Please Release Me CD

I'm a big fan of radio drama, and yet I rarely manage to listen to it live. As with this post about unreleased DVDs, there are several audio stories that are as yet unavailable and I would love to see them released on CD:


Nebulous, series 2 & 3
The first series is currently available and it's criminal that the latter series haven't followed it.

- - -

Discworld
The BBC has broadcast full cast adaptations of Discworld novels Mort, Wyrd Sisters, Guards! Guards!, Small Gods, The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents, Night Watch, as well as readings of The Colour of Magic, Equal Rites and Wee Free Men, and the first Johnny Maxwell novel Only You Can Save Mankind, but none have been made commercially available, despite the huge potential audience.

- - -

The League Of Gentlemen's Ghost Chase
It's a joy to listen to the reunited League members during their visit to a haunted house and I'd love to hear an At The BBC style release which collects their radio interviews and appearances with this documentary.

- - -

Any suggestions for radio and audio that really should be out on CD (or download) by now?

“You’re Going To Have A Hell Of A Year”

So says the Tenth Doctor to Rose the last time he met her (and the first time she met him), in the last few moments of Doctor Who's The End Of Time, Part Two and the first few moments of 2005.

This was the year that the Huygens probe landed on Saturn's largest moon Titan, the Kyoto Protocol went into effect, the women of Kuwait were granted the right to vote, controversial drawings of Mohammed were printed in a Danish newspaper and the Live8 concerts took place across the world.

Personally, I worked on shows like 1905, Weave and 13 Rooms. I left my job in the bookshop and found work in a call centre, then later I left the call centre to work on Sleeping Beauty.

These are a few of my favourite things from 2005:

Film
Serenity
Joss Whedon’s Firefly hits the big screen and really feels like it belongs. This is that rare commodity: the Science Fiction action film featuring characters that are real people just trying to get through the day. It’s criminal that there was never a sequel. Here's the trailer.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
Martin Freeman, Zooey Deschanel and Sam Rockwell are all great in the big screen version of Douglas Adams’ SF comedy tale. The film successfully interprets the story for a new audience and proves to be robust enough to include new elements as disparate as singing dolphins, the point-of-view gun and the romance between Arthur and Trillian. Here's the trailer.

The League Of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse
As Royston Vasey faces the end of its world, its inhabitants stray into ours to plead with their creators to save their lives. The bleakness of the real world, the vibrancy of Vasey and the colour of The King’s Evil all combine to make this film much more than the sum of its parts, with Ray Harryhausen-style stop-motion animation thrown in as well. Here's the trailer.

TV
Doctor Who: Rose; The Unquiet Dead; Aliens Of London & World War Three, Dalek, The Long Game, Father's Day, The Empty Child & The Doctor Dances, Boom Town, Bad Wolf & The Parting Of The Ways, The Christmas Invasion and its prelude
The triumphant return. Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper are wonderful. Rose starts us with a bang, it’s like a traditional four part story, but with Rose experiencing the first half, while the Doctor is rushing through parts three and four at the same time. The Unquiet Dead is a wonderful Victorian romp with great performances from Eve Myles, Simon Callow and Alan David and marks the first of the ‘celebrity historicals’. Aliens Of London & World War Three is both the most far fetched story this season and also the most realistic. Yes, it has farting aliens, unerring missile accuracy and a space pig in it, but it also shows Jackie and Mickey reeling from Rose being missing for a year, shows aliens using our own government against us and gives the Slitheen a very plausible motivation for their actions. As the first new two-parter it also features the first new cliffhanger ending and gives us three cliffhangers simultaneously. Dalek successfully puts Skaro’s finest back on top. It looks like a battle tank, kills almost everyone in sight, but still manages to illicit pity from Rose and a lust for revenge from the Doctor. I don’t understand why The Long Game is so derided. This episode deserves to be lauded as an excellent satire on media propaganda, and yet people seem to miss the point. Simon Pegg and Anna Maxwell-Martin are wonderful in my favourite episode this year. Father's Day is a touching tale and Rose’s dilemma is palpable with great performances from Piper, Camille Coduri and Shaun Dingwall. Gasmasks are terrifying to behold and the scariest thing in horror to an adult is a lost child. The Empty Child & The Doctor Dances uses both of these to create a tense World War II chiller. This two-parter has beautiful Blitz design, features one of the best cliffhanger resolutions in the history of the show and one of the best lines of dialogue in the history of the English language: “What’s life? Life’s easy. A quirk of matter. Nature’s way of keeping meat fresh”. The story introduces John Barrowman as Captain Jack, but it’s Florence Hoath’s Nancy that steals the show. Eccleston and Annette Badland are wonderful in Boom Town. The two-part finale Bad Wolf & The Parting Of The Ways brings the “Bad Wolf scenario” to a fantastic close. Russell T. Davies and Christopher Eccleston gave Doctor Who both a zeal and a gravitas that cannot be underestimated. Despite appearances the Children In Need episode with no onscreen title is an essential prelude to The Christmas Invasion. This episode has possibly the hardest task of any episode ever, to introduce the another new Doctor to a Christmas Day audience. It illustrates the strength of the surrounding cast with great performances from Piper, Coduri, Noel Clarke, Penelope Wilton and eventually David Tennant. Fantastic.

Star Trek: Enterprise: Observer Effect; Babel One, United & The Aenar; Affliction & Divergence; In A Mirror, Darkly; Demons & Terra Prime
As Enterprise draws to a close, the links with other Star Trek series are strengthened significantly. The crew are unaware of being lab rats in an Organian experiment in Observer Effect which makes a refreshing change for some of the regular actors. The three part Babel One, United & The Aenar is meandering story that sees the foundation of the alliance that would lead to the Federation, sees the Romulans at their sneakiest and includes another great performance from Jeffrey Combs. Affliction & Divergence is Enterprise at its most fannish: Section 31 are back, there is fallout from the Augment crisis and the change in Klingon foreheads is explained, but despite what on paper looks like too much, it also manages to be a great story as well. The two part In A Mirror, Darkly is from a different TV show altogether. A glimpse into how the show might have looked in the mirror universe, which gives the regulars an opportunity for very different performance and also sees the welcome return of the 23rd century’s sets, uniforms and vibrant colour scheme. Demons & Terra Prime sees humanity on the eve of the coalition of planets at its most xenophobic. With great performances from Jolene Blalock, John Billingsley, Linda Park, Connor Trinneer, Harry Groener and Peter Weller. This would have been a much better note to end the series on.

The Thick Of It
Chris Langham's weariness as Hugh Abbott MP is palpable as he presides over a department which announces a policy and flip flops to an entirely contradictory policy and then flop flips back again. Second guessing and overreaction abound in the corridors of power (and for a couple of scenes in the broom cupboard of power).

Nighty Night
Even bleaker and barmier than the first series. Julia Davis is even more manipulative as Jill Bulb, nee Tyrrell, and Rebecca Front, Ruth Jones and Ralph Brown are all great, but Mark Gatiss steals the show out from under them.

Funland
A sordid soap opera with a compelling storyline. It is beautifully directed and boasts great performances throughout, astounding art direction and a series of cliffhanger endings that keep upping the ante.

Star Wars: Clone Wars Chapters Twenty-One to Twenty-Five
Genndy Tartakovsky’s animated series continues, with highlights including the animated cave paintings, Shak-Ti’s staff fight and Palpatine’s kidnap leading right into the opening crawl of the third prequel film.

The Quatermass Experiment Remake
David Tennant, Mark Gatiss and Indira Varma are wonderful in this live remake of Nigel Kneale’s first Quatermass serial set in a slightly odd hybrid of 1953 and now. A great TV experiment.

Mr Benn: The Gladiator
Another lovely slice of costume-related time travel whimsy from David McKee.




Casanova
David Tennant, Shaun Parkes, Peter O'Toole and Laura Fraser are all astonishingly good in a wonderful script by Russell T Davies that bounds along beautifully.

QI
The Quite Interesting quest reaches C with shows about Campanology, Cockneys and Cummingtonite, as well as this.


Radio
Chris Addison’s The Ape That Got Lucky: Language And Communication; Social Development; Science And Technology; Man Or Monkey?
Addison charts our first fumbling steps up the evolutionary to undisputed Top Species (capital T, capital S) and our subsequent development of tools, social conventions and language. “This show is made up almost entirely of language” and contains some insulting Esperanto. Featuring the excellent Jo Enwright in roles as varied as the first woman who ever spoke, the wife of a comatose inventor and a cow being milked.

Nebulous: The Night Of The Vegetarians; The Lovely Invasion; The Dust Has Landed; Madness Is A Strange Colour; The Coincidence Machine; The Man Who Polished The Sun
The year is 2099 and the first series of this loving Post-Withering parody, Professor Nebulous proves that vegetarians can't be trusted in The Night Of The Vegetarians, a sort of The Quatermass Experiment meets Meglos in a geodesic dome. Later Earth undergoes The Lovely Invasion and Nebulous is the only dissenting voice. Surely they can't be all they seem, can they? In The Dust Has Landed, K.E.N.T. finds itself competing with a rival organisation the Legitimate Organisation Undertaking General Humanitarian Business Operations Requiring Optimum Unconditional Global Harmony, or L.O.U.G.H.B.O.R.O.U.G.H. and contending with the professor's ex, played by Julia Deakin. Madness Is A Funny Colour as Garrow paint begins sending people honest Bod-bothering people into schizopathic psychophrenia, Harry who no longer has the luxury of eyes becomes the only salvation. The Coincidence Machine causes a build-up of coincidences threatens both our universe and a parallel universe (that’s different) with coinciclasm. The Man Who Polished The Sun cements David Warner's Dr. Klench as the arch nemesis of Nebulous and shows that Harry's reward is also his punishment. K.E.N.T. can do.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy: Fits The Nineteenth to Twenty-Sixth
The adaptation of the last two books of the trilogy in five parts was never going to be straightforward. The previously demolished Earth has somehow reappeared, Arthur has returned to it and fallen in love with a girl called Fenchurch, who then disappears. The Book is becoming The Bird. Ford, Zaphod, Marvin and at least two Trillians are each wandering independently through The Whole Sort Of General Mish Mash. This is a fitting end to twenty-seven years of radio hitchhiking and features wonderful performances from William Franklyn, Simon Jones, Geoffrey McGivern, Bill Paterson, Jane Horrocks, Toby Longworth, Stephen Moore, Rula Lenska, Saeed Jaffrey and Douglas Adams among many many more.

Doctor Who: Storm Warning; Sword Of Orion; Invaders From Mars; The Chimes Of Midnight Parts One & Two
From Paul McGann’s opening monologue in Storm Warning it's clear that the Eighth Doctor is back and he’s going to be magnificent. Gareth Thomas and Hylton Collins put in great performances and the story serves as a great debut for India Fisher’s Edwardian adventuress Charley Pollard. Sword Of Orion is like a Cybermen ‘best of’ album and is all the better for it. David Benson's impersonation of Orson Welles in Invaders From Mars is nothing short short of miraculous. The story posits that aliens really did invade during the famous broadcast of The War Of The Worlds in 1938 and John Arthur is deliciously evil as Cosmo Devine. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without The Chimes Of Midnight. The first two parts are beautifully atmospheric and dialogue like “Edith was a very stupid girl, she may not have known it was impossible when she did it” is wonderful.

Music
Gorillaz: Demon Days
The second album from the animated band is more like a concept album than the first, but since the band themselves are mostly conceptual this isn't as unwieldy as it might be in other more flesh and blood hands. The album has a raft of great singles, but spare a thought for 'Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head' is a great yarn told by Dennis Hopper and 'Don't Get Lost In Heaven' is Gorillaz viewed through the lens of The Beach Boys, which show the Gorillaz are as inventive as ever.
Stand out tracks: 'Kids With Guns'; 'Dirty Harry'; 'Feel Good Inc'; 'Fire Coming Out Of The Monkey's Head'; 'Don't Get Lost In Heaven'

Supergrass: Road To Rouen
The fifth album features longer and more orchestral tracks than the trio's usual fare. The tone shifts towards darker realms, but does so without taking itself too seriously. If it's a concept album, then it successfully manages to avoid the cliché and maintain variety within its theme. I suppose we will never discover what happened to 'Tales Of Endurance, Parts 1, 2 & 3'. Despite the serious nature of most of the album 'Coffee In The Pot' shows that this is still the same band and they can still have fun and the album title itself is a reassuring pun. A beautiful album.
Stand Out Tracks: 'Tales Of Endurance, Parts 4, 5 & 6'; 'St. Petersburg'; 'Sad Girl'; Roxy; 'Coffee In The Pot'; 'Road To Rouen'; 'Low C'

Books
The Call Of The Weird by Louis Theroux
Theroux returns to the USA to pay visits to many of the stars of his Louis Theroux’s Weird Weekends. Highlights include Survivalist Mike Cain, ex porn star JJ Michaels and alien hunter turned vampire slayer Thor Templar.




Charlie Brooker’s Screen Burn
Bile aimed squarely at the likes of Big Brother, 24, Cold Feet, The Frontier House, Hollyoaks, Touch The Truck and everything in between.






Comics
Ex Machina: Tag; Fortune Favors; Fact Vs Fiction; Off The Grid
Proving that Ex Machina deals with issues that comics rarely dare to, whilst still managing to keep a superhero in the mix and not cheapen said issue. Tag follows New York’s mayor Mitchell Hundred through his backing of gay marriage, while fending off assassination attempts from the religious fanatics and someone from his past. Fortune Favors shows that there are no easy days for Hundred. Fact Vs Fiction sees a copycat attempt to pick up where 'The Great Machine' left off whilst Hundred serves jury duty, neither ends well. Off The Grid concerns lies and sees Hundred's mother finally tell him the truth while a machine deceives him.

The Vesuvius Club Graphic Edition by Mark Gatiss & Ian Bass
Lucifer Box ventures into new territory and graphic is certainly the word as the unveiling of one character is unflinchingly anatomical. The artwork, by the illustrator of the novels, is languid and the adaptation of the novel is compelling.

Doctor Who: The Love Invasion; Art Attack; The Cruel Sea; Mr Nobody; A Groatsworth Of Wit
The Ninth Doctor and Rose arrive in comics for a brief but impressive run. They travel to Earth in 1966 and overcome The Love Invasion preventing an alien from averting humanity’s forays into space for our own good. A visit to see the Mona Lisa leads to a story that is arguably a modern riff on this scene in Art Attack. Rob Shearman's The Cruel Sea is the jewel in the crown of this run. Epic, spooky at times surreal. Mr Nobody is a nice little inspirational tale. The 'finale', A Groatsworth Of Wit, is a complex and fascinating 'celebrity' historical ,which ends with a panel clearly dedicated to Christopher Eccleston. The artwork and likenesses are impressive throughout.

Serenity: Those Left Behind
Helping to bridge the gap between the end of Firefly and set the stage for the movie Serenity (see above), Those Left Behind takes no prisoners featuring as it does the return of several recurring characters from the TV series, while Inara leaves Serenity and Shepherd Book is increasingly uncomfortable staying aboard. The script and art just feel right.

Online
Noise To Signal
A great source for books, comics, film, games, music, net, print, radio and TV criticism. Unfortunately it's no longer updated, but thankfully the archive remains online. A straw poll of my favourite articles yields subjects as varied as: the Science of Romance in an episode of Futurama, the friendship dynamic in Shaun Of The Dead, Alan Partridge's character flaws, the history of road safety public information films, Torchwood's Children Of Earth reviews, Dorian Gray's hair, a very thorough three-part article on Dollhouse and a philosophical debate asking at what point do you stop being The Sugababes? Sadly missed.

R. Tam, Sessions: Session 416, Second Excerpt; Session 1, Excerpt; Session 22, Excerpt; Session 165, Excerpt; Session 416, First Excerpt
Five short clips released as viral marketing for the movie Serenity (see above). They feature Summer Glau as River Tam and writer and director Joss Whedon as her interviewer. The sessions provide an insight into the events at The Academy that unsettled River so much. They were released out of chronological order and form an intriguing story, presented here in the order they were made available online:



Recommendations welcome.

"I Missed A Year? Was It Good?"

So asks Rose in Doctor Who's Aliens Of London and to which the Doctor responds "Middling" (and yes I realise that the year she's talking about isn't exactly a calendar year and is mostly 2005, but I like the Doctor's response a lot).

Continuing this pointless ramble backwards through time to 2006. This was the year that South Ossetia declared independence from Georgia, Saddam Hussein was hanged and Pluto was demoted to the status of dwarf planet.

For me, it was a year largely spent of temping in offices, but I managed to join Equity for me and I was in Burdett-Coutts At Home.

These are a few of my favourite things from 2006:

Film
A Cock And Bull Story
A post-modern film about the making of a film adapted from The Life And Opinions Of Tristram Shandy, a novel which was post-modern before that phrase had any meaning. As Steve Coogan plays Shandy in the autobiography of a life as-yet unlived: “But I am getting ahead of myself, I am not yet born.” This film is fantastic. Here's the trailer.

Stranger Than Fiction
What would you do if you started hearing your life being narrated? What if the voice in your head revealed you were the main character in an unfinished novel that is due to end with your death? Will Ferrell, Emma Thompson and Dustin Hoffman are all wonderful in this metafictionish masterpiece. Here's the trailer.


Little Miss Sunshine
This very funny road movie comedy drama is a race against time that culminates in a beauty pageant for children. This film takes the high road and avoids all the easy shots it could take at such a repugnant target and as a result makes a far better comment on the sexualisation of children. Here's the trailer.


Children Of Men
A great piece of apocalyptic cinema, both wonderfully bleak and somehow hopeful. Here's the trailer.







The Lives Of Others
This German language masterpiece about life under Stasi observation in the former East Germany and features a beautiful performance from the Ulrich Mühe. Here's the trailer.





Scoop
Woody Allen is brilliant as Sid Waterman, a stage magician who goes by the name ‘The Great Splendini’ that gets caught up in a tale of a journalism student who should have been a dental hygienist, a boat along the river Styx, a tarot card killer, British high society and a scoop from beyond the grave. Here's the trailer.


TV
Life On Mars
Hit by a car in 2006, Coma victim Sam Tyler wakes up in 1973 and so begins the best police procedural of all time. Great performances across the board, great music, great period references and juxtapositions of then and now.

Doctor Who: New Earth; Tooth And Claw; School Reunion; The Girl In The Fireplace; The Idiot’s Lantern; The Impossible Planet & The Satan Pit; Love & Monsters; Army Of Ghosts & Doomsday; The Runaway Bride
David Tennant’s first series builds on the success of its predecessor. The new Doctor and Rose visit New Earth and despite the cast change it’s business as usual. The lift business and the bodyswapping provide great comic opportunities and the plight of the patients is chillingly bleak. Tooth And Claw is a wonderfully chilling gothic Hammer horror of an episode. The return of the now sadly missed Elisabeth Sladen is a vital for the show, while Sarah Jane Smith and the Doctor undergo a School Reunion, the series updates its mission statement: this meeting of old and new categorically states that this is all one television series. The Girl In The Fireplace is incredible. All of it: Arthur, “a door, once opened, may be stepped through in either direction…”, Banana Daiquiris, “We do not require your feet” and the great reveal at the end. Incredible. As a tribute to the fifties The Idiot’s Lantern never looks less than beautiful and the script has some great period detail. The series is so life-affirming that when The Impossible Planet & The Satan Pit take us to Doctor Who at its darkest, it’s unsettling in more ways than one. Shaun Parkes’ world weariness is palpable, Gabriel Woolf’s voice is as chilling as ever and Tennant’s monologues in the presence of The Beast are magnificent. Love & Monsters makes a virtue of a filming limitation, moving the focus away from the Doctor and Rose and onto those left behind. The script is very tight, Marc Warren & LINDA are very endearing, Camille Coduri is spectacular, it contains the oddest sexual imagery in the history of television and introduced me to the Electric Light Orchestra. The season finale Army Of Ghosts & Doomsday strikes a perfect balance between an epic action movie with Daleks versus Cybermen and a beautifully touching exit for Rose. The Runaway Bride shouldn’t work as well as it does, the Doctor committing infanticide on BBC1 on Christmas Day, and yet somehow it's still a lot of fun.

Torchwood: Everything Changes; Ghost Machine; Small Worlds; Countrycide; They Keep Killing Suzie; Random Shoes; Out Of Time
Doctor Who’s post watershed spinoff set in Cardiff’s alien underbelly arrives in style as PC Gwen Cooper investigates the mysterious Torchwood Three in Everything Changes. Eve Myles, Indira Varma and Tom Price are wonderful in an episode which thanks to retcon and an inability to die, manages to have its cake and eat it twice. It’s Owen’s turn for some character development in Ghost Machine and after witnessing a rape from the past he decides to threaten the rapist in the present, in a scene played wonderfully between Burn Gorman and Gareth Thomas, that implies that he sees in Ed Morgan the man he might have been. On the face of it Small Worlds is simply Torchwood away with the fairies, but it is much more important than that: it’s the first time Jack’s past catches up with him and the first time Torchwood Three loses. The beautifully shot and fantastically named Countrycide capitalises on your expectations thus far. Torchwood’s arrogance comes home to roost in They Keep Killing Suzie, a phenomenal episode for the whole team. Torchwood Three fan Eugene haunts Gwen as she investigates his death in Random Shoes, a wonderful episode rooting the supernatural in the domestic and often unfavourably and unfairly compared to Doctor Who's Love & Monsters (see above). Louise Delamere, Mark Lewis Jones and Olivia Hallinan are all wonderful as three temporal refugees in Out Of Time, a beautiful story which shows what Torchwood can achieve and how far it's come.

Time Trumpet
A nostalgic look back at the first thirty years of the twenty first century with the likes of David Cameron, Charlotte Church, Ant & Dec, June Sarpong, Tony Blair, Alastair Campbell, Natasha Kaplinsky and Jamie Oliver. Brilliant, hilarious and sobering.

QI
The alphabetical odyssey looks at subjects such as Danger, Dogs and Domesticity this time around.


Hogfather
Death takes a holiday, or rather takes a holiday in hand. This adaptation of the Discworld’s Christmassiest tale has a very strange quality to it, as it muses on the nature of belief itself. David Jason and Michelle Dockery are great as Albert and Susan Sto Helit respectively.

Johnny And The Bomb
Elsewhere in the Pratchettverse, this tale about the consequences of time travel sees Johnny Maxwell and his friends deal with the height of the blitz, changing history and casual racism better than many productions aimed at an older audience. George Mackay puts in a wonderful central performance as Johnny.

American Dad: Dungeons & Wagons
It’s not unusual for a story to feature two narratives that run parallel with each other, but using entirely different styles of animation to illustrate each of them is. The animation used for Steve’s computer game is some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen and not to be outdone that of the ‘real world’ includes an incredibly impressive car chase.

Radio
Doctor Who: The Chimes Of Midnight, Part Three & Four; Blood Of The Daleks, Part One
The last two parts of The Chimes Of Midnight are wonderful as reality unravels around the Eighth Doctor and Charley in an Agatha Christie meets The Stone Tape mystery with some very darkly funny dialogue and terrifying simple truth.
The first part of Blood Of The Daleks is Big Finish’s first work designed specially for radio and it’s easy to see the influence of the show’s return to television on it. Like Donna Noble before (and after) her, Lucie Miller is teleported directly into the TARDIS on a very important day and very bolshy about it. More importantly she is a real shot in the arm and kick up the arse for audio Doctor Who.

Nebulous: The Deptford Wives; The Buzzing; I, Nebulous; Destiny Of The Destinoyd; Tempus Fugitive; Last Of The Present Sirius
K.E.N.T.'s finest return for a second series and explores SF clichés in their own way. The Deptford Wives take on the criticisms of sexism often levelled at science fiction and manages to be even more sexist. The Buzzing features a great cameo by Steve Coogan and the funniest genocide I've ever heard. The return of David Warner as Nebulous' nemesis Dr. Klench in I, Nebulous, the series take on bodyswapping sees Warner and Mark Gatiss swap roles and Paula Breeze give great commentary during Klench's peace conference speech. A trip to the moon sees Nebulous fall in love and a clutch of red-shirted men die in two possibly related elements of Destiny Of The Destinoyd. Tempus Fugitive sees Kate O'Mara as a woman splintered throughout time tasking each member of KENT to visit an ironic time to travel to in order to reunite her. Rory finds himself at Woodstock and unable to remove his trousers when offered free love, Harry travels to the far future and is worshipped as a God by the survivors of the UltraWithering where everyone was reduced to sentient body parts and Nebulous arrives in his own childhood inspiring himself to shun clowning in favour of physics. The last of the present series, Last Of The Present Sirius, sees Nebulous find himself in trapped in a time loop and a weekend omnibus of a reality TV show at the same time. The beauty of Nebulous is that the scripts are packed with throwaway references that function as jokes: the Notting Hill Carnivore, the Edward Woodward Woodwork Award and "the Sequel Devils? They came back again. And again".

Chris Addison’s Civilization: A Controlled Universe; Cities And Laws; A Working Society; A Sense Of Identity
Described within as “two hours of your life you won’t get back” by its host, but actually two hours of insightful comedy with a very high gag rate. Concerning our attempts to control our world: writing, time, justice and identity. Featuring the incredibly prolific author and polymath Professor Austin Herring.

Music
Jarvis Cocker: Jarvis
Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker releases his first solo album and reassuringly he has lost none of his lyrical dexterity.
Stand Out Tracks: 'Don't Let Him Waste Your Time'; 'I Will Kill Again'; 'Fat Children'; 'From Auschwitz To Ipswich'; 'Running The World' (hidden track)

The Zutons: Tired Of Hanging Around
This Liverpool foursome's second album is great from start to finish. Move over Winehouse, the original 'Valerie' is fantastic.
Stand Out Tracks: 'Tired Of Hanging Around'; 'It's The Little Things We Do'; 'Valerie'; 'You've Got A Friend In Me'

Books
What Happens Now by Jeremy Dyson
What seems like a nice little story about a boy with an overactive imagination takes a very different turn indeed and ends up challenging our expectations of narrative itself. Along the way it takes in seventies television production, religious scepticism and epistolary evidence.



Fat by Rob Grant
The novel is made up of three separate, but interweaving, strands following three individuals whose lives are all ruled by society’s obsessions with dieting, obesity and celebrity. Have some cake.





The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas by John Boyne
A child’s eye view of the depths of human cruelty. Everybody should read this book.







Where’s Wally? The Great Picture Hunt by Martin Handford
You can't beat a bit of Wallyspotting.








The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins
The equivalent of an atheist holy book? No, but a rallying call, certainly. Dawkins applies an enviable scientific rigour to articles of faith and intelligent design, but contrary to popular belief does not attempt to prove the non-existence of God. The chapter title: 'Why there almost certainly is no God', is a sign of the care he has taken. Very few of his detractors take the same care.

The Devil In Amber by Mark Gatiss
Lucifer Box returns during the period between the world wars in another tale of derring-do. Facing off against an army of fascists, the devil itself and the unwelcome affections of Mrs Croup.





Comics
Pride Of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughn & Niko Henrichon
This spectacular graphic novel follows four lions that escaped from Baghdad Zoo after it was bombed during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.


Doctor Who: The Betrothal Of Sontar; The Lodger; F.A.Q.; The Futurists; Interstellar Overdrive; The Green Eyed Monster
The Tenth Doctor and Rose visit The Betrothal Of Sontar in his first comic strip appearance, their dialogue is great, the artwork is sumptuous and the characterisation and design of the Sontarans are both brilliant. Mickey gets a houseguest in The Lodger as the Doctor stays with him for a few days and this one-shot strip is a great character piece. F.A.Q. is the tale of an imaginary friend with a surprisingly grown-up tinge. Followed by The Futurists where temporal cause and effect meets political cause and effect in this sprawling story of men out of their time and may also feature the only use in comics of the word "twp". Interstellar Overdrive sees stadium rockers in a time loop with fatal consequences and part two is a great reworking of the events of part one. There is great artwork throughout and the characterisation of the new Doctor is already bang on. The Green Eyed Monster is a very funny strip with a playfully mocking tone and it's nice to see Jackie in the comic, however briefly.

Online
Geek Chase
Grant Naylor Productions ran this promotional competition when they released Beat The Geek, an interactive quiz on DVD. The game is still up long after the competition is over. Follow these instructions and start chasing at Diva-droid International.