Television Personalities: Are We Nearly There Yet?

I'm ashamed to admit that I was almost entirely ignorant of the Television Personalities until a couple of years ago. I'm pretty sure I'd heard I Know Where Syd Barrett Lives, but I couldn't have hummed it.

It was The Clientele that first enlightened me. Going back two and a half years to when I fell head over heels for them it was their performances of A Picture of Dorian Gray at live shows that led me to download the original and three or four others by Television Personalities from eMusic. They were so good that I downloaded the rest of And Don't the Kids Just Love It. From there, a short step to Mummy Your [sic] Not Watching Me and Yes Darling, But is it Art?.

Then I found that the band were still playing round London — at least nine times last year, in fact. I missed a few, but when they played a short bus ride away I knew I had to go. It wasn't a wonderful gig — I'd been forewarned (by no less than Darren Hayman, since you ask) that Dan Treacy was an awkward customer.

I bought this album, from 2007, as a memento of the evening. While it may not have quite the frisson of …Don't the Kids…, it still has bags of charm.

When it all goes wrong
That's the best time
That's the best time
When the world goes helter-skelter
You can't find a shelter
Then it all goes wrong
Don't worry, Peter Gabriel will write a song

Yeah, OK, I admit it doesn't look so smart when you read it on the screen — but it's sung with the pathos of an ingenue, as though Peter Gabriel writing a song really could make things better.

Television Personalities have played The Half Moon twice more since last February, and I missed them both times. Next time, though.

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