Old married media couples...

Last night I treated my self to a repeat showing of some of the matches from last season's six nations tournament that I had recorded (plastic taffy, me). The rugby was great but much of the pleasure was to be had in listening to the commentary of Eddie Butler & Brian Moore. Both are technically good at commentating and interesting (Moore particularly) but what's great is how they act together. They bicker and chunter and tease each other like an old married couple. Butler winds Moore up to exploding at least once a game. Its wonderful to listen to. A real double act, they set each other off. Its funny and they have "chemistry".

I've just ranted on the fantastic grumpy dumb entertainment thread about breakfast tv presenters who all unsuccessfully try to manufacture that chemistry where the combined effort is much greater than the sum of the parts. Some do achieve it. Macconie and Radcliffe have it. Ellen and Hepworth have it.

Who are your favourite other media double acts with chemistry? and equally who tries but just doesnt have it?

BBC Breakfast

is rubbish when Bill Turnball and Sian Williams are not together

Beany | 3 October 2008 - 12:54pm

Enfield and Whitehouse have it in spades......

.....sadly, these days, less often the material to back it up, but nonetheless, keep it up, fellas.
Reeves and Mortimer, wherever they are as a double act now.

Retropath2 | 3 October 2008 - 1:07pm

Diamond and Owen

had it in spades too but all other Brekkie TV combo's have failed miserably.

Scott/Bough
Phillips/Holmes
Parky/Frost/Ford etc....
Rat/Mallett

Other good ones,

Eric & Ernie (natch)
Jeff Stelling and Paul Merson
Saint and Greavsie
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost

John Waite | 3 October 2008 - 1:28pm

Gardner/Bosanquet

This list is starting to sound like a theoretical physics symposium...."If we apply the Bough-Scott Integer...."

Archie Valparaiso | 3 October 2008 - 1:31pm

The Good Doctor and the other one

Mark Kermode & Simon Mayo - both worth a listen in their own right, but their weekly Five Live film review show/podcast is never less than wonderful. Despite rarely visiting the cinema I'm an avid fan, just because they're so engaging and enjoyable.

Nowhere else would I consider hearing Andrew Collins' opinions a disappointment, but when I tune in to find he's filling in for an absent Kermode, it's always tinged with sadness. Sorry, Andrew, but nobody can quite replicate that chemistry!

Cadabra | 3 October 2008 - 1:39pm

I'm also eternally grieving for

the separation of Mark and Lard. Please...carry on!

Cadabra | 3 October 2008 - 1:41pm

Lauren Laverne and...

...well, pretty much everyone actually but especially that man Kermode and I always enjoy her chats with Andrew Graham Dixon before his bits for the Culture Show.

GD Nicholson Esq. | 3 October 2008 - 2:10pm

The two Dannys

Baker and Kelly.

Nick White | 3 October 2008 - 2:47pm

Eddie Waring and Stuart Hall

on It's a Knock-out.

Retro Man | 3 October 2008 - 3:04pm

Don't know why Waring and Hall reminded me.....

....but who recalls John Peel and Kid Jensen on TOTP. That were gradely.

Retropath2 | 3 October 2008 - 3:08pm

Spooky - I think I've just seen the Kid

Standing in the queue of the Seashell Fish and Chip shop on Lissom Grove. This very lunchtime. I pretended to ignore him. He counted his change.

Haddock, Chips, Mushy Peas (me not him) if you ask. Excellent they were too.

dolly | 3 October 2008 - 3:12pm

John Peel and John Walters

The Golden Hind on Marylebone Lane beats the Seashell any day!

Retro Man | 3 October 2008 - 3:48pm

That's fighting talk

Plastic taff I may be, but Grimsby born and bread I am too. Best fish in London chippy is at the Seashell. And decent mushy peas. Chips a good 8/10.

dolly | 3 October 2008 - 3:58pm

Kirstie & Phil from Location Location...

the screen positively sizzles with their Niles & Daphne "will-they-won't they" tension!

Geals in Notting Hill used to be top for fish & chips in London but now it's been yuppified completely.

Don't know Grimsby at all but Whitby's Magpie Cafe is great!

Retro Man | 3 October 2008 - 4:28pm

I know the Magpie.

Its not bad but its not Grimsby...

dolly | 3 October 2008 - 4:53pm

Bert and Ernie!

How could I forget


John Waite | 3 October 2008 - 3:09pm

Sorry?

Ellen & Hepworth have already been mentioned...

Beany | 3 October 2008 - 3:29pm

did somebody say

ellen & hepworth?


dolly | 3 October 2008 - 4:01pm

arf

"that was wonderful"
"well there were parts of it I didn't like"
"There was a lot of it i hated"
"That was terrible"
"Booo"

Extract from that first attempt at a joint review of Trout Mask Replica

ivan | 3 October 2008 - 4:55pm

Mark Ellen this morning

"I never review records and then I never fall out with anyone."
Actual quote.

David Hepworth | 3 October 2008 - 5:07pm
Retro Man | 3 October 2008 - 8:17pm

So

What does he do then?

If you say "as little as possible" I will raise my cap to him.

If I had one.

Beany | 3 October 2008 - 8:34pm

Count his reviews over the year

If there's more than ten I'll buy you a present.

David Hepworth | 3 October 2008 - 8:55pm

Life's too short

Besides he could be Joe Muggs for all I know

Beany | 4 October 2008 - 9:00am

Netherstowe Fish Bar

Seems the best in Lichfield. Cypriot run, as are all good chippies, including the one once run by Peter Paphides dad, in Acocks Green. I don't know whether Alex Petridis' dad is a fish and chip shop owner or not. Andy Gill sounds as if his should be.

Retropath2 | 3 October 2008 - 4:32pm

How on earth do you know that?

But you could have discovered a new thread - jobs of parents of the rock scribery.

Andrew Harrison's dad is a butcher, don't you know.

dolly | 3 October 2008 - 4:58pm

Peter Paphides

...wrote a rite of passage article in the Observer Music Monthly a year or 2 back. I read it as I like his pieces.

Retropath2 | 4 October 2008 - 7:47am

There's a guy works down the chip shop

swears he's Elvis' biographers Dad...

ivan | 3 October 2008 - 5:06pm

Rik Mayall and Adrain Edmondson

have bought much laughter in the last 25 plus years in their various guises. But none better than Bottom, their defining act. I bought my boys up on it along with Ren and Stimpy for good measure and balance. I'm still trying to explain the measure and balance concept to my wife, actually I'm still explaining why I let the kids watch Bottom.But they loved it then and still love watching the DVD's on a regular basis.

prettyvacant | 3 October 2008 - 10:57pm

Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May...

their onscreen chemistry is the reason I watch 'Top Gear', even though I have next to no interest in cars.

Patrick Crowther | 4 October 2008 - 8:52am

OK, a triple act...

but their inclusion is valid, methinks.

Patrick Crowther | 4 October 2008 - 8:53am

There hasn't been a shout about Millican and Nesbitt.....

....for a while, Archie. One could say they weren't necessarily as gelled a duo as many, but they were streets better than when Millican tried to make up and cover up for his comrades fall from grace, introducing an elderly childrens novelist to try and fill the unfillable. Millican and E.Nesbitt never did it for me.

Retropath2 | 4 October 2008 - 8:57am

I'm the Seymour Hersh of bad pop

Not a word for months and then suddenly, out of the blue, bam! An Abu Ghraib of a story.

Watch this space.

Archie Valparaiso | 4 October 2008 - 7:02pm

Not the Word demographic at all

But surely you can't deny that Ant & Dec are absolute masters in their chosen niche?

Paul Waring | 4 October 2008 - 6:32pm

Any Today listeners out there?

During the summer Evan Davis and Nick Robinson really worked and they've not broadcast together often enough to be a married couple as such.
They did truly spark though...

Adam and Joe of course, still not sure who's who.

Radcliffe and Maconie- only joking folks. Great separate, not much cop together frankly.

ganglesprocket | 4 October 2008 - 10:27pm

I thought this was about *real* old married media couples

Richard and Judy
Michael & Mary Parkinson
Esther Rantzen and Desmond Willcox
Keith C 'n' Maggie P
Ian and Jeanette Krankie
Fanny and Johnny Craddock

Austin | 7 October 2008 - 3:56am