All comforts great and small are back
WE CAN RELAX. Television is returning to “normal”. No more endless streaming of shows you’ve forgotten you’ve watched because period drama is back. Endeavour and All Creatures Great And Small (Channel 5, Thursday) have returned for new series, and it’s great to see them again, both bursting with charming nuggets of immaculate nostalgic detail. It also gives us the opportunity to say, “There wasn’t much traffic around in the 1930s, dear. Perhaps we could go for a holiday there next year!”
Yes, fictional Darrowby in the Yorkshire Dales – real location Grassington – is where our lovelorn vet James Herriot (Nicholas Ralph) finds himself again. He did flirt with the idea of staying with his family in Glasgow – well for about 10 seconds – before he swiftly jumped into his little vintage car and drove back to Yorkshire. Amazing, how it always starts.
Lovelorn? You’ll recall his romantic interest Helen Alderson decided to ditch her rich lord of the manor for someone with substantially fewer prospects, namely James, but to do so immediately back then would have been unbecoming. So, she has to appear indecisive and deeply troubled. Helen does this well.
In the first episode, we had a nicely orchestrated dance around the story of whether to put down the Aldersons’ new dog because it was terrifying the neighbour’s sheep. So while Helen and James were looking seriously at each other about issues of animal welfare, Helen was really thinking, “I wonder if he would put out the bins…?” James was thinking: “What does she see in me?” Expect more of this before they succumb in a deserted haybarn one afternoon.
Oh, and the dog was saved by the way, but the parrot, sorry budgie, in another important plot, was not. In the hands of dippy vet Tristan (Callum Woodhouse) it quickly became a dead one. Bereft of life, it rested in peace. I expected a Python to walk into the room.
Comforting, familiar and beautifully shot, All Creatures is so professionally made, it feels like it could go for years – it’s decades before the traffic arrives!
Endeavour (ITV, Sunday ) however is beginning to run out of road. Now set in 1971 and with an eye-popping production design, I feel sure Morse would have joined the choir by now, and started playing endless recordings of Mozart operas. Yes, he’s drinking a lot – to be expected – but has he got too miserable, too soon? Of course, he’s pining for that Italian beauty from an earlier series.
He did return to Lonsdale, his old Oxford college, in this episode but there’s always something strange about watching the same actor in two different Sunday night dramas. At the same time on BBC One, Shaun Evans is also the apparently malevolent chief petty officer on board cavernous submarine Vigil (BBC One, Sunday) who appears to have greater depths. Indeed, he dissembles very well. Is he a spy, or is he a double agent?
Back on ITV, young Morse was walking into Lonsdale College after that bomb attack. I almost shouted at the telly, “Arrest that man… he’s working for the Russians!”
Meanwhile, actor Roger Allam continues as the star turn Fred Thursday. It was impressive to see him use his fists in the first two minutes to remind us that the police were still using the old methods. Bish! Bosh! That will stop those dodgy guys ever swapping those
football cards again. Morse was something of a lost cause in the episode but there was a nice touch at the end as he bemoaned, “I wasn’t chosen for a team…”
Thursday replied: “I chose you.” Buck up your ideas matey, as “old” Strange used to say. Just think in another four years, The Sweeney will have started and we can have a car-screeching, “We haven’t had our dinner!” cross-over episode.
Genre-defying Take A Hike (BBC Two, Monday-friday) was bonkers but entertaining. I can’t really explain why, but it’s like a reality show with rolling hills and ramblers. It’s also a gameshow with contestants competing for £500 worth of vouchers, a golden walking stick – along with a hundredweight of Voltarol!
Contestant Helen, who was quite bossy, took the first walk and scored well, while Julian, an eco-loving teaching assistant from Barnstaple, introduced us to “tree licking”. Branching out from tree hugging obviously. We then had “laughing meditation”. You’re joking. And on it went.
As the chosen five are very different in backgrounds, it’s a rather intriguing show. I may even watch the entire week’s programmes. The gum tree at the bottom of my garden won’t be safe from me.
But if I’m honest, I’m really only watching for comedian Rhod Gilbert’s hilarious narration. One competitor,
Rosie, who’s off a farm, wasn’t taken with Julian at all. “I think it’s going to be rubbish,” she shouted. Rod’s quip: “Keep up that positive thinking, Rosie.” We could all do with a bit of that.