I found the incredibly popular television series, The Celebrity Traitors, incomprehensible. I suspect some of the participants shared my confusion. In the very first episode, the producers and backstage team must have been aghast when Richard E Grant announced, joyfully, to all and sundry, that he was a traitor; thereby undermining the basic premise of the game, which is to laboriously, over 10 episodes, worm out everyone’s hidden identities. Maybe the participants are not well briefed or overwhelmed by the stunning sets and bizarre outfits that they wear, but several of them seem very confused. As the episodes build up the players become increasingly out of touch with reality. The reality is that they are playing a game. There are many heartfelt apologies, frequent declarations of love and even tears, as their growing passion to win necessitates stabbing fellow competitors in the back. As a piece of television, it is superbly produced and I love watching it, but I have no idea what is going on.
My confusion is not the fault of the programme. It is caused by my ageing constitution. While watching television these days, I keep—as my dad would say— “dropping off”. No matter what mayhem is happening in the Scottish castle on the screen, I can fall asleep for several minutes. When I jerk awake, another character has disappeared, and I have no idea why, or how.
I have always been inclined to snooze in front of the telly. My husband, John Thaw, despaired of my inability to appreciate the subtleties in the plots of the excellent Inspector Morse series in which he appeared. He had the right to believe that weeks of line-learning and filming deserved more than me waking up at the end saying, “Who did it then?”
With age, my TV napping has become worse, so I am apt now to choose programmes that do not depend on continuity of watching.
One of my favourites is the nightly escapist programme before the grim Channel 4 News, called A New Life in the Sun. It is a sort of advert for estate agents selling properties in France, Portugal, Spain and Italy. We follow all types of British people: retirees, young couples or lonely lost folk, hoping “to live the dream”—a phrase that comes up a lot in the programme. The sun is their top priority, and a place for coffee, lunch and cocktails with other expats. Golf sometimes features in their criteria, and access to a swimming pool and preferably a beach. Curiously, “nice high ceilings” are often a main architectural plus.
Then we go back a year or two later to see how they are managing. They are transformed physically: nut brown, colourfully dressed and a lot more jolly. Some have set up businesses. It seems that the British have taken over hospitality in Europe, with their cafes, bars, gîtes and scuba diving companies. They have no intention of returning to their homeland. Or perhaps those that do are not chosen for the follow-up programme. It does make sense that cocktails in the sun are preferable to an expensive beer in some gloomy, rain-drenched city in the UK. One episode features a man who has prospered hugely in Spain, with several successful restaurants and a beautiful house that he designed and built. He has skill and style, and is very rich. He plans to hand over his empire to his children. The dream was achieved, but I wondered about the reality: they do not really belong in their new world. They have not contributed to its history. I wonder what the locals think of them. Will an endless round of expensive pleasure be enough for their children?
In contrast, another programme I watch, Our Farm Next Door, seems to me a perfect childhood, creating deeply happy, incredibly skilled human beings. It is set in the Yorkshire Dales, where a family are studying the history of an old barn and making it into a convenient home. There are nine children, all of whom seem loved and cared for. Their parents are separated but still living and working together amicably. I am not sure we are getting the full story of that, but they all seem to care for one another. All the children are perfectly at ease with animals, which means they learn about birth and death. They can handle machinery, driving and repairing massive farm machines. One of my favourite episodes revealed that all the children go to ballet class, both boys and girls. They suffer horrendous moorland weather and are more often than not coated in mud, but they are vividly alive. It seems to me a better introduction to life than eating ice cream in the sun.
I fall asleep less often when I’m watching that programme or during the medical and police programmes I am engrossed by. There is only one programme which has me on the edge of my seat, wide awake: Saving Lives at Sea, which follows the mindblowing adventures of lifeboat volunteers.
I may be sleeping myself into oblivion, but I see enough in between naps to keep me reasonably well informed.
