Who is popular today?

Yes, we know there’s too much to watch at once – but here’s five stellar shows that didn’t deserve to slip through the cracksDon’t get the Guide delivered to your inbox? Sign up hereTV. There’s a lot of it. Too much to watch, unless you have enough screens to consume 13 shows at once, like Ed Harris in the Truman Show. Between trusty old broadcast telly and the insurgent forces of Netflix, Disney, Amazon, Apple and co, there is an astronomical amount of programming currently being pumped out. And, while Succession, Squid Game and the like attract plenty of column inches, there are plenty of other shows that fall between the cracks, either by dint of appearing on a niche network or through being under-promoted by one of the giants. So this week we’re giving overdue props to five of them. And if we’ve missed any (we definitely have), feel free to let us know: more info on that at the bottom of this newsletter.My Brilliant Friend (Sky Atlantic/Now TV)Two consecutive nights before Christmas at a Liverpool venue called the Hardman House Hotel with the La’s. You knew it would NEVER happen again … and it didn’t. – Kevin O’SheaJohn Cale played an amazing set [at the Electric Ballroom] on the same night that the IRA bombed the Tory party conference in 1984. Highlights were a demented version of the Velvet Underground classic I’m Waiting For the Man, where he improvised an anti-heroin rant with the aside “let me be Pete Townshend for a minute” and a bewildering reference to I Claudius and coffee. It was a concert like no other: manic and brilliant. At one point a fan threw his shirt at him. Cale sniffed it and threw it back saying “too male”. You had to be there. – Chris SmithAs the least qualified person in the world to write about memorable gigs (because I’ve been to just three in all my 72 years), here are those three – all utterly memorable for different reasons – in ascending order:3. 1958: The Beverley Sisters at the Gaumont Theatre, Doncaster. The (then) highest-paid female entertainers, wearing the highest ever heels and matching outfits. It was my ninth birthday present from my parents and I’d never experienced anything like it – a momentous difference from our nine-inch black and white tv screen.2. 1990: Tina Turner, the Foreign Affair tour, another birthday present from my then husband. I can’t remember the venue, just how wonderful, and loud, and physical Tina was. And how scared I was by all the pushing, cheering people. She came out on a cherry picker right above my head. I reached up, touched the sole of her shoe and gazed in awe at the dust on my finger.1. 2013: Leonard Cohen at the Leeds First Direct Arena. Dear gods, what can be said? On his knees for most of the three hours, Leonard sang and talked of what he knows best: love and being-ness. I wept with pain and with joy. – Daphne Pleace Continue reading...