Television
The great divide
James Delingpole
Aaagh! Help! There have been way too many programmes on this week that I'm dying to say lucid, important, clever things about and I doubt I'll be able to fit them in, let alone have space to tell you more inti- mate details about my private life.
First there was that new Robert Winston series Superhuman (BBC1, Sunday), whose first episode on trauma was so traumatic that I just couldn't get to the end. It was about what happens to your body when Your car smashes headlong into a bus or You fall off a horse and nearly dash your brains out, and suchlike. And I know a mature, enquiring mind is supposed to want to find out about such things, but frankly I'd rather my body just got on and dealt with them without my knowing.
I did try though. 'Come on,' I said to Tiffany, who was all ready to chuck up. This is important. It's uplifting. All these people they're interviewing, they survived.' Then there'd be a shot of a needle going into Winston's vein and Tiffany would shriek: 'Right that's enough!' And I'd be about to turn it off when she'd go, 'Hang on. That's amazing!', as we saw an incredi- ble close-up of the inside of the vein as it was punctured by the needle. Then she'd be about to turn it off and I'd go: 'No! 'Nam sequences. We've got to watch them.' And so it went on. I think it was the shot of the woman's blood clot being scooped from her brain that clinched it. A touch too nauseat- ing for Sunday night, we decided, and moved swiftly on to the preview vid of Clarissa & The Countryman (BBC2, Friday).
Now, I absolutely adore Clarissa Dickson Wright, not least because she is so right and obscenely well-informed and bang-on about everything that matters. And after the first episode, 1 rather think I'm falling in love with her sheepfarming chum John- ny Scott too. Not in a homo-erotic way, you understand. It's just that he seems such a thoroughly decent, warm, generous, rugged yet gentle chap. The sort of fellow with whom you'd be happy to share a trench.
But here's my big worry about the pro- gramme. You've got two impossibly nice People explaining with rare insight and pel- lucid clarity the ways of the country in lan- guage that ignorant townies will understand. And I don't reckon it's going to wash. Those who know these things already are going to feel slightly patronised by the prevailing Play School tone; and those who don't are going to see in its staginess and didacticism (sometimes painfully redolent of Harry Enfield's Mr Cholmondely-Warner sketches) some sort of toffy, rural propaganda exercise.
There was, for example, the opening scene where Clarissa hurries to rescue Johnny from the burning heather only to discover — quelle surprise! — that he's doing it on purpose so as to stimulate the shoots on which grouse feed. Or the one where we're shown a lamb which has been decapitated by a fox, followed by a long explanation as to its effects on both the ewe and other newborns.
At every turn, you could see it bending over backwards to win over your knee-jerk animal sentimentalist who thinks good old Reynard is cute and furry and that crows have rights too. I wonder, though, whether the battle hasn't already been lost. The divide between town and country is now so great that I can easily imagine half the audience watching Johnny vigorously swinging a newborn lamb so as to get it breathing and going: 'How cruel!' Or watching him stay up half the night to care for sick lambs worth no more than a tenner a piece, and going: 'Serves him right. He should go veggie!'
Now for some good news. The Royle Fam- ily (BBC1, Monday), which I had feared lost after last year's mawkish, implausible, shitey Christmas Special, is back looking better than ever. You could tell you were in safe hands within the first 30 seconds, when Barbara could be heard protesting: 'Oh, Jim. We don't want Sky. We don't watch telly enough to get the value ... '
Dave and Denise's new baby — Baby David — is clearly going to provide excel- lent value too. The child has been dressed in a deliciously cruel parody of the sort of vulgar designer togs sported by Posh 'n' Becks's sprog Brooklyn. And it has given writers Craig Cash and Caroline Aherne the perfect excuse to come up with hun- dreds of exquisitely-observed baby gags, like the one where the child is passed round from father to mother to grand- mother so that all can have a sniff at his nappy to decide whether or not he's 'done one'. Or the one where Dave is congratu- lated on his nappy-changing prowess only to have Jim grunt: 'Wiping an arse? It's not exactly rocket science.'
And do, if you get the chance, try to catch Marion & Geoff (BBC2, Tuesday) a series of deadpan comedy shorts in which a tragically optimistic mini-cab driver (bril- liantly played by Rob Brydon) delivers poignant pieces to camera about his failed marriage. I've met Rob a few times and he's desperately, desperately chippy about critics who he thinks are all evil scum. So, just for his cuttings book, let me say that Marion & Geoff is the least funny pro- gramme there has ever been on TV and that ugly, talentless Rob Brydon can't act his way out of a paper bag.
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