National Television Awards: let’s get ready to rumble!

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National Television Awards: let’s get ready to rumble!

January 26, 2017 - 13:07
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“Let’s get ready to rumble!” yes it’s the 22nd year of the Ant and Dec show, also known to the elite as the National Television Awards, and guess what, the Geordie duo won yet again, that’s 345 times they’ve won, at least it seems like it.

NTAs Ant and Dec

By Phil Jones @PhilLlwynog

“Let’s get ready to rumble!” yes it’s the 22nd year of the Ant and Dec show, also known to the elite as the National Television Awards, and guess what, the Geordie duo won yet again, that’s 345 times they’ve won, at least it seems like it.

This time they won for the dreadful ‘Saturday Night Takeaway’, a format so dire that they’ve even incorporated the commercial breaks into the show. How I laughed.

There’s plenty of ad breaks during the NTA’s too, giving plenty of time to make a hot and milky cup of strychnine, in the hope that it takes effect before the return of the Dermot.

Yes, Dermot O’Leary has the worst job on telly once again, and every one liner he attempted fell flat on its proverbial arse. He tried some satirical political gags, not quite the right gig it seemed, so he ushered an ever-decreasing Scarlett Moffatt to the stage. She seems happy to be there, in fact, ecstatic, sporting gigantic pink shorts, and newly polished white teeth she get’s a great reception does the ‘Geordie lass’. Earlier no one noticed the stealth like team of ITV Executives detonating canisters of Nitrous Oxide just to liven things up. I expected to see ‘The Joker’ appear any minute, instead we get James Arthur, bleating on about his girlfriend p*****g off, frankly I don’t blame her.

This was two and a half hours of excruciating telly where the mob rules. Who knew Mary Berry and The Chase could cause such hysteria. The audience’s over enthusiasm may have imploded the television. Twitter imploded. Everyone complaining, everyone was right, everyone.

So many results were in the wrong order. That happens when the public decide. When you analyse who won this year it does give a new perspective on post Brexit Britain and the voting public. Who on earth votes for this stuff, I mean really, who does? How can Casualty get more votes than Happy Valley? At least Sarah Lancashire won for best "Drama Performance", which strangely seemed the only acting award on offer! She didn’t turn up either. Classy.

Let’s get on to the “Comedy” award, which in itself is pure comedy. Let’s look at the nominations shall we. Benidorm, Orange is The New Black, The Big Bang Theory and Mrs Brown’s Boys.

Where were ‘Uncle’, the marvelous ‘Still Game’, how about the beautifully written ‘Mum’ or the wonderful ‘Two Doors Down’, or even Channel Five’s ‘Borderline’?

‘Benidorm’ is as funny as cramp, who knew ‘Orange is The New Black’ was even a comedy, and let’s not even go there, (‘The Big Bang Theory’). The winner Mrs Brown’s Boys, which is an exhausting half hour of single entendres and punch-lines you can see coming several times zones away. A middle aged man in a dress making jokes about rectal thermometers, isn’t my idea of an amusing half hour in front of the telly, but who am I to judge? This is the great British public that are voting, you know, the same one’s that voted for Brexit, I can guarantee it.

Are the NTA’s a real reflection of Britain’s tastes in television, or should there be a better way of short listing talent? There’s actually is a lot of good TV about, somewhere, but it seems it was lost down ITV’s sofa. It’ll be up to the BAFTA TV awards to once again choose some decent nominees then. When you give the public a choice, they choose Trump, they choose Brexit, they choose Mrs Brown’s Boys.

Perhaps democracy can be very dangerous, especially when those that shout the loudest get all the attention. Rather like seeing, “We send the EU £350 million a week, ...” on a big red bus, you know it’s not true, but it’s there, it shouts at you, so it seeps into our subconscious minds, and then you start thinking even stranger things, like the possibilty that ‘Call The Mid Wife’ is groundbreaking drama. The you realise that this dystopian reality, is in fact a recurring nightmare you've had since a child, where ignorance is strength, and you vote for Ant and Dec, because they whispered it to you in the playground, and you believed them, and mummy and daddy told you it was true.

This award show, is rather like being mugged at knife point down a dark alley, only to be asked "GIVE US YOUR MONEY, and by the way, do you think 'The Chase is the best quiz show on telly?, Do you?, Answer me!!". Of course you hand over your cash, agree and have a very jolly chat that Bradley Walsh is a subversive comic genius, as the blade presses up against your wind pipe.

In Brexit Britain, it seems we get what we deserve. As an egotistical TV star takes over the Whitehouse, and with more cuts on their way for Britain’s arts and culture these are worrying times, but I’ll leave the last words to the king of crass television, and now the President of the United States of America.

“You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of ass.” Most truthful thing the Donald ever said. Probably. I'm off to get an 'ass transplant'.