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Unfortunately, I am not able to see the show every day, due to the constraints of things like lectures, seminars and other university-related things. Nevertheless, this page is an attempt to catalogue a few musing over the episodes that I can see.

What would make this page so much better is if people could email me with stuff about the show - like amusing things that happened, and good quotes. Please send stuff to me at this address: jwb2@ukc.ac.uk .


Friday 27th Feb

The last ever episode of Light Lunch.

Although the show was good today, it was tinged with sadness, as it was the last ever show in the lunchtime format, before Mel and Sue return for 6 weeks of Late Lunch on the 31st March. The guests were Saffron from Republica and Lauren from Kenickie, the cuisine being prepared by Mel and Sue's favourite chef, Ross Burden.

For the "alphabetized phone/fax" bit, they had a demonstration of actual alphabetized machines, which were clasped to the nethers of three male models, who were starkers! When they moved over to the faxes, one of the models was replaced by Christopher Biggins, although fortunately I don't think he was totally naked (it doesn't bear thinking about!).

As usual, Sue was fairly flirty with Mr. Burden dans le kitchen, as this picture will testify! The chat over lunch went from freaky fans, through squabbling with brothers and chat up lines ("is that a ladder in your tights, or is it a stairway to heaven?"), to being rock chicks, with an amusing diversion when the floor manager was seen creeping across the floor to steal Mel's shoes from being in the camera shot!

After the break, Mel and Sue were very brave, and consented to showing on air their very first audition tape for Light Lunch, all that time ago. They looked pretty different than they do now, although the rapport was there nontheless. Sue said something along the lines of that if they could get a job on the basis of that tape, then anyone has a chance!

After some questions in the lounge with the two guests, they also showed a compilation clip of some of the highlights of the 2 series of Light Lunch, a few frames of which can be found here.

To round off the show they did a song with the band, and Saffron and Lauren - appropriately it was Bye bye Baby Bye bye. And so the end has come ... for the time being. Don't forget the repeats at 12.30pm on CH4 until Late Lunch arrives on 31st March.

Thursday 26th Feb

Guests today were comedians Bill Bailey and Jeff Green. The meal was cooked by country-and-western singer Crystal Gayle. As Ms. Gayle has hair down to her ankles, the chat in the kitchen with Mel seemed to be largely hair-based. Crystal seemed to almost sprint off as soon as she had finished the cooking, much to the surprise of Mel!

Chat with the guests was fairly amusing, although Jeff Green's openeing remark was "uuugh!" - referring to the food - perhaps a little rude? After lunch there was a little drawing competition to see who could render an audience member the most effectively - I thought Jeff Green's was probably the best one.

The show was rounded off with a wonderfully mimed classic by Ms. Gayle.

Wednesday 25th Feb

Madonna meets ... not us!

For the first time since I started watching Light Lunch, I was truly open-mouthed and taken aback. By what - the funkiness of the band? The oulariousness of the puns? The rowdiness of the audience? No ... Sue Perkins was looking so good on this evening's show, that I had to slap myself in the face to make sure that it wasn't a dream. She has had THE haircut. That's all that I can say. Mel looked good as well, but Sue was just heartbreakingly cute. Grrrrr!

In honour of the occasion, the band were called Madonna Kebab.

They explained the reason for Madonna not showing up as being due to the fact that Mel and Sue's new single, Freezing Cold (not sure it'll make the top 40 though!) happened to be released the same week as Madonna's Frozen. They then showed an oularious parody pop video, where M&S take the mick out of Madonna and her 'arty' style.

Being only half an hour, they didn't really have time to do any of the bits of the show properly. Gwyneth Paltrow made some bizarre cocktail (which they didn't drink!), also some 'flu remedy drink (as she was a bit under the weather) and cucumber sandwiches (very British). The chat round the table was vay brief, and so was SUe's bit in the audience, although they did manage to get their fair share of risque smuttiness - 'lads, I see you've come in your shorts, s'pose you'll be looking for a drycleaners', 'we've had Seaman on the couch', and general other references to things like 'shagging'!

They rounded off the show with a game of table footy, where the celebs (Gwyneth Paltrow and Martin Clunes) were pitted against the plebs (Mel and Sue). The celebs won by 1 - 0.

Tuesday 24th Feb

Today's guests were celebrity airheads 'It' girls Nicola and Mandy Smith, with the food being provided courtesy of Janet Street Porter.

It became apparant that Ms. Street Porter wasn't really the best of cooks, as her work in the kitchen was a little hectic, to say the least. Also, for the first time on Light Lunch (in the shows I've seen) we had a couple of muttered expletives, which I think most people would have probably missed. When Janet realised that the noodles were boiling over, she let out a brief 'oh, sh*t!', and also during the lunchtime conversation, there was another subtle slip by Mandy Smith. Talking about men (I think) she said 'Who'd wanna bloody marry me, I'm such a bloody moaner, look at me!'. If you don't believe me, watch the video back very closely!

Mandy Smith didn't actually eat any of her lunch due to her 'allergies'. The chat over dinner went from the difficulties of marriage, Hello magazine ("are you two the editors of Hello?"), and Teddy Sheringham, who went/is going out with Nicola Smith, and who Sue hugged when he was on the show, although, according to Mel, "there was no tongue action".

After lunch (and another good lambasting of the Millenium Dome) The Smith sisters made pancakes, which were then flipped - providing an arena for double-entendre - "... as we three tossers embark on this ...". The pancake tossing was a batter-fuelled chaotic frenzy, with pancakes flying all over the studio, and landing nowhere near the frying pans from whence they came! I liked Sue's "I never thought that people would applaud me flipping batter!".

During the questions in the lounge I learnt an interesting new fact - apparantly the Pet Shop Boys' Neil Tenant used to edit Smash Hits magazine. Also, someone asked the guests who they would like to play themselves in a film of their life. (Surprisingly) Mandy Smith couldn't think of anyone, but here's what everyone else said:

  • Janet: Chris Evans ... then Lily Savage ... then Elton John (?)
  • Nicola Smith: Sharon Stone
  • Mel: Lesley Judd
  • Sue: Beryl Reid

The end-of-show entertainment was provided by a very funky Lynden David Hall (even though he was miming!).

Monday 23rd Feb

The band for this week are The To-Fugees ("they're more vegetarian than Linda McCartney, and just slightly more musical"), and the guests on todays show were gameshow presenters Bradley Walsh and Les Dennis.

"Hullo there, I'm Mel ... and I'm Sue, and the weight of these shoulder pads is dragging me down!" Mel and Sue came on in wonderful spangly jackets - showbiz presenter style, and proceeded to do an 'ironic' pastiche of a game show, featuring Les and Bradley as the contestants "with slightly sinister hobbies" - kind of a spoof Family Fortunes. They had the lovely Malcolm as the pectoral-wobbling ("your chest is sucking me into it's lair") assistant.

Throughout the show, Mel & Sue both referred to Les Dennis as if with a French pronounciation - "Lay-De-Nee". The talk over lunch inevitably revolved around experiences of game show hosting, but also both of the guest's weddings. It turns out that Les Dennis's wedding was a vay showbiz affair, and when the bride was late, Lionel Blair entertained the congregation by playing Give Us A Clue with them!

Apparantly, Light Lunch is number 10 on a list of favourite TV shows for two monkeys - Nico and Simba. Other suggested programmes for them by Mel & Sue were:

The Monkey Programme, with Valerie Singleton
Shine On Harvey Baboon
Confessions, with Simeon Mayo
Noel's HouseParty (not because of the name, but the monkey-like humour level!)

After lunch Mel & Sue played the guests at table football, with Matt as the referee, although I don't know who won, as I was talking on the phone at that point - d'oh!


Friday 20th Feb

Today's guests were Jamie Theakston and Jayne Middlemiss from BBC's The O-Zone, with the lunch being provided by Jaaaaaaason Simmons, formerly a beachside hunk on Baywatch. M & S started off with a routine startlingly similar to Daniel's fantasy 'Yo Lunch', complete with puffer jackets, sunglasses and groovy Kangol hats. "Today we're saying 'Time for Tele-totty'".

There was plenty of flirting going on in the kitchen between Mel and Jaason, and several times there were hints at their passionate encounter last night! After mentioning Jaason's appearance on the cover of Playgirl, Mel asked:

"Sue, what would it take to get you on the cover of Playboy?
Sue: Oh ... half a can of Diamond White and a fun-size Mars bar ... the things I can do with a fun-size Mars bar would make your mind boggle!"

I wonder how they get away with it sometimes. Another highlight was where M&S mentioned that they should have been on Live & Kicking last Saturday, but were dropped in favour of Christopher Biggins! They managed to get the L&K factfile on each of them though (or was it made up ...) and here are some wonderful facts (?) about Mel:

  • Mel gets drunk on a quarter of a glass of BabyCham.
  • Mel loves Dire Straits. Mel's favourite Dire Straits song is The Sultans of Swing - rocking!
  • When she was 5, she was disqualified from a talent contest for showing her bum to the judges.
  • Her favourite meal is a frozen fish dinner for one.
  • Mel's real name is Melanie Taylor. She uses Giezoygadoyc to make her sound a little bit more interesting and Lithuanian.

And here are some similarly exciting facts about Sue:

  • Sue was abandoned in the Amazon rainforest when she was 7 years old, which explains her constant scratching.
  • Her ideal man is any.
  • Her first big break was against Jimmy White in a charity snooker game, when she scored 28.
  • Sue hasn't taken any exercise since 1978, when she walked to the shops to buy the latest Doolies album
  • Her most embarrassing moment was introducing pop band North and South as 911 ... and buying the Doolies album.

In the lounge area, we were treated to a competition to guess what pants were owned by Jamie and Jaason - they both had groovy Calvin Kleins; Jaason also revealed an item of clothing he'd nicked from Mel - her bra (!), which she claimed was a 34D. Simmer ...

Thursday 19th Feb

The guests today were Stephen Tompkinson and Dervla Kirwan from Ballykissangel, with the food, 'Creamy Chilli Chicken' cooked by Men Behaving Badly's Neil Morrissey. Another good show, I thought. Neil Morrissey was good in the kitchen, and I giggled at the point where both he and Sue ended up swigging out of the bottle of wine that he used for the sauce (I wonder if Channel4 would frown about that sort of thing!). The show had a vaguely religious theme, and the band looked everso fetching dressed as priests. In fact, I thought Dan (the keyboardist) could make a credible vicar!

When talking about saucy goings on between Stephen and Dervla, Sue had to reprimand Matt (the bass player) a couple of times, telling him to "keep it in your trousers!", as well as remarking that "he's wielding his weapon!" - what could she be on about? After the break it was fun to see both Mel and Sue up there with the band, attempting to play tin whistles along with an Irish-style tune. Are they really musicians then? Difficult to tell!

Interesting to learn that both Sue and Mel had been brought up as Catholics, although Mel admitted it was a long time since she'd been to confession. I thought perhaps the lunchtime chat lingered a little on the off-screen romance between Stephen and Dervla, and Mel seemed to be angling for a chance to go to the wedding! It turns out that Neil Morrissey and Stephen are old chums from when they were on the show 'Boon' together back in the 80s. The Showbizz Bird provided more incorrect info today, as Mel mentioned Dervla's knowledge of many languages, including Polish, which turned out to be untrue!

There were repeated attempts to get Neil Morrissey to do his 'goat impression', but he refused, saying it was too embarrassing, and not at all funny!

N-Tyce provided the music at the end - the usual 'sexy-girl-band' kind of thing.

Wednesday 18th Feb

I missed the show today, so I give you a brief resumé provided by Cake Shop member Bimbo.

"Davina McCall made the lunch and showed off her tattoos, these strange HeartBeat types, one male one female, ate the lunch and talked about HeartBeat. Mel and Sue did loads of northern and European gags (MTV Europe and Heart-beat) micky taking. They were in need of the lines to the HeartBeat song which were faxed in and ... err ... oh yeah, Sue tried to molest a young boy in the boy band Catch who were a bit up their own arse. "

Tuesday 17th Feb

The guests on today's show were veterinary doctors Joe Inglis, Emma Milne, Trude Mostue and Hannah Pollard, from the BBC documentary 'Vets in Practice'. The pre credit sequence was done by Trude, and a cute Andrex puppy.

Some amusement was to be had towards the start of the show, as Sue seemed to be having some trouble keeping her chest under control ... Matron! Also Sue did a good vet impression with her rubber-glove-snapping bit. Lunch was cooked by Michaela Strachan, and Mel did a good job looking round some of the pets that audience-members had brought in, including a fish which she was scared of 'cos it had bulgy eyes!

The lunch guests were interesting, although the one sitting next to Mel didn't really get much of a chance to speak - oh well. Interesting that after Sue delivered the line "It's not the size of the animal, but what you do with them." (nice bit of sexual innuendo!) that she also said "there's a section of the website dedicated to that."

Good to see some more 'Morris' dancing from Mel at the end of the show!

Monday 16th Feb

The band for this week: The Brotherhood of Flan. The guests on today's show were Will Mellor from Hollyoaks, Gray O'Brian from Casualty, Des Coleman (Lenny) from Eastenders, and Scott Neal from the Bill.

This being half-term week, the show was opened by a sweet 6 or 7 year-old girl. Sue remarked how disappointed she was that she didn't get a Valentines card from Jon Snow - whom she loves [lucky bloke!]. Both the Mel & Sue seemed particularly excited by the fact that in the front of the audience on the right, were five lads wearing nowt but swimming trunks. In fact when they got to the Q&A section after the 2nd ad break, every one of those guys asked questions, which Sue seemed to enjoy!

Today's show was a particularly good one; probably one of the best ever - all of the guests being interesting. There was some good banter at the beginning of the lunch section, referring to various things relating to Valentines day.

Last modified on Fri, Aug 6, 1999 at 11:32:33 pm.
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