Revamp of BBC iPlayer is a dramatic improvement

IN the short days of deep winter, like many others I turn to BBC iPlayer.

And what have they done to it since last year’s lockdown?

The drama section has been completely revamped, with larger-size promotional images of programmes.

I hate it when they change things. It’s rarely for the better.

But this time it is. There are now more pages of programmes, almost 400 choices from period drama to Murder On

The Orient Express (Albert Finney version, much the best).

I’ve managed to finish Shetland – anything with Douglas Henshall in it is worth watching, and now I’m on the Finnish crime drama Man In Room 301.

You have to have your wits about you for this one. The action flips through locations and timelines. It’s not helped by the soundtrack. Finnish is the most complicated language imaginable, so you have to keep your eyes on the subtitles.

I’m surprised that some of the titles that would upset the woke brigade are still on the schedule: Murdered By My Father, Murdered For Being Different and Murdered By My Boyfriend. I haven’t watched any of them – perhaps I should to find out what they’re aiming at.

If your taste is 1950s Hollywood, and there is much to be said for a piece of swashbuckling nonsense to while away an afternoon, you can choose between Robin Hood and Blackbeard the Pirate.

One way and another, I think they’ve done a good job with the revamp.

There’s more choice, it’s better laid out and goes some way to easing the pain of the £159 licence fee.

Better enjoy it now, before the Tories take it away, as they undoubtedly wish to, in their long vendetta against the BBC.