All Creatures Great And Small
The Great British Sewing Bee: Celebrity Christmas Special
Anyone can play the piano, as Les Dawson used to say. It takes talent to play it badly.
Junior vet Richard Carmody (James Anthony-Rose) was bashing out Tchaikovsky’s March Of The Toy Soldiers in three different keys at once, which requires both concentration and cloth ears, on the Christmas special of All Creatures Great And Small (Ch5).
‘Will you shut that bloody racket off,’ bellowed Siegried (Sam West, always superb). I felt he was giving voice to the feelings of an entire nation that has now been subjected to the likes of Jingle Bell Rock and Step Into Christmas for far too many weeks.
All Creatures can claim to be the most diligently nostalgic show on TV. Even more than Call The Midwife, it takes pains to recreate the atmosphere as well as the details of its era. Not only the clothes and the cars but the dishes, the decor, the lighting and the precisely layered social strata evoke the 1930s.
This makes it all the more noticeable when 21st-century attitudes impose themselves on the story. Expecting her first baby while husband James was an officer in training on a wartime RAF base, Helen Herriot (Rachel Shenton) was steering clear of alcohol.
Expecting her first baby while husband James was an officer in training on a wartime RAF base, Helen Herriot (Rachel Shenton) was steering clear of alcohol
She drank water in the pub, and Siegfried didn’t even offer her a sherry as a nightcap on Christmas Eve.
We might be aghast to see a modern mum-to-be boozing, but during World War II it was as natural as chain-smoking — another period feature that the characters have quietly ditched.
The behaviour shown by James (Nicholas Ralph) was more discordant still. An apprentice pilot, he bristled at being called ‘old man’ by younger fliers.
‘You know, I’m really not that much older than you,’ he complained.
Everyone was ‘old man’ to that generation, regardless of age. In any case, it’s bizarre to see our hero taking offence at ‘micro-aggressions’ when he is about to face anti-aircraft batteries and squadrons of Messerschmitts intent on inflicting maxi-aggressions.
What really stretched credulity, though, was his decision to go AWOL after being denied Christmas leave.
Junior vet Richard Carmody (James Anthony-Rose, pictured: right) was bashing out Tchaikovsky’s March Of The Toy Soldiers in three different keys at once on the Christmas special of All Creatures Great And Small (Ch5)
An apprentice pilot, James (Nicholas Ralph) bristled at being called ‘old man’ by younger fliers
Such dereliction of duty ought to be unthinkable — his wife and friends would be appalled and disgusted, and he’d be risking court martial, imprisonment, even execution.
But instead of condemning him, his martinet of a commanding officer saw the error of his own ways and awarded the deserter a two-day home pass.
This sentimental nonsense belies the hard work of the props department and the costumers.
In the end, we’ll just have to overlook it, like the wrong notes on the piano, because the joy of this series is the constant circling of Mrs Hall (Anna Madeley) and Siegfried. Will they ever swallow their pride and admit how much in love they are?
Props and costumes combined in a gloriously silly double act, as Ghosts star Kiell Smith-Bynoe presented The Great British Sewing Bee: Celebrity Christmas Special (BBC1).
Props and costumes combined in a gloriously silly double act, as Ghosts star Kiell Smith-Bynoe presented The Great British Sewing Bee: Celebrity Christmas Special (BBC1)
Judges Patrick Grant and Esme Young set sewing challenges including Santa stockings hemmed with bells, and a transformation task that involved turning puffer jackets into giant sprouts and carrots.
The overall standard was perhaps the lowest ever seen on the Bee but singer Toyah Wilcox was furiously competitive, so much so that she brought along a photo of herself in her heyday wearing one of Esme’s Swanky Modes outfits on stage.
She also produced some Swanky jewellery, mentioning casually that she wore it to lunch with Princess Di. How did Toyah come to be friends with Diana? It’s A Mystery…