Television: The Church of celebrity
As Sharon Osbourne and Charlotte Church bow down to all things celebrity, Dermot Bolger finds solace in the true talents on BBC's Originals
Last week saw another television milestone, although a plague is unlikely to ever mark the spot. But The Sharon Osbourne Show brought us the first televised doggie wedding. As dogs are, alas, faithful to their owners and not their mates, she then brought us an interview with the people behind a new website where dog owners can find casual sexual partners for their dogs. Trust me, I am not paid enough to be making this up. Indeed it would be hard for even the greatest satirist to make up The Sharon Osbourne Show. Osbourne speaks with an arch motherly accent, proffering chat and advise to guests and bidding them farewell with such a cherry "God bless you" that she and her husband may only have been put on earth to prove the maxim that opposites attract.
The chief blessing of watching The Sharon Osbourne Show is that you are not watching The Charlotte Church Show. Church seems determined to parody her considerable talents in a witless concoction of celebrity guests, studio shenanigans and unoriginal Candid Camera-type stunts. Some weeks ago, Channel 4's The Great British Black Invasion charted how west Indian airmen introduced calypso music into Britain. It proved so popular that witty weekly calypsos about political current affairs became a staple of British television – the difference being that they were performed only by white singers. The calypso lives on in Church's weekly topical "theme" song, although the "current affairs" are likely to be between mind-numbing celebrities, who appear to be the only people who exist in the world of whoever thinks up this mindless eye-candy.
What a blessed relief to find a genuine musical celebrity featured on Originals – Mose Allison, the William Faulkner of jazz. But Allison (still performing at 79 years of age) hasn't exactly embraced celebrity. Jools Holland spoke of how he once summoned the courage to tell Allison he was a genius. "Thanks," muttered Allison, immediately running away as quickly as his 79-year-old legs could take him. Francis Black of the Pixies never even got that far, remarking that he had never even had the courage to say hello to his idol.
Allison's albums never made much money for himself or record companies, but they inspired a generation of 1960s counter-cultural artists. The Who would never have written 'My Generation' without having steeped themselves in his 'A Young Man Ain't Nothing in the World These Days', which they transformed into a virtual anthem. The blues tradition, which Allison merged with jazz, was one where you didn't whinge about your woes; you simply lived the reality of your problems and rose above them. Allison was born in 1927 in Tippo, Mississippi, where his father owned the service station and general store. By owning both premises, he owned all of Tippo. Mose's father was the first man to make money out of the town and, despite his father's fervent hopes, Mose was determined not to be the second. He showed a marked disinterest in work, preferring to hang around the store when black workers came in from the fields and played blues on the jukebox. For Allison, humour has always been a survival technique – the depth and darkness hidden behind his lyrics make his listeners simultaneously feel despair and joy. Ambiguity is his motto, with each line in some songs deliberately cutting the legs from under the preceding one. In a week of trash television, Originals presented a genuine star.
Tubridy Tonight (RTÉ One, Saturday) also showed class in featuring the talented Belfast lyricist Duke Special. Check out his new album, Songs from a Deep Forest.