Television
Special rubbish
James Delingpole
Icouldn't get hold of the preview tapes for David Copperfield, unfortunately, so I can't tell you whether it was up there with Wives and Daughters. Probably just as well, though, because I'm feeling all spaced-out and cold-ridden at the moment and I'm not really in the mood for dissecting heavy- weight drama. Instead I thought I'd just ramble inanely, as I do sometimes.
First, let me dispense a few brownie points for my favourite TV programmes of the year. The funniest was the rave episode of Spaced (Channel 4), closely followed by BBC l's The Royle Family (though not as we shall see — the Christmas episode). The best documentary series were first War of the Century (BBC 2) and second Finest Hour (BBC 1). Best single drama was War- riors (BBC 1); best drama series was Chan- nel 4's The Sopranos (apart from the lazy, cop-out last episode); and best adapted drama was Wives and Daughters (BBC 1), apart from the scene right at the end where Molly turns up in Africa wearing trousers. I'm sure Andrew Davies put it there purely to wind up purists, but still.
Anyway, to Christmas. Is it my imagina- tion or are Christmas TV specials more rubbishy than they used to be? Possibly this is just nostalgia talking but I'm fairly con- vinced that there was a time when, say, the special feature-length episode of Minder or Only Fools and Horses were the best things on TV all season.
Actually, no. I lie. I've just remembered that stomach-churning special episode of Only Fools and Horses where Del Boy's tedious wife had a baby and we were all supposed to be smiling through our tears when in fact we wanted to throw up; and that ineffably dull thing called One Foot in the Algarve where Victor Meldrew and his wife went on holiday and nothing hap- pened for two hours. Even Minder on the Orient Express probably wasn't funny, come to think of it.
So I suppose the fact that this year's Boyle Family Christmas Special (BBC 1) was a horrendous disappointment should have come as no surprise. But it did. Big time. After two whole series in which it had never once put a foot wrong, the Royle Family did the thing its most ardent fans had long feared it would do: it got too pleased with itself; the hitherto excellent actors started mugging like the cast of a third-rate panto; and the show lost all its subtlety and wit. Funny? My arse. Let's hope it was just a one-off aberration caused by a team trying just that little bit too hard to please.
As for the Harry Enfield Christmas spe- cial — Kevin's Guide to Being a Teenager I thought it was a bit bloody cheeky of the BBC to cobble together all the Kevin the teenager episodes from old Harry Enfield shows, give them new title sequences and graphics, broadcast them on Bank Holiday Monday and pretend we'd never seen them before. We had. And even if we'd forgot- ten, it was a dead giveaway the way Kevin's father kept changing into a different actor.
Still, I suppose I can forgive any comedy show — even one comprising warmed-up leftovers — where the sketches are so bril- liantly observed. 'But he's so like you!' I kept saying to my 13-year-old stepson, no doubt echoing the words of every father to his teenage boy across the land. (And lest we missed the obvious, there was even a sketch where Kevin's parents are watching a Kevin-like teenager on TV and saying: `That's you, Kevin!') My two favourite sketches were the one where Kevin's best mate Perry (Kathy Burke), freshly returned from Manchester, starts acting and talking like Liam Gal- lagher and Kevin strives desperately to ape him with an accent which veers hilariously from rural West Country through to North- ern Irish. And the one in which both Kevin and his father fall madly in love with a schoolteacher played by the gorgeous Lynsey Baxter. What is it about Lynsey sax- ter? I've had a mad pash for her ever since I saw her in the Master Builder in Birming- ham when I was about 14. My father-in-law, oddly enough, is similarly afflicted.
Anyway, that's quite enough of me for one millennium. I'll see you all in the new one when, if there's any justice, I'll finally become as rich and famous as I deserve to be. Oh, and like Michael Vestey, I'd find it far more congenial if you contacted me by e-mail (Jamesdel@dircon.co.uk) rather than by post. But please don't send me any horrid messages. Just nice ones like 'Dear God-like one, I too agree you deserve to be more rich and famous than you are — and here's why . '
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