Like the BBC, W1A is easier to admire than to love
‘How about a BBC News forecast app? Like the weather forecast but with emojis. Each day, it’ll be, like, Italy: smiley face. Syria: droopy mouth. Russia: angry face.” Unfold your Brompton bike because (BBC Two) was back for a third series of self-reflexive BBC satire and management gobbledegook.
In a critical year for the Corporation, the Charter Renewal Group – chaired by head of values Ian Fletcher (Hugh Bonneville, sporting a sharp new haircut) – was launching the “More of less” initiative. Its mission: “To identify what the BBC does best and find more ways of doing less of it better”.
As always, scenes were stolen by monstrous PR guru Siobhan Sharpe (Jessica Hynes), who airily declared that “nobody watches TV anymore – that’s not an overstatement, it’s an uber-statement”. She proposed turning the Beeb into a Youtube copycat called “BBC Me”.
It was all bitingly written, beautifully observed and brilliantly performed (oh, the things Sarah Parish and Monica Dolan can do with a brief pause or flickering facial expression). Broadcasting House was a place of frantic buckpassing and right-on red tape. A place where job titles included “director of better” and “head of strategic governance”. A place of pointless meetings on dog-shaped designer chairs beneath a Mary Berry mural.
However, I found it easier to admire than to love. Writer-director John Morton’s script made you smirk at its cleverness, rather than chuckle aloud at its gags. Laugh-out-loud moments were rare amid all the spoof corporate-speak. I sometimes wondered how in-jokes about viral memes, skinny flat whites and silent discos would play outside the (incoming cliché) metropolitan liberal elite.
There was also a rather clumsy sub-plot about a cross-dressing pundit on Match of the Day. Instead, the highlights of this opening episode were the will-they-or-won’t-they romances. Intern Will (Hugh Skinner) and his boss Izzy (Ophelia Lovibond) have become a sort of “meedja” version of Tim and Dawn from The Office. Yeah, sure. No, cool. Say again?
Meanwhile, the permanently exasperated Ian could never quite express his feelings for “head of inclusivity” Lucy (Nina Sosanya) – just Olivia Colman’s PA Sally couldn’t with him in W1A’S predecessor, London Olympics-organising mockumentary Twentytwelve. When it uses its heart as well as head, W1A goes up a gear.
When Blind Date was in its Cilla Black-fronted Eighties pomp, some of the best episodes featured mature singletons rather than preening young show-offs. It was similar on Blind Date’s 21st-century equivalent, the ever-entertaining
(Channel 4).
As it returned for a new series, sparky octogenarian Doreen wasn’t ready to give up on love – despite saying “without make-up, I look like Dracula”. Her date was chivalrous 86-year-old author James. When Doreen complained that the rose on their table-for-two was fake, he promised to send her one from his own garden. In return, Doreen offered him a chocolate from the stash in her handbag.
“It didn’t take us long to get to know each other,” Doreen twinkled afterwards. James replied, quick as a flash: “Well, we haven’t got long to take, have we?”
Elsewhere in the camera-rigged restaurant of romance, teaching assistant Liberty was seeking a man who could handle her sequin-spangled trousers and “right amount of crazy”. Stockbroker Pearse seemed up to the job. They kissed, held hands and are still dating months later.
Finally, there was a political truce between Conservative Party activist Lettie and Lib Dem supporter Fred. He was winningly geeky. She confessed to a crush on George Osborne and insisted that Tories “don’t all ride around on ponies drinking Bollinger”.
It seemed promising until a closing caption said: “Their coalition couldn’t maintain a united front. They both plan to stay in the single market for now.” The next caption was much more cheering: “James invited Doreen to visit his rose garden. Their relationship is blooming”.
First Dates isn’t the most profound programme but boy, does its fiendishly engaging format work. It rarely leaves me without a song in my heart and a soppy grin on my face. Sometimes, that’s all TV needs to do. W1A ★★★ First Dates ★★★★