Television:
BBC commissions ‘slow TV-like’ live trainspotting show
BBC commissions ‘slow TV-like’ live trainspotting show — a sleepy valentine to that most eccentrically British of pursuits.
Trainspotting Live was not, in fact, a real-time recreation of Ewan McGregor’s drug-fuelled dash down an Edinburgh back-street street — a bombshell which seemed to leave bereft the many Twitter users who had tuned in anticipating an evening of heroin-related high jinks and troweled-on Scottish accents.
The first of three one-hour broadcasts served instead as a sleepy valentine to that most eccentrically British of pursuits. Locomotive enthusiast Peter Snow joined boffin du jour Dr Hannah Fry for a gently whimsical celebration of rail transport and the obsessive chronic ling of engine numbers and carriage registrations.
But could the duo succeed in their unlikely mission to convert viewers to this often-derided pastime? On a gloomy Monday night, they had their work cut out and your response to the programme probably depended on your attention span.
Thrill seekers will have switched off before the passenger doors had shut for departure. Those who persevered may have found themselves seduced by a hour of“slow television” that tickled the parts more conventional broadcasts seldom reached. Either way, what a relief to turn on a BBC factual documentary about a popular mode of transport safe in the knowledge it wouldn’t feature Chris Evans shouting or waving that scary jumper in your face. Peter Snow can muster enthusiasm 1 for anything: “Oh, look at that!” declaimed the veteran newsman as a rickety freight train rumbled past. “A class sixty-sixty,” he hooted. It was a rust bucket on wheels — but Snow’s eagerness knew no limits. Later, his head would almost pop off when a viewer reported seeing a “flying banana” measurement engine near Cambridge. To describe his enthusiasm as infectious would be an overstatement. It was certainly striking. The his ‘n hers presenting team 2 worked better than expected: Pairing an esteemed elder statesmen with a much younger female host is a cliche ready for the scrapyard. Yet 78-year-old Newsnight stalwart Snow and sometime Horizon pre- senter Fry had surprising chemistry, sharing giggles as the sound packed in or the camera cut to yet another grey and empty track in an obscure corner of the network. Snow bubbled with exuberance while Fry, in appearing to find the whole affair absurd and hilarious, served as a decent proxy for baffled audience members tuning in expecting to see the football or Wimbledon. But audience participation fell 3 flat: “Thereisnosub-classstarting with “one” or “two” — however, there is one starting with “zero”,” droned Snow midway through a beginner’s guide to trainspotting that went on longer than a rush-hour signal delay. He clearly wasn’t faking his passion — but newcomers will have been fazed by the blizzard of babble. Every cliche about trainspotters 4 was fulfilled: Assisting Snow and Fry was a rotating cast of Roy Cropper lookalikes, kit ted out in variationsof the same nerdy wind-breaker and with interchangeable bald patches and Bill Oddie facial hair. Their devotion was charming; still, they did little to demolish the stereotype of trainspotters as middle-aged men living in mum’s spare room. The “live” elements need finetuning: 5 “You’re trainspotting like mad, are you ?” Snow asked a wobbly-chinned chap on Skype. “We’ve got one of the newly branded TransPennines here,” was the wideeyed response. It was almost as boring as the Euro 2016 final only with less groaning clunkers on display (well done for spotting the Ronaldo joke etc). Patchy sound didn’t help. Much like railway operators fazed by leaves on the tracks, it was almost as if the BBC hadn’t made allowances for wind on exposed platforms. Parts two and three are broadcast tonight and Wednesday — so at least there is an opportunity for fine-tuning. The archive stuff was great: 6 Trainspotting was of course far more exciting when railways were the preserve of coal-fuelled goliaths straight out of Agatha Christie. It was thus a relief to be whisked away from Snow and Fry huddling on an overcast platform and back to the golden era of the pastime, via black and white footage of men with gravity-defying moustaches gawping as mountains of steam and metal shrieked by.
The pleasure of a long train 7 journey was briefly but powerful acknowledged: “You sit in a train as though sitting in a poem — all these amazing things happen,” said wordsmith Ian McMillan “When you get to the end it’s like you’re falling out of the end of the poem.” It was canny to shift from trainspotters to those who appreciate a long, lazy train journey — but couldn’t care less about the make, year, colour, sexual orientation etc, of the locomotive. Here at last was acknowledgement that, though trains may fascinate a minority, it’s the trip itself that grips everyone else. The silliest bits were the best: 8 “Steam locomotives are special to me — I think of them almost iron dinosaurs ... they are elemental,” said tweedy Tim Dunn, hanging off a bridge in a remote corner of Scotland. His zeal was infectious but you worried that, in his excitement, he might lose his footing and plunge into the lake behind. The best was yet to come as a vintage train huffed past and a giddy Dunn almost forgot to step out of the way. Head-spinningly bonkers — but isn’t that want you want from a show called “Trainspotting Live”?