The New Show

By the time ‘Dr Who’ finished, Judy was positively twitchy with excitement. The last of her cheese Whatsits had exploded between her fingers and the atmosphere in the room was infused with an orange glow before our gathered celebrity friends inhaled the dust and filtered it through their pristine lungs. The masculine side of the ampersand, wearing his new kangaroo pouch slippers, barely had time to do one final circuit around the room, topping up glasses with Ronnie Corbett’s nettle wine, before the feminine side was clapping her hands together and demanding our attention for the broadcast of the show that we'd recorded earlier yesterday.

‘Okay, quiet everybody! It’s coming on! Richard, sit down. You’re blocking Sir Clive’s view.’

I gave Sir Clive James an apologetic wave but I think he was too busy finding rhymes for ‘Watch’ to notice. I just propped myself on the edge of a chair where Cilla Black was cradling her half pint of mild.

‘You’ll like this,’ I said to her. She smiled. The poor thing could hardly do otherwise.

From then on it was all about our ‘New Position’. As soon as the theme music began, there was a collective gasp.

‘It’s like being at the first night of Mozart’s Magic Flute,’ said Stephen Fry from near the fireplace.

‘Reminds me of the opening of Star Wars,’ added Patrick Moore who had been one of my surprise guests of the evening. I’d sent him a special invitation after he’d provided a xylophone solo which had been dropped from the theme song.

Our guests got quite excited when they caught their first glimpse of our new set. We had gone with the red after I’d noticed how the glow of Bill Oddie's cheeks made Judy happy during our recent walking tour of the Lake District. What really made the set, however, was the large ampersand which I’d been insistent about having in a prominent place.

I think the guests on the first show were the best we could have hoped for. Samuel L. Jackson is one of my favourite film stars but later on I did bring him to task about his choice of hat. A flat cap in black leather is not for public consumption and certainly not for Channel 109 on Satellite. Conservative politicians have been caught in Soho whipping parlours wearing items significantly less kinky.

Better dressed but hardly a better guest, David Walliams came on the show as Judy’s pick. Despite her paroxysms of flattery about ‘Little Britain’ (and, being the loyal husband, I simply had to join in) I was less sure about David’s contribution to the show. Dribbling water from his mouth was not the way I wanted the show to begin. Dribbing is hardly the message for a show meant to be vibrant and reaching out to an edgy audience. I was similarly disturbed by the game of spot the transvestite, though I hadn’t the heart to tell Judy this at the production meeting .Once she and Rufus Hound (yes, I know!!) get their heads together, there’s not a thing I can do about it. I’d come up with the idea of having him jump from a very great height but Judy had insisted on the introduction of an air bag between him and the concrete pavement.

In the end, I thought it a good beginning and it’s sure to get better. In the coming weeks, I hope to break a few taboos. I’d like our show to be the first to demonstrate the aerodynamics of moles by firing them from Jeremy Clarkson’s new air canon (all, I might add, without air bags). I’d also like to be the first TV show to have its own self-defence class, ending with some celebrity cage fighting for the series finale. But, as I say, they are only ideas at this stage and I’ve yet to see if I’ll be given the chance to challenge myself creatively.