British television

This article first appeared in The Age on July 27, 2002

I have something I need to share with you all. In the style of Jerry Springer, or for those with a bit more class, Oprah, I need to make a public confession: I feel ambivalent about most British television. There are notable exceptions: Monty Python, The Goodies, or more recently This Life and those talk-show take-offs Ali G and The Kumars at No. 42. But for the most part my feeling about British TV verges on anxiety. It is not rational. Even when the show is good enough to keep me transfixed for two hours (as did the first episode of the new series of Dalziel and Pascoe, screening next Friday at 8:30pm) I am never quite convinced.

Show me something like Born & Bred, which started last Saturday (7:30pm), and runs for another five weeks, and my eyes glaze over. I start to think about folding washing and doing the dishes. You might think this is reasonable, if you, like me, have an aversion to 1950s small town British life, peopled with loveable eccentrics and an analysis of the National British Health scheme as a riveting subtext. But like I say, it is more than that. The father, Arthur, in this father–son series is played by James Bolam. I have not seen James Bolam since a series in the 1970s called When the Boat Comes In. I cannot look at him without chanting ‘who will have a fishy / on the little dishy / when the boat comes in’.

This is my problem. I grew up during the seventies watching the ABC rather than commercial channels because it was GOOD FOR ME and most of what was screened on the ABC was (and still is) British. American television was more likely to DO ME HARM, which of course made it all the more titillating. I do not have the same ‘issues’ around Australian television, probably because years of sneaking up to watch No. 96 from behind the couch made it feel satisfyingly naughty.

I will forgive American television shows the most unbelievable crap, but give me a mildly forced laugh, which there were a few of last night in the first episode of Life as We Know It (Fridays, 8:00pm) and I want to dismiss the show out of hand. This is despite the fact that I have spent years listening to canned laughter on an embarrassingly wide range of US sitcoms over the years – and you can’t get much more forced than that. To be fair, Life As We Know It is well written with sharp lines delivered at the rate of machine-gun fire and played well by stars Richard Wilson and Stephanie Cole (who have both had a number of roles in an impressive list of shows I have never seen, because of my aforementioned problem).

But I don’t feel ambivalent about The Way We Live Now. The BBC historical drama has been rescued for me by the excellent run of shows there have been in recent years, like Pride & Prejudice and Great Expectations which were so good I abandoned my own prejudice (and indeed pride) and was forced to concede that shows full of people wearing costumes could be compelling, and yes, sexy. Ironically I find the moral dilemmas faced by characters in these series face more relevant to life today than the British shows that are actually set in the present. It is not just the original writers, good as they are – Anthony Trollope, Jane Austen and Charles Dickens. The adaptors too seem to have a fine eye for the big picture where as the contemporary shows seem hell bent on keeping it small, playing it safe and for a laugh. But I am sure, having made the leap forward with costume drama, and with sharing such as I have done today, I may be healed and think there is nothing better on a Saturday night than staying home and watching The Bill.

Permanent Link for this Article