Tom Jones with Mick Hucknall, Cerys Matthews and Tommy Scott.
An Audience with Tom Jones
follows the long tradition of celebrity back-slapping allowing an artist to
run through their favourite musical numbers, promote their latest album
and be asked staged questions by various other celebs sitting in front of
them.
The guests that join him onstage are Mick Hucknall (Ain't That a
Lot of Love), Cerys Matthews (Baby It's Cold Outside and
What's New Pussycat?) and Tommy Scott (Sunny Afternoon),
while questions are fired at him from Clive James, Robbie Williams, Ainsley
Harriot and Frank Skinner to name but four.
Shot in anamorphic 16:9 widescreen, Granada Media prove that after the
Cold Feet
debacle, they DO know how to make a good job of one of their own TV
shows. With strong colours, lifelike flesh tones and no artifacts,
it looks fantastic.
The average bitrate is a very good 7.49Mb/s.
Most TV shows are now filmed in Dolby Surround. The box states stereo only,
but it's definitely a surround event, with some band instruments eminating
from behind you along with the audience's applause. The voice of the Welshman
booms out without a hitch and, sonically, it doesn't get better than that.
Extras :
First up is a run-down of the songs on the DVD. There's actually 34 chapters
here - 15 for the songs, 13 for the questions, plus a few extra for song
introductions. One chapter lasts a mere six seconds as he introduces
Sex Bomb!
The track listing is as follows :
1. Kiss
2. Delilah
3. Ain't That a Lot of Love
4. Thunderball
5. Green Green Grass of Home
6. Sunny Afternoon
7. I'll Never Fall in Love Again
8. Help Yourself
9. Motherless Child
10. What's New Pussycat?
11. Baby It's Cold Outside
12. Sex Bomb
13. Are You Gonna Go My Way?
14. You Can Leave Your Hat On
15. It's Not Unusual
Of the actual extras, the Q&A just separates the questions into their
own section and the Hidden Photo Gallery is divided into two sections:
a "Backstage pass" in which six various Z-list celebs pose with a cardboard cut-out
of Tom, while "Live on stage" provides another 16 pics during the show.
All the pics are quite small though.
Curiously, all the songs have been included on the disc twice. Once in the
main feature and again as "title 2" for the song selection menu,
so you get those on their own, the same as the Q&A.
Occasionally, you can also spot places where they stopped filming to insert
ad breaks.
Fans of Tom Jones and this sort of programme will find it very enjoyable
and now as they've discovered what 16:9 is, perhaps Granada Media can go
back and redress the balance with
Cold Feet.
Not all of the songs were to my taste and I marked the content score down a
bit as the sycophantic nature of people like Ainsley Harriot, Babs Windsor
and Ulrika-ka-ka gets on my nerves the second they appear.
DVD Trivia: Also in the audience - and keeping her mouth shut for a
change - is a pre-dead Paula Yates.
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B
37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Jan 2011: Intel Quad Core Dell XPS 8100, i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80Ghz, 8Gb RAM, nVidia GeForce GTS 240, Windows 7
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
