this is filmed is that there is no intrusive narrator, or interviewer. It is just the family, talking to camera or to each other.

I have already recommended the programme to everyone I know, and now recommend it to you.

Even more Super Botox Me

Kate Flett in the Observer writes a nice piece about journalist Kate Spicer's entertaining investigation into Botox treatments. I always like reviews that make me want to watch programmes that I'd otherwise decided weren't for me. While I'm not, as Flett puts it "your average female viewer of a certain age", (I'm of the age but not the gender) I like the fact that Spicer tried the treatments out on herself. Further, Flett's piece makes me wonder if and when I'll switch over from my purely natural beauty regime (mostly trying not to drink a bottle of wine a day) to taking a more man-made solution to the visible problems (mostly caused by my natural beauty regimen). Anyway, this is what Flett says:

In the latest of C4's feisty-femmedocs, Super Botox Me, the likeable, funny journalist Kate Spicer investigated the seductive world of Botox and beyond. At 39, and with an attractive but undeniably lived-in face, a combination of journalistic curiosity and pure vanity led her to have 40 Botox injections and something called a Fraxel Laser Facial, which left her looking as if she'd been blowtorched by a Dalek.

Spicer was amusing and honest about her ambivalence towards procedures which were painful but also painfully addictive. The results were fabulous, knocking five years off her age, which, for your average female viewer of a certain age, was the problem. Being a wuss about needles, I am still stemming the tsunami of time with excellent haircuts, pots of SK-II skin cream and what I call 'Photox': picture-retouching. But who am I kidding? For my 45th birthday I'd be happy enough to look like Kate Spicer's Before, never mind her Afters.

Super Botox Me

Another programme in the G Spot strand - Super Botox Me - is on the service now. It's another look at cosmetic surgery, but this time above the neck. The clip on the homepage is pretty funny too...

The Devil and Daniel Johnston: trailer and on 4oD

For a long time musician Daniel Johnston's fame was one based on notoriety more than anything else. Whenever his name came up it was almost always in the context of David Bowie and Nirvana's Kurt Cobain being huge fans of his. For me I first encountered him at London's Chisenhale gallery as part of a show by Peter Friedl that dealt with the King Kong theme. Daniel Johnston's soundtrack, recorded at a live performance of his song 'King Kong' and its lyrics, are the things that stays with me. There's an unease that comes with the artistic output of those who suffer obvious issues around their mental health and the audiences they attract. In Johnston's case his depression and schizophrenia aren't the only things: there's his drug abuse and violence to take into account. I've seen him twice now and both were thrilling and painful in equal measure. If anyone sang the Bond theme 'Live and Let Die' on the X Factor as badly as he did at the Royal Festival Hall they'd be booted out the door straight away, but seeing him on stage with his beat up guitar and out of tune voice it's impossible to not stare, marvel and finally revel at what you're seeing and hearing. It's not that he sings so badly it's good at all - it's just that he sings it like nobody except Daniel Johnston.

I'm not sure if I want to go and see him play again as much as I love playing the tapes and CDs - the second time he looked scared and in worse shape than the time before. Like Kurt Cobain I have the Hello How are you? Daniel Johnston t-shirt except that mine is white text out of black. I think of him whenever I wear it. Maybe that's enough.

4oD on The Devil and Daniel Johnston:

Daniel Johnston is an acclaimed singer and artist who suffers from manic depression. Jeff Feuerzeig's Sundance-winning film is a unique portrait of his work.

In the course of a career which stretches back to the 1980s, Daniel Johnston has written well over 100 love songs. What makes them unusual is that they're all about one woman, Laurie, the object of his unrequited affection for over 20 years. Despite the fact that Laurie rejected Daniel and eventually married an undertaker, his ardour has never dulled. Johnston does have other creative muses though, most notably Jesus, Captain America, The Beatles and Casper The Friendly Ghost. The interview subjects, including Johnston's elderly parents and long-suffering manager, are refreshingly honest about life with a manic-depressive. Home movie footage doesn't just serve as a visual backdrop for anecdotes, but shows that despite initial appearances, Johnston is one extremely smart and self-aware cookie.

Read about The Devil and Daniel Johnston on More4 and watch it on 4oD.

Dying alone...

It's something that everyone secretly fears, but doesn't believe that it could happen to them. Except that sometimes it does. The trailers for Watch Me Disappear have definitely got me worried... The programme is part of Channel 4's Generation Next initiative - a season of programmes by new talent throughout August. The Indie's Emma Love talks about the programme and the event here.

Watch Me Disappear is going out on C4 this Friday, but if you miss it, it will of course be available on 4oD for 30 days.

Take a look at other programmes in the Generation Next season, as well as some from people C4 has given a break to over the last 25 years in the Generation Next: Then and Now page.

New features

A recent addition to the service was the Most Watched Films page. An attempt to give users some idea of what others are renting as inspiration for their own choices.

This has now been extended into the Archive section as well. So, the Free Archive page is now the New in Archive page - flagging up programmes and series that have been added recently - and there is a new Most Watched Archive page. To start with, it's an overview of the top 15 series for the last six month, but when it gets updated it will use data for a shorter time-period. Also, you may notice that perennial favourites such as Shameless and Skins are missing, because they are considered on-going series, which will be returning on-air.

Take a look.

She's Elektra...

I once saw Zoë Wanamaker at the Donmar in a production of Elektra. That was the version of the tragic Greek myth as told by Sophocles. John Heilpern, writing in the New York Observer, wrote:

Zoë Wanamaker's Electra is a miraculous achievement – one of the finest performances I've ever seen.

For myself I do remember it as being the most intense experience I've had at the theatre, heightened by the fact that old Donmar theatre was a tiny space where the seating and the stage area (no raised proscenium here) were pretty much the same thing. It was like being in a front room with someone who has suffered a series of unimaginable family tragedies.

This, however isn't Sophocles's version but Rob Bowman's. Actually 'version' is the wrong word, judging by the description (I haven't seen it as yet) 'whole-different-story-but-with-a-similarly-named-character' would be a more accurate description:

Rob Bowman's fantasy thriller stars Jennifer Garner as Elektra, an assassin tutored by the mysterious martial arts master Stick (Terence Stamp). Her latest assignment is to keep Mark Miller (Goran Visnjic) and his daughter Abby (Kirsten Prout) safe from the ninja warriors of the evil Order of the Hand, to whom she once paid allegiance. Now on the side of good, her task is to protect those who can tip the balance between good and evil, but can she overcome her once-fellow assassins?

It's new on 4oD. Check it out.

V Festival

Not to keep harping on about newspaper reviews, but The Guardian was pretty impressed with this year's V Festival. And lucky you, all the C4 highlights are on 4oD. Take a look. Or a listen. Up to you.

The Perfect Vagina

Indeed... Channel 4's G Spot season continued on air last night with The Perfect Vagina. It attracted a fairly large audience for its slot, but if you missed it, it is available on 4oD now. And just in case you mistake it for another 'naughty' late-night show from C4, here's a review by Tim Walker in The Independent. Or read what the programme's author Lisa Rogers
had to say about it on The Guardian blogs.

Kate Flett in The Observer

Kate Flett in The Observer writes lots of nice things about two shows that you can currently see on the 4oD:
The Genius of Charles Darwin
The Secret Millionaire
The third one that she covers is also a Channel baby but sadly isn't on 4oD. I say sadly because it's The WI Guide to Brothels and it would in all probability do very well.

The Seveth Seal on 4oD

Yes, I have been unremittingly busy and yes, even so that's no excuse not to have posted anything here for months. OK, many months. But business on 4oD carries on as usual with the latest free catch up and new material from the archive being added all the time. For me personally the best moment of recent times is the addition of a whole series of Ingmar Bergman movies to download (sadly not for free) including The Seventh Seal (pictured). This, remember dear reader, is the film that inspired not only Woody Allen (Love and Death) but also the excellent Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey

Chocolate Junkie Pig:

In The Guardian Sam Wollaston takes to Willie's Wonky Chocolate Factory and makes me want to watch it. This is what he says about the roasting of a chocolate basted pig:

Junkie pig, that's what I want. It's a dish I wasn't aware of before watching Willie's Wonky Chocolate Factory (Channel 4, Sunday), but that's probably because it almost certainly doesn't exist outside the Harcourt-Cooze family. Willie H-C is one of those posh people it's impossible not to like. He has a wild look in his eye that suggests he's lived a bit, he has big plans, crazy ideas, tons of enthusiasm. It's just not clear whether he's got the down-to-earth skills to make those plans happen.

Chocolate, that's his thing: he's trying to make the king of chocolates, with beans grown on his farm in Venezuela. It's basically that show Jimmy's Farm, with palm trees. It looks fun being one of the Harcourt-Cooze kids. So what if the family Volvo doesn't have glass in all its windows - they get to hang out in the jungle for a month every year, dance salsa, eat chocolate with everything, including junkie pig.

You need a whole pig for Junkie Pig, and an outdoor wood-burning oven big enough to accommodate it. Kill the pig and make a marinade from white wine, balsamic vinegar, apricots, and chocolate of course, all buzzed up together. Then inject it into the pig, using a fresh hypodermic needle (hence the name) - all over, like a proper old smackhead, not like some novice, first-time user. Then pop it into the oven for about three hours, until the skin is nice and crispy. Yum. You don't see that on MasterChef.

Got 4oD? Watch Junkie Pig here right now.

I'm off on holiday: Skins Series 2 is on 4oD

Catch up with all of the first series of Skins, watch the second series as it happens on 4oD.

Reaper free on 4oD

I've been watching Reaper on 4oD and it's pretty fine. It reminds me of Buffy crossed with Clerks (which isn't surprising as Clerks director Kevin Smith directed the first Ep). The other thing I like is that our hero Sam's sidekick, Bert "Sock" Wysocki (played by Tyler Labine) resembles quite spookily my old (but long time no see) friend Gideon.

Got 4oD? Watch Reaper here!
Not Got 4oD? Get 4oD here!

Semi-exclusive Skins clip

Full-house: the Holy Grail of VOD

OK, I just made up that stuff about a full-house (where you have all of the peak-time shows from the service's parent channel, in our case Channel 4, on VOD) being the Holy Grail of VOD but it's not actually far from the truth. The point being that the user, not totally up with the rights and compliance complexity involved in putting a TV show into an on-demand environment, comes to expect everything carried on your channel to be there. So looking at the schedule stripe across the bottom of the above screenshot reveals that all of the peak-time programmes are available to watch. (Admittedly you would need to know that the paler blue colour and the fact that they have synopses on rollover designates that they are on the service, by hey, nobody and no VOD service is perfect). Not only that, the night before last and tonight have all the peak-time shows available too. Now, I just need to sort out the customers asking about The Simpsons and Friends.

Rambo: Cookalong Live(ish) - better than real TV

If you missed the live Cookalong with Gordon last week you can relive the joy with 4oD. The items you'll need can be found here. In many ways while the live cookalong was fun to watch and had the excitement that only live TV has (trust me I worked on Blue Peter before it was dirty and still live) the ability to pause and study the recipes rather than racing to catch up also has its benefits.

Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack on 4oD

Big Brother: Celebrity Hijack, the all new cleaned up non-racist version of this old favourite has started. You can see the whole of the launch show (all 90 minutes of it!) on 4oD or get the news and clips on Channel4.com.

Early coverage of the revamped show on The Sun's website is very positive with their BB columnist writing:

I was sick and tired of BB after Jade Goody’s antics last year.
But Matt’s choice of lumbering Scot John to do his bidding had me laughing aloud.
So that’s the next three weeks’ telly viewing sorted then.

Personally I'm looking forward to the Chapman brothers taking on the celebrity role as I've always enjoyed their antics.

Feeling Shameless: another day another dollar

It's a new year so just to reiterate for all our new visitors: If you haven't already installed the 4oD application which lets you watch 100s of hours of new and old Channel 4 programming on your PC all for free you can get it from here.

For the rest of you old skoolers here's some of the highlights on 4oD today, just open the 4oD app and have a browse:

All of the first 4 series of Shameless plus the latest episode of the new series
The Look Good Naked Specials
My Fake Baby
Murderers on the Dancefloor (about the making of the classic YouTube Thriller video. No, not the Jacko one, the one made by the 1,500 inmates of the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Philippines)
Hollyoaks
Deal of No Deal
Big Fat Quiz of the Year
and the first episode of series 2 of FX's Brotherhood