Advertising: Gorgonzola-tastic - the Hamiltons ham it up for cheese
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Your support makes all the difference.There's a life beyond. Beyond the shame barrier. Past the regular job hurdle. Strictly speaking, it's a half life - an option for people who used to be a bit famous or important or have some sort of gravitas, but blew it.
There's a life beyond. Beyond the shame barrier. Past the regular job hurdle. Strictly speaking, it's a half life - an option for people who used to be a bit famous or important or have some sort of gravitas, but blew it.
Once you're past all that, once you've stopped mixing with people who use words like gravitas, you could just choose the Peanut Circuit - what Quentin Crisp called the network of secondary media gigs, PR and Z-list parties that kept him going in his new life in New York. You can make a sort of living if you're on enough researchers' databases, with the WDA ("Will Do Anything") star by your name.
I thought I'd seen it all with the Hamiltons but now they've really gone beyond. In fact they've won the Peanut Circuit Award for beyondest minor media figures of 2003. Now they're starring in a dance party CD compilation commercial. Astonishingly it's not the Ministry of Sound (which advertises its mainstream compilations pretty aggressively) but Cheese. The Hamiltons are giving it all for The Ultimate Cheese Party, a 3CD compilation of cheesy old faves like YMCA and Agadoo. Most of them involve ancient package holiday dance crazes. And that's the cue for the Hams. They're out on the floor, lovin' it, Birdie-ing and Macarena-ing for dear life. They're in a world of balloons and paper streamers, Venetian blinds and low sideboards. And a cross-generational pack of formation dancers from Romford and points east.
It's Gorgonzola-tastic. Tony says so - it had to be a Tony Blackburn voiceover. "Cheese a doodle doo," says Tony, who's really got lift-off tonight.
It has to be said that the Hamiltons are brilliant. They dance up a storm. They even do the John and Uma moves from Pulp Fiction. They fanny around like an old end-of-the-pier theatrical couple and they're perfectly dressed for the evening. Neil's in his '80s Home Counties estate agent suit with a stunning bow tie. Christine's in a strobing, multi-coloured party dress.
In a world of ready-made entry-level irony and low camp - the World of School Disco - it looks workable enough. Everything's achingly familiar from three decades. And as Tony says, it'll do for weddings, office parties, bar mitzvahs and Christmas.
It makes you wonder about the last Tory front- bench and the Ones Who'll Never Come Back. I'm not naming anyone - they're all wildly litigious - but come on, lighten up boys, you could learn a lot from Neil and Christine.
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