TV Viewing Summary W/E 07/12/97

Well, it looks like Coronation Street and Heartbeat are now taking alternate weeks at holding the top spot. The Street is back on top this week, attracting an average audience of 16.72 million over its four episodes. Eastenders again remains the great pretender, not only in terms of viewing figures (average of 15.04 million), but also in dramatic and comic plot. Jack Duckworth’s entrance into the escort business must be one of the classic plots of the year. When will Eastenders ever live up to a scene such as we enjoyed between Jack and his escort (Nurse Gladys Emmanuel from Open All Hours) in the back room of the Rovers. And to think, Jack probably thought that having to face Vera in a romantic capacity once a year at Christmas was bad enough!!

The champion of all light entertainment shows appeared this week – The Royal Variety Performance. Hosted by our man Des O’Connor, this year’s effort was pretty good, Spice Girls ‘n’ all. Best of all was to see the continuation of that classic Eric Morecombe joke, which has now become a firm British Institution……yes, Des did sing.

Helen Mirren returned to our TV screens this week in Painted Lady. It was nice to see a break from Prime Suspect though one detects an actress desperately trying to avoid type casting – she has perhaps just crossed a bridge too far. Still, 10.81 million tuned in, making it the most popular drama of the week after the usual Heartbeat (16.85 million) and Casualty (11.51 million). Gold drew to a close and attracted 10.52 million viewers though it looks like it may well be the end of the line for this drama. Lets hope that Kay Mellor turns out some more drama of Gold ‘s original quality.

Men Behaving Badly comes in as the top comedy of the week, with 11.99 million, with Only Fools & Horses second best with 9.68 million. The ever popular comedy cleaned up at last week’s Comedy Awards, in particular proving its worth by winning the only real award, voted for by TV viewers. Incase anyone’s wondering my sources tell me that Buster is OK after his fall. He’s resting at home, and apparently has been overwhelmed by messages of goodwill from viewers – what a trooper he is. Merry Christmas my son………….

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