James Allen under professional commentary coaching

[Select]

Hey did anyone notice that James Allen has (very early in his F1 commentary career) taken up in exactly the mould Magnif Murray left behind?

He has already mistaken Ralf for Michael...or was it the other way round...hell the cars are such similar colours its hard to know sometimes!

All the rumours at my local indicate that JA has been seen with Murray in pubs not one hundred miles from me poring over statistics and talking indepth with Murray about all the right slips of the tongue to make, and about where to level the tone of voice (pitchwise) at different points of the race.

Magny COurs was a big improvement for JA - did you notice how he is not shouting into the mike so much? and also taking every opportunity to ask the opinion of Martin, and thus avoid hogging the fecking mic?.....methinks ol' James is a silent but regular visitor to the forum here, and has responded to earlier criticism.

Good on him, he is shaping up to be a really worthwhile successor, especially as long as he keeps getting mixed up by the shumachers!

[racer69]

i think his commentary was pretty awful at france. he did a pretty good jod at the nerd and Brazil, but at france he frequently mumbled and didn't seem very interested, or was that because it was a boring race, bit of both probably.

[Select]

No mate,

I don't agree with what you have posted at all. Just go back and run those videotapes of previous James Allen races and you will get my drift.

No offence intended, but have a listen to them - I think you will find he is developing....and in any case, ITV has decided he'll be the man so you are stuck with him!

Back to the top!

[neutral]

I dont mind James, hes doing ok and Im sure he'll improve as time goes on. He tends to be very informed and his understanding of whats happening in a race is superior to Walker. Having said that, I would choose Murray over James anyday. I can work out for myself whats happening in the race, but I cant make myself laugh. Murray does that for me.

[Damon]

He was so dull in France though, I had been pretty impressed before but last weekend I felt like muting the sound. The most irritating thing is when they first go to him and he is clearly reading from a script. Murray always seems so natural.

[drexel]

There was definately something different about him at France. He was alot quieter and seemingly less enthusiastic. I am sure he was in someway deterred by ppl screaming for his head and the bosses must of instructed him in that way, clearly to his detriment. I look forward to him developing as i've almost had enough of Murray's commentary which has turned into one Murray-ism after another instead of commentating on the actual race itself. And it's better to go out on high level rather than doing a Damon Hill.

[davebreen]

I thought the commentary in France was awful! To illustrate the point to any other irish ppl out there i nearly switched over to Network 2 for the "superior" coverage! JA needs to relax and let the race flow, hopefully, with time, we can all grow to love him and his over reactive ways. As they say anything can happen in Formula one and it usually does.

[chrisrb2002]

A side issue I know, but why have itv stopped pre announcing the commercial breaks its soo annoying, I know that you can kinday tell when they are winding up but i wanna be told. Also James Allen should drop the I had dinner with xxx last night or i spoke to whoever lines. and it was most unprofessional of him to mention that one of the itv crew ad received a speeding fine when talking about dc in the race.

[Sodemo]

I think ITV should have found someone better that James Allen to commentate on F1, sure he is a decent enough pit-reporter, and i'm sure he is a decent enough bloke, but he just doesn't cut it as a commentator. Ben Edwards is the best commentator around, and I will be sad if he doesn't get the job.

[mac]

I used to think Murray was an ordinary commentator. Then came James. He is attrocious. As I said on another thread, I almost forgot how good DC was after the 53rd time James and Martin told me. Also, if JA mentions that DC should have been fighting with Michael Schumacher if not for the stop-go penalty one more time - I'll scream. He was awful at the Nurburgring (that half-hour description of fuel strategy literally put me to sleep), and just as bad at France. Also, he keeps saying stupid things.

That feels much better.

[Liz]

SURELY there are better people on offer than James Allen and Louise Goodman.

We were forced by circumstances (our motel did not have Speedvision) to watch the truncated ITV coverage of the French GP on Sunday, and then watched the "encore" performance on Speedvision last night. You would not think they were the same race! For two examples, during the ITV race it was mentioned at least fifteen times that Jacques Villeneuve was out of the race and several different theories were offered as to what the reason might be ... in the Speedvision coverage he went out during the commercial, it was mentioned once and that was it. Also James and Martin must have mentioned Bunsen in every paragraph, at least once every two or three minutes; Speedvision mentioned him two or three times when he was being lapped and spinning, and never any other time. And Louise's "how do you feel after stalling on the grid yet again" questions to poor old Mika were bizarre and ridiculous ... it is a wonder to me that some pilot or other doesn't slug her on the air! (The worst of all times being her question to DC after his engine left a smoke trail across the entire pitlane in Canada as it blew up, "David, any idea what happened to your car?" DC answered with a barely concealed smirk, that he reckoned it was engine related.)

If F1 is determined to drive people away from land line broadcasts, they are certainly going about it the right way.

[francis]

Well I did notice that HE actually corrected Brundle on a key driver/car identification - I think it was a jag, it makes a change freom Brundle doing it to Murray. I noticed Brundle was quiet after that.

Has anyone noticxed how Brundle gets more and more obvious in his support for DC. He's been his manager for some time and to begin with it was never mentioned but I have to say that now it is becoming quite open and I think he's becoming more and more biassed. At least Murray has a respect for TGF. Brundle has old grudges.

[DNQ]

To be honest, I think James Allen is fairly decent. It is a dreadful shame Murray is retiring (don't please!!!), but, James is the commentator of the future. I am sure, with more experience, h'll develop into a great commentator.

[mac]

Francis - Brundle is obvious with DC, but James Allen is too.

I'm going to start muting the commentary.