James May’s Toy Stories
BBC 2
Ghosts In The Machine
BBC 4
Pity the poor BBC – struggling to feed hungry schedules with inexpensive fodder that won’t upset anyone. That rules out original drama, of course, although the odd retread of a sedate costume drama may sneak through (Emma; the upcoming remake of Upstairs, Downstairs). In these waste not, want not times, the BBC seems to be keen to re-use what it’s already got. How about another series recycling Top Gear auto-nerd James May? Why not ask him which were his favourite toys as a child, then “supersize” them and inflict them on a bunch of modern kids? It may be pointless, self-indulgent and irritating, but for goodness sake – it’s cheap.
I have to admit I was never going to be the ideal viewer for James May’s Toy Stories, especially his homage to the Airfix model kit. Having spent my childhood nervously tip-toeing around my older brother’s fleet of Airfix battleships, sailing majestically across the living-room carpet, I feel less nostalgic than May about these devilish plastic models Such is the massive ego of the man, however, that whatever turned him on as a boy must be good for all of us. Above all, it must be just what a bunch of Telford teenagers need to wean them off their Xboxes, mobiles and iPods. Why any sane 13 year old today would want to be bothered with these fiddly construction kits – not to mention their implied obsession with the last war – is a mystery.
And yet the Telford massive put up with May and played along gamely, helping him to assemble his full-size Airfix model Spitfire in lightweight fibre glass, complete with a life-sized effigy of the great man in the pilot’s seat. Rolling it out of the aircraft hangar for an audience of Second World War veterans, they naturally felt a sense of achievement. There’s no denying the patriotic thrill of seeing Spitfire plane – beautiful and brave – roll off a production line. The kids clearly enjoyed sharing a big project that also got them on TV. But what did all that have to do with Airfix and May’s sad fixation on his childhood? Very little.
Even on BBC 4, that bastion of imagination and thoughtfulness, the BBC is cutting corners. I hate to say, it but one or two of the corporation’s social history programmes are little more than glorified clipfests. As a horror fan, I was looking forward to Ghosts In The Machine – a Halloween season history of spooky programming on the small screen. It started well enough, recalling the impact of scary dramas such as Quatermass And The Pit and 1960s MR James adaptations such as Whistle And I’ll Come To You, My Lad. Sadly, we spent very little time in the fertile era of ’60s and ’70s horror drama before speeding on to tawdry TV psychics such as Doris Stokes, the scandalous “reality drama” of Ghostwatch in 1992 (in which horrified viewers witnessed Michael Parkinson beset by demons) and today’s staged séances with Derren Brown.
Where were all those wonderful episodes of Tales Of Mystery And Imagination, The Twilight Zone and Tales Of The Unexpected that I remember fondly from my 1970s childhood? Oops, there I go – starting to sound just like the dreaded James May.
Helen Chappell
