Take comfort from heartwarming vets
PREPARE yourself for an overdose of harrowing television over the next week, with ITV promising serial killers and other horrible slayings. You do spoil us, ITV. But what we really need now is comforting, soothing television.
All Creatures Great And Small
( Tuesday, C5) was a case in point with wayward vet Tristan, arriving in Darrowby after scoring a first in tomfoolery from Edinburgh vet school. You will recognise the actor Callum Woodhouse from playing Leslie in The Durrells. Leslie’s solution to life’s travails was firing a shotgun. Thankfully, Tristan doesn’t know one end of a gun from another, but he’s happy enough to fire off advice to the young newcomer James Herriot (Nicholas Ralph) whose challenges, apart from the usual internal examination of cows, include a poorly pet dog.
BBC One has gone cosy too. Mary Berry’s Simple Comforts ( Monday) was very reassuring, although she did believe the French knew more about comfort food than anyone. This is controversial territory for a cooking show but I did like the look of her croque monsieur which to Brits is known as a posh ham and cheese toastie. She then cooked some blinis which are Russian. Finally she did some roast lamb and we all cheered – though it was studded with garlic. I thought Brexit had sorted this...
Still, this is one national treasure who can do no wrong in my opinion. Mary still enjoys a glass of wine, whatever the time or temperature, and I look forward to her emulating the great Delia Smith by showing the nation her version of boiled egg and soldiers. Maybe Buck’s Fizz with that one!
My cosy crime destination now is Strike: Lethal White ( BBC One, Sunday). There was even low-paced action last week. It was rather scary – a chase on foot across busy London. Steady on, chaps. Robin (Holliday Grainger) was pursued by a nasty Left-wing type who probably hasn’t committed murder, but is unsavoury anyway. About to be captured by him, Robin bent over and he tumbled over her. She darted off and a well-placed police car happened to run him over as she fled. I like it when a plan comes together.
Elsewhere, Cormoran Strike was attacked by a man with a butter knife. It was posh London buffoonery. “What are you going to do? Butter me?” Ha!
This drama is far from high octane, but gently entertains because everyone’s waiting for Strike and Robin to tumble about on his grubby office sofa one day before realising they’re completely mismatched. Her first line should be, “Do you ever wash?”
Comedian Sue Perkins took herself off to Mexico to find a few jokes in the highly politicised world of border politics. She came up trumps! In Sue Perkins: Along The Us-mexico Border ( Monday and Tuesday, BBC One) she visited one of the
hundreds of cheap dental practices on the Mexican side. It’s not a new story but she did meet an older gentleman who had set up the first one.
“So you’re the gobfather!” she quipped. That’s the sort of joke that was missing from her new Generation Game which
got the chop before you could say, “Didn’t she do well...”
But that’s all history, and this show was politics. With each side of the wall, Perkins’s views appeared to change. In Mexico, she loved them, even in Arizona she empathised with the local sheriff, and put-upon local ranchers. If anything, she proved what an intractable problem this is, and why it’s no place for a gushing comedian.
One new thing she did discover was that Americans are having a cheap retirement, drugged up on dope, south of the border. It seems an idea ripe for a sitcom along the lines of “As Time Goes By...” If only one of the characters could remember what to write.
If you wanted more organised crime but with a comedy twist, there was always
Ray Winstone’s Sicily ( Blaze, Monday). The hard-man Sexy Beast actor and two mates may have taken their lead from The Trip but Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon need to look into their rear view mirror. This lot has gone one better – literally.
Winstone’s pals on his odyssey were former football commentator Matt Lorenzo and irascible meat market dealer Bruno. Matt was the straight guy, while Bruno could sell pizza dough to Italy. In Palermo, he toddled into a rather smart kitchen shop armed with this request: “Have you got a knife to cut a body?” Well, it is Sicily after all, home of the godfather.
The first implement that was brought out for Bruno in this tiny store was a large hacksaw. You began to think they knew a thing or two about dismembering. Bruno, bizarrely, didn’t even flinch. He also wanted something to “trim around bone”. Knives then came from everywhere. It was like a bad circus act.
The show is far from picture-postcard but “triffic” if you want a laugh at Englishmen on a “jolly boys’ outing”.