Many viewers want to pretend it’s 1978
Having seen the blurb for this (“Penelope witnesses the formation wheelbarrow display by the Red Sparrows”) I could not miss the mad example of ultra-British retro programming as represented by Penelope Keith’s Hidden Villages (Channel 4, Saturday). Is this the best we can do for Margo? But what a voice! What’s her secret? Surely there’s an entire scone lodged in her mouth at all times. Part Location, Location property porn, part Ukip recruitment video, this examination of the British village – some “set in aspic”, some full of life – felt like Radio 4 with pictures. For me, this was a welcome respite from the stroke-inducing whiplash narratives of reality TV. But I really wondered how on earth something so retro got made. Are we now splitting into a nation of two halves? One generation watching Netflix and DVD box sets and another watching Penelope Keith on telly as if it were still 1978? It would seem so.
You can get a prize for having a shed
From villages to sheds … “We’re gathered for the highlight of the year for shed owners: Shed of the Year.” Crikey. My demographic theory is definitely right. Whoever was watching Penelope last night was in again and watching Amazing Spaces: Shed of the Year (Channel 4, Sunday). Should we blame The Great British Bake Off for this Cuprinol-sponsored insanity? Is this a delightful exploration of British eccentricity? Or the invasion of low-rent daytime television into our evening schedules? I fear the latter, especially when the first category was “Best Normal Shed” and featured Roy, a man with a museum-worthy model railway complete with its own homemade CCTV. (What is normal about this?) I applauded the man who created his own observatory, dubbed a “shedservatory”. None of this was any match for the floating shed, though, which took the prize. And then they unveiled with great fanfare … a record-breaking number of “eco” entries. Not sure which of those won as I fell asleep during a section about conifer-supporting posts.
Television can make people change the spelling of their name
Three unrelated people in the past week have said to me “Don’t you just love Eight Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown (Channel 4, Friday)? Isn’t it great?” I can report that the three unrelated people are right. This is a stonking programme, this week with Sean Lock, Lee Mack, Vic Reeves, Sara Pascoe, Alex Horne and Carr. And, of course, two ladies with regulation toned arms: lexicographer Susie Dent and co-host Rachel Riley. Plus a semi-naked six-pack man illustrating a picnic for equality purposes. This is a very good place for Jimmy Carr to be, mixing his stand-up persona with a “cynical Bob Monkhouse” gameshow side. It’s tightly scripted in the right places (“Manx is a language and not a type of control pants for dads”) and gloriously improvised elsewhere (Pascoe was forced to add an H to her “wrongly spelled” name). My only lady-gripe: isn’t it uncomfortable that in 2015 Rachel Riley is forced to stand off to one side for ages (and ages) looking all dollybird and St Tropez tan and laughing at the (mostly) men’s jokes? But I suppose someone has to man (or woman) the board. Otherwise: jolly well done.
Sheridan Smith is brilliant (but we knew this already)
“He was working undercover. He was asked to keep it very tight. No-one knew.” Woah. Poor Sheridan Smith in crime thriller Black Work (ITV, Sunday). Not only is she extremely busy being in very many television dramas, but also her characters always have exceedingly harrowing things happen to them. Now she’s a police officer whose police officer husband has been shot. Unbeknownst to her, he was working undercover. “He lied to me for two years.” A brilliant premise from screenwriter Matt Charman (Our Zoo, Suite Francaise), with a stellar cast (Douglas Henshall, Geraldine James, Matthew McNulty) effortlessly led by Sheridan Smith as Jo Gillespie, wife of murdered cop Ryan. Jo soon suspects that Ryan’s bosses are not telling her everything she needs to know and that she is going to have to find the killer on her own. Meanwhile Jo’s colleagues are searching her house and her daughter is finding CD recordings of her adulterous conversations. Awkward. An elegant and dark piece. And, thank goodness, no sheds.
