Bring back Dallas

The other night, I was delighted to watch Justin Lee Collins presenting "Bring Back Dallas" in which he travelled to the USA on a ten day mission to reunite the stars of the glamorous Texan soap opera. The whole thing was great fun to watch, particularly for those of us who were into "Dallas" like me - I was an avid viewer during its heydey. And I kind of like Justin too - I know he gets on some people's nerves but his passion for all things cheesey and retro has obvious resonance with me (a couple of years ago he did a great "Bring Back The Christmas Hit Single" show in which he met people like Jona Lewie, David Essex and Liz Mitchell from Boney M).

Throughout the show we saw Justin in hot pursuit of the biggest stars of "Dallas" - Larry Hagman (JR), Linda Gray (Sue Ellen), Patrick Duffy (Bobby), Ken Kercheval (Cliff) and even the actor who played the "ugly baby Christopher", Bobby and Pam's daughter! What was amazing to behold was how all of the actors and actresses readily conceded to give nutcase Justin so much of their time (a hefty paycheck surely must have been involved?) But it was also great to see all of the stars waxing lyrical about their time on the show and many interesting stories were told. They also looked much older - Linda Gray is stil holding up well but has a definite turkey neck; Ken Kercheval looked very white and thin and Larry Hagman looked pretty frail too! Still "Dallas" was a long time ago. What was disappointing though was that Justin's ultimate aim - to persuade the stars to attend his very own Oil Baron's ball - wasn't fulfilled. With the exception of ugly Christopher (now looking not quite so ugly as an adult) no-one else turned up! Boooo!! Not very sporting or considerate of them...What would Miss Ellie have said?