57. Revelations

Tapehead no 57 

It’s the end. The end of Revelations. And, after 26 episodes of camp, conniving Shakespearian family feuding, The Bonking Bishop has finally gone doolally.

“Oh no,” he remembered, absent-mindedly, at the end of last week’s cliffhanger, “Anne’s dead isn’t she… 

I should know ! I killed her !” (Boom! Boom!, as Basil Brush would say).

There is, of course a sudden death (as a treat – to make up for it ending) and a brilliant scene in which Jimmy delivers a soliloquy to Luscious Lennie’s bum as she leans over the back seat of her car while packing up to leave.

Meanwhile, Gabriel is dispatched to scour the mean streets and drug dens to track down his errant teenage sister, Charlotte, despite the fact that even a raving drug addict, he is so ineffectual, he can’t shoot up his own morphine without his mummy helping him. (Scouring the streets for Charlie is of course one of Revelations’ post-modern jokes.)

Charlotte had stormed off to get high and get laid, and having succeeded in both by this week’s episode, has emerged from the back seat of some bloke’s motor transformed into a doting daughter with an uncharacteristically enlightened spiritual outlook. 

But then, as Tapehead often says, it really is amazing the effect that getting rogered in the back of a stranger’s car for money can have on you.

In the meantime, The Choir has a few moments worthy of revelations. This week, there’s considerable pleasure to be gained from studying Edward Fox’s hair; from watching the choirboys’ miming (worse than Top Of The Pops); and from working out whether the glamorous redhead who appears as the headmaster’s wife really is played by Jane Asher.

“It’s not because I don’t love you,” she sighs “it’s because I do.”

Then there’s the Cathedral Council’s AGM where one of the bishops insists, “ours is the truly Christian point of view and therefore we are right” – not a very high standard of theological debate, but still… The possibility that he is actually saying “the Terry Christian point of view” should not necessarily be discounted.

Throughout, the women continue to throw themselves at Leo The Choirmaster, presumably because of the way he grins at them and says “gosh! You look terrific” to every woman he meets (often more than once).

The highlight this week though is the presence of a Really Groovy record producer who comes to “check out” the choir’s lead soprano “to make a CD”. 

“Nice voice,” he nods authoritatively.

Speaking of which… aren’t any of the boys in The Choir being interfered with ?

Was Rush Limbaugh a choir boy ? Tapehead doubts it. Nonetheless, Talk Radio (Naked News) is America’s new religion and Limbaugh, as he modestly informs his 20 million listeners, “has talent on loan from God.”

Limbaugh and his fellow Right-Wing Republican shock jocks are out there every day, combating “the liberal filter” that the American mass media puts on the news – you know the one, those goddam liberals, like that Rupert Murdoch guy.

Check out the “Rush Room” of the West Virginia branch of Mr Bagel next time you’re passing where Good Old Boys and decent American citizens can listen along and foam at the mouth in sync with Limbaugh. 

“The most beautiful thing about a tree,” he tells them, “is what you do to it after you chop it down.”

Sadly, the closest thing we have to Limbaugh are taxi cab drivers and the taxi touts they use (Undercover Britain). The programme spies on geezers with names like Rabbitt and Doughtnut going about their business charging tourists £38.50 to go two mile from Victoria Station.

One of them, a certain Freddie Gross, has been banned from both Heathrow and Victoria by the High Court for his taxi touting prowess. Confronted, he considers violence but produces a blinding alibi. 

“I’ve got a brother. Yeah, he look a hell of a lot like me,” he says reasonably. “In fact… we’re twins.”

Genius. 

ends

The Choir: Sun, 9.05pm-10pm, BBC1

Undercover Britain: Mon, 9.30pm-10pm, C4 

Naked News: Thu, 9pm-10pm, C4

Revelations: Thurs, 10.40pm-11.10pm, Carlton