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Theatre 625: The Year of the Sex Olympics (1968)
Startlingly Prescient
That's how Nancy Banks Smith - the greatest TV reviewer ever - described this play.
I saw this play as part of a BBC archive trial. It is funny to hear one producer suggest a new idea for a programme: "I know let's put some people on a deserted island and just watch them." 32 years before Survivor or Big Brother. Of course, Nigel Kneale probably got paid £1000. John De Mol milked about Euro 1bn from the actual show.
Not all the predictions are true - the general public are shown to be lifeless drones who just watch TV all day and aside from Liverpool this has not come true.
Also, the viewer satisfaction ratings at the time were low and I think if I had seen the play in 1968 I would not have liked it as much. We like it now because of its predictive quality rather than for its artistic merits.
Finally, Banks Smith said you had to see the play in colour and only a B&W print exists.
BTW, there have been deaths from reality shows - suicide of an evictee on the first reality show - Family Robinson, the forerunner of Survivor. Suicide of an evictee on a US boxing TV show.
Boogie Nights (1997)
Robert Ridgely
This is a great film - it will make you laugh and cry - unlike "Magnolia" which is a bad film dressed up very cleverly to look like a good film.
Looking at the reviews for "Boogie Nights" I cannot understand why no-one has mentioned Robert Ridgely. For me it was the stand out performance of the film. To go from the most powerful character to the most pathetic was breathtaking acting.
I am convinced that Robert Ridgely would have gone on from this film to be not an A list star but an A list character actor - had he not died from cancer six months before the film's release.
I thought that cream always rises to the top but Hollywood should ask itself why it missed a talent like Ridgely's until it was too late and how many other Robert Ridgelys are there out there right now.
Ultraviolet (1998)
A great idea well executed
Don't know why Channel 4 never developed this brilliant series. It has been left to Fox to resurrect it in the US with a new cast (except Idris Elba).
Reminds me of the "Last Train", another very strong series, which has also been bought and developed by a US network, renamed "Day One".