CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night's TV
The Passengers That Took On The Train Line
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Read the small print. That’s where the devil always lurks. And buried in the reams of detail in The Passengers That Took On The Train Line (BBC2) lay the answer to why Britain’s railways are such a depressing mess.
Three-quarters of our privatised rail services, explained presenter Jacques Peretti, are owned by foreign governments
Three-quarters of our privatised rail services, explained presenter Jacques Peretti, are owned by foreign governments. The French, for example, own 35 per cent of the disastrously inept Southeastern franchise. German and Dutch taxpayers are profiting from other UK lines.
Cartoon of the night The U.S. crime drama Fargo (C4) was punctuated with doodles of a cute one-armed android called Minsky, which trotted through human history chirping its catchphrase: ‘I can help!’ Lovable Minsky deserves its own show.
Do you suppose German and French citizens care whether our trains run on time? Nein, non, not a bit.
This being the Beeb, there was not a hint that Brexit could be the salvation of our crumbling network. Yet surely it offers the opportunity to boot the Euro fat-cats off the boards of our train companies.
Little wonder that one fed-up passenger was shown staring at the list of cancellations at his local station and wailed: ‘It’s beyond farce. It’s immoral, if not fraudulent and illegal.’
But the programme ignored the power of Brexit to remedy this. Instead, it concentrated on rounding up a posse of disgruntled commuters who could bid to take over Southeastern and run it themselves.
Predictably, the conclusion was that they were doomed to failure. It felt cruel that these five well-meaning, energetic and able people were even given hope. The Department for Transport strung them along, allowing them to stake their claim, and then shifted the goal-posts by demanding a £50 million surety.
But the programme ignored the power of Brexit to remedy this. Instead, it concentrated on rounding up a posse of disgruntled commuters who could bid to take over Southeastern and run it themselves
When this latterday Famous Five managed to raise the cash, the department took the goal-posts away altogether. A bunch of amateurs would never be permitted to run a railway, thank you very much and goodbye.
This was a disheartening and frequently dull documentary. Viewers were shown endless meetings in coffee shops and pubs. We were engulfed in skiploads of paperwork . . . all for nothing.
It could have been much more fun if Watford-born Jacques hadn’t treated a day on a steam engine as a silly diversion. All over Britain, enthusiasts have renovated gleaming locomotives, polished the mahogany and brass of the carriages, and got the little lines running regular services that actually break even.
By tapping in to the sheer love that so many people have for the old-fashioned locos, these dedicated steam-lovers make their lines work. That’s who should be running our railways — Thomas the Tank Engine and friends.
Ackley Bridge
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Another nostalgic reminder of the past was served up by the schooldays soap Ackley Bridge (C4). All staff-room gossip and scraps between lads with their tie-knots askew, it harks back to Grange Hill in the Seventies.
All staff-room gossip and scraps between lads with their tie-knots askew, it harks back to Grange Hill in the Seventies
The dialogue is unconvincing, of course — for whenever adult screenwriters try to capture teen slang, it sounds comically fake. And most of the ‘child actors’ appear to be in their 20s. But since the demise of BBC’s Waterloo Road, telly has been crying out for a classroom melodrama, where not a lesson goes by without a gymslip pregnancy, an arson attempt and a spot of canoodling in the stores cupboard between the maths mistress and the head of English.
The school’s bad lad, Jordan, caused a stir when he sauntered in with a sports bag containing a baby, and blackmailed the PE teacher into looking after it for the day. Grange Hill’s scallywag Tucker Jenkins would have admired his sheer ambition.
The baby was beautifully behaved, though. There’s hope for the next generation.