Last night's TV: Extras (original) (raw)

'Gordon Ramsay failed to act at all' ... Extras. Photograph: BBC

There is a lot to be said for corsets. This extra-special episode of Extras (BBC1) did go on a bit. Quite a lot. Virtually indefinitely. Like joy it was unconfined but, oddly, not at all joyful.

It was seasonally stuffed with celebrities, most of whom I recognised. All were etched in acid, so they must either have been jolly good sports or jolly glad to be asked. There was George Michael, cruising in his lunch break from community service, Lionel Blair dancing maniacally ("Do you know what I look forward to these days? Death!"), David Tennant overacting as Doctor Who, Gordon Ramsay failing to act at all, and Hale and Pace failing to be recognised at the Ivy. Such is the nature of fame that, for a while, I did think they were Chas and Dave.

Fame is the theme. Andy Millman (Ricky Gervais), extra turned cheap comic, has a touch of the Hancocks. He sacks his useless agent (Stephen Merchant) and waits for Hollywood to call.

As Andy scrabbles up, Maggie (Ashley Jensen) slides down. She highlights with her silence some of the most exquisitely excruciating moments. The huge stagehand disdainfully picking over the last of the sandwiches. The Guardian interview when she has to pretend to be Andy's PA ("There's a phone call just come in." "Who is it?" "Is it ... Wrigley Scott?"). The Carphone Warehouse where Andy's old agent and, in nicely descending order of height, Barry and Robbie off EastEnders, are all on their uppers.

The climax is a big demolition job on Big Brother as Andy takes an axe to the trunk of celebrity. "I'm sick of these celebrities living their life out in the open. Why would you do that? Fuck the makers of this show! The Victorian freak show never went away. Now it's called Big Brother or The X-Factor. We wheel out the bewildered to be sniggered at by multi-millionaires. Fuck you for watching this at home! Shame on you and shame on me!" Even The Carphone Warehouse can scarce forbear to cheer (how late does this place stay open?).

Unfortunately, you can't rubbish rubbish, and Big Brother is back next week.

With the addition of a few pine logs and a small page, Antonio Carluccio, beneficent and beaming, could go on without rehearsal as Good King Wenceslas. (Mark you, I did read that the Emperor Wenceslas, whom I take to be the same chap, had his cook roasted on a spit, but he was probably just having an off day.) When the Pope turned down Carluccio's invitation to dinner, pleading prior engagements, he invited instead the ordinary people he had met in the making of Carluccio and the Renaissance Cookbook (BBC2).

The world's first cookbook was written by Bartolomeo Scappi, personal chef to the papacy. Catholic churchmen were formidable trenchermen. If you take away one pleasure of the flesh you leave more elbow room for another, and Scappi thrived under pope after pope. His signature was sugar and spice, which he added to absolutely everything. You winced for the papal teeth. His Holiness seemed all too appropriate.

Then came the fatal day when Pius V was elected. Pius V actually disliked food, cancelled his own coronation banquet and threatened to excommunicate anyone who put anything nourishing in his broth. The fires burned low in the Vatican kitchen, the pigs couldn't believe their luck and, for the first time in his life, Scappi had nothing to do. Writing is the child of idleness so he sat down and wrote a cookbook, which sold like ... precisely! Pius must have been furious.

We followed Carluccio like Bisto kids. It is a real struggle not to call him Antonio. He is sorry for eels ("poor things"), polite to pigs ("Goodbye, my friend!") and even, a real novelty among cooks, nice to vegetarians ("I always have them in mind, somehow. I don't know why").

Scappi, he concluded, seemed a very nice man who taught you how to enjoy life. Quite.

It is some time since I watched Holby City (BBC1), so I was not perfectly clear why Dr Hope (Paul Bradley) was trying to jump off Clifton Suspension Bridge. It seems his wife was dead, his son was in jail and his daughter had been shot by a madman with a crossbow, but there you go. And, indeed, Dr Hope is about to go, too, when he is stopped by a brisk ghost with a tap-dancing delivery (Richard Briers), who shows him the difference his life has meant to the world. Based on It's a Wonderful Life, Frank Capra's antidote to the great depression, it is probably nicely timed.

After some exhilarating medical emergencies ("I need a sharp knife, sewing kit, bandages and some gin!") and a rather touching encounter with his wife, Dr Hope returned to complete a triumphant heart transplant on the ghost's granddaughter.

Apparently all this had passed in a flash. If only it had.