These WWII planes were as real as John Lewis’s bouncing foxes

Roaring low over the meadows of rural northern ireland, a Boeing Superfortress darkened the skies at the opening of My Mother And Other Strangers (BBC1).

another thundered overhead, moments later, so low the local children could almost reach up and touch the wheels. Then another.

in the village high street, nobody covered their ears. The earth didn’t shake from the battering of the four gigantic propellors on each plane. in fact, the blades of grass in the meadows didn’t even tremble.

These weren’t actual World War ii bombers, but computer-generated images, projected on to the scene like a digital slideshow. and they looked about as real as the trampolining foxes in the John Lewis ad.

That proved to be the failure of this entire drama, a boyhood memoir set in 1943. none of it was quite believable.

The situation was historically accurate: american airmen arrived at a base near the north-south border, and stirred tensions with the villagers — many of them ira sympathisers who regarded the British, not the germans, as their enemy.

But the story was as computergenerated as the aircraft. Hattie Morahan played rose, who ran the local stores, while her husband Michael (owen McDonnell) took care of the pub.

rose was English, an outsider, so naturally the republicans, with their cloth caps, scrawny scarves and glowers, would gather around

BAD TIMING OF THE WEEKEND: Dan Snow trekked to the northernmost peaks of the Rockies at the climax of Operation Gold Rush (BBC2). Trouble was, there were better mountains over on BBC1’s Planet Earth II – with snow leopards and grizzly bears. Sorry Dan, you peaked on the wrong day. her shop counter to buy tobacco in a threatening manner.

Even Michael treated her as if she didn’t belong. rose felt lonely — and being lonely, went for windswept coastal walks. Where, inevitably, she met a handsome american airforce captain with sad eyes.

aaron Staton, best known for playing the ad exec with an eyepatch in Mad Men, was the captain. He made a dutiful appearance on BBC Breakfast last Friday, when every question seemed to surprise him.

i thought that was just the actor’s ‘aw shucks’ persona, but he’s exactly like that in the drama, too, so perhaps he was in character.

While aaron was being flummoxed by the irish accents and everything else, the other airmen were wasting no time. They drank the pub dry, they taunted the menfolk over Eire’s neutrality, and fulfilled every Yanks-go-home cliche short of handing out nylons.

rose’s 16-year-old daughter was swept off her innocent feet, of course, to her parents’ disapproval. ‘She is far too young to even consider a serious relationship,’ declared rose, lapsing into the jargon of 21st-century therapists.

Meanwhile, her adolescent son watched it all, silently and quite creepily, as boys planning to write their memoirs do. if you ever find an unspeaking 12-year-old gazing intently at you, beware — he’s storing you up to be a character in a second-rate costume drama.

Silent, intense schoolboys often grow up to become conjurors, and there were half a dozen of them on The Next Great Magician (iTV) — plus one ex-schoolgirl.

Katherine Mills was easily the best of the acts, with a comic routine where she took an unsuspecting member of the public on a date that turned into an on-the-spot wedding.

But the act crowned winners was a couple of Scottish stand-up comedians whose ‘magic’ consisted of vomiting up liquids. it was not just unpleasant, it was unimpressive. Why they were chosen was not explained. There were no judges, and no public vote: the magicians picked a winner among themselves, in a backroom. Since they were discussing the secrets of magic, we were not privileged to eavesdrop.

That left the whole show feeling like a trick had been played on viewers. and probably it had, since the overall winner will be granted an hour-long TV special — iTV bosses are hardly likely to leave that to the whim of a bunch of illusionists.

There were celebrities in the audience to add some pizzazz, though more care should have been taken to book people who actually like watching magic.

Jim Carter, of Downton abbey, stared at a series of card tricks, rumbling: ‘This is very annoying.’ Carson the butler wouldn’t have stood for such foolery either.

My Mother And Other Strangers The Next Great Magician