Once you get used to Mackenzie Crook’s furrowed, turnip-headed face and spidery root fingers as Worzel Gummidge, it honestly isn’t that creepy any more.
Sure, at first glance of the BBC1 trailer, viewers flew terrified from their living rooms wondering whatever happened to that lovely old show with Jon Pertwee.
And, OK, Worzel has no insides and Aunt Sally, played by Vicki Pepperdine, is essentially the top half of a fearsome doll stuck on a moving cage.
Oh and there’s a biker gang of scarecrow bullies, one with a marrow for a head.
But these moments aside, the two new shows were not that scary. They are incredibly funny, bewitching tales that had my family belly-laughing in delight. Two days on and the kids haven’t had nightmares yet. So, you know, winning.
Mackenzie, star of The Office and Pirates of the Caribbean, wrote and directed the films and spent three hours in make-up every day for the role.
And the cast was top notch. We had Michael Palin as the Green Man, creator of the scarecrows, Zoe Wanamaker as an eccentric local aristocrat and Steve Pemberton and Rosie Cavaliero as farmers Mr and Mrs Braithwaite. All of them scene stealers.
Newbies India Brown and Thierry Wickens as city foster “chillun” Susan and John also held their own.
Then there was the eco message about saving the planet – Worzel’s own gentle Extinction Rebellion, if you will.
Worzel is worried about the weather –the crops are late, the birds won’t fly the nest, something is wrong.
We see them litter picking and Worzel’s arch-enemies the crows agree to remove harmful plastic bags that had caught on branches. They carefully put them in a recycling bin, one assumes the correct one.
The humour is sharp throughout. I dare anyone not to be tickled by Worzel downing a glass of milk that gushes straight out of his trouser leg on account of his not having insides.
At the end there was a nice speech that gave me all the feels without being preachy.
“I’m worried, sir,” Worzel says to the Green Man.
“I’m worried about the weather and the seasons and all the plastic everywhere. I’m worried about the hedges and the ditches and the bees and the flowers. They’re all having a tough time of it, sir.”
“You think two children can turn it all around?”
“Well they’ll do their bit and spread the word and little by little they’ll get things back on track.”
This show was magic. And with a relevant message for the modern generation, it’s an instant classic.
