EastEnders has been sunk in the most obvious manner possible.
Its viewers have scattered to a thousand different channels and screening services and it hasn’t got anything like the imagination and talent needed to win them back.
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In another way, however, the soap’s triumph couldn’t be more complete, as almost every British drama now marches to the same preachy, issue-driven tune it’s been playing ever since the mid-1980s.
Take, for instance, World On Fire, which returned to BBC1 this week following a four-year hiatus without me being able to remember a thing about the first series beyond Lesley Manville’s turn as Robina, the show’s Hyacinth Bucket matriarch.
This is not a good sign for any drama that really fancies itself as “epic”.
‘Such an ankle-spraining drip’
I should start, then, by reminding everyone, including myself, that World On Fire is supposedly set in late 1940 and vaguely revolves around a route-one love triangle involving Kasia, a feisty Polish resistance fighter, and Lois, an identically feisty English ambulance driver, who are both smitten with a bloke called Harry Chase, who’s such an ankle-spraining drip of a character he couldn’t carry this storyline if he had the whole Arctic convoy fleet to support him.
Anti-Semitism and racism are at the heart of this drama that spans Britain and Germany, as well as Africa. They threaten to devastate a nation and a planet.
The slightly weird twist with World On Fire, though, is that the country in question is Britain, which is so consumed by bigotry you wonder why this Beeb version of it didn’t just throw its lot in with the Third Reich rather than stand alone against Hitler.
It is clear that Germany has problems as well with its far right. Back in Blighty, though, jeez, it’s out of control.
RAF officers cannot hide their loathing of a Jewish Spitfire pilot, The Royal Navy recruit is obnoxiously sexist and the Allied Army top brass, in Egypt, is openly racist about its “cannon fodder” Indian soldiers, who all spit feathers about the hated British Empire which, in reality, 2.5million of them volunteered to defend.
It may also be a coincidence that Winston Churchill’s name isn’t mentioned in episode one.
What’s undeniable, though, is that World On Fire isn’t fighting a World War at all, it’s merely embroiled in another front of the 2023 culture war.
This much becomes obvious halfway through episode one, when Kasia tries to take a seat with her Polish family for afternoon tea and is met with some fat-headed prejudice from an oafish English cliché who fumes: “I’m not moving anything for a bunch of refugees. You swan in here, speaking foreign. You robbed someone to buy this. You’re supposed to be poor and blah blah blah.”
Kasia’s less-than-subtle lecture, and the subsequent beating of WOF would be enough to make even a great writer struggle. But it’s not Bad Day At Black Rock we’re dealing with here.
It’s more S**t Afternoon In London W1 and the writer, David Bowker, who works with a ballpoint crowbar, clearly has neither the intention nor ability to let go of his political obsessions.
You can’t imagine for a moment anyone at the BBC thought he needed to be reined in either and told: “Hating certain aspects of British history is one thing, but cutting and pasting those views all over our finest hour requires a bit more restraint and historical nuance.”
For you know, instinctively, the BBC agrees with WOF’s agenda and you might also wonder why the corporation puts itself through the torment of trying to entertain Britain when it so obviously hates the majority of its population.
Until you’ve met a few BBC executives, though, you cannot begin to understand the masochistic, middle-class pleasure they get from being paid a fortune just to tell Britain we’re racist, sexist, Empire-loving untermensch on an endless hectoring loop.
EastEnders. You’re done with your work on Earth.
Expected morons at the bagging area
THE Chase: Celebrity Special, Bradley Walsh: “In 1998, the Nagano Winter Olympics were held in what country?”
Adam Thomas: “London.”
The Chase, Bradley Walsh: “Which Australian actress starred in the TV drama Wanderlust?”
John: “Jason Donovan.”
Bradley Walsh: “Which of the Queen’s children first married 20 years after the Coronation?”
Martin: “Prince William.”
Tipping Point, Ben Shephard: “Ealing, Acton and Chiswick are in which capital city of the UK?”
Emma: “Pass.” (Rpt)
Random TV irritations
ITV’s Riches romping away with the title Worst Drama of 2023.
Chris Ramsey reaching three “wows” a minute on Who Do You Think You Are?
Justin Rowlatt from BBC News, the globetrotter who is dishevelled and travelling to Alicante. To tell us off on climate change. Excessive use of the affectionate term “broski” on Love Island.
ITV is shamefully showing a replay of Tipping Point: the Best Ever Finals in prime time on Saturday nights, as though a guy called Keith against The Endgame were Mbappe and Messi.
Viewers deserve better.
FIRST up on Live: Lost Dogs With Clare Balding was: “Cookie, a seven-month- old Maltipoo who went missing, five weeks ago, in Wembley.”
Mason Mount also appeared in Manchester, 13 months after his disappearance in 2022. It is not all hopeless.
Women’s woke cups
A WOMEN’S World Cup prediction, based on BBC and ITV’s dreary coverage of the first two games. During the entire tournament, there will not be a single “goalkeeping howler”, “schoolgirl error”, “high and hopeless penalty”, or any of the other mistakes that litter the men’s game.
It’s not something that pundits or commentators are willing to admit out loud.
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This dishonesty is perpetrated in the name all those who are deemed worthy and woke.
The irony here, though, is that stinging criticism and brutal honesty, from the likes of Roy Keane, Chris Sutton and Graeme Souness, has been the box office making of the men’s game and until the women’s version is self-confident and truthful enough to tell us what we can see with our own eyes, it’ll never have anything like broadcast equality, let alone the same number of viewers.
Clare Balding’s LIVE Lost Dogs With Clare Balding on Channel 5 had it all. Joy, heartache, innuendo, a vet who thought the best way to cement a relationship with your dog was to “think outside the box and take them for a good sniff” and Sir Bruce Forsyth’s daughter, Debbie, who got back her two stolen mutts after the Play Your Cards Right host launched a TV appeal for their return.
Everything, that is, except for the correct response when Clare asked Debbie: “What do you think you’ve learned from your experience?”
Nothing is gained by buying a pair.
This game is not for you
CLARIFICATION: Live: Lost Dogs With Clare Balding: “A Maltipoo is very sought after,” unless you’re on a Zoom call, when it’s bloody mortifying.
KUMAR SANGAKKARA: “Ali didn’t look his usual bubbly self. He’s not usually bubbly anyway.”
Novak Djokovic: “I won many close matches in the last year including against Roger in 2019.”
Andrew Strauss: “That’s the perfect delivery, just not low enough.”
Graham Wray, Compiled
TV Gold
THE staggering Sixth Commandment performances, on BBC1, of Timothy Spall, Anne Reid, Sheila Hancock and Eanna Hardwicke, who will sweep the board at next year’s Baftas, if the awards have any sense and credibility left.
Sky Documentaries’ powerful and touching Right To Fight, charting the heroic pioneers of women’s boxing in the 1970s.
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And Bradley Walsh’s brilliant introductions on The Chase, which are the only things that might actually convince you ITV’s telling you the truth when it claims, “Comedy’s back in the building”, and they deserve celebrating.
“Will it be The Dark Destroyer? The face of a man with his tackle trapped in the slats of a deckchair.”
Enjoy the best TV lies, delusions, and misunderstandings of this week.
The Katie Piper Breakfast Show, Katie Piper: “Jayde (Adams), you have many achievements. You’re a very impressive person.”
Love Island, Ella B: “Honestly, I’m a girls’ girl.”
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And Good Morning Britain, Susanna Reid: “Owen (Jones), you make a very interesting point.”
No he doesn’t, Susanna. It’s just the same bumptious “whataboutery” Owen Jones always resorts to when he knows he’s in the wrong but can’t quite bring himself to say so because his whole far left fantasy world would unravel if he admitted just one tiny part of it was a load of self-loathing student bks.
EASTENDERS, Bobby Beale: “Any tips for tracking down missing relatives?”
Try Casualty, or a pantomime.
Every week, we will feature a lookalike.
THIS week’s winner is the Neanderthal man, recently seen in Central Recorder, and DIY SOS presenter Nick Knowles.
Paul Kitchener from Deptford in South East London.
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