Post by avalon on Oct 5, 2007 9:18:47 GMT 9.5
Hello my girls here you have 3 articles about the new show.
;)GLAD FOR MANDA! 
Last night's TV
The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle may be topical but it isn't clever, or funny, or entertaining
Sam Wollaston
Friday October 5, 2007
The Guardian
"Any scene with Miranda Richardson in it was fun. Her unique brand of ACTING works very well as Vyle's over-the-top, media- monster, coke-head producer. And Antonia Campbell-Hughes, who's like the opposite of Miranda Richardson, is wonderful as the awkward, mousy, bolshy but thoroughly modern intern."
Hats off to the publicity department of the BBC for planting that head-butting husband on The Jeremy Kyle Show, and timing it all so perfectly that it came to court just before the first episode of The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle (BBC2). "A human form of bear-baiting," the judge called The Jeremy Kyle Show last week, unwittingly working us into a froth of anticipation for Jennifer Saunders' new baby.
Saunders plays Vivienne Vyle, queen of bear-baiting, or the "theatre of cruelty" as her own show-within-a-show is described. Again there is an incident with an irate guest - a punch, not a head-butt this time - and Vyle is flattened by a falling security guard. She ends up in hospital, but the scuffle, and the resulting kerfuffle, boosts ratings and excites the visiting American TV executives. Crank up the confrontation levels, plummet downmarket - that's the message. Bait those bears into a rabid frenzy. Baby bear calling the wrong bear Daddy is no longer good enough. Bring on the crack-addicted prostitute bear.
There are some nice moments. I enjoyed Conleth Hill, who plays Vyle's partner, doing opera karaoke to her as she lies in her hospital bed.
But, overall, it's a bit of a mess. It's not as clever as Larry Sanders, the greatest ever TV-about-TV show. It doesn't have the sparkling script. Nor does it have the wit or originality of Jerry Springer: the Opera, with which it obviously shares territory.
"I haven't got that kind of ego," says Vivienne Vyle walking upstairs, past an enormous portrait of herself. That's just too obvious, isn't it? I half expected the canned laughter, signifying "Oh yes you have," to kick in. Thankfully, it didn't, but it did all feel like an extended, even more expensive, version of one of those tiresome French and Saunders pastiches.
And what about the subject of the pastiche? It's a bit too easy, like shooting fish in a barrel. Sneery, too, perhaps. Ha ha ha, look at those downmarket shows with their downmarket guests, aren't they ghastly? Now, look at our clever send-up of them. Well, I don't think it is that clever. Or funny. Or half as entertaining as the shows it's sending up. Maybe it's wrong, but I'd rather watch real bear-baiting than this.
******************************************************
Last night on television: The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle (BBC2) -
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 05/10/2007
SOURCE:Telegraph.uk
By Gerard O'Donovan
How to parody that which is already beyond parody? This was the problem facing Jennifer Saunders’s new comedy The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle (BBC2), set as it was in the exploitative world of daytime TV talk shows. Only a fortnight since a judge described the real-life Jeremy Kyle Show as “human bear-baiting”, it’s hard to imagine any comedian dreaming up a more biting encapsulation of trash TV. And it’s not as if the genre hasn’t been pilloried a zillion times before, most notably (and successfully) in Jerry Springer: the Opera.
Actually, The Larry Sanders Show is a more obvious template for this series. Its interplay of on- and off-screen scenarios mirrored by constant switches between pastiches of daytime schlock (with low-rent topics like I Want a Vagina But I Can’t Kick Crack) and behind-the-scenes drama from the lives of those who orchestrate it.
Co-created and written by Saunders and TV psychologist Dr Tanya Bryon (of House of Tiny Tearaways fame), the aptly named Vyle (Saunders) is a terrific character, morbidly self-obsessed and devoted solely to the church of her own success. Around her hover an assortment of the obsequious and the obstreperous, from her camp-as-custard husband Jared (nicely played by Conleth Hill) to her cocaine-addled media-bitch-from-hell producer, Helena (Miranda Richardson piling the ham high).
Last night’s opener involved Vyle’s momentary moral reassessment of her life after being assaulted by a guest (and squashed by a security guard) during a show. That was followed by a prompt abandoning of the high ground as soon as she realised how much the incident boosted her ratings.
The familiarity of the ground meant there were few belly laughs but the show was replete with lovely comic touches. Such as when Vyle excoriated her husband for comparing her to Oprah. “I haven’t got that kind of ego,” she retorted as she trudged past a wall-sized photo of herself in their living room. Or when the mousey Dr Jonathan made his screen debut all sexed up with a fledgling goatee for the cameras.
Overall, this was stylish, well-honed comedy, with enough sharply drawn characters to ensure at least a measure of success. It’s just a shame nothing could be done to make the subject feel less tired.
There were moments of fatigue, too, in what can best be described as the spasmodically enjoyable The Peter Serafinowicz Show (BBC2). I thought the trails for the series announcing “We’ve always known he’s a comic genius – now you can discover him too” invited inevitable disappointment. And predictably Serafinowicz – a familiar, much admired face from the likes of How Do You Want Me?, Black Books and Look Around You – didn’t entirely live up to such lofty claims.
That said, he did plenty to justify having a show of his own. His style was rapid-fire, a blizzard of 30-second sketches in The Fast Show manner, and the mood was decidedly madcap. Nearly all his material spoofed other TV shows and adverts and, though some of the material felt very dated, his skills as an actor and mimic enabled him to get away with it for the most part – just.
I especially liked his quickfire, simple skits on hair and cleaning products. (“Toilet Grenade – bang and the germs are gone!” – as was the toilet.) In fact, the sillier Serafinowicz got, the funnier he was. Overall, the sense was of a talent finding his feet, enjoying himself enormously but at times playing it too safe for his own good.
****************************************************
SOURCE:Mirror.uk
The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle
BBC2, 9pm
by JANE SIMON 04/10/2007
The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle (BBC) The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle (BBC)
"Miranda Richardson as Vivienne's neurotic producer threatens to steal the show from under her nose"
IS it possible to satirise a TV genre that's already beyond parody?
Thanks to the likes of Jerry Springer, the daytime talk show has spawned episodes including: "My Grandma Is My Pimp!" and "I'm Happy I Cut Off My Legs!" so Jeremy Kyle and Trisha Goddard aren't likely to be cowed by Jennifer Saunders' latest incarnation, Vivienne Vyle.
But there's still a lot here to enjoy. For starters, Dawn French isn't in it. And anyway, the show is more about the foibles of Vivienne herself, rather than her guests.
Hard-faced, with ice for blood and ruthlessly ambitious, she's a TV monster who longs to be Oprah.
It's not in the same league as Ab Fab - but it's not as dire as Jam Or Jerusalem either.
****************************************************
SOURCE:newstatesman
The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle" BBC2
"Breaking the silence"
, it's a good time for Jennifer Saunders to launch her Thursday-night (9pm) comedy The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle (Vyle/Kyle . . . do you see what she did there?). But there are two problems. The first is that Kyle's show - so aggressive, so outlandish - is probably beyond satire. Second, Saunders and her co-writer, the TV psychologist Dr Tanya Byron, have dished up a quite outstandingly lumpen script, and have peopled it with stock types whose tics are so munificent, you can feel your migraine aura coming on even as you watch.
;)Chief among them is Miranda Richardson as Helena, Vivienne's ruthless but inept producer. The "twist" is that, behind the scenes, Helena and Vivienne are as dysfunctional as the emotionally incontinent morons ("I want a vagina but I can't kick the crack") they deride on set. 
:)So Vivienne has an apparently gay husband, and Helena's child spends so little time with her that she speaks only Spanish, like her nanny. Laugh count: zero.
******************************************************
SOURCE:TV Scoop
TV Review:
The Life And Times Of Vivienne Vyle, Thursday 4 October, 9pm
Thursdays are funny! We've been told it so many times recently, that after last night's disappointing first episodes of both The Life And Times Of Vivienne Vyle *and* The Peter Serafinowicz show (though there was more to enjoy in the latter, as I'll explain in my review) I'm starting to think that BBC Two thought they'd better resort to brain-washing to convince us. Because, despite all the good press I've read about this Jennifer Saunders vehicle, it wasn't good.
Or, at least, it wasn't funny. At all. It looked right, and there was a competent cast, but in the end this was meant to be a comedy, wasn't it? And I barely cracked a smile.
Vivienne Vyle (Saunders) is a daytime chat show host - very much in the style of "bear-baiting" Jeremy Kyle (well done to the Beeb for catching the zeitgeist, at least). She may idolise Oprah, but she's pure Kyle, all "get your hands out of your pockets" and "you're a disgrace". The researchers even get the guests riled up backstage to make for better viewing.
But, this show is determined to tell us, Vyle is not just a monster. The first glimpse we have of her is when she's looking at herself in the mirror, forlorn and alone. The thing is, she is a monster, and it's not surprising that she ends up in hospital at the hands of that goaded guest. A psychologist is brought in to give the show some air of responsibility and he sums it up when he says: "I think it's only reasonable that when you take people apart and don't give them something back to replace what they've lost, eventually someone's going to punch you in the face."
That psychologist is introduced as the voice of reason, but unfortunately he can't really articulate his well-meant ideas, and he's easily shouted down by the brash telly people he's somehow ended up working for. But maybe he's making a little change:
Miranda Richardson's idiot producer is made to realise that when her two year old daughter only speaks Spanish (thanks to the au pair), that's probably something that needs to be sorted.
;)Richardson is a brilliant character actress, but her character here is just too horrid to be funny, and while the chat show sequences were absolutely spot on, you can't help feeling that they have been bashed enough, anyway. Nothing new is being said here, and worst of all it just wasn't funny. Comedy shows often need time to bed in, but I'm really not sure there was enough in this show to keep me watching.
Peace & love
Avalon
Gals you got the last word!!! Miranda is always fantastic to me!!
;)GLAD FOR MANDA! 
Last night's TV
The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle may be topical but it isn't clever, or funny, or entertaining
Sam Wollaston
Friday October 5, 2007
The Guardian
"Any scene with Miranda Richardson in it was fun. Her unique brand of ACTING works very well as Vyle's over-the-top, media- monster, coke-head producer. And Antonia Campbell-Hughes, who's like the opposite of Miranda Richardson, is wonderful as the awkward, mousy, bolshy but thoroughly modern intern."
Hats off to the publicity department of the BBC for planting that head-butting husband on The Jeremy Kyle Show, and timing it all so perfectly that it came to court just before the first episode of The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle (BBC2). "A human form of bear-baiting," the judge called The Jeremy Kyle Show last week, unwittingly working us into a froth of anticipation for Jennifer Saunders' new baby.
Saunders plays Vivienne Vyle, queen of bear-baiting, or the "theatre of cruelty" as her own show-within-a-show is described. Again there is an incident with an irate guest - a punch, not a head-butt this time - and Vyle is flattened by a falling security guard. She ends up in hospital, but the scuffle, and the resulting kerfuffle, boosts ratings and excites the visiting American TV executives. Crank up the confrontation levels, plummet downmarket - that's the message. Bait those bears into a rabid frenzy. Baby bear calling the wrong bear Daddy is no longer good enough. Bring on the crack-addicted prostitute bear.
There are some nice moments. I enjoyed Conleth Hill, who plays Vyle's partner, doing opera karaoke to her as she lies in her hospital bed.
But, overall, it's a bit of a mess. It's not as clever as Larry Sanders, the greatest ever TV-about-TV show. It doesn't have the sparkling script. Nor does it have the wit or originality of Jerry Springer: the Opera, with which it obviously shares territory.
"I haven't got that kind of ego," says Vivienne Vyle walking upstairs, past an enormous portrait of herself. That's just too obvious, isn't it? I half expected the canned laughter, signifying "Oh yes you have," to kick in. Thankfully, it didn't, but it did all feel like an extended, even more expensive, version of one of those tiresome French and Saunders pastiches.
And what about the subject of the pastiche? It's a bit too easy, like shooting fish in a barrel. Sneery, too, perhaps. Ha ha ha, look at those downmarket shows with their downmarket guests, aren't they ghastly? Now, look at our clever send-up of them. Well, I don't think it is that clever. Or funny. Or half as entertaining as the shows it's sending up. Maybe it's wrong, but I'd rather watch real bear-baiting than this.
******************************************************
Last night on television: The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle (BBC2) -
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 05/10/2007
SOURCE:Telegraph.uk
By Gerard O'Donovan
How to parody that which is already beyond parody? This was the problem facing Jennifer Saunders’s new comedy The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle (BBC2), set as it was in the exploitative world of daytime TV talk shows. Only a fortnight since a judge described the real-life Jeremy Kyle Show as “human bear-baiting”, it’s hard to imagine any comedian dreaming up a more biting encapsulation of trash TV. And it’s not as if the genre hasn’t been pilloried a zillion times before, most notably (and successfully) in Jerry Springer: the Opera.
Actually, The Larry Sanders Show is a more obvious template for this series. Its interplay of on- and off-screen scenarios mirrored by constant switches between pastiches of daytime schlock (with low-rent topics like I Want a Vagina But I Can’t Kick Crack) and behind-the-scenes drama from the lives of those who orchestrate it.
Co-created and written by Saunders and TV psychologist Dr Tanya Bryon (of House of Tiny Tearaways fame), the aptly named Vyle (Saunders) is a terrific character, morbidly self-obsessed and devoted solely to the church of her own success. Around her hover an assortment of the obsequious and the obstreperous, from her camp-as-custard husband Jared (nicely played by Conleth Hill) to her cocaine-addled media-bitch-from-hell producer, Helena (Miranda Richardson piling the ham high).
Last night’s opener involved Vyle’s momentary moral reassessment of her life after being assaulted by a guest (and squashed by a security guard) during a show. That was followed by a prompt abandoning of the high ground as soon as she realised how much the incident boosted her ratings.
The familiarity of the ground meant there were few belly laughs but the show was replete with lovely comic touches. Such as when Vyle excoriated her husband for comparing her to Oprah. “I haven’t got that kind of ego,” she retorted as she trudged past a wall-sized photo of herself in their living room. Or when the mousey Dr Jonathan made his screen debut all sexed up with a fledgling goatee for the cameras.
Overall, this was stylish, well-honed comedy, with enough sharply drawn characters to ensure at least a measure of success. It’s just a shame nothing could be done to make the subject feel less tired.
There were moments of fatigue, too, in what can best be described as the spasmodically enjoyable The Peter Serafinowicz Show (BBC2). I thought the trails for the series announcing “We’ve always known he’s a comic genius – now you can discover him too” invited inevitable disappointment. And predictably Serafinowicz – a familiar, much admired face from the likes of How Do You Want Me?, Black Books and Look Around You – didn’t entirely live up to such lofty claims.
That said, he did plenty to justify having a show of his own. His style was rapid-fire, a blizzard of 30-second sketches in The Fast Show manner, and the mood was decidedly madcap. Nearly all his material spoofed other TV shows and adverts and, though some of the material felt very dated, his skills as an actor and mimic enabled him to get away with it for the most part – just.
I especially liked his quickfire, simple skits on hair and cleaning products. (“Toilet Grenade – bang and the germs are gone!” – as was the toilet.) In fact, the sillier Serafinowicz got, the funnier he was. Overall, the sense was of a talent finding his feet, enjoying himself enormously but at times playing it too safe for his own good.
****************************************************
SOURCE:Mirror.uk
The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle
BBC2, 9pm
by JANE SIMON 04/10/2007
The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle (BBC) The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle (BBC)
"Miranda Richardson as Vivienne's neurotic producer threatens to steal the show from under her nose"
IS it possible to satirise a TV genre that's already beyond parody?
Thanks to the likes of Jerry Springer, the daytime talk show has spawned episodes including: "My Grandma Is My Pimp!" and "I'm Happy I Cut Off My Legs!" so Jeremy Kyle and Trisha Goddard aren't likely to be cowed by Jennifer Saunders' latest incarnation, Vivienne Vyle.
But there's still a lot here to enjoy. For starters, Dawn French isn't in it. And anyway, the show is more about the foibles of Vivienne herself, rather than her guests.
Hard-faced, with ice for blood and ruthlessly ambitious, she's a TV monster who longs to be Oprah.
It's not in the same league as Ab Fab - but it's not as dire as Jam Or Jerusalem either.
****************************************************
SOURCE:newstatesman
The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle" BBC2
"Breaking the silence"
, it's a good time for Jennifer Saunders to launch her Thursday-night (9pm) comedy The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle (Vyle/Kyle . . . do you see what she did there?). But there are two problems. The first is that Kyle's show - so aggressive, so outlandish - is probably beyond satire. Second, Saunders and her co-writer, the TV psychologist Dr Tanya Byron, have dished up a quite outstandingly lumpen script, and have peopled it with stock types whose tics are so munificent, you can feel your migraine aura coming on even as you watch.
;)Chief among them is Miranda Richardson as Helena, Vivienne's ruthless but inept producer. The "twist" is that, behind the scenes, Helena and Vivienne are as dysfunctional as the emotionally incontinent morons ("I want a vagina but I can't kick the crack") they deride on set. 
:)So Vivienne has an apparently gay husband, and Helena's child spends so little time with her that she speaks only Spanish, like her nanny. Laugh count: zero.******************************************************
SOURCE:TV Scoop
TV Review:
The Life And Times Of Vivienne Vyle, Thursday 4 October, 9pm
Thursdays are funny! We've been told it so many times recently, that after last night's disappointing first episodes of both The Life And Times Of Vivienne Vyle *and* The Peter Serafinowicz show (though there was more to enjoy in the latter, as I'll explain in my review) I'm starting to think that BBC Two thought they'd better resort to brain-washing to convince us. Because, despite all the good press I've read about this Jennifer Saunders vehicle, it wasn't good.
Or, at least, it wasn't funny. At all. It looked right, and there was a competent cast, but in the end this was meant to be a comedy, wasn't it? And I barely cracked a smile.
Vivienne Vyle (Saunders) is a daytime chat show host - very much in the style of "bear-baiting" Jeremy Kyle (well done to the Beeb for catching the zeitgeist, at least). She may idolise Oprah, but she's pure Kyle, all "get your hands out of your pockets" and "you're a disgrace". The researchers even get the guests riled up backstage to make for better viewing.
But, this show is determined to tell us, Vyle is not just a monster. The first glimpse we have of her is when she's looking at herself in the mirror, forlorn and alone. The thing is, she is a monster, and it's not surprising that she ends up in hospital at the hands of that goaded guest. A psychologist is brought in to give the show some air of responsibility and he sums it up when he says: "I think it's only reasonable that when you take people apart and don't give them something back to replace what they've lost, eventually someone's going to punch you in the face."
That psychologist is introduced as the voice of reason, but unfortunately he can't really articulate his well-meant ideas, and he's easily shouted down by the brash telly people he's somehow ended up working for. But maybe he's making a little change:
Miranda Richardson's idiot producer is made to realise that when her two year old daughter only speaks Spanish (thanks to the au pair), that's probably something that needs to be sorted.;)Richardson is a brilliant character actress, but her character here is just too horrid to be funny
, and while the chat show sequences were absolutely spot on, you can't help feeling that they have been bashed enough, anyway. Nothing new is being said here, and worst of all it just wasn't funny. Comedy shows often need time to bed in, but I'm really not sure there was enough in this show to keep me watching. Peace & love
Avalon
Gals you got the last word!!!
Miranda is always fantastic to me!!
