I'm not sure if all of Sheen's reactions were genuine, or just polite, but he seemed to enjoy himself. It was particular interesting to hear his political thoughts (he's an Obama supporter) and the story about his decision to study at an Irish college for a semester last year was news to me!
A comedy "walk and talk" scene (poking fun at that Sorkin staple from The West Wing) was amusing but contrived -- so it was great to see genuine spontaneity from Sheen (instigated by co-guest Ed Byrne), as he volunteered to replace a cardboard cut-out of himself, to be saved from thrown paint-bombs by Byrne – catapulting himself into harm's way using a trampette. Actually, thinking about it now, was that all planned too? Norton did look genuinely surprised when Byrne and Sheen disappeared to improve the existing game, but what a disaster it would have been had they not!
The one failing with Graham Norton's show (too short at 30-minutes, with 10 minutes more on Sunday – don't ask me why) is the way he has two guests appear together. I think the idea is to create three-way banter (the next step from the way Jonathan Ross peeks backstage to his "green room" to get guest's reactions mid-interview with someone else), but it never works when the guests are at at opposite ends of the fame spectrum. It's rare to find good chemistry between two unrelated guests, so you might as well just stick to the host/guest set-up. Or introduce one later for brief interjections, Paul O'Grady style.
As sporadically-amusing as Byrne is, when you have the star of Apocalypse Now on your show, diverting from his anecdotes to indulge Byrne's stand-up material can only be a bad idea. Better to have given Byrne a 10-minute warm-up slot, and then a sold 20-minutes of uninterrupted Sheen. It may be the old-fashioned way of doing things, but it's tried-and-trusted for a reason.
And what was Cheryl Cole doing at the end? The Black Eyed Peas' Will.I.Am body-popped his way through limp song "Heartbreaker" for a few minutes, before the stick-thin Girls Aloud singer marched onto the stage with a Medusa stare to turn kids to stone, before repeating a lyric dozens of time, then spitting out the word fuck (which she seemed to enjoy doing.) A terrible performance of a bad song by both stars. It was only interesting as the strongest sign yet that Girls Aloud are about ready to call it a day. Cheryl Cole; the new Fergie, or the new Lisa Scott Lee?
24 April 2008
BBC2, 10.00 pm
