11:38am Monday 29th June 2009
By Catherine Cain
Sunday evening television is supposed to be restful, isn’t it? Surely it’s designed to provide a soothing close to the weekend, something to lull you gently into a pleasantly comatose state before the dratted alarm goes off at 6.30am on Monday morning ushering in the horrors of the working week ahead.
Speaking for myself, there’s nothing I enjoy more of a Sunday evening than lolling in front of the TV while two of my most vital bodily organs are had at work digesting something bland.
On an ideal day of rest, at around 8pm my stomach will be going to work on roast chicken and stuffing and my brain will getting to grips with the finer plot nuances of Midsomer Murders.
All I need to hear is that curiously plaintive, reedy theme tune heralding the fact that yet another homicidal maniac is on the loose in the nicer villages of the Chilterns and my eyelids start to droop in a most relaxing and comforting way.
The basic components of Midsomer Murders look very simple on the page. Cast a well-known face as the solid central character - that’s John Nettles as Detective Inspector Barnaby, aka Bergerac in a previous TV incarnation. Plonk him in the middle of some lovely scenery, including rather covetable houses; give him a loveable sidekick and a bit of family background interest (that’ll be wife Joyce and daughter Cully) and invite a nationally treasured character actor to play the part of the murderer in every episode.
Looks like a simple formula, doesn’t it?
I’m sure that’s what the makers of Kingdom thought, too.
Well-known face as the central character? That’ll be Stephen Fry. Check.
Lovely Norfolk scenery. Check.
Lovable sidekick. Check.
Family interest. Check.
Supporting roles for some of Britain’s finest character actors (aka Stephen‘s friends). Check.
Obviously, everything about Kingdom is calibrated on the Midsomer Model to provide soporific Sunday viewing of the very finest order.
Why then does the sight of Mr Fry standing forlornly on that beach as the music swells and the opening titles roll make me want to hurl a glass ornament at the TV screen with all the force of Roger Federer in mid-volley?
Could it be the sloppy writing? The totally unrealistic and unlikeable characters? The unbelievable plots? The general air of smug self-satisfaction that hangs over the series like the noxious odour escaping from a battery chicken farm (now, that, at least, is very Norfolk indeed). Or could it be the fact that Kingdom treats its viewers with an insultingly casual contempt for their intelligence and powers of discernment?
Sunday night might well be the time for the broadcast equivalent of something comfortably slipper-like, but when nothing about that slipper fits, the result is positively painful.
Even the actors in Kingdom have begun to look slightly desperate.
Ironically, I misguidedly watched last week’s episode in the depths of Norfolk and I’m almost certain that instead of turning up on set, Stephen Fry posted his performance on Twitter so detached was he from the proceedings on screen.
Meanwhile, the cast’s grasp of the lovely Norfolk accent veers worryingly from deepest Cornwall to somewhere in the foothills of the Himalayas.
Now this might sound like a bit of gratuitous Fry-bashing, but I promise you it’s not. Usually, I like Stephen Fry a lot, especially when he’s behind the desk on QI, or, more recently, valiantly filling the gaping spats of Humphrey Lyttleton on radio’s ‘I’m Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue’.
But as far as I’m concerned, the sooner he abdicates from this particular Kingdom the better.
Sunday night telly is supposed to ease you gently into the week, not wind your critical faculties to the pitch where you enter Monday morning fighting off an aneurysm.
On the subject of Mondays, I read this week that a host of stars, led by the vegetarian McCartney clan, are trying to persuade us all to give up meat for one day at the beginning of every working week. Apparently, this is not only good news for animals, but good news for the environment too, as all those methane-farting bovines are having a shocking effect on the ozone layer.
Leaving aside the delicate matter of just what we will actually do with all those flatulent cows now that we no longer need to set aside a space in the fridge for them, I’d like to say that I wholeheartedly support the idea of a meat-free Monday.
Then again, I don’t think it’s going to affect me that much.
You see, I have a general rule when it comes to eating things with a pulse - if it’s got eyelashes, I won’t go there.
A nasty incident at a petting farm in Devon several years ago when my fingers were delicately licked by new-born calves and where I was followed and nudged by two tiny lambs convinced me never to eat anything attractive ever again.
Luckily things like prawns, crab, mussels, trout and freshly-caught mackerel don’t exert much of a pull on my sense of compassionate aesthetics, although I’m still struggling with chickens. Unfortunately, to me, these look very cute when they are little and round with fluffy fat feathery drumsticks, but equally appealing surrounded by stuffing.
Interestingly, one of my friends takes the completely opposing view. She is convinced that the prettier the animal, the better it tastes. Consequently she regards anything that spends its days grubbing about on the seabed with something approaching a phobia, while she’ll think nothing of watching Bambi on DVD with her children and them serving them venison sausages for tea.
The distance between the reality of what appears on your plate and charming creatures gambolling happily in a field was brought home to me in Norfolk last weekend as we drove past a farm where several litters of tiny, adorable Gloucester Old Spot piglets roamed with their mothers.
“Oh, do look,” called out my friend from the front seat. “Aren’t they just gorgeous? Look at them suckling away.” There followed a significant silence, while a penny clanged and then she added rather faintly, “Do you suppose that’s why it’s called suckling pig then…?”
I noticed at the restaurant we went to that evening that, for her, pork sausages were definitely off the menu.
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