Television
Painful parodies
Simon Hoggart
Television's stately progress up its own backside gathered pace this week, with a spoof of a spoof chat show, a spoof of a spoof horror film, and what I took to be a spoof of a costume drama.
Andrew Davies is now so highly esteemed that he is usually depicted as the true auteur of whichever adaptation he brings to the screen. Forget Jane Austen, forget Daniel Defoe, brush Michael Dobbs aside. This week we had The Way We Live Now (BBC 1) by Andrew Davies, based on an original idea by Anthony Trohope. Trollope was allowed some lines — I think I spotted one about ten minutes into the first episode — hut not many. This was a Victorian story written as it would have been if Trollope had had the skill and the verbal resources of Andrew Davies.
Even Davies's weird habit of using modern phrases and slang has become his trademark. So having a cad say of a plain woman, You don't look at the mantelpiece when you stoke the fire', isn't just a bizarre anachronism; it's a sign of Davies's special genius. Or, take 'You are a very quick study, Mr Montague.' I had not heard that phrase, meaning you learn fast', before I went to live in the United States 15 years ago. Nor had I seen wilful teenagers putting their hands over their ears and shouting Not listening, not listening!' to their parents. Did 19th-century financiers say, .That's my department'? I don't think young women read books at the breakfast table, and I'm sure they didn't say, 'I would like to do something with myself,' meaning that they hoped to have a career.
It does seem a little strange. The Radio Times is full of pictures showing workmen shovelling sand over double yellow lines and covering up letter-boxes so that the street scenes look authentic, No doubt teams of costume mistresses fussed over every ruffle, button and shoelace to make sure they were precisely of the period. So why use dialogue which swerves wildly from 1874 to 2001? Will we not think the serial is relevant if it doesn't use the language of a cable-TV teenage soap opera? Are we too dim to understand the words Troilope used? Or are we simply being asked to admire the inventiveness, flair and bold, risk-taking guts of Andrew Davies? I do not know. Costume drama is on the way to becoming a parody of itself.
Like Dr Terrible's House Of Horrible (BBC 2). All Hammer horror films sent themselves up, then there were the spoofs (The Abominable Dr Phibes; Carry On Screaming) and now we have the spoofs of the spoofs. The title of the first episode, Lesbian Vampire Lovers of Lust, simply described a typical Hammer plotline. Lines such as 'Visitors are food and drink to me' were two-a-penny in the original. So what's a poor writer to do? Steve Coogan tried with double and then single entendres Mid I tell you about the night I was grabbed by the Bulgars?'; 'three Cossacks were hungry for my end'). He had the evil countess killed by an occasional table, an idea which must have seemed funny in the script conference. In the end I was reminded of those entertainments children devise to show off to their parents on wet Sunday afternoons. After you've spent five minutes being delighted, you realise they've run out of ideas but don't want to lose your attention. By the end you're begging them to stop.
The Kumars At Number 42 (BBC 2) is the spoof of a spoof chat show. Michael Parkinson came in and played along with the idea that an Indian family has converted their garden into a TV studio where they interview celebrity guests such as Richard E. Grant. It's like an Indian Mrs Merton, and the best jokes crop up where Indian culture meets Western culture. Meera Syars randy granny wanted to imitate Marilyn Monroe in the grate-blowing scene. 'So I used to put on my baggiest sari and stand beside a grazing water buffalo.' It was funny, but the idea seems to have disappeared up its fundament and emerged somewhere near its mouth.
Thank goodness for Walking With Beasts (BBC 1). I think this will be as big as Walking With Dinosaurs, since we are meeting a host of new and wonderful animals, some of which bear a faint resemblance to creatures we see today. Of course a lot of the reconstruction is hypothesis and guesswork, but so what? Even a rough idea is utterly fascinating and beguiling. A real triumph for the Corp, and it can only be a short time before we have a spoof computer-animated prehistoric wildlife show.
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