Derek Acorah's Jacko seance show 'worst' of 2009
Derek Acorah's Michael Jackson: The Live Seance has been named the worst programme of the past year. James Corden and Matthew Horne's comedy sketch show Horne And Corden and Amanda Holden's circus-themed series Big Top also made the top five of the survey, which asked contributors to name the biggest TV flop of 2009. Television psychic Acorah's programme, which was broadcast live on Sky1 in November and hosted by June Sarpong, racked up 33 per cent of the votes cast by more than 9,000 Yahoo! users ahead of Wednesday night's National Television Awards (NTA). In the programme, Most Haunted star Acorah travelled with four Jackson fans to a house in Ireland where the late pop star once stayed. He claimed to have contacted the spirit of Jackson - who died last June - and relayed messages to his friends and family. Holden, whose show Britain's Got Talent is nominated for an NTA, starred as a ring mistress alongside Tony Robinson in Big Top, which came fourth in the survey. The sitcom launched on BBC One with 3.3 million viewers but soon plummeted in popularity with one critic describing it as 'so determinedly old-fashioned that if it were a person it would be wearing plus fours'. Horne and Corden's show Gavin And Stacey, written by Corden with Ruth Jones, is nominated for an NTA for Best Comedy but the pair were blasted by critics for their sketch show, which came fifth in the Yahoo! poll. The second worst programme, as voted for by Yahoo! users, was ITV's Al Murray's Multiple Personality Disorder, fronted by comedian Murray, known for his Pub Landlord routine.
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Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix.
An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.