Making Holby hip again

I’M SO annoyed to hear they’re going to axe HOLBY CITY (BBC1, 8.20pm), that I’ve decided to start watching it.And before you pull me up on that (“Hang on, Mike, you’re meant to be a TV critic,” you cry. “What do you mean, you’re going to start watching it?”) allow me to explain why I currently don’t.

I actually have two very sound professional reasons. Namely:

1. I don’t want to

2. You can’t make me

Also, if you fancy a third, I’m very squeamish. Blood and gore and innards are not my thing, not even the fake kind. Sorry if that makes me sound weird. But yes, despite all that, I’m going to start watching Holby City because I think we all should.

Forget silly petitions and all that social media hashtaggy nonsense, between us let’s give the BBC something to really think about.

If we current non-watchers do our bit, I reckon we could get

Holby’s ratings up from their current figure of three million (which is still pretty decent, I might add) to, oh, I don’t know, would 67 million be feasible, do you suppose? It’s worth a try.

Then, once we’ve done that, they’ll have to change their minds, won’t they, and make the savings elsewhere?

Maybe cut their current number of dreary football pundits, for example? Name me someone who’d care.

So anyway, I’ve taken a look at tonight’s Holby City and I think I’m going to like it.

It starts with a very powerful scene where a bearded man is being shouted at by a lady. I think the bearded man must be one of the surgeons. I do hope so, because a few moments later the same chap is cutting someone open with a scalpel.

“You don’t need a hip!” the lady sounds as though she’s yelled at him. I must admit this is an odd thing to hear in a medical drama.

Maybe that’s the real reason the programme is getting the chop, because it is spreading some dangerous ideas.

Unless, of course, she’s saying it’s a “hit” he doesn’t need. In that case, silly me, panic over, it just means the surgeon is a drug addict.

Elsewhere tonight, just as France are kicking off against Germany, or possibly the other way around, in Euro 2020 (ITV, from 7.10pm), they’re making incy-wincy lemon meringue pies in BAKE OFF:THE PROFESSIONALS (C4, 8pm). That, and tiny tiramisu.

But the real fun comes when the teams are asked to transform a fruit crumble into a fine-dining experience, which is something I suspect nobody in the entire world actually feels the slightest need for.

For one team, their daft towering fruit crumble edifice proves, er, less than structurally sound.

Still, at least it has lived up to its name.