As a child, I watched the season 10 Are You Being Served? episode “The Hold Up” obsessively, wearing out the tape. Burglars turn up at Grace Brothers during late-night stocktaking and take Miss Brahms hostage. Our trapped troop realise that only the local gangster family, “The Gumby Gang”, will scare them – cue Mollie Sugden’s over-the-top (and lost on me) Mae West moll impression and John Inman devouring the mahogany-lined office set scenery as Mr Humphries attempts “Italian Toni, the Tooting Terror”. » Read more..

“How do you wanna do this?” asks Linda Cardellini to James Franco in Episode 5 of Judd Apatow’s pitch-perfect representation of high-school life – Freaks and Geeks. “I don’t know… I’ve never done this before” is the reply from Franco’s character, Daniel Desario. Despite what you might be thinking, they are talking about maths revision, but that is where the genius of Freaks and Geeks lies – in its identification with the teenage awkwardness of being uncomfortable in your own skin and wishing to be different. » Read more..