A Bother’s Bar campaign

By | November 15, 2017
7 Comments

Years ago we did a half-arsed campaign to bring back The Krypton Factor. Success (years after we forgotten we did it).

It’s now time to get incredible Korean reality game The Genius Game on Netflix, and you might be able to make it happen by suggesting it. Only the form will do.

If you want to fill in the gaps, why not pick other Korean shows such as Running Man, Crime Scene, Society Game et al? This isn’t as stupid as it appears, Netflix has dipped a toe into subtitled Korean entertainment. There is certainly no guarantees – there may be rights issues, but it’s certainly well thought of from people who search for it so maybe, maybe there is a chance. And if it ends up being successful, who knows?

Pick of the Christmas Pops

By | November 14, 2017
2 Comments

It’s the middle of November and all the big gameshow host CDs are out now (apart from Alexander Armstrong’s one which is out on the 24th). So what better time to see how they’re all doing than with that barometer of buyer’s taste – the Amazon charts!

Bradley Walsh – When You’re Smiling

  • #11 in CDs and Vinyl
  • #11 in digital music > Pop
  • #21 in bestsellers

Jason Manford – A Different Stage

  • #84 in CDs and Vinyl
  • #4 in digital music > Opera and Vocal
  • #575 in bestsellers

Anton du Beke – From the Top

  • #98 in CDs and Vinyl
  • #173 in digital music > Pop
  • #699 in bestsellers

Nick Knowles – Every Kind of People

  • #133 in CDs and Vinyl
  • #58 in digital music > Pop
  • #196 in bestsellers

Shane Richie – A Country Soul

  • #111 in CDs and vinyl (but #2 in Country)
  • #91 in digital music > Pop
  • #341 in bestsellers

Alright? Not ‘alf.

Edit: We go live to a live update from our chart correspondent Gwilym James:

Show Discussion: Don’t Say It, Bring It

By | November 12, 2017
7 Comments

Weekdays, 7pm (and 7:30pm)
Dave

For a long time now Dave have been at the forefront of taking slightly unusual show ideas and making a success of them (School of Hard Sums! Go 8 Bit! Taskmaster!).

However I’m slightly baffled by this commission of a format that’s been knocking around for years and years. Jason Byrne (off of Wild Things) rocks up at various town centres and asks people questions for cash money. But the catch is they can’t say the answers, they have to bring them.

We’ve long been sceptical of vox-pop based shows, feel much too light and inessential, and the only one that’s really worked is Billy On The Street which mainly works because each segment is effectively a half-improvised comedy sketch usually with a well-thought out core, you don’t really watch for the quiz, that’s just the conduit for the comedy.

Jason Byrne will certainly shout at people I’m sure but it remains to be seen how much of a must-watch this will be. In the plus column, there are good people behind it and Dave’s hit rate with this sort of thing is quite high, so we won’t write it off until we’ve seen it. It’s twenty episodes so it looks like they’re going to burn through them in two weeks as they seem to be showing two episodes back to back.

Brig Bother: Git Amongst The Pigeons

By | November 11, 2017
10 Comments

With all the excitement over the Weakest Link reboot this coming Friday night, some colleagues were surprised to hear that I had been a contestant the best part of twenty years ago so I thought it was time to write up the experience – and link to the video, something that absolutely wouldn’t have happened up until a few years ago. It’s all hidden under a cut because it’s quite large, so if you want to know click on the link.

Continue reading →

Whodunnit?

By | November 9, 2017
10 Comments

Armchair Detectives with Susan Calman begins on BBC1 the week after next (Monday 20th), which had a lot of input from Bar regulars so I hope it isn’t rubbish or that will be awkward, but to celebrate here’s ten minutes of Jon Pertwee hosting mid-seventies sleuthing show Whodunnit?