... A festival of whingeing BY HARRY VENNING Starstruck (C4, Wednesday, August 23, 9pm), Channel 4's four-part festival of actors whingeing, continued with an instalment entitled A Long Way Up. The implication being that no matter how famous you become, it can never be famous enough. To illustrate the point the cameras accompanied Nick Moran to Hollywood, where he was to attend the LA premiere of ...

... Dawn of a new era in TV festival talks The Diary enjoyed the launch of the Edinburgh Television Festival programme this week. Wine, stuffed tomatoes and the promise of a lot of close-to-the-bone titles for many of the sessions which certainly look a jolly sight more interesting than last year's yawnsome seminar-style discussions. There are the 'F' and 'S-words sprinkled very liberally. Oh yes ...

... Savage attack on his roots Paul O'Grady's Orient is, you probably know, taking the Liverpudlian face behind Lily Savage back to the Far East, where he (mis)spent some of his youth. I And, as he tells me, I he was determined to have I a good time. I I've had your 'I don't I mind staying home I with a cup of tea I and a one-bar electric fire', I and I don't want to go back I to it, he said. I ...

... RATINGS WATCH FOR WEEK ENDING FEBRUARY 20 Have you ever noticed how television can't get by without repeating itself? Have you ever noticed how television can't get by without repeating itself? Now if this column were being written for TV, the paragraph above would be regarded as a triumph for commercial good sense: there's twice the words for half the thought, it fills up all that nasty white ...

... Green cuts a dash in swordsmanship saga By HARRY VENNING Being casting director for (TV drama must be the easiest job in the world, If the leading character is a man over 40, you give the rote to John Thaw. If it is a man under 40, you give it to Robson Green. If the lead is a woman, you eet the part rewritten for a man so that Thaw or Green can play it. Perhaps I am mellowing in my old age ...

... Humbug to those surviving hellraisers By HARRY VENNING Hellraisers (Channel 4. Saturday, August 26, 9pm) trawled the murky waters of showbiz excess and dredged up the usual shoal of over-indulged, inconsiderate, selfish drunks and druggies beloved of newspaper editors. Richard Harris, Oliver Reed Ozzy Osbome, Keith Moon, Alex 'Hurricane' Higgins and, new bore on the block, Liam Gallagher, ...

... Clause for effect was a winner BY HARRY VENNING It has become an increasingly common practice among male TV stars to insist that a 'Stud Clause' be inserted into any contract they are expected to sign. The Stud Clause stipulates that any drama featuring the actor should include an early scene which establishes his character to be a sexually potent heterosexual. Most Stud Clauses also carry ...

... RATINGS WATCH BY BEN DOWELL FOR WEEK ENDING APRIL 16 'Tis good to see the oldies getting a run for their money. First David Jason's Frost tops the drama outing, putting those uppity little snappers the Bad Girls in their place. And then there was Louis Theroux's interview with the 73-year-old Jimmy Savile. Age certainly got the better of smart-arsery there. Sadly, though. Monsignor Renard fell ...

... This quack really fitted the bill BY HARRY VENNING Thin Ice (BBC1, Monday, December 4, 9pm) was yet another medical comedy-drama, but with a welcome and refreshing difference; the central character. Dr Graham Moss, is an unscrupulous, corrupt and cowardly fraud who practices private medicine despite never having qualified from medical school. For a healthy financial remu neration Dr Moss is ...

... Sympathies off-aired Old actors never die, they just get sympathy from the public, it seems. Just ask Andrew Sachs, the star of BBC2's forthcoming Inter net drama. Attachments. For a few months back, when strolling through Oxford Street, he was recognised by a man who wanted to know if there were going to be any more episodes of Fawlty Towers. He was very surprised that it was that long ago ...

... What the Dickens, it's Charlie once again By HARRY VENNING Penguin Classics are not inexhaustible and if the BBC doesn't stop adapting them for its Sunday night schedule there soon will not be any works of pre-1970 literature left to film. This situation is made even more critical with ITV entering the fray. Hefty tomes given the small screen treatment in 1999 included, Great Expectations ...

... Awards need tearing off a strip BY HARRY VENNING Trevor McDonald seemed uncharacteristically, if understandably, nervous as he presented The National Television Awards (ITV, Tuesday, October 10, 8pm). After all, anything can happen during a live TV broadcast. Who, for example, could possibly have predicted that Judy Finnigan's breasts would make an unscheduled appearance, wrestling free of her ...