Shamone you dumb mother fucker's...

Michael Jackson or more importantly his name is the comedy gift that just keeps giving. Following his death my phone received that many joke texts I almost got vibration white finger. Then we had the superb reporting in LA, where celebrities from lists A to Z where paraded in front of the camera, leading up to the memorial service, which was very well documented by Finton, containing loads more cringe worthy moments of fake grief, false platitudes and hyperbole.



In contrast, the recent coverage about his new film and exhibit at the O2 Arena was relatively tame and almost just resembled news reporting. I thought it was all over until I received a text last night from MHM’s very own Charlie Catchpole, telling me that he was trying to persuade the missus to watch Acorah. ‘Fuck that shit’ I replied, I have no time whatsoever for mediums, psychics, clairvoyance or any of that nonsense, but when the reply came back that he was doing Jacko’s séance how could I ignore this.

I tuned in at 9.00 on Sky 1 HD (hoping for definition so good I could see fishing wire ready to move items on a Ouija board. To be greeted by the black Janet Street Porter for the E4 generation, June Sarpong setting the scene for us accompanied by walking freak-show David Gest, who had apparently discussed the séance with the family and whilst as Jehovah’s Witnesses they wouldn’t get involved with such things they wished it well. At this point, I got the usual Friday night response from Mrs Frank typically reserved for BBC4’s musical offerings of “what’s this shit?” She rolled her eyes and stuck her nose back into her book that was until we met the people that would be attending Acorah’s party.

At the séance, from some house in Cork where Wacko had apparently stayed once, we had teen angst personified by some gullible yellow toothed lass with back combed hair, she fell for everything hook line and sinker, scrykin and saying “I love you more” when Acorah trotted out whatever guff came to mind. However, something smelled Sylvia Young about the trollop because grief stricken as she was, she was desperate to be the centre of the camera’s attention.

There was some kid called Michael Jackson who was her male counterpart, getting sucked in by every fishing line thrown out by Acorah, he looked like he was close to the point of pulling out a 9mm before announcing “I’m on my way Michael, I love you” before adding a gloss coat of claret to the walls. Then onto the impersonators, one of whom actually looked the part. Acorah asked some vague and confusing question about Michael’s favourite performance, which could be taken as which performance Michael thought was the impersonator’s best or vice-versa. Well fuck me sideways, they thought that when Michael mentioned a racecourse, it really rang true. Course it fucking did you spastic cunt, Jacko’s arguably biggest UK gig was at Aintree and the fact you are one of the country’s best impersonators and live in Berkshire, surrounded by 3 Racecourses hosting events 300 days a year where you’ve no doubt plied your trade makes it a shoe-in.

The whole thing was superb, from the act of Acorah which still doesn’t better that of Phoenix Night’s Clinton Baptiste. (Pys-cic)

He managed to commune with a global megastar on demand, while respecting the sanctity of the commercial break before wrapping it up neatly by 9:56pm, to the the séance guests, to Sarpong and Gest themselves. If you take all of that and add in the supplementary commentary from Finton, the whole thing was a winner.
If you weren’t lucky enough to witness this televisual feast then you missed out on sheer tv gold.