|
|
'Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe' In The Press...In a cry for help about the show's lack of resources, the last episode is a clippy summary of this series and the previous. It's always a frustrating watch. Bloated, tawdry TV news urgently needs criticising, nobody else is doing it, and if Brooker's dismantling of reporting cliches can attract a million YouTube hits (see it at bit.ly/cr8dCm), he must be striking a chord. But he too often does that by stating the obvious, shying away from anything too politically challenging and rehashing observations The Day Today made 16 years ago. It's cathartic but, in the end, conservative. Jack Seale, Radio Times, 23rd February 2010 Viral Video Chart: Charlie Brooker on TV news The viral blockbuster award of this week definitely goes to Charlie Brooker. "It starts here with a lacklustre establishing shot of a significant location," is the first sentence of Brooker's spoof news report for BBC Four's Newswipe showing, of course, no significant location but some random dirt-brownish looking skyscrapers in the London Docklands. Written by Mercedes Bunz. The Guardian, 5th February 2010 Charlie Brooker's Newswipe came close to being made redundant by the earthquake in Haiti, a news story of such horrifyingly tragic proportions that even the reporting of it was almost beyond satire. Brooker promised a review of the Haiti coverage next week, presumably to allow time for a considered and sensitive response. Newswipe becomes YouTube's top rated video Charlie Brooker - the British writer, satirist and grumpy television reviewer whose regular skewering TV's more inane moments has made him a cult figure in the UK - has now gone global, after a two-minute clip from his show Newswipe became the top rated clip of all time on YouTube less than a week after it was posted. Written by Tom Phillips. Metro, 1st February 2010 A welcome return of Charlie Brooker's Newswipe, which is essentially a more incisive and, well, necessary version of his Screenwipe series, intent on exposing the bullshit of global news gathering. This opener was all about the media's history of scaremongering to churn up material; from the '80s (nuclear war, AIDS, salmonella, acid house music) through the '90s (the flesh-eating virus, road rage, Y2K) to the present day (terrorism, of course.) TV Review: Newswipe with Charlie Brooker It's good to have Charlie Brooker back and on-bile. Yep, the nicest grump on TV returned with his brilliant series, Newswipe with Charlie Brooker to lance the truth-pus out of the boil that is The News. Written by Mof Gimmers. TV Scoop, 20th January 2010 Much as we dislike the cult of Brooker (not everything he says deserves to be parroted, you middle-class gits), his onanistic obsession and the use of his name in the titles of his shows, this is probably going to be the best show of the evening. There's a strong tradition of savage ripostes to the madness of current events - chiefly from America. With Have I Got News for You still providing the spikiest satirical take on current affairs in the UK, such shows are undoubtedly up for Daily Show-style rejuvenation, a service the second series of Newswipe - a reliably savage Charlie Brooker production - looks certain to continue. Journalists such as Marina Hyde will comment on news events, there will be authored pieces and a poem, but it will be the presenter's eye for the monstrous and absurd that will provide the moral focus. We'd love this show even if it didn't star the Guide's moonlighting TV critic. This year, Charlie has mainly been watching Nick Griffin on Question Time, the rise of Jedward on X Factor and Five's "news offering", Live at Studio Five. I like Charlie Brooker, I like Dara O'Briain and I like Graham Linehan. If those three can't persuade me to take an interest in computer games, nobody can. All three contributed to Gameswipe, a helpful guide to the computer game, with Brooker as host. TV Review: Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe Aside from the serious(ish) stuff, it was great just to see Brooker talking about games that have been forgotten and for a gaming geek like me, it was wonderful to see the segment from the Consolvania crew talking about the wild array of utterly mental games you could get on the ZX Spectrum. Written by mofgimmers. TV Scoop, 30th September 2009 Most children I know would have been in deep mourning for their video games, the very first of which was demonstrated in footage from a Yuletide Tomorrow's World in which the old-school presenter Raymond Baxter played tele-tennis from his sofa with a non-speaking woman who may have been his wife, daughter, housekeeper or secretary (darker theories still crawl around my head). The same clip was shown on Gameswipe with Charlie Brooker, a blissfully archive-heavy history of computer games in which Brooker attempted to marshal a defence of them. The trouble is that if Tony Blair as a Prime Minister had no reverse gear, Brooker as a critic has no praise mode and the more he talked the more hellishly pointless the games seemed. As always with Brooker, however, the documentary contained more original ideas in 50 minutes than most of us have in a career. Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe gives videogames good name Television's relationship with videogames has been bumpy over the last 20 years, but Charlie Brooker's new show might herald a happier future. Written by Chris Moran. The Guardian, 30th September 2009 Tonight's an exciting night to be a fan of videogames as, at long last, Charlie Brooker will be giving the Screenwipe treatment to the oft-maligned (yet incredibly lucrative) form of electronic entertainment in Gameswipe. Written by David Thair. BBC Comedy Blog, 29th September 2009 tvBite is increasingly uncertain about the cult of Brooker. It's fair enough when he's writing things like this; there seems to be no way to disagree with him. But when he's awkwardly presenting average TV shows, the same fans seem to be unwilling to notice that a lot of what he does is a bit rubbish. No previews were available for this and his big shoebox face seems to have been digitally remastered so it might be good. If you're interested in computer games. And one of his legion of fans. Following in the footsteps of Screenwipe, Charlie Brooker's new show - you guessed it - aims its remote at the world of videogames. Whether you're a gamer hater or lover, Gameswipe - part of the Electric Revolution season on BBC4 - shows how games can be just as dumb or brilliant as TV and movies. And Charlie certainly knows what he's talking about, having spent his early career causing mayhem at PC Zone. Graham Linehan, Dara O'Briain and Dom Joly are on hand to join in the pixellated fun. The Tao of Screenwipe: Charlie Brooker's best bits Brooker's perspective-altering look at the inner workings of TV showed us everything from the power of editing to the creepiness of low-budget religious programming. Written by Owen Van Spall. The Guardian, 16th July 2009 The computer games show comeback Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe could mark the return of the computer games show to mainstream TV. Hands up who misses GamesMaster? Written by Owen Van Spall. The Guardian, 29th May 2009 Charlie Brooker's Newswipe, and Brooker's sudden, dramatic appearance in a neck brace last week, explained the end-of-series chaos, with a 'best of' running last week, and the last 'new' episode finally running this week - presumably around outpatient appointments and physiotherapy. TV Review: News Wipe with Charlie Brooker There's generally three responses I have to Newswipe with Charlie Brooker. One is admiration at a piece of witty insight. Two is a belly laugh at a funny. Third, and possibly most important is a mixture of outrage and disbelief. Written by mofgimmers. TV Scoop, 30th April 2009 TV Review: Newswipe with Charlie Brooker We're three episodes into Newswipe with Charlie Brooker and, if we're waiting for it to hit stride, like Mr Brooker suggested, then I'm going to have to prepare myself. You see, Newswipe is fast becoming Another Charlie Brooker Classic! Written by mofgimmers. TV Scoop, 9th April 2009 Charlie Brooker is really becoming something of a star. Just think, once upon a time, no-one had a clue what he looked like. He was just this voice... a voice of dissent accompanied by a depressed looking cartoon blob. After years hidden away from our eyes, now we've got loads of him. Last week Charlie Brooker's characteristically brilliant Newswipe started, taking a pin to the over-inflated lilo of news journalism. He's the only man who can make quantitative easing funny and has the gift of seeming, even after several hugely popular series, like a normal person who has invaded a studio. News waffle was the enemy on Charlie Brooker's Newswipe - the new show from the newspaper critic. Newswipe began on an odd note - tortuously spending five minutes explaining what it was, when anyone who'd seen it in the listings had simply thought: "Oh, Newswipe. That will be like Brooker's previous series - Screenwipe - but about current affairs, instead of telly." Also - and perhaps inevitably - Newswipe had the faint, cordite smell of The Day Today clinging to its hair. For half an hour it was a show that basically wanted to say, in the words of Chris Morris: "These are the headlines. I wish to God they weren't." Charlie narrows his focus from Screenwipe's take on what we're watching on general television, to how our televisual news is presented to us. And boy, do our TV news providers cop it. Here at thecustard.tv we're constantly bemoaning how news is being re-packaged as entertainment, and this is clearly bugging Brooker, too. A highly amusing, if profoundly depressing, programme ensued. We loved it. TV Review: Newswipe with Charlie Brooker Charlie Brooker is becoming something of a proper TV star now. He's definitely on the ascendency, not that he'd ever let on. Just look at how Newswipe became Newswipe with Charlie Brooker. You don't get your name tacked on the end unless you're making a stir. Written by mofgimmers. TV Scoop, 26th March 2009 Newswipe with Charlie Brooker was glorious: perceptive and rude, it showed the inanity of 24-hour news (the endless repetition, the mad montages of images) as well as how little it actually explains, as it feverishly tries to move stories forward. The ending (Brooker as the anchor burying his head disconsolately as the weight of misery he has just imparted to the nation takes hold) was particularly clever. Brooker even advanced a plausible explanation for "quantitative easing" beyond one broadcaster's use of a model railway. Sadly this succinct explanation was too piercing for a brain already turned to mush by 24-hour news. Perhaps he could use some little plastic bricks and flying pigs next time. On a good day, Charlie Brooker can make Brian Clough look like Kofi Annan. He's a kind of genius of spleen and when it's directed at the right target it can be deeply gratifying to watch him in action. But Newswipe with Charlie Brooker doesn't work quite as well as Screenwipe, the television-based series from which it has been spun off. Charlie Brooker Newswipe Interview Interviewing Charlie Brooker could be a daunting task but if you peer through the acerbic slights in Brooker's work, I always got the impression he was a really nice bloke... an approachable chap... the kind I'd get on with just fine. Written by mofgimmers. TV Scoop, 25th March 2009 Ever wondered why we don't have a British Daily Show? Our own Jon Stewart to take on the media and Jon Snow's ties? Well that's roughly the idea behind Charlie Brooker's new show - Newswipe. A spin-off of his Screenwipe series, it aims to provide "a fun snarky weekly digest that will help keep you and hopefully me on top of the news soap opera". Stuart McGurk, The London Paper, 25th March 2009 If you saw the sublime news parodies The Day Today and Brass Eye in the 1990s, their spot-on observations of mangled English and media sensationalism of trivial stories made the news far funnier than it ought to be. Similarly, in this new series, cynical TV critic Charlie Brooker takes a pithy look at how the news is reported. What's On TV, 25th March 2009 The clear-sighted satirist and all-round voice of reason gets a new series, but what a shame it's not on terrestrial TV. Here he trains his eye on the media's unending obsession with the credit crunch. Metro, 25th March 2009 NEWSFLASH! Charlie Brooker's new TV show aims to take a Daily Show-style swipe at the bottomless chasm of 24-hour news. Here, he files from the abyss of 'Current Affairs Land'. Written by Charlie Brooker. The Guardian, 21st March 2009 "You shouldn't criticise," says the archetypal mother figure, "If you can't do better yourself." It's a truism that boggle-eyed curmudgeon Charlie Brooker has dedicated his life to proving. The Guardianista set love his brand of anaemic satire because it never challenges their worldview; it simply articulates their own opinions in a stream of Chris Morris Lite vituperative logorrhoea. But even they have to question his poacher-turned-gamekeeper urge to make television programmes, particularly when it results in tat like Nathan Barley or Dead Set, a Swiftian satire dedicated to the coruscating proposition that Big Brother isn't very good. Screenwipe is Brooker's chance to show us what he thinks quality programming should be. So what do we get? Estuary-accented invective deliveredveryfastindeed, as if gabbling makes it somehow more trenchant, and grainy footage of Charlie sitting on his sofa shouting bleeped profanities at his television. If he were a student making videos for a media-studies course, his cheap ire might be acceptable. But this is national television, and Charlie Brooker is 37 years old. Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe took time off from spewing cheery vitriol across the television schedules to interview writers about the craft of writing. If you've ever felt like hurling the remote control at the telly, this is the show for you. Brooker invites us into his living room to share his popeyed, brilliantly articulated frustration with soaps, ads, glossy dramas, gambling channels... nothing escapes that acid-tongued wit. The Radio Times, 2nd December 2008 Charlie. Brooker. Dance. Routine. Four words that I never thought I would type together. However, anyone who tuned in for the return of Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe last night would have got exactly that. Of course, this being Brooker, it was never going to be an ironic fanfared return, but rather, clever and crass all at the same time, with the arresting image of Brooker awkwardly grooving and wiping his strap-on arse... and that wasn't the half of it. Screenwipe is BBC4's bilious, X-rated alternative to Harry Hill's TV Burp, a digest of current television via one man's warped sensibility. Brooker returns to our screens with his reputation bolstered by Dead Set, the satirical zombie shocker he recently penned for E4. Now, though, the gamekeeper can return to poaching. David Butcher, The Radio Times, 18th November 2008 In a recent newspaper column, Charlie Brooker hinted at a Damascene conversion to compassion as he argued against looking down 'on the genuine misery of those you consider beneath you' - something of a speciality for the Brooker of old. So, as BBC Four schedules six more parts of the critic's telly-bashing series Screenwipe (TV Burp for Chris Morris fans), can we expect it to be fronted by the pop-eyed, acerbic, ranting celebricidal Brooker, or a new touchy-feely incarnation? Thankfully, it looks like being the former, as tonight he explores what effect 'Manuelgate' could have on BBC programming, and sticks the boot into the plethora of job-based shows clogging the channels. Producers and directors, weep and despair! Bilious but brutally funny critic Charlie Brooker is back for another series of satirical swipes at the television industry. First up in his cross-hairs, expensive but bland television dramas, property shows and the furore surrounding Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross. Metro, 18th November 2008 It's been far too long, but finally Brooker, the master of dissecting current trends in television, returns for a new series. Expect the Ross/Brand saga, the economic meltdown, and costume dramas to come under Brooker's acerbic gaze. Watching Brooker administer corporal punishment to the stupidities and excesses of today's television can be a strange experience - mainly because the medium he is savaging has allowed him to do such a thing. Written by Rhodri Marsden. The Radio Times, 11th October 2007 This disassembling of TV land made for fascinating AND hilarious viewing. How often do I get to write that? It showed us all just how much money goes into a TV show... from a 3 hour shoot for a 3 second segment of Brooker falling off a log, to seeing how creative an edit can really be. Written by Mofgimmers. TV Scoop, 19th September 2007 Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe started out with a short pilot run earlier in the year, which was watchable but somewhat confused. Thankfully, between that and the more recent five-week series, many of the earlier problems have clearly been addressed and largely ironed out. Written by TJ Worthington. Off The Telly, 16th August 2006 Ah, Charlie Brooker. Anyone with any sense and love of TV reads his Guardian Screen Burn column every Saturday. It's usually the funniest thing you'll read that week. However, his Screen Wipe review show, which pretty much translates Screen Burn into pictures, hasn't been so compelling. Written by Rob Buckley. The Medium Is Not Enough, 7th August 2006 Brooker, self-confessed rubbish presenter, seems to have the attention span of a gnat. Given a full half-hour to really get going on ridiculous text-message competitions designed to grab the viewer's money, the lamentable nature of daytime TV and the dozen or so other topics he selected just for the first episode, he still produces more or less the same few hundred words he'd use in Screen Burn. Written by Rob Buckley. Off The Telly, 3rd March 2006 |
