lowculture.co.uk

Friday, December 28, 2007

Right Back Where We Started From

JIVE! The Strictly Come Dancing Story, BBC1, 7.00pm
LIVE! Flight of the Conchords Special, BBC4, 2.10am

Has the recent loss of certain brilliant shows left life seeming empty and pointless? Fret no longer, because the BBC understands and is tonight filling your televisual abyss with a couple of tasty retrospective treats.

For those of you in the early stages of Strictly Come Dancing withdrawal, there’s a history of ballroom dancing at the BBC hosted by original Come Dancing presenter, Angela Rippon, which leads us to ponder why Rippon (and her lovely legs as revealed by Morecambe and Wise) isn’t the one co-hosting SCD with Brucie. Surely that would be completely great?

If you’re missing New Zealand’s “formerly fourth most popular guitar-based digi-bongo acapella-rap-funk-comedy folk duo,” or if indeed you missed the entire series of Flight of the Conchords , it’s worth rousing yourself from your post-Christmas carbohydrate coma, lifting the remote before your muscles entirely atrophy and turning to BBC4 to watch the repeat of their Live Special tonight (OK, technically very early Saturday morning). It’s preceded by some Screenwipe action to boot!

Fans of the series will recall that there was little in the way of actual on-screen gigage, so this your chance to witness the Conchords in their full live glory. The live act was in fact what led to them getting a proper telly show, so it’s an interesting introduction for those new to the lads, as well as an exciting historical artifact for existing fans.

If anything, the Conchords’ songs are even funnier out-with the context of the TV show and their employment of about 20 different musical genres and sub-genres back-to-back appears even more impressive. It’s a largely acoustic set, which lends a pleasingly ridiculous quality to their rap number. There’s no Murray or Dave, Brett is beard-free and Jemaine’s amazing wardrobe doesn’t get much of an airing, but the brilliance of the chortlesome twosome more than makes up for it. If you did miss the series when it was on, no doubt after watching this you’ll be rushing out to spend that record token you got for Christmas from your auntie on the DVDs.