Rachel Riley being eaten by a shark won't help ocean conservation
Shark! Celebrity Infested Waters (ITV1) is a reasonably entertaining watch, mostly because Amandaland actress Lucy Punch is in it, but the funniest thing about it is the way it pretends to be a programme about shark conservation. My concern for the world's shark populations is not going to be affected by whether or not they eat Rachel Riley from Countdown. Let's get real. The celebrities agreed to this because their agent told them they could have a lovely holiday in the Bahamas.
Well, six of these celebrities have a great time: Punch, Riley, Lenny Henry, Ross Noble, Ade Adepitan and Dougie Poynter. The seventh is Helen George. The Call the Midwife actress is the one with a phobia of the sea, and either she wasn't listening when her agent explained the concept of this show or her agent sold her a doozy, because George seems to have fundamentally misunderstood the assignment.
'I genuinely thought we'd only meet sharks once in this experience,' she says, while the others look at her with pity. She has just been told, on day one, that she will be cage-diving with bull sharks. In a nice touch, the team of experts guiding them through this experience includes an Australian who only has one arm because the other one was bitten off by a bull shark in Sydney Harbour. He now dedicates his time to promoting shark conservation 'because the real danger is not an ocean with sharks, it's an ocean without them'. He doesn't expand on this, and nor does another expert who says that bull sharks are vital because they 'take care of sick animals' in the ocean, and you might expect a bit more from a programme about shark conservation.
Instead, there are lots of jokes, mostly supplied by Punch and Henry. 'What am I most scared of? Well, I'm scared of a shark attack, obviously,' says Punch. 'They are savage tubes of teeth.' She is paired with Henry during the cage dive, and they're in good spirits throughout. Henry says: 'This is the realest thing I've ever seen, and I've done panto in Lewisham.'
It does look frightening, even with metal bars between the humans and the sharks. George is paired with one of the experts, who thinks that the best way to calm her nerves is to say: 'Helen, you are surrounded 360 degrees by sharks! This one is MASSIVE!' The poor woman has a panic attack, and you don't blame her. It's uncomfortable to watch, but then again, she could have stayed at home.
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I said, 'If this isn't a hit, I shall be selling shoes somewhere'.' It came with the immortal chorus of, 'school's out for summer, school's out forever', and lines like, 'no more pencils, no more books, no more teachers' dirty looks'. Alice admits 'it's very subversive-sounding' but that 'it's a real celebration of the last three minutes of the last day of school. For every kid, it's just joy'. This brings us to the reason I'm talking to Alice in the first place — his big reunion with the original Alice Cooper Band. Formed in Phoenix, Arizona, they released seven albums between 1969 and 1973 and School's Out, with its hit title track, was the fifth. We were a band from Phoenix that never should have made it, except that we had a spark that nobody else had. Alice on his band Among their other best-loved 'shock rock' creations were I'm Eighteen, Hello Hooray, Elected, No More Mr Nice Guy and Billion Dollar Babies. 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That was a great compliment. We actually confused Zappa!' (You know, one of the most zany rock musicians that ever lived.) Alice tries to put his finger on what made them successful. 'We were a band from Phoenix that never should have made it,' he decides, 'except that we had a spark that nobody else had. 'We had this little theatrical thing going and we also wanted to be America's Yardbirds,' he adds in reference to the British band that helped launch the careers of Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page. In 1968, the band changed their name from Nazz because it was taken by Todd Rundgren. During a brainstorming session, they tried to think of 'somebody's grandmother'. 'Who can think of a more grandmother name than Alice Cooper?' says the man who later legally morphed from Vincent Furnier into Alice Cooper. 'I said, 'It would throw everybody right off', and everybody agreed. 'We went through all these other names and we kept coming back to Alice Cooper — it just stuck.' At that time, Alice also began experimenting with face paint and developing the outlandish stage image (snakes and chickens included) that he's loved for. 'This girl came up to me and said, 'Have you ever seen this guy?' And she showed me a picture of Arthur Brown.' Brown, a Brit, is remembered for global hit Fire, for which he would don a burning helmet. Let's just say the music and performance were incendiary. Alice continues: 'We had the same make-up and I went, 'Are you kidding me?' I'd never heard of this guy but we were on the same wavelength. 'I realised I had a kindred brother in England. Arthur and I ended up as great, great friends.' He was brilliant, like the statue of David. Every girl in the world loved this guy — the tortured poet obsessed with death. Alice on Jim Morrison of The Doors He recalls early live forays in LA at Whisky A Go Go and The Cheetah Club, and thinking, until he saw them, that other acts on the bill, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, were solo artists. Then, in 1970, producer Bob Ezrin took things to the next level. Today, he's regarded as the unofficial sixth member of the band, a bit like 'fifth Beatle' George Martin. He was in charge of their breakthrough hit I'm Eighteen, giving some much-needed advice along the way. 'We kept trying to be The Yardbirds,' remembers Alice. 'And Bob kept saying, 'No, this song's about a dumb teenager, so it's got to sound like that'. 'And we were dumb teenagers, so it was pretty easy. We just dumbed it down and the simplicity was really powerful.' Now, the surviving members are all in their seventies, but you wouldn't know from the raw energy on their comeback album, The Revenge Of Alice Cooper. Anyone who has seen Alice live will probably have seen a menacing boa constrictor draped around his neck. The album begins with a song named after a snake of a different kind, Black Mamba. It features a free-flowing cameo from Robby Krieger of The Doors because, affirms Alice, 'Robby is the only guy who could have played that kind of snaky guitar part. He nailed it.' The mention of Krieger inevitably prompts one of his great rock 'n' roll tales. 'We opened for The Doors for a while,' Alice recalls. 'They were the first band to take us under their wing when we came in [to Los Angeles] from Phoenix. 'They allowed us to watch them record and we got to know them really well.' I ask Alice about The Doors' mercurial frontman Jim Morrison, who was found dead aged 27 in 1971 in a Paris apartment. The many-years-sober singer says: 'I was drinking so we got along real well. We just drank and talked and drank. 'He was brilliant, like the statue of David. Every girl in the world loved this guy — the tortured poet obsessed with death.' Alice got to witness 'Lizard King' Jim's incredible stage presence up close. 'Glen was our Keith Richards' 'He was electric, he was James Dean. He'd saunter up to the stage and take half a minute to light a cigarette. 'Then he'd sing and every girl would drop to their knees.' The new album also features a loving tribute to the Alice Cooper Band's dear departed guitarist, Glen Buxton. Called What A Syd, it brings this response from Alice: 'Glen was our Keith Richards. 'Everybody loved him but the only person I ever saw him jam with was [Pink Floyd's] Syd Barrett. 'When everyone else was slowing down rock 'n' roll-wise with what they were doing to their bodies, he just kept going. 'There was no stopping him. By 49, he looked like he was 78, 80 years old.' Finally, we return to the mischief that both Alice and Ozzy became renowned for. 'There's a lot of humour on this album,' he says. 'I can't help it, that's just the way I write. 'Everybody's telling the most important song is Blood On The Sun. They say it's poetic, it flows, it makes your mind go, 'Oh my gosh!' 'What are they talking about? Every single line in that song is a movie title. It sounds important but it's not at all!' So that explains him singing 'Don't Cry, It's Only Thunder' (1982 war movie), 'From Dusk Till Dawn' (1996 horror film) and so on. Surely Alice's fellow eternal prankster Ozzy would approve! 7 7
