John’s Newsround

Hello, Welcome to the first John’s Newsround for over two years. Don’t worry, no doubt I’ll fuck off for another extended sulk over Back To Earth shortly. In the meantime, TOS has updated with an unusual (for these days) bumper crop of news this week. Let’s take a look, shall we?

NAYLOR. GRANT. JACKSON. ELLARD. PARTRIDGE?: Oh, sorry, done that one. Three of those fine fellows will be speaking at the London Comedy Writers Festival 2011 on April 9th/10th. I’m especially interested in Doug’s independently-produced Over To Bill – very little is known about it, although here’s a short, video only clip from it which I Google-scavenged.

The keen-eyed amongst you will have noticed that this is held the same weekend as Dimension Jump, so no doubt anyone reading this will be at DJ instead. I suspect all three gentlemen will breath a sigh of relief. As for the fourth gentleman, Rob Grant will instead be turning up on March 22nd at Ealing Studios to talk about the “Secrets of Comedy Writing”. This is presumably is more than “Watch Fawlty Towers and remember to be funny”, which is Moffat’s advice, although I personally think that’s a very good start.

Rob is also doing a benefit gig at The Comedy Store on Monday – alongside Arthur Smith! – but it’s sold out. Nads.

HOW SAD FOR YOU, CAPTAIN PAXO: Red Dwarf costumes! Coming this summer. Dressing up isn’t really my kind of thing – I barely feel comfortable in my own clothes, let alone anyone else’s – but these do look bloody excellent. (As TOS says, top marks for the choice of models too.) And finally, an official London Jets T-shirt – if only they’d release that as a standalone item. Now, how the fuck are they going to do the promised Kryten costume?

NOT A CHORE, PROP STORE: Ah, the number of news stories we used to get out of the Prop Store’s sale of Dwarf props. But seriously – the latest additions of the Matter Paddle from Meltdown and the psi-scan (first seen in Series V) surely have to be two of the best finds so far. Check out the nifty videos of the props in use, too – I can’t believe they still work! Well worth a HOLYSHITTINGFUCKWAAAAGH.

IT’S GOOD… NOT: Wow – IGN counts down their Top 50 Sci-Fi TV Shows. So, if you fancy some not especially insightful discussions on something which has been done endlessly before, then… well, you’re already on G&T, why do you need any more? Still, if you want to click through six pages of it – something that’s definitely not related to pageviews for ad revenue, no – then be my guest. Oh and, unless you sensibly just read it on TOS, you have to watch a cocking video to find out the Number 1 choice. Brilliant.

…DAVE?: Oh yeah, and Dave are showing some episodes next Sunday, or something. Good for them. Maybe I’ll watch, note down any edits, and send a sneering missive to UKTV headquarters. In fact, I think I will.

Right, that’s your lot. Due to “popular” “demand”, we recorded some new DwarfCasts over Friday and Saturday, the fruits of which can be plucked from our server already. We’ve also got a review of this bag of wank coming shortly, the contents of which you can no doubt guess to the letter anyway. And who knows what exciting project which we’ve never done anything like before is 90% complete already? 2011: the year when we stopped being shit, and became adequate again.

Now, I’m off to quite literally burn the first ten episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic to DVD. No, every opinion I have ever had is NOT invalidated, it is bloody excellent.