Crónicas Marcianas

Named after the famous book by Raymond Bradbury, this programme, completing its sixth season this year, pretends to be located on the red planet in order to analyse life on earth ironically and without inhibitions. To do this it has a team of “Martians” who, led magnificently by Xavier Sardà, have been able to place the programme amongst the most viewed season after season.

There are many collaborators on the show each night, from Monday to Friday, and they have known how to shock and provoke us from the small screen over these last five years. There will be novelties in this, the sixth, season of ‘Crónicas Marcianas’, since some will continue livening up the nights while others move on after being faithful to this latenight space for five seasons. They are the actor Martí Galindo (winner of a Golden TP for revelation personality in 1997), one of the most popular characters on the programme, Mariano Mariano, the gossip commentator Fernando Ramos and Manel Fuentes, who has remained loyal throughout these five years –emphasising his brilliant impersonations of king Juan Carlos– and who has triumphed on the same channel since last year with his show titled La noche de Fuentes y cía. Rosario Pardo, an actress famous, among other things, for her characterisation of Rocío Jurado and the comedienne Paz Padilla, are another two Martians who have left their mark on the programme making us laugh till it hurts.

Nevertheless, other collaborators continue such as Boris Izaguirre or Carlos Latre, both established as flagships of the programme. The Venezuelan, who has paraded his glamour around Mars since the second season, has been able to impose a very personal style making himself practically indispensable in the evenings on Telecinco. To him we owe the best comments on the latest gossip news and the Gran Hermano competition, which from its first edition has had a leading spot on the programme.

Carlos Latre is a case apart, an authentic showman accompanying Sardà for the third consecutive season and has become the programme’s veritable merciless chameleon. Some of his multiple impersonations such as those of the witch Lola (who has finished collaborating on the programme), Paco Umbral, Dinio, Pepe Navarro and one of his most recent creations, the singer Rosa López, winner of Operación Triunfo, are already highly famous. Other collaborators who continue on the programme include Javier Cárdenas, a shameless discoverer of the oddest and most eccentric figures, and Xavier Deltell, who each week puts his neck on the block with his hilarious outdoor reports. In order to keep up to date with everything happening in Operación triunfo, the programme has signed up Rocío Madrid.

The caustic debates have been one of the programme’s most successful sections. Some of the speakers appearing on the round table of ‘Crónicas Marcianas’ are Alessandro Lecquio, Loles León, Bibiana Fernández, Marisol Galdón, several figures from the different series of Gran Hermano (such as Jorge Berrocal, Israel Pita, Alonso Jiménez or Marta López) and others who continue spicing up the night such as Coto Matamoros, Josep Sandoval, José Calabuig, Enrique del Pozo and, more recently, Antonio David Flores.

The spectacular challenges of Nacho Sierra, the world of the Internet shown to us by Xavier Vidal, the artistic stripteases of Chiqui Martí and Susana Reche and the musical performances are other great moments enjoyed by viewers and the studio audience who attend each programme.

All these ingredients have not only made Javier Sardà’s programme the ruler of Spanish late-night television, but have also led to recognition with some prizes, such as the Silver Rose of the Festival of Montreux for the best variety programme (1998), two Golden TPs for the best magazine programme (1997) and the best entertainment show (1998) and an Ondas prize in 2000.