CHRISTOPHER STEVENS reviews last night’s TV: Spooktacular sitcom-hit Ghosts will haunt our screens for years
Ghosts
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Guy Martin: The World’s Fastest Electric Car
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The high point for sitcom was the 1980s. Every night of the week saw wonderful new comedy, featuring big names.
Hit followed hit — Hi-de-Hi!, Birds Of A Feather, Bread, Just Good Friends, Fresh Fields, The New Statesman, Sorry! — with stars including Julia McKenzie, Rik Mayall and Ronnie Corbett.
All those comedies have two things in common. They were genuinely funny at the time . . . and they are never repeated now.
Even the top-rated comedy of the decade, Only Fools And Horses, is rarely seen, except for a few well-worn moments on compilation shows. The truth is, it looks dated, like almost all its contemporaries.
From the 1970s, you’ll see Fawlty Towers and Dad’s Army but little else. Certainly not old favourites Are You Being Served? or It Ain’t Half Hot Mum.
Many of the gags are away to one side, just waiting to be spotted on a second or third viewing. The episode opened with a lovely, sly dig at telly historians who like to dive into the dressing-up box
If any current sitcom has a hope of being repeated 40 years from now, bet on Ghosts (BBC1). It’s very funny — but so were lots of great comedies that have faded into obscurity.
More importantly, it feels timeless. That’s partly because most of the characters are in historical costumes, from Victorian snob Lady Fanny Button (Martha Howe-Douglas) to Regency poet Thomas (Mathew Baynton).
Mostly, though, it is simply because the characters are the comedy. The more we get to know them, the funnier it all is.
This time, we learnt more about Sir Humphrey, the Tudor nobleman (Laurence Rickard) whose decapitated corpse has been searching for his head since the series began. The story of how he got his severance was both silly and touching, like so much in Ghosts.
And it’s overflowing with jokes for everyone. The humour is innocent enough for children to enjoy, yet you’ll find smutty sniggers if you look — especially from Simon Farnaby as sleazy MP Julian, who died with his trousers off.
Many of the gags are away to one side, just waiting to be spotted on a second or third viewing. The episode opened with a lovely, sly dig at telly historians who like to dive into the dressing-up box.
Don’t worry if you missed half the jokes. There’ll be loads of chances to catch them again. Ghosts will be haunting our screens for years.
Petrolhead shows such as Top Gear and The Grand Tour will be dead and gone, though, after the government ban on new petrol and diesel cars comes into force in 2030.
Bike and van fan Guy Martin isn’t relishing the prospect. He tried to generate some enthusiasm on The World’s Fastest Electric Car (C4) but it was easy to see he detests the technology.
What he loves is an old-fashioned internal combustion engine: ‘Round-and-roundy bits, up-and-downy bits, running on dinosaur juice.’
Guy and a mechanic mate put a Tesla engine into an old VW Beetle to see if they could beat the speed record . . . set by a Tesla. Oddly enough, they couldn’t come close.
Much of the 90-minute show was filler, padded out as Guy made an electric motor from a potato and paper clips, and tried to set batteries on fire.
Bike and van fan Guy Martin isn’t relishing the prospect. He tried to generate some enthusiasm on The World’s Fastest Electric Car (C4) but it was easy to see he detests the technology.
The only segment worth watching was his drive from Grimsby to John O’Groats in a new electric vehicle [EV]. The round trip took 27 hours and involved ten recharging stops — with battery top-ups at almost double the cost of diesel fuel.
That experiment comes as Downing Street climate spokeswoman Allegra Stratton admitted this month that she hasn’t bought an EV because she needs to make 250-mile journeys.
Clearly, in ten years’ time, it won’t just be car shows facing a problem. We will all have the handbrake on.
Underwhelmer of the week: The other Longleat giraffes were looking down on Little Rudy, as Animal Park (BBC1) returned. The three-year-old is just 11 ft 6 in tall, 6ft shorter than a big adult. Maybe he should self-identify as an antelope. Then he’d be huge.
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