Running out of ideas

Hollywood has never been known for its ability to generate original ideas, preferring instead to take inspiration from other sources and continually recycle and regurgitate its influences. Last year, it was felt that the bottom of the barrel had finally been scraped right through, with the news that several well-loved board games were next in line for the big screen treatment. Coming soon to a megaplex near you - Monopoly, Ouija and Battleship.

However, they sound like Oscar hopefuls compared with the latest well-loved property rumoured to be shuffling in-front of the cameras. Hot on the stacked heels of his remake of Arthur, goggle-eyed dandy Russell Brand is being lined up to star in the remake of BBC kids' comedy Rentaghost.

Described by Warner Bros as a "Beetlejuice-style afterlife feature comedy vehicle", the film will tell the story of the recently deceased Fred Mumford, who sets himself up in a business running a temp agency for the dead.

The original kids show followed the same loose template, although it's not the character of Mumford that most people remember. Instead, it's camp jester Timothy Claypole that seventies kids tend to recall, since he stuck with the show through its entire eight-year run. With his thin beard, annoying manner and form-fitting leggings, Claypole seems a much better match to Brand's distinctive talents than a down-at-heel businessman, but I'm sure the money men know what they're doing. 

So that just leaves us with the question of who else will be recruited to fill out the eclectic cast. Gillian McKeith is a shoo-in for Hazel McWitch (she just needs a tall hat) and Dobbin the Pantomime Horse could  offer up a lucrative new franchise for Sarah Jessica Parker following the demise of Sex and the City. As for the elderly neighbour, Mr Perkins, who's constantly being harassed by the Rentaghost staff, I think it's time for Andrew Sachs to come out of retirement. 

And then there's that memorable song - if U2 can revamp the Mission: Impossible theme, imagine what they could do with "If your mansion house needs haunting, just call... Rentaghost. We've got spooks and ghouls and freaks and fools... at Rentaghost." 

Boris gets in a muggle

When they're not busy claiming duck houses and moat cleaning services on expenses, politicians can always be counted upon to weigh in on the issues that matter. So even though Britain is teetering on the brink of an economic disaster that's set to make Dickens-era London look aspirational, Boris Johnson knows what we're really worried about - the new Harry Potter theme park at Universal Studios in Florida.

Oh Boris! The man elected to the Mayor's office because half of London thought they were nominating a new Dean for the Clown's College. Apparently, he's got a real bee in his barnet about the forthcoming 'Wizarding World of Harry Potter' - the $265 million attraction that opens next week in Orlando.

Promising an authentic recreation of Diagon Alley, and a variety of exciting thrill rides that drop visitors straight into Hogwarts (the most dangerous secondary school outside of Hackney), the Harry Potter experience has been meticulously created by the production designers who worked on the movies. They've even got fake snow on the roofs of Hogsmeade, even though Florida hasn't seen a white Christmas since it was part of the same land-mass as Africa.

But Boris isn't happy, because he thinks that the theme park should be here in the UK. Writing in The Telegraph, he argued that the attraction is the "crowning insult" to the loss of British intellectual property, and should have been built in London instead.

He's clearly read the books - he even gets worked up about the preferred entry point to the Ministry of Magic (through a phone box if you're interested) - and identifies with the quintessentially British boarding school environment in which they're set.

It shouldn't really come as any surprise that Boris is all caught up in Harry Potter's fictional world - he's about as grounded in reality as Spongebob Squarepants. He even urges readers to write to Warner Bros in order to "bring Harry home" by relocating the attraction. Not sure how Universal Studios would feel about Warner Bros requisitioning their property, but anyway...

The real issue here is that Boris thinks that building a Harry Potter attraction in the UK would be a good idea. The last time someone tried to open a theme park in the UK, we were given a muddy car-park, a collapsible gazebo and a couple of diseased reindeers. People paid £25 for the privilege of wandering around it and complaining to the press about what a shit day they'd had.

The Orlando attraction cost a quarter of a billion dollars, and that was really just giving a Harry Potter-facelift to existing rides. Imagine how much it would cost to build it from scratch, and how much fun we'd have complaining about the astronomical ticket prices.

Sorry to say it, but the 'Wizarding World of Harry Potter' is too good for us. No candy floss, no mistreated donkeys, no sewage outlet pipes - that's not what we expect from a Great British holiday. If only Boris understood what really makes the common people tick.

Could it BE more over?

It's the end of an era.

After what seems like an eternity, Channel 4 (and its multiple offshoots) have ended their fifteen year deal with Warner Bros to exclusively air Friends.

Even though the show ended five years ago, it's become such a staple of the media landscape that it's hard to turn on the TV without seeing the giant porcelain greyhound, the peephole picture-frame, or a thin Matthew Perry spitting a spray of water out of his mouth.

In fact, Friends has become so ubiquitous, that it's hard to remember that, for the best part of a decade, it was the best comedy show on TV. Maybe we take it for granted, like a moving version of the test card picture of the girl with the terrifying clown ragdoll.

Even now, the show manages to drum up daily viewing figures of around 400,000, despite the fact that the majority of the population must have committed all 236 episodes to memory.

The E4 schedulers must be flicking through page after page of blank diary sheets, wondering how they're ever going to fill all that space without Monica's OCD, Rachel's amazing hair or Ross's borderline paedophilia.

As for The Rembrandts, who performed the show's nosebleed-inducing theme tune, they're going to take a massive hit on their royalties now that it's not going to be broadcast around the clock.

Head of Channel 4 acquisitions Gill Hay says "It's time to say goodbye to old Friends and welcome new ones, in the form of more comedy, drama and entertainment from the US and UK. We are incredibly proud to have been the home of Friends for so long, but at a point when the channel is undergoing a period of creative renewal it felt like the right time to part company."

It's a sad time for anyone who's grown accustomed to their daily fix of Central Perk. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that BBC takes note and follows suit by finally putting 'Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps' out of its misery. At least Friends had the decency to be funny.