SHARON OSBOURNE PRESENTS: ROCK AND ROLL’S DODGIEST DEALS, BBC4, 10pm
IN The X Factor, Sharon Osbourne is forever shrieking and weeping and acting the diva, but in this programme she is remarkably changed, speaking slowly and with knowledge and authority. She is no longer a pantomime dame.
As the manager of Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath, she has a lifetime’s experience of dealing with cold, grasping record companies and their intention to wring money from an artist while minimising their own risk.
She takes us through a list of the “dodgiest deals” such as Little Richard getting only half a cent for each sale of Tutti Frutti, and we look at notorious deals struck with The Beatles, Small Faces and The Police. But even though Sharon is dignified and stately here, it’s distasteful to see her smile as she remembers Ozzy biting a dove’s head off.
HOSPITAL PEOPLE, BBC1, 9.30pm
WE still don’t agree, do we? You hate this programme and I love it. Yes, this comedy is silly, but there’s nothing wrong with something a bit daft, especially when the news has been crammed with so much misery. I found myself strangely looking forward to this, knowing it would be an undemanding, good-natured half-hour of laughs.
Hapless hospital DJ Ivan Brackenbury (“Reaching out and touching patients”) will never have the showbiz glamour he craves. Instead, he’s broadcasting helpful messages such as “National diarrhoea week runs till Friday” and that the hypochondria meetings have been cancelled due to illness.
Manager Susan is preparing for an important visit so has had her hair done in a “Theresa May bob with a Thatcher hold”. She’s getting dolled up for an MP’s visit and needs to gather some “photogenic” patients who are not too pale or infectious.
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