The Toit Stuff (about sitcoms)

  This time, I thought I’d discuss a show that I’m not really sure how I feel about, so that should be fun. Even if the title may make some of you think of it, it’s not actually about ‘Malcolm in the Middle’  but rather another US family sitcom, simply called ‘The Middle’. Despite having nine seasons and therefore being on the air for almost a full decade (2009-2018), it’s not a show that’s particularly easy to find outside of the US or one that I’ve seen many people talk about. However, when it does come up, there are often people claiming that it’s underrated and as I’m torn on it, I decided to share some thoughts. We caught it for the first time when we were on our six month trip around North America in 2011 and really enjoyed it. As it was about the whole family, it seemed to have a bit of something for everyone (never an easy feat). It was also an interesting experience to watch something so American (specifically central USA, hence the title) while we were visiting the U...

  With the festive season coming to an end, there’s been a lot of brilliant TV to discuss. This time then, I’m looking at some top tier TV as I’m going to focus on a pretty special episode of ‘Inside No.9’ called Bernie Clifton’s Dressing Room. I decided to talk about it now as the Morecambe and Wise references in it reminded me of Eric and Ernie, the film about Morecambe and Wise that came out during the 2010/2011 festive period. Although, for context, I feel I just need to say that Reece Shearsmith actually appears in Eric and Ernie. I hadn’t watched it all the way through until this year but after discovering that he was in it, I decided to do something about that ASAP and so we watched it the other day. I also saw someone post something recently about how it was surprising that nobody had ever really done a video essay/analysis of Bernie Clifton Dressing’s Room, despite it rightfully being considered not just one of the best ‘No.9’ episodes but arguably one of the best episo...

 The 2024 finalists Strictly Come Dancing (Series 22) - 2024 Date - 14th September (launch show) - 14th December 2024 15 couples That time period in context - The UK General Election in July saw the Tories get voted out (after over a decade of being truly awful) and a Labour government come into power, which didn't feel as good as it should have done. Wicked and Gladiator 2 came out in November and went for a similar ‘Barbenheimer’ style effect by calling it ‘Glicked’ (but Wicked well and truly took the crown). Israel continued bombing and carrying out the appalling genocide in Palestine, as well as launching attacks in Lebanon. The Paris Olympics were much discussed during our ‘brat, demure’ summer (and sadly, transphobia dominated a lot of the Olympics conversation). The pole vaulter got quite a lot of attention too. Life also felt a bit more depressing and hopeless with the truly terrible US election results (and what it says about the scary rise of the far right in general). ...

I’m perhaps a bit late to the party with the ‘mindful’ part of the title, sorry, it was just a way to link the BBC comedy series Such Brave Girls (the topic of the blog, as is mentioned in the title) and mental health awareness, as that's a major theme of the series. It’s hard to even know where to start with trying to describe a show like SBG but I’ll give it a go (without hopefully spoiling too much).   The show came out last year, and stars Kat Sadler (who also created the series) and her irl sister, Lizzie Davidson, who, funnily enough, play sisters Josie and Billie (respectively). There’s a lot of talent involved in the show, generally, as Simon Bird, of The Inbetweeners fame, directed the show and Louise Brealey (who plays Deb, the Mum of Josie and Billie) appeared in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel , Sherlock and Bleak House . The show itself is a pretty dark and extreme one in a lot of ways as it deals with topics such as mental health, trauma, death and abortion...

This post’s a little different as it’s not so much about a TV show (although there may be some references to certain series and I’ll definitely be back to writing about them after this). Instead, it’s more of a look at the idea of creative writing and stories, as that’s another love of mine. Since childhood, I’ve always had a deep fascination with stories and characters and my love for them has only grown as I’ve become an adult (well, adultish). It maybe stems from the early love of books that was encouraged by my Mum as we read (and sometimes created) numerous stories together when I was a kid. I’d always loved books but soon became completely captivated by films and television as well and found the idea of creating stories to be very appealing (although I can’t vouch for the quality of stories at that time, or more recently, tbh). I did take a creative writing module at uni and always adored English literature and creative writing style classes. However, I didn’t have much confi...

‘We just have to pretend that we’re a normal, loving family. How long for?’ Just a couple of the many excellent and very quotable lines from the brilliant comedy series Alma’s Not Normal (which is the focus of this post, btw). Alma’s Not Normal stars (and was created by) Bafta winner Sophie Willan (who many may know from her memorable and hilarious stint on the most recent series of Taskmaster). The first season was released in 2020 and as season two is due to come out later this year (very exciting), I thought I’d take this opportunity to hype up Sophie Willan and the show as I’ve not seen that many people talking about it, which feels wrong as it really is 'bloody fabulous'. The show follows the life of the titular Alma and is based on a lot of Willan’s real life experiences of growing up in care in/around Bolton and being looked after by her Grandma because of her mother’s drug problem. The cast in general is incredible as, along with Willan, it also stars Jayde Ad...