The speechmaker (From The Northern Echo)

The speechmaker

12:32pm Tuesday 3rd May 2011 in Entertainment By Steve Pratt

The King’s Speech: Revealed (Five, 8pm)
Misfits (C4, 11.05pm)
The Quite Remarkable David Coleman (BBC2, 9pm)
Fast Food Baby (BBC3, 9pm)
Supersize vs Superskinny (C4, 8pm)

ONE of the biggest films of the year so far and an Oscar-winner to boot has been The King’s Speech, with Colin Firth as the stuttering monarch.

The movie, as you must know by now, explored the relationship George VI enjoyed with the man hired to help with his stammer, pioneering speech therapist Lionel Logue.

Now, in The King’s Speech: Revealed, Logue’s grandson, Mark, takes a closer look at the true story that inspired the movie.

Although Logue’s friendship with the King wasn’t particularly wellknown before the release of the film, it seems the therapist was well aware that he was watching history unfold and kept detailed diary notes of each occasion he visited the royal couple, as well as personal letters from the monarch.

As keeper of the family archives, Mark has a wealth of fascinating detail at his fingertips, but during the course of the documentary he also learns more about his grandfather’s early life in Australia.

Among those appearing is actor Geoffrey Rush, who plays Lionel Logue in the film.

COMEDY drama Misfits – about troubled Asbo kids with super powers – shouldn’t work. But it does. It’s a ridiculous premise after all, but as it turns out the core demographics these days crave the preposterous.

For the uninitiated, chav-tastic Kelly (Lauren Socha), disgraced sportsman Curtis (Nathan Stewart- Jarrett), outspoken party girl Alisha (Antonia Thomas), inappropriate weirdo Nathan (Robert Sheehan) and arsonist Simon (Iwan Rheon) were ordered to do community service and got caught up in a freak storm.

In the days that followed, strange things began to happen to the gang and they each learned they had a special supernatural power. All of a sudden, they could be invisible, read thoughts and even incur sexual madness.

No, there’s nothing run-of-themill about this series – and it’s been awarded a Bafta for its efforts.

Since its inception, the stars of the show have enjoyed a whirlwind romance with the media – and it looks set to continue long into the future with a third series recently announced.

But what makes the show so popular?

Robert Sheehan, Nathan in the show, says it’s a blend of many things. “It’s the design of the show, that’s very strong; it has a very unique look to it, you get glued to it quite quickly, the hilarity of the whole thing.

“I think the law of comedy is you play everything real and you play everything like all these ridiculous situations we’re involved in have to be reacted to in a very, hopefully, very real way. That’s the only way people can really go along with you.”

Nathan et al return and it’s just a few days on from when we last left them. For those who need to be reminded – Nathan was stuck six feet under with only an MP3 player for company, and Kelly, Curtis, Alisha and Simon are still none the wiser, grieving for their apparently deceased friend. But when a masked stranger leads the gang to Nathan’s grave, Kelly quickly picks up his thoughts and realises he’s still alive.

DAVID COLEMAN was born in Cheshire on April 26, 1926. By 1954, he was in Birmingham working as a news assistant and sports editor for the BBC. On the day that Roger Bannister broke the fourminute mile, Coleman made his TV debut and, following a stint as sports editor for BBC Midlands, landed the job of frontman for the BBC’s flagship TV sports show, Grandstand.

He spent a decade of Saturday afternoons hosting the programme, and also fronted the BBC’s Sports Review of the Year, Sportsnight with Coleman and reported on 11 Olympic Games, from Rome in 1960 to Sydney in 2000.

There’s also the little matter of his covering six World Cups as commentator.

All that hard work didn’t go unnoticed and in 1992 Coleman was awarded an OBE for services to broadcasting, as well as the Judges’ Award for sport in the Royal Television Society Award four years later.

The Quite Remarkable David Coleman offers a look at the life and career of the man who retired from broadcasting 11 years ago after a “quite remarkable” career.

THOSE who grew up in the Sixties and Seventies will remember an era when about the only fast food on the high street was a Wimpy bar or a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant. Supermarkets stocked a few basics, and crisps and pop seemed to come in small containers.

These days, of course, it’s a very different story, with fast food outlets on almost every high street and shops selling crisps and snacks in mammoth-sized containers.

All of which is apparently having a detrimental effect on assorted babies and toddlers around the UK.

Some are eating a diet of cheap, sugary and fattening junk food that is helping them to pile on the pounds and leading to problems in later life.

The alarming documentary Fast Food Baby follows parents who are feeding a future of bad teeth and medical problems to their offspring, but on the plus side those same guardians are determined to wean their children off their junk food addictions.

STAYING with food, here’s Supersize vs Superskinny featuring Mark Hughes, a 41-year-old who is, according to the press blurb, a heart attack waiting to happen.

His continuous consumption of greasy mountains of food has left him 11 stone overweight at 22st 3lb.

This week he meets diet-swap partner Dale, a 21-year-old who’s been running his body on empty and now weighs a lightweight 9st 6lb. His skinny frame has damaged his self-confidence and left his loved ones worried.

Mark’s greasy diet makes Dale sick. Mark also gets a video wake-up call from 38st Californian Mark Beatty, whose weight has left him single, lonely and in need of a ventilator to breathe at night. Cameras also follow the eating disorder group as they head off clothes shopping. Will they manage to have a positive effect on one another, or will Mark and Dale resort to their bad old ways?