James cooks up a nice day at the seaside
What was your first TV memory?
Muffin The Mule, the puppet who used to dance on a piano played by Annette Mills, Sir John Mills’s sister. I remember coming home from school and being upset that it wasn’t on. Mum told me that the lady who played the piano had died. I said, “Well, they could still show Muffin!” I just wanted to see Muffin dance.
Who was your first TV crush?
I suppose it was Susan Stranks on Magpie. I’m afraid Blue Peter went out the window when she was on! She was married to Robin Ray, not that I was that bothered at 13.
What was your first TV appearance?
In 1970 when I was in The Strawbs. I was asked to write the theme tune for Michael Aspel’s show, Ask Aspel, and then they invited me on.
What is your favourite current show?
I’m a car nut so I never miss an episode of Car SOS or Strippers: Cars For Cash on National Geographic. And I always watch any repeat of a sitcom written by Jimmy Perry and David Croft who were comedy geniuses.
Which TV show would you take to a desert island?
You Rang, M’Lord?, it was a Croft and Perry sitcom from the early 90s, set in an upper-class home. It came after Hi-de-Hi! and had a lot of the same stars. Lovely period comedy, not laugh-out-loud funny but always a smile and a chuckle.
What TV show would you like to put out of its misery?
The worst sitcom I ever saw was
Big Top. It had the worst script, the worst cast and it was the worst idea that anyone ever put on screen. Amanda Holden was in it. If ever there was a show worthy of TV Hell...
Guiltiest TV pleasure?
I love watching children’s programmes, like Peppa Pig. I watch them so I can have proper discussions with my grandchildren... believe that if you like!
What are you up to at the moment?
I’ve been filming for the new series of Car SOS but I don’t see that as work – I’m such a petrolhead, I’ve been in my element all day. My call time was 11am but I got there two hours early! I’ve also been touring Eastern Europe doing piano shows with an orchestra.
GARRY BUSHELL
Rick is on
Car SOS, National Geographic, Thursday, 8pm
ANOTHER week, another travelogue. Well, it is time you booked that holiday.
James Martin’s Great British Adventure
(ITV, Monday) was far too good a programme to be hidden away in an afternoon slot.
But let’s not complain about having good stuff on during daytime hours, otherwise we’ll be stuck with re-runs of Z Cars, Bargain Hunt and The Sweeney. Actually, come to think of it...
Martin makes an excellent travelling food show, especially in the country that he rightly says “has it all”. No argument here. He began in the Orkneys on the uniquely named “Mainland”. At least you know where you are.
After meeting up with his fellow celebrity chef, the excellent Nick Nairn, he took himself off to a fishmongers. He was very pleasantly surprised – so were we. Our intrepid traveller managed to buy a pat of Orkney butter and half a dozen local scallops for £10. Has inflation not arrived in the Orkneys? Was this actually a lost episode for Eat Well For Less?
But we were just waiting for Martin to get his hands on some famous Orkney crab, which he duly did, cooking it up in some pasta on the seafront along with two morsels of salient advice. The first, from the late great Antonio Carluccio, was “pasta water should taste like the sea” and, secondly, always “take the pasta to the pot”. Who cared by that stage? We were starving!
Further north, DCI Jimmy Peres (Douglas Henshall) was back on (BBC One, Tuesday) doing his best to kill our appetite with a genuinely gruesome opening to a new series. On the Orkneys, all you can hear are the delightful sounds of sea birds chasing the fishing fleet but on Shetland they were looking for fingerprints on a severed arm washed up on a beach. Remind me not to take up fishing rights there. As it turned out, and even more gruesomely, there were no prints. They had been removed.
Things happen at a pace on these islands. Within another 10 minutes, we had a severed head in a cool-bag. That was some picnic. Peres and female right-hander Tosh were rightly shocked. Indeed everyone in the nick looked like they’d just lost a close
Shetland
appeal to a modern audience, who moan about the justice system, is that he advances the cause of old police methods once demonstrated by DCI Gene Hunt in Life On Mars. If he wants an answer, or just fancies summary justice, he starts swinging. It’s not popular but it works on TV, at least.
The second part of Jeremy Paxman’s documentary,
(Channel 5, Tuesday) was a gem. It wasn’t so much the subject matter, which was nonetheless compelling, but Paxo’s “reaction face”. It was sensational. Has he had special gurning training? After years of hearing evasive nonsense from politicians, Paxo knows how to contort his face to communicate a spectrum of disbelief, shock and contempt. It worked particularly well with royal journalists who, of course, we have no reason to believe.
But his real exclusive, in the true sense of the word, was telling his audience about his private lunch with Princess Diana, an invitation which arrived “unexpectedly”. She likened Kensington Palace to “living in Coronation Street, because of the twitching curtains”. It could have been much worse. Hollyoaks? Emmerdale? Imagine Diana’s fireside chats in the Woolpack. What a missed opportunity.
Children
FPaxman on the Queen’s This Farming Life
INALLY, (BBC Two, Wednesday) was a hardcore soap opera for livestock. Who wasn’t hooked by the harrowing story of Daisy Duke, the huge bull who (spoiler alert) was carted off to the abattoir because of “bovine TB”? Or the farmer back from his honeymoon who found that one of his buffalo had given a positive reading for another hideous bovine infection? It was even threatening his ability to make buffalo mozzarella. We’re interested now! It was a series for extreme Countryfile fans only.
But there was a glimmer of good news, too. One farmer from the Cairngorms would soon have 359 new lambs, which are so sought after that he can sell them as pets for up to £1,000.
Thankfully, everyone – lambs included – carried on in the face of terrible setbacks. The farmers also fed us with enjoyable farming lore as they did so. Said one caught in a herding trauma: “That’s sheep for you. Never do what you want them to.” It’s not only sheep.