Wainwright Walks is one of those programmes you thought had stopped being made. Back in the 90s we had Cameron McNeish taking us on Wilderness Walks around Scotland, and now we've got Watchdog's Julia Bradbury taking us on some of noted fell walker, Alfred Wainwrights favourite walks.
At first when I watched this, I was concerned that it'd be a bit too much like Bear Grylls' Born Survivor. In the first episode up Haystacks, Bradbury reflects on how lovely it is to alone on the hill. Except that she's telling a camera this, and we know that there's a whole crew accompanying her as well as a helicopter passing over from time to time to take aerial shots.
Fortunately, as she approaches the Sharp Edge on Blencathra, she comes clean, and the camera pulls back to reveal another cameraman, a sound recordist, assorted other crew members and a very sprightly safety guide who's said to be a frankly unbelievable sixty (he look in his forties). The tricky, and slightly scary Sharp Edge is then tackled, and although we know there are no crew members in shot, there's no pretense that they're not around.
By the time this programme had finished I was literally checking out train times for getting up to the lakes.
Remember Shaun the Sheep? He first appeared in A Close Shave, and now he's got his own series being shown on CBBC One. It's a series of 40 seven minute episodes commissioned by the BBC amongst others from Aardman. The first couple of episodes aired today at 3.45pm. What do you mean you weren't home from work in time? Record them.
The first couple of episodes involve Shaun and his fellow sheep chums getting into mischief behind their farmer's back doing things like organising football matches with a stray cabbage, or filling a swimming pool with hot water. It's all done in a typically inventive Aardman with clever references that are going to fly straight over young kids' heads but will tickle watching parents (or *ahem* other interested parties).
Great fun, and as The Stage says "Hurrah for great childrens' TV."
What a shame that ITV couldn't commission something like this. Let's put it this way - negotiate a slice of the revenues from toy tie-ins and you're looking at something that generates bucket loads of cash. ITV would prefer to run Supermarket Sweep or Morse repeats.