Big brother

AND so the countdown to the end of Big Brother continues. It’s one of those end of an era occasions, as the winner of Celebrity Big Brother 2010 is revealed.

There have been many entertaining moments over the past few weeks – although viewing figures indicate that fewer and fewer people are bothering to watch – but that won’t stop this being the final celebrity edition of the once-great reality show.

It’s a scene-setter for the last ever series of Big Brother in the summer. Presenter Davina McCall will certainly be sorry to see the show go, not least because it means a large dent in her pay packet. But she’s reported as saying that if, by some chance, the show moves to another channel she’d be happy to continue her association with it.

If this year’s bunch haven’t proved quite as wild as some previous housemates, the show hasn’t been without its moments, thanks to the likes of Vinnie Jones, Stephanie Beacham, Ivana Trump and Alex Reid.

But nothing, perhaps, to top the hilarious outbursts and, to be honest, rather upsetting ones of previous years.

There were Vanessa Feltz’s worrying scribbles on the kitchen table in 2001, and the moment in 2006 that MP George Galloway pretended to be a cat, while Rula Lenska petted him.

Then there were the shocking events of 2007 when former Big Brother housemate Jade Goody found herself at the centre of racist bullying over her treatment of Indian film actress Shilpa Shetty.

This proved Celebrity BB’s low point, as it became one of the most complained about shows in TV history.

Ofcom’s switchboards lit up like a belated Christmas tree as thousands of viewers protested that Bollywood star Shilpa was the victim of racist bullying.

During a trip to India, Gordon Brown, then still Chancellor, told local reporters that people were right to regard the comments made on the show as offensive.

Meanwhile, Indian protestors burnt effigies of the show’s organisers in the street.

Little wonder C4 gave the regular CBB a rest in 2008, opting instead for an alternate version: Celebrity Hijack. By last year it was business as usual, with the likes of Coolio, LaToya Jackson, Lucy Pinder, Terry Christian and Ulrika Jonsson competing for the 2009 title.

The question in 2010 is: who will follow in the footsteps of former winners Jack Dee, Mark Owen, Bez, Chantelle Houghton, Shilpa Shetty and Ulrika? The result will be announced in the final show at 10.05pm.

IT’S a good few years since the BBC launched Late Review, a spin-off of The Late Show, which provided some of the most entertaining critical comments of the week.

Back in those days, the programme was usually hosted by Mark Lawson, and featured Tony Parsons, Alison Pearson and Tom Paulin, with passionate reviews of movies, music, plays and the arts.

When that series morphed into Newsnight Review a few years ago, the format remained the same – just tagged onto, you guessed it, Newsnight.

Now it’s back in a slightly revamped form though, with Kirsty Wark still at the helm. Once more she’ll be hosting a round-table discussion of the week’s cultural highlights.

FRIDAY nights on BBC4 are very much a cultural hotspot for anyone interested in music. Anything and everything from Sixties pop to 18th Century classical has and will make an appearance.

Now, it’s time to take a look at the influence of Afro-Cuban rhythms, in Latin Music USA.

Filmed across North America and the Caribbean, the programme features some of the finest Latin musicians, showcasing their performances and revealing previously unseen archive footage.

The four-part series describes Latin music’s deep impact on American culture and reveals how it helped many immigrants to move from the margins to the mainstream of US society.

This first episode examines the massive impact of Santana’s Latin-Blues performance at the Woodstock Festival in 1969 and discusses the arrival of the first Cuban immigrants to the US.