... RATINGS WATCH BY BEN DOWELL FOR WEEK ENDING NOVEMBER 5 Things are beginning to settle down in lellyland this week, with all the mist of the scheduling battlefield Clearing a little For a start we have the same drama Top Five as last week, a much-needed sign of consis tency. Mondays Come remains its strongest day, like Thursday is EastEnders' which this time was boosted by the truly ...

... Pub Landlord doesn't serve his material well BY HARRY VENNING There can be little doubt that Al Murray's Pub Landlord is one of the funniest and most inspired comic creations to hit the standup circuit in many years, and creating a sitcom around him must have seemed like a good idea to those ambitious tives at bky, Keen to commission an in-house comedy hit. However, Time Gentlemen Please ...

... that they come back. There does not seem to be anything so seductive about Carlton's The Knock (ITV, Saturday, November 4, 9.05pm). Obviously there are difficul ties about showing a job which is 99 per cent boredom and one per cent action but the production team here has not shown a lot of initiative trying to solve the conundrum. There is a politically correct cast list, ethnically mixed, the ...

... Soccer gaffes from the archives score highly By HARRY VENNING The schedulers' timid capitulation to the Euro 2000 juggemaut continues apace, with BBC Light Entertainment going as far as to collaborate with the forces of occupation. Auntie's Shocking Soccer Boomers (BBC1, Sunday, June 18, 7pm) was an opportunistic, hastily assembled and intermittently amusing attempt to exploit football's ...

... Going ape for Charlotte BY HARRY VENNING They are cute, they are cuddly and, as humankind's nearest relation on the evolutionary scale, their antics compel our interest and fascination. But more about actors later. Let us talk about primates. Cousins (BBC1, Wednesday August 16, 7pm) is the latest high profile, prestige production from the BBC Wildlife unit, and if it is not a smash hit I am a ...

... Welcoming talent to the jungle By DON WEBB Presence. It's a gift most television performers would die for. It is what the people that make the programmes are looking for. In the case of Stars of Tomorrow (BBC1, Sunday, November 19, 8.10pm) the search was quite literal. In what was probably a puDiic relations exercise wnen it started, the Beeb embarked on a countrywide pursuit of young ...

... Faithful story of a lady who sang the blues By Tara Conlan One thing I nevef understood about As You Like It, no matter how many times my English teacher went through it. If all the world's a stage, then where is backstage and, more importantly who is selling the ice creams and programmes, as I would like a synopsis? For Janis Joplin all the world was a stage. Like many performers, she felt ...

... RATINGS WATCH ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^M*il:MWJJMdJli1MJlWIJ'4.-l Oh dear, it looks like further bad news for poor old Peter Salmon. Only this week some smartypants researcher with a name like an allotment comes up with more lists to show how the BBC1 controller is floundering (excuse the pun) in his struggle to swim with the big boys of ITV. Now the list below doesn't look likely to produce the ...

... Ideally pitched for the big tent BY Don Webb The commissioning brief for Blackadder Back and Forth (Sky One, Sunday, October 1, 9pm) must have been a lulu. Hi, Richard? It's Ben. What we need is something that will amuse 1,000 folk at a time. Something to appeal to everyone from babes in arms to toothless crinklies sitting in a big, draughty tent in the outer reaches of Greenwich, without ...

... FOR WEEK ENDING NOVEMBER 26 If you are one of the many British tourists to have spent your time on holiday in Turkey, then you will realise that no longer are visitors from the United Kingdom assailed with the plaintive offer of jiggy-jiggy?- In its place now there is the dawn to dusk chorus of luvverly jubbly to be heard in cafes and bars the length of Bodrum. So, John Sullivan, you ...

... Ross gets a Frosty reception from master of the interview BY DON WEBB BBC2 controller Jane Root gave I her view on her repositioning of the channel last week. It is going to be an upmarket offering, clever and sophisticated. It will no longer be a minority player in this new multi-channel world but a star turn with a much bigger share of the available watchers. This is the kind of stuff ...

... Oh Ricky, you were so fine BY HARRY VENNING So, farewell Ricky Butcher. Your departure was more or less inevitable after Bianca left The Square. Ricky without Bianca was like Ernie without Eric, Garfunkel without Simon, Ridgeley without Michael. She was the light of his life, and her absence rendered him dimmer than ever. With a malice that was as enthusiastic as it was undeserved, the ...