The best performance I’ve seen on TV
Michael Chiklis in the shieldWhich might be my all-time favorite TV show. Before Chiklis took on the role of Detective Vic Mackey, she’d never have chosen him to play a complex, tragic, dissident hero. But he is very attractive. The character is vile, but somehow, through his performance, you still want Macy to escape all the horrible things he continues to do for seven seasons. The show doesn’t get the respect it deserves.
The show you wanted to host
Great breakfast: It made me want to be a presenter. I watched Johnny Vaughan and knew I wanted to be as good as him. It was a fun, lively and intimate show. I felt as if I was a part of something. It was my first TV gig I’m working on [Channel 4’s] RI: SE – a very pale mimic. My enthusiasm to be there quickly faded when I realized everyone hated it and it wasn’t good. RI: SE wasn’t worth getting up early for it, but the big breakfast would have been so.
The show that shouldn’t have been canceled …
Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace – It’s criminal There are only six episodes. The show is really crazy – it’s set in a hospital built atop a portal to Hell. Garth Maringy, played by genius Matthew Hollens, is an author, dreamer and dreamer in a show within a show. There is an episode with the alien broccoli infestation. Another is where Scotch fog descends over the hospital. Marenghi writes a book called The Ooze: Can Water Die?. I plead with anyone who hasn’t watched it to do so and then initiate a restart petition. I will use my own money to produce the second series.
… and the offer to be canceled
Richard Osman games house. It’s so good, so fun, so clever – and having been on it myself – it’s so fun that you can’t be a part of it. Honestly, it’s perfect. It’s exactly the kind of show I loved making. Honestly, it’s annoying. Just get rid of it.
Your favorite TV moment
in a Succession the second seasonWhen Roman Roy [Kieran Culkin] At his sister’s wedding. He knows his missile is launching in China and is going to check how it went off. He heads to the bathroom, takes out his phone, and watches it go off on takeoff. He put his phone back in his pocket and went back to the party. Both performance and vanity are perfect.
Your favorite show when you were 10 years old
Blackader. It felt very difficult. One of my most vivid childhood memories is making my dad almost choke on a mixture of horror and joy, when we were having dinner with my grandparents and I quote the Bishop of Bath and Wells who eats children: “I would do anything for anything: animal, vegetable, or mineral.” It’s a cool line, but Maybe a 10-year-old shouldn’t say that.
The role you wish you had never turned down
About nine years ago, I was offered a role in a feature film from Peru. The director – Alvaro Villardi – found me after watching old T4 clips online. He wanted me to go to Peru to do his movie in Spanish. To be clear, I do not speak Spanish and I cannot act. I asked him if the role was an English TV presenter, and he said no, I would be a mustache Peruvian guy unhappy with his wife and loved the male owner of the hotel he was staying in. Somehow Villardi was convinced that I would be perfect. Daisy Haggard I was thrown as my wife; She was just told to learn Spanish and bring her own shoes. In the end, we both withdrew, which I very much regret.
Rick Edwards co-hosted The Chop: BritainTop Woodworker program, which begins Thursday at 9 pm at Sky History
