The Culture Show returns!

After a brief hiatus, 'The Culture Show' returns this evening, and, predictably, it is Victoria Segal's 'Pick of the day' in the Sunday Times TV guide. According to Victoria, the show is "Presented with charm and wit by Lauren Laverne." And I wouldn't disagree; Lauren is a sparkling host. However, it is precisely this charm and wit which guarantees that Lauren is destined for BBC1 on a Saturday night, rather than an arts programme on BBC2. Lauren appears to have little more than a superficial interest in anything beyond popular culture, which detracts somewhat from her authority as a presenter of an arts programme, but I guess this is merely par for the course in modern TV.

Interestingly, Victoria Segal is an erstwhile music journalist, and a contemporary of Lauren's when her band, Kenickie, were knocking about in the late 1990s. In 1998 Victoria reviewed Kenickie's second, and last album, 'Get In', for the NME, and gave it 7/10. According to the Wikipedia entry on Kenickie, this album was "generally poorly received (although the Melody Maker rated it 8/10), and sold badly." Kenickie split up shortly afterward.