It’s a sale of the century
SARA Cox is back tonight with another of those mostly quite enjoyable living history shows, where a real-life modern-day family dresses up as though it’s the olden days and then overplays its part just a smidgen.
BACK IN TIME FORTHE CORNER SHOP (BBC2, 8pm) is the latest in a sequence which began five years ago with the food-themed Back In Time For Dinner (when the title was still a clever piece of wordplay, rather than the gibberish it’s become in subsequent incarnations).
This time we’re meeting the
Ardern family – Dave, Jo, Sam, Olivia and Ben – a cheerful bunch who’ll be running a small shop in Sheffield for 100 years, although obviously not really quite that long.
Beginning in 1897 (when it was built), the Arderns’ make-believe store and its stock will reflect the ever changing needs, demands and indulgences of its customers over the course of a century – and thus illustrate the evolving tastes and habits of the typical British family. So that’ll be fun.
Returning elsewhere tonight is Channel 4’s royal satire THE WINDSORS (10pm). It’s a show I doubt I’ll ever be the biggest fan of, not because I’m a fanatical royalist but purely because they’re far too obvious and easy a target (the best comedy should surprise us and take the odd risk; this is like shooting fish in a barrel).
That said, it’s rarely short of a titter-inducing line or two.And I do enjoy its merciless portrayal of
Andrew and Fergie’s daughters Beatrice and Eugenie (EllieWhite and Celeste Dring), with their ridiculously drawn-out vowels and their soul-crushing pointlessness.
Also, if the real-life Harry and Meghan hadn’t already thrown their toys out of the royal pram, the teasing to which this opening episode subjects them would probably have been enough in itself to push them over the edge.
And finally, on a not entirely dissimilar theme, I must confess I’m losing patience with ROYAL HISTORY’S BIGGEST FIBS WITH LUCYWORSLEY
(BBC4, 9pm), as it gleefully debunks yet more of what we learnt at school.
Does Lucy have any idea of the agony we had to suffer back then, cramming all that history into our heads? Does she think we enjoy being told we were wasting our time?
In episode two she’s asking us to reconsider what we thought we knew about Queen Elizabeth I, particularly that famous “weak and feeble woman” speech. But forgive me if I decline.
I dare say Lucy’s account of Elizabeth’s reign is technically more accurate, but the version I learnt via Blackadder II will continue to suit me just fine.