In Brussels you can watch about 400 TV channels on standard cable TV, from virtually every country in Europe and beyond. From my cable TV provider I get 7 BBC channels, 6 German channels, all 3 French terrestrial channels, all the Belgian channels in both languages, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Greece, Poland, Turkey, Morocco and Al Djazeera. And I can assure you that there is NOTHING interesting on a Saturday night on ANY of them. Many countries still favour the Saturday night variety show. Mums and dads, grans and grandads from Lyon to Ljubljana sit on their Ikea sofas and switch their brains off to watch juggling dogs, escapologists, plate spinners and all manner of olde-worlde entertainment. It's like the court of miracles.
The French have a particular penchant for circus acts that got left behind in the aftermath of the Cirque du Soleil, and the annual Monte Carlo Circus Festival in the presence of their royal chavnesses of Monaco is always guaranteed high ratings.
Nice trackies, Your Serene Highness (she's the one in the middle btw)Around October (beer festival season) the Germans like to broadcast Bavarian variety shows, with everyone dressed up in tracht, lots of beerkeller orchestras and singing of songs like "Jawohl, jawohl, ich liebe Alkohol".
The Beastie Boys' take on Der Untergang
The KNOB* has tried several times to get on German TV, however they're suspicious of our Brussels connections and think we're a bit too wacky and unpredictable, all because we once dressed up as characters from 'Allo 'Allo. We would have got away with it if it hadn't turned up as 3 Herr Flicks, 2 General von Klinckerhoffens and a Helga (me). Belgian TV didn't go for it either, strangely.
However, having access to European television is a good means to spy on what UK and American celebs are doing to earn a living off-season. Rock 'n' roll stars would not like their home public to know about the sort of naff gigs they do to pay the rent on the mock tudor mansion and the stays at the rehab clinic. Secrecy is the new celebrity. Wikileaks, phone hacking, no wonder they're all taking out super injunctions. Your Europe correspondent considers it her duty, in the spirit of Julian Assange, to let you know who has sold out.
The other night I was idly flipping channels and happened upon a concert broadcast from the Plaza de Toros in Palma, Mallorca. It was a German show called "Wetten, dass?" - a cross between You Bet! and Jools Holland. This show is not to be sniffed at: it is reputedly the most popular Saturday-night TV variety show in Europe. A German porn star type male introduced acts to an audience of well disciplined German tourists, who clapped along obediently, with not so much as a hint of rhythm. It was a far cry from Glastonbury, I can tell you, with portly Germans in their brand new T-shirts standing to attention and clapping in time uncertainly, waiting for the order to stop from the middle-aged bleached blond host. In between celebrity songsters, members of the public peform bizarre stunts, and the audience bet on whether they will succeed or fail.
Such big names as Joss Stone, Jeff Beck, Coldplay, Take That, Kiss, Whitney Houston, Katy Perry, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Lionel Ritchie, Bryan Adams, Shakira, Britney Spears, Elton John, Joe Cocker, Lady Gaga, Pavarotti, Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera, Mariah Carey, Leona Lewis, David Bowie, Cher and Tina Turner have graced the screens of this German Saturday night variety show on channel ZDF.
My channel-hopping revealed a tragic back story. Last December one of the stunts on Wetten, dass? went horribly wrong. The victim of the live stunt, 23 year old Samuel Koch, is now a quadriplegic. It is not disclosed whether audience bets on the result were honoured. As a direct result of this accident the host and porn-star lookalike Thomas Gottschalk decided to quit the show, played out on his last live broadcast from Mallorca a few weeks ago by Status Quo, his favourite band, and accompanied by famous (in Germany) footballers, actors and other slebs.
As I clapped along obediently with all the German tourists, I realized I was witnessing the very last broadcast of a long-standing popular favourite. It was like witnessing a supernova, by the time you see it it's already too late. (Yes, I've been watching Wonders of the Universe, but this is neither the time nor the place to share with you my thoughts about Brian Cox.) Or more appositely, the time I discovered a great little band called Wham! (at their farewell concert).
What other national media institution could count on a galaxy of stars from the world of sport, film and television to give it a rousing send-off on its very last appearance? Answers on a postcard, please, to News International, 1 Pennington Street, Wapping, London E98 1ST .......
* Kurt Nachtnebel Oompah Band
9 comments:
"Daphneleaks" ...? Has a certain potential for unfortunateness.
I'd better make my excuses and leave.
Hello:
What a really splendid, and very amusingly written, account of Saturday night television all over Europe [if not all over the world!!].
It is at moments like this that we realise, for the past thirty or more years without a television, what we have been spared at a weekend. But it is good to know what celebrities get up to in their off times!
The Germans are very fond of clapping to old pop songs, aren't they milady? Here are The Rubettes miming to their famous song in some German park. What's it all about?
Lycus, indeed, at my age it could be inviting trouble.
Jane and Lance, I bet Hungarian viewers like circus acts. I once dragged Harold to the circus in Budapest where we saw a Russian woman failing miserably to dominate 4 rather unhelpful St Bernards.
GB, this is one of the rare cases where an appearance on ZDF probably enhanced a band's image. The clapping is very regimented isn't it? I think the watchtowers with machine guns are just off camera.
Ah, the Germans. Further proof that if a God existed he certainly had a sense of humour.
Oh for a good Saturday night drama.
Dear Helga, I hadn't heard of that German variety show until the well documented accident a few months ago - tragic.
Variety hasn't been the same since Jeux sans Frontiers in the 70's with oversized stuffed animals trying to squeeze into impossible spaces and the wonderful Stuart Hall gasping for breath as he tried unsuccessfully to commentate through laughter.
But I'm not sure I can trust German variety tastes given the popularity of David Hasselhoff there. I will never understand that!
Jimmy, at least while you're dissing the Germans you're leaving the English alone.
Pat, you couldn't get more dramatic than a near fatal accident live on prime time TV.
Craig, they only like Hasselhoff's name, I'm sure they've got no idea who is is. They have their own cop shows called "Tatort" and "Polizei". The most tragic thing about that accident was that the fourth car he rebounded off was driven by his DAD. When it comes to European Health & Safety regulations, only the UK takes them seriously. You'd never get something like that happening on Graham Norton.
The Germans have an honourable history of pop programmes. If you search for rare video of 1980s acts on t'Tube, you'll often find them sourced from ZDKTV Adelebsen or somewhere. I particularly enjoyed watching weird Teutonic mime performers harrassing Fad Gadget, and Andy Patridge out of XTC trying to understand a Bavarian interviewer. Geil!
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