CIRCUS MONKEY REVIEWS THE B.B.C.'S "BIG TOP"

I have been out of action with a bad case of groin strain these past few days (that bl**dy tricycle again) and have consequently been watching far too much T.V. for my own good.

I must say I did like "CASH IN THE ATTIC". You know, that's the cosy one where kind hearted folk sell off all their bits and pieces to buy a state of the art wheelchair for an aged relative. Of course you also get the selfish sods who blow the kids' inheritance on an overpriced round the world cruise but, then again, what did the kids ever do for them!

I've got to say, though, that I've seen enough naked middle aged ladies to last several monkey lifetimes (Gok Wan's "HOW TO LOOK GOOD NEKKID"). I have news for you, my supercilious oriental friend, I have always looked good NEKKID and I am well into my middle monkey years.

One morning while rubbing my tender groin (an image you could probably have quite happily got by without. Sorry!) I thought that the Simian race had actually taken over the airwaves but it was just Matthew Wright, a big eared, loud mouthed twerp with a rubber mug, just like those hooligan bonobos I was neighbours with back home, hosting one of those interminable daytime Talk Shows.

You know the kind. They always have a panel of z list celebs of no obvious great intelligence who, by virtue of the fact that a television camera is trained on them suddenly become expert on all the rich panoply of human affairs. Proper bl**din little Oracles of Delphi - and I don't think!

If you want a worse example of talk T.V. (oh you do? do you. You little masochists you!) may I direct you to LIVE FROM STUDIO 5, which goes out in the evening, or, as I call it, AN OIK AND TWO SLAPPERS. A little hard? A tad too cutting? Well, watch it and tell me I'm wrong!

I'll save the best till last - O.K. I'M BEING FACETIOUS. The B.B.C. are trying their hand at family entertainment again. Just out of interest, why do their Press Releases always make Family Entertainment sound like an Orwellian concept - straight from the Ministry of Laughter?

Speaking as a circus performer myself I have to say that it is not very realistic.
It's too colourful. Our establishment is a monument to the faded and the grubby. What's not faded is usually stained with some unidentifiable substance, or another, of which soup is the least problematic.

It's too glamorous. Amanda Holden's legs? Pleeeze. Apart from the divine Mariella, who is so far above us that she is not really part of this shambles, the owner of the best legs around here is Montezuma, the Circus Horse.

There was one note of reality, though, that clown who put the ferrets down his trousers. I could see Beppo, our chief mirth maker (O.K., I am being facetious again) doing that. The only difference being that he would not be doing it for the benefit of his act but for idle curiousity.

Actually, when you think of it, THAT'S funny!