National Television Awards - The 2012 shortlist

BACK: Dermot O'Leary will host again in January 2012

THE lengthy nominations list for the 2012 National Television Awards was released this morning.  Many TV favourites have been included on the list in one of the most glamorous ceremonies on the TV calendar.  New reality hits The Only Way is Essex and Made in Chelsea will make the ‘Reality’ award one to watch, as they have been nominated against the more familiar shows, The Apprentice and I’m A Celebrity.

     Jonathan Ross and Graham Norton will go head-to-head over the ‘Talkshow’ award, whilst Australian soaps Home and Away and Neighbours join the heavyweights from EastEnders and Coronation Street in the ‘Serial Drama’ category. 

     Fans can vote for their favourites at the official website; www.nationaltvawards.com.  The ceremony will once again be at London’s 02 Arena and hosted by X-Factor anchor, Dermot O’Leary.  The long list will be knockdown into a smaller shortlist in December, with the prestigious ceremony shown live on ITV1 in January 2012.

THE NOMINATIONS

TALENT SHOW

The X-Factor, Strictly Come Dancing, Britain’s Got Talent, Let’s Dance for Comic Relief, Dancing on Ice, Popstar to Operastar, Got to Dance, So You Think You Can Dance

COMEDY PANEL

Celebrity Juice, Pointless, 8 Out of 10 Cats, Mock the Week, QI, Have I Got News For You, Odd One In, Would I Lie To You?

DRAMA

Downton Abbey, Doctor Who, Waterloo Road, Glee, Wild at Heart, Casualty, Lewis, Shameless, Holby City, Law & Order UK, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Midsummer Murders, Silent Witness, Monroe, New Tricks, Spooks, DCI Banks: Aftermath, Scott & Bailey, Inspector George Gently, Whitechapel, Doc Martin, Merlin, Waking the Dead, Luther, Hustle, Above Suspicion: Deadly Intent, Lark Rise to Candleford, Case Histories, Kidnap and Ransom, The Shadow Line, Silk, Vera, Torchwood: Miracle Day, Upstairs Downstairs, South Riding

TALK SHOW

Loose Women, The Jonathan Ross Show, The Graham Norton Show, Paul O’Grady Live, Alan Carr: Chatty Man, Piers Morgan’s Life Stories, The Wright Stuff, The Rob Brydon Show, The Alan Titchmarsh Show, That Sunday Night Show

FACTUAL PROGRAMME

MasterChef, Top Gear, This Morning, The One Show, BBC Breakfast, Who Do You Think You Are?, Antiques Roadshow, Countryfile, Big Fat Gypsy Weddings, Billy Connolly’s Route 66, Crimewatch, Daybreak, DIY SOS: The Big Build, Strangeways, The Biggest Loser, Watchdog, Britten’s Hidden Heritage, An Idiot Abroad, Ocean Giants, Lost Land of the Tiger, Inside the Human Body, Turn Back Time- The High Street, Wallace & Gromit’s World of Invention, Royal Navy Caribbean Patrol, Human Planet, Long Lost Family

SITUATION COMEDY

Benidorm, Trollied, Not Going Out, Come Fly With Me, My Family, Miranda, Outnumbered, Candy Cabs, Friday Night Dinner, Whites, Reggie Perrin, In With the Flynns, Mrs. Brown’s Boys

SERIAL DRAMA

Coronation Street, EastEnders, Emmerdale, Neighbours, Doctors, Home & Away, Hollyoaks

REALITY PROGRAMME

Come Dine With Me, The Only Way is Essex, I’m A Celebrity…Get Me Out of Here!, The Apprentice, Made in Chelsea, 71 Degrees North, Coach Trip, Peter Andre: The Next Chapter, Don’t Tell The Bride

ENTERTAINMENT PROGRAMME

The Cube, Harry Hill’s TV Burp, Ant & Dec’s Push The Button, Live at the Apollo, All-Star Family Fortunes, Who Wants to Be A Millionaire, Total Wipeout, The Million Pound Drop, Take Me Out, John Bishop’s Britain, Celebrity Mastermind, Michael McIntyre’s Comedy Roadshow, Tonight’s The Night, Red or Black, Lee Mack’s All-Star Cast, University Challenge, The Magicians, Sing If You Can, New You’ve Been Framed, The National Lottery: In It To Win It, Dynamo: Magician Impossible    

ENTERTAINMENT PRESENTER

Ant & Dec, Davina McCall, Dermot O’Leary, Harry Hill, Graham Norton, Jonathan Ross, Tess Daly, Vernon Kay, Paul O’Grady, Michael McIntyre, Alan Carr, John Bishop, Keith Lemon, Cat Deeley, Myleene Klaas, Bradley Walsh, Paddy McGuiness, Sir Bruce Forsyth, Steve Jones, Lee Mack, Holly Willoughby, Chris Tarrant, Piers Morgan, John Barrowman, Phillip Schofield, Dale Winton, Alex Jones, Adrian Chiles, Rob Brydon, Lenny Henry, Richard Hammond      

NEWCOMER

Chris Fountain (Coronation Street), Jacqueline Jossa (EastEnders), Jimmy Akingbola (Holby City), William Beck (Casualty), Chelsea Halfpenny (Emmerdale), Danny Mac (Hollyoaks)

SERIAL DRAMA PERFORMANCE

Jessie Wallace (EastEnders), Danny Miller (Emmerdale), Alison King (Coronation Street), Simon Gregson (Coronation Street), Pauline Quirke (Emmerdale), Nina Wadia (EastEnders), Jane Danson (Coronation Street), Lucy Pargeter (Emmerdale), Steve McFadden (EastEnders), Jake Wood (EastEnders), Jeff Hordley (Emmerdale), Chris Gascoyne (Coronation Street), Emmett J.Scanlan (Hollyoaks), Katherine Kelly (Coronation Street), Claire Cooper (Hollyoaks), Charley Webb (Emmerdale), Lindsey Coulson (EastEnders), Kieran Richardson (Hollyoaks), Andrew Lancel (Coronation Street), Jonny Clarke (Hollyoaks), Nitin Ganatra (EastEnders), Rachel Shenton (Hollyoaks), Steve Halliwell (Emmerdale), Stephanie Davis (Hollyoaks)

FEMALE DRAMA PERFORMANCE

Karen Gillian (Doctor Who), Amanda Redman (New Tricks), Laila Rouass (Holby City), Georgia Taylor (Casualty), Suranne Jones (Scott & Bailey), Freema Agyeman (Law & Order: UK), Dawn Steele (Wild at Heart), Sarah Parish (Monroe), Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey), Maxine Peake (Silk), Sally Carman (Shameless), Eve Myles (Torchwood), Caroline Catz (Doc Martin), Kelly Adams (Hustle), Nicola Walker (Spooks), Emilia Fox (Silent Witness), Lesley Sharp (Scott & Bailey), Jaye Jacobs (Waterloo Road), Joanne Froggatt (Downton Abbey), Kelly Reilly (Above Suspicion), Brenda Blethyn (Vera), Tara Fitzgerald (Waking The Dead), Katie McGrath (Merlin), Julia Sawalha (Lark Rise to Candleford), Keeley Hawes (Upstairs Downstairs), Anna Maxwell Martin (South Riding)  

MALE DRAMA PERFORMANCE

Stephen Tompkinson (DCI Banks), Matt Smith (Doctor Who), Martin Clunes (Doc Martin), Bradley Walsh (Law & Order: UK), Laurence Fox (Lewis), James Nesbitt (Monroe), Brendan Coyle (Downton Abbey), Idris Elba (Luther), Bradley James (Merlin), Martin Shaw (Inspector George Gently), Kevin Whately (Lewis), Alun Armstrong (New Tricks), John Barrowman (Torchwood), Guy Henry (Holby City), Phil Davis (Whitechapel), Colin Morgan (Merlin), Adrian Lester (Hustle), Peter Firth (Spooks), Dennis Waterman (New Tricks), Ben Turner (Casualty), Stephen Rea (The Shadow Line), Jason Isaacs (Case Histories), Alec Newman (Waterloo Road), David Morrissey (South Riding), James Bolam (New Tricks), Ciaran Hinds (Above Suspicion), Rupert Penry-Jones (Whitechapel), Trevor Eve (Kidnap and Ransom), David Threlfall (Shameless), Ed Stoppard (Upstairs, Downstairs), Dan Stevens (Downton Abbey), Neil Dudgeon (Midsummer Murders)              

TV classics - Home and Away

By Jason Wright (Entertainment Expert)

SOME people may often forget that it was Channel Seven that launched the concept of soap in Australia.  The nostalgic Sons & Daughters started it all in 1982 and then it launched Neighbours three years later.  The latter wasn’t a success and defected to rivals Channel Ten the following year and became so successful that Seven decided to get its own back. Thus, Home and Away was born in 1988.

     Set in Summer Bay; a fictional seaside town on the coast of Melbourne, the concept behind the show was to aim it towards a family audience compared to Neighbours, which was targeted more at just the youth.  Early episodes largely focused on the Fletcher family, Tom (Roger Oakley), Pippa (Debra Lawrance) and their adoptive daughter Sally (Kate Ritchie) along with the Stewart couple of Alf (Ray Meagher) and Alisa (Judy Nunn).

START: A young Dannii Minogue made her breakthrough in Home & Away

     This initial plan didn’t really work and soon enough, the show extended towards other residents, along with the local businesses.  Several people got their big break through the show, including Dannii Minogue and the late Heath Ledger.  During the nineties, popular new characters came in, including Shannon Reed (Isla Fisher), Angel Parrish (Melissa George), Shane Parrish (Dieter Brummer), Marilyn Chambers (Emily Symons) and Fisher (Norman Coburn).

     Home and Away made its arrival onto British television in 1990 with ITV broadcasting the soap after the BBC turned down the rights to concentrate on funding for Neighbours.  Together with popular quiz show Blockbusters, with the ITN News sandwiched in-between, ITV had finally created a combination to take on the BBC on weekday teatimes.

     Going into the new millennium and Home and Away started a severe decline Down Under.  Constantly being thrashed in the ratings by Neighbours, it was criticised for trying to copy Ramsay Street’s way of storylines and then taking it over the top.  Meanwhile, it was rocked even further in January 2000 with the news that ITV wouldn’t be renewing its contract in order to fund for more original daytime programmes, namely a revival of the classic soap Crossroads.  Channel 5 duly picked up the rights, beating off stiff competition from Channel 4 and Sky.  However, due to legal documentation which I won’t go into, it would not return to UK screens until July 2001.  In the ten years that it has aired, Channel 5 has done a remarkable job to now only lie a few weeks behind Australian transmission.

     Over in Australia, Seven ordered a facelift of the show in 2004, but denied it was a “last chance” revamp.  Some of the sets were given neat makeovers, a whole host of new faces came in and the show switched into a new picture format, giving it a film-like effect that was being demonstrated in British soaps Hollyoaks and Doctors.  Bevan Lee, who was serving as series producer at the time of the revamp, left but decided to stay on until the end of the 2004 season to allow a strong transition into new producer Dan Bennett.  Bennett built on the wide praise from the 2004 relaunch, by continuing to dramatically extend the cast and commission storylines and plots that Home and Away had never touched before.  By now, the soap was being targeted to youngsters, with the arrival of popular teen characters such as Ric Dalby (Mark Furze), Cassie Turner (Sharni Vinson), Lucas Holden (Rhys Wakefield) and Matilda Hunter (Indiana Evans).

     One element that makes Home and Away standout from any other soap is disasters.  During the two and a bit decades it has been on the air, there has been an earthquake, a landslide, a hurricane, a cyclone, several fires, a helicopter disaster which left many characters stranded in a remote forest for over a month and countless car crashes.  It’s no wonder why Inside Soap magazine has labelled Summer Bay as soap’s most dangerous town!

     The murder of corrupt mayor Josh West (Daniel Collopy) in 2006 signalled change of direction in Home and Away.  Despite still being broadcast in a 7pm slot on Seven, and 6pm on Channel 5, more darker and grittier storylines were rolled out which included a continuing storyline the previous year of Eve Jacobson (Emily Perry).  Eve was a possessed stalker who coming back from the dead to enact revenge in blowing up the reception building at the wedding between Jack Holden (Paul O’Brien) and Martha Mackenzie (Jodi Gordon), leaving everyone’s lives at risk.  The end of the 2006 saw gangster Johnny Cooper (Callan Mulvey) begin to terrorise the town in a two-year period, during which Sally Fletcher was hospitalised twice for being stabbed.

     Despite these shock twists, it made compelling viewing and by now Home and Away was miles ahead of Neighbours in Australia and was often picking up awards for it.  The show’s 20th anniversary in 2008 promised a nostalgic element to the show throughout the year.  It also though saw the departure of many popular characters, especially the farewell of Sally, who left to travel the world.  Although new faces came in, many would argue that they would have a lot of work to do to better the class that began in 1988 and came in through the 2000s revival of what seemed to be a dying format.

STRONG: Home and Away still has a good following of fans

     Recently, the show has returned to its roots and although still features the odd dramatic element now and again; it has now taken a lighter and pleasurable approach.  Its reception in both Australia and the UK remains good and I predict that Home and Away should still be on everyone’s screens for many years to come.

Dancing on Ice 2011 - Second qualifying heat

BY JASON WRIGHT (Entertainment Expert)

Last week, the first six celebrities booked their places in this year’s competition and this week it was the turn of the other eight celebrities to show what they could do to get into the proper stages of Dancing on Ice.

Here is a summary of the eight stars who took part on Sunday.

Craig McLachlan & Maria Filippov

Skated to: Sympathy for the Devil

UNSUCCESSFUL: Craig continued Australia's losing trend

With successful stints in Neighbours and Home and Away in the 1980’s, Craig came to Britain hoping to prove that Aussies can win a sport!  His routine was great to watch, though it was lacking the rather required pace for the accompanying music. 

Selected comment: “The costume covered a multitude of sins for me tonight mate.  From the waist down you move quite gingerly and it looks like you are wearing a soiled nappy!” (Jason Gardiner)

Scores: Jason 3, Robin 3, Emma 3                                              TOTAL: 9/30 (8th)

Jennifer Metcalfe & Sylvain Longchambon

Two years ago, Hollyoaks stunner Jennifer narrowly missed out on the final line-up.  Now she was finally living her dream.  Already reportedly intimate with her pro partner Sylvain, it was anticipated this would be partnership in the making.  Despite a huge mistake when she mistimed her roll-up move, it was a good start.

Selected comment: “You must have danced before because the way that you carry yourself is stunning.  I've fallen out of a lift before and it is so scary and I admire you so much for keeping your head up and carrying on with the routine.” (Emma Bunton)

Scores: Jason 4, Robin 4, Emma 4                                              TOTAL: 12/30 (3rd)

Comedy Dave & Frankie Poultney

Skated to: The Safety Dance

Branded the joker of the pack must be difficult but also appealing as the public will vote more often.  Regardless, Dave’s first performance was actually quite solid and not as disgraceful as first feared.  There is no doubt he may get plenty of support no matter whether he will become good or bad on the ice.

Selected comment: “You equipped yourself very well. It was genius of Christopher Dean to use all your bad assets and make them work for you.  I have to say, week one, a three jump and an assisted jump on your own, well done.” (Robin Cousins)

Scores: Jason 3, Robin 4, Emma 4                                              TOTAL: 11/30 (Joint 4th)

Elen Rivas & Lukasz Rozycki

Skated to: Your Love Is King

UNIMPRESSIVE: And Elen paid the price, with an early exit

Known as a model but better as the ex of Frank Lampard, Elen had a lot to prove to everyone that she was lot nicer than first thought.  Not so however, her VT showed her demanding better choreography to put into her routine and she got what she asked for, only to mess it up by just…well…not skating at all perfectly. .

Selected comment: “Where was the passion tonight?  There were fighting words, but they just didn't translate onto the ice.  Very constricted in the upper body and a very disassociated performance from your choreography.” (Jason Gardiner)

Scores: Jason 3, Robin 4, Emma 4                                              TOTAL: 11/30 (Joint 4th)

Dominic Cork & Alexandra Schumann

Skated to: Are You Ready For Love

Dominic earns the reputation of being the first cricketer to take part on this show and is no doubt hoping to emulate the successes of Darren Gough and Mark Ramprakash on Strictly Come Dancing.  However, it seems like victory is not up his street and this routine showed it.  However, if he doesn’t make constant mistakes and makes the odd improvement, he will go a good distance.

Selected comment: “You are the tallest skater we have here and the tendency would be to stoop over your partner, but you didn't, you made her come to you.” (Robin Cousins)

Scores: Jason 3, Robin 5, Emma 3                                              TOTAL: 11/30 (Joint 4th)

Chloe Madeley & Michael Zenezini

Skated to: Mama Do

The daughter of famous TV presenting duo Richard & Judy, Chloe is another star who has been linked to participating in the past but has only now got her chance.  Amidst fears she would flop, she didn’t.  In fact, she was the surprise of the night and if she keeps this up, she will be a surprise package in this show.

Selected comment: “I know that there is so much to think about, but technically you have got it now.  Just try and relax and enjoy the character a bit more.  I want to see the cheeky playful Chloe that we know and love.” (Emma Bunton)

Scores: Jason 4, Robin 6, Emma 6                                              TOTAL: 16/30 (2nd)

Sam Attwater & Brianne Delcourt

Skated to: Club Can’t Handle Me

FANTASTIC: Sam underlined his bookies favourite potential

Sam is a little-known EastEnders actor that has surely turned into a skating superstar.  Well, that is certainly the impression from this first performance.  So much energy, pace and moves were put into it and he has certainly left a mark on this competition.  Unless there is any serious reply from anyone else within these next couple of weeks, it’s Sam’s competition to lose.

Selected comment: “Fantastic skating, fantastic instant chemistry and some of the strongest skating we've seen in week one.  You were really being pushed.” (Robin Cousins)

Scores: Jason 6, Robin 7, Emma 8                                              TOTAL: 21/30 (1st)

Denise Welch & Matt Evers

Skated to: Pack Up

PROMISING: But Jason Gardiner really took a dislike to Denise

Those who are associated to Loose Women will indeed be backing Denise throughout.  In honest truth, her first performance was not brilliant but not bad either.  I think it’s fair to say that no matter how she copes, she will get the votes to go through.

Selected comment: “Surprisingly there were real moments of promise, combined with Matt skating with his mum!  I want you to lose the skating with mum quality that we saw.” (Jason Gardiner)

Scores: Jason 3, Robin 4, Emma 3                                              TOTAL: 10/30 (7th)

The Result

There were just six places left to fill in the Dancing on Ice 2011 line-up and again, the public alone was responsible in making the decision.  Comedy Dave, Dominic, Chloe, Sam and Denise snatched the first five on offer tonight whilst Jennifer secured the final slot in the skate-off against Craig and Elen.

This will no doubt give Jennifer a serious reality check, just like Laura last week.  However, I always have to be honest at this point and so I must admit, I actually thought she would be knocked out and that Craig would go though, because even if his skating wasn’t up to standard, I honestly thought his personality would shine though and win the public over.  Nevertheless, it’s still a good case that the strongest skater won through again.

So we now have our competition line-up and next week it all kicks off for real.  The judges will finally be able to have their say as their scores will go towards the overall result and will now have complete power again in the skate-off, which reverts back to a head-to-head battle.

Chloe Madeley, Comedy Dave, Denise Welch, Dominic Cork, Jeff Brazier, Jennifer Metcalfe, Johnson Beharry, Kerry Katona, Laura Hamilton, Sam Attwater, Steven Arnold and Vanilla Ice. One of them will win Dancing on Ice 2011, but who will prevail out on top.  It begins next Sunday at 6:10pm on ITV1 (HD).  As always, a report will be issued next week.