Heggessey- Quotes

One of her last Q&A sessions:

Fame Academy might come back following the popularity of Comic Relief Does Fame Academy

Richard Curtis might write further episodes of The Vicar of Dibley and Blackadder, "but he's exceptionally busy with his film work"

Especially pleased about the thought of Blackadder coming back- one of the greatest comedies of all time.

From the launch of the "Africa Season" on BBC One: MG

Yes, but with or without Patrick Kielty, given the Richard Park saga?

If anyone should go it should be Richard Park - he's smug, rude and certainly no Simon Cowell.

The Strictly Come Dancing bloke should also go and have judges who know what they are talking about - or even better, have no judges what so ever and let the viewers make up their own mind.

A bad decision if it does, in spite of the popularity. The BBC has been told to cut down on these formats - and they need to be seen to act accordingly.

In the eyes of who? The media, mostly. It's ashame that the BBC are now seemingly not allowed to have any popular programmes. I do feel that the BBC would be able to justify it - the public like it (and it is "our BBC" after all), and I think they could argue that they should strike a balance, rather than cutting out every last remnant of this type of programming. There is already much less of the cheap makeover shows, being replaced by more drama and documentaries. But nevertheless the BBC still has to keep in touch with every single one of its license fee payers, and I think that to do this keeping some programmes like Fame Academy are essential.

Speaking of Blackadder, where do you think they could set it after World War 1!? The 60s? Have Edmumd be a hippy?

I've never been against popular programmes - far from it. The problem with Fame Academy is it's a copycat format which, let's face it, was devised by a populist controller in pursuit of ratings. And both series have failed to do what the programme set out to do, ie. produce the next big thing. One dropped out of the limelight, the other faded away. And the name "Fame Academy" was a misnomer in itself; a genuine Fame Academy would have nurtured a whole spectrum of talents besides vocal ones.

Oh, and if the Beeb is supposed to keep in touch with "every single one" of its licence payers, why hasn't BBC2 shown Pages from Ceefax since 10 January?

Or perhaps build on the themes of the last Blackadder (Back and Forth) and go into the future?

I'm not expecting a whole series, but a couple of one-offs in the style of the "Cavalry Years" and indeed "Back and Forth" would be more than welcome.

If they took the Blackadder Back & Forth (or a similar concept) and made it into a series, it could be great.

But whatever happens, I do hope Blackadder in some form shows up for new adventures in the near future.

Rubbish - Lemar has won a Brit award for 'Best Urban Act' and done nicely for himself, thank you very much... he might not have won, but you can't argue that he has been successful. Just because Alex Parks et al don't bring a single out every other blink of the eye doesn't mean they've faded away. Alex is working on a new album and Malachi Cush remains popular in Ireland.

Carrie and David have gained popularity with younger viewers and fans and sold a lot of their 'You Can Sing' videos, DVD and accompanying book.

Bringing back Blackadder can only be a bad thing.
As much as I would like to see it back, there's no way they can make new episodes that are anywhere near as good as the classic episodes.

The whole cast has aged 16 years and I don't think they'd have the same kind of energy they had in the old epsiodes - and neither will the writers.

Fame Academy is a format bought in from Endemol, not one devised by a BBC channel controller, and it is based on Operacion Triunfo (the Spanish version) and other versions shown around the World.

In fact I'm not sure that Popstars/PopIdol aren't the copy cats in the global arena...