Stitch me up before you go go: My Worst Week (BBC1):There will be those who tut-tut at the idea of this tabloid-style series recalling those occasions when the very famous have been caught with their trousers down.

Literally, in the case of George Michael.

Is it an invasion of privacy to rake over old misdemeanours or do celebrities, with their big houses and big bank balances, deserve all they get? Or do we care when their indiscretions provide such amusing fodder as this one.

If you thought George has been having a bad week over his latest allegedly anti-American record, just recall April 1998 when he was arrested for committing a lewd act in a public place - namely, the gents toilet in the Will Rogers Memorial Park in the heart of Beverly Hills.

How we smiled on learning that Rogers' motto was "I never met a man I didn't like". As a result, the ex-Wham singer had outed himself, after years of failing to mention that he was gay, for fear, one assumes, of alienating his female fans.

There are suggestions that he was set up. Certainly the way the police caught him smacked of entrapment. Once the press heard that a performer, whose projected public image was of a highly-sexed straight bloke, had been cruising the lavvies, the media went into overdrive.

So did George's advisors - and this is where you stopped feeling sorry for him and recognised that the Michael camp played a very cunning game during their damage limitation campaign.

Paparazzi outside his home got nothing more than snatched pictures. Reporters were rewarded with "no comment". But George's team got wind that the News of the World had exclusive photographs of him taken months before in the same park and toilets.

So he offered an exclusive interview to US news channel CNN, knowing it would be beamed around the world.

He admitted he was gay and in a relationship with another man. He said he was sorry. He trumped the British Sunday tabloids. Despite that, they published as many stories about George and his sexuality as they could lay their hands on. The public, as presenter Iain Lee pointed out, tutted over invasion of privacy while gloating over salacious pictures.

Everyone emerged a winner. George came out at last and was not required to live a lie. His record company sold more records. And the tabloids got a good story.

Sounds like a very good week to me.

Big was beautiful

Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Darlington Civic Theatre

EVEN if you close your eyes as they pull back the curtain, you can't help noticing that lead singer Graham Tudor has been replaced by Jonathan Ball. Late last week, big-voiced Tudor was trying to fight off a bronchial infection and Darlington seems unlikely to become part of his promised land as Joseph.

It's inescapable that Ball is the largest singer so far to don the famous loincloth, but he's blond with a shock of suitable hair and the lad can sing. And, as one member of the opening night audience exclaims, "I like a Joseph who likes his food". There is much greater stirrings over the town's Haughton Community Choir taking the coveted role of Joseph's Choir for the first time and the theatre's a-buzz with proud parents.

Other changes are more subtle. The hand signs in the Joseph's Dream song are a little piece of choreography magic. Otherwise, this is another notable night among many with Trevor Jary as an Elvis-fired Pharaoh again wowing the women with his king-sized gyrations. Hopefully, Mr T will return in technicolor before he officially departs for next month's national tour of the Rocky Horror Show. His ample replacement Mr Ball can certainly land a job of his own after Monday's display.

Alison Hardwick

* Joseph runs until Saturday. Weds-Thurs at 7.30pm, Fri 5pm and 8pm, Sat 2pm and 8pm. Tickets: £10-£21.50. Box Office: (01325) 486 555

Kings of punk rock

Green Day, Telewest Arena, Newcastle

THE Al Pacino of punk rock, Billie Joe Armstrong, roars and snarls his way through a pulsating set which gives him every right to don a gold crown and fake ermine-trimmed gown. Such is the crush in the mosh-ridden standing area that lighter-framed youngsters are being clawed from the crowd within seconds of the band's appearance at 9pm. But the fireworks have just begun, literally.

Orange flame spouts up from front and rear as your ear-drums take a beating like having Lennox Lewis pounding away inside your head. Armstrong's slim knowledge of Newcastle seemed to extend to the fact that he was in Newcastle, but he used the name to rabble-rousing effect and whipped his 8,000-strong audience into arm-waving, singalong frenzies.

It was so hot that even the floor seemed to be sweating. Not content with a man-sized pink rabbit on stage and a trumpeter in a bumble bee outfit, there was a chicken playing the trombone to display Green Day's oddball showmanship. A cover version of Lulu's single Shout somehow sits alongside the band's hit singles of Basket Case, Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life) and Warning.

Bass player Mike Dirnt and drummer Tre Cool (for the record these gentlemen were formerly Mike Pritchard and Frank Edwin Wright III) joined Armstrong in selecting three members of the audience to take over playing their instruments. Mosh pit Pete turned out to be a liquid-smooth lead guitar and Armstrong promised he could keep the instrument... if he dived back into the crowd. I hope, for Pete's sake, he got the guitar.