Bring back Christmas telly, demands DONALD CLARKE
THIS IS THE one time of the year when young idiots are required to pay attention to the old fathead wittering drunkenly on the sofa. Where the hell do you think you’re going? Turn off the Sony Playwhatsit and listen to your sclerotic Uncle Screenwriter. You only get to see me once a year. So, you’re damn well going to listen when I tell you how great things used to be and how bloody rotten they are now.
In the early 1970s there was a fine sitcom called . . . Oi! I won’t tell you again. Sit down and listen or you’ll be taking that mince pie as a suppository.
In the early 1970s there was a fine sitcom called Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads?In one characteristically superb Christmas episode, Rodney Bewes, bemoaning a late change in seasonal plans, whined: "But The Great Escapeis on. Isn't it? It usually is."
I cannot find the words to describe how unimaginably hilarious this joke was. In part, its immortal brilliance resulted from an entirely unexpected lunge into post-modernity (as it was then rarely called). Ian La Frenais and Dick Clement, the series' writers, were making a joke about Christmas telly on the Christmas telly. Up to that point, only Monty Python had dallied with this class of comic self-regard.
The quip also constituted an extraordinarily acute slice of observational comedy. That is to say, The Great Escapereally was on television every Christmas. Do you get it? Do you? Show some bleeding respect!
Somewhat poignantly, newspapers and magazines still pretend that people care what films play over Christmas. Look, Where Eagles Darecan be seen on the War Channel at 5am on Boxing Day. Die Hard 4 is making an appearance on New Year's Eve.
Of course, those films are playing. Every film is on somewhere at some point. Come to think of it, now that we have the internet and the Personal Video Recorder, every film is on at every hour of every day. The TV listings may as well just list the URL for the Internet Movie Database beside an empty calendar for the next two weeks. Fill it in yourself.
It wasn't always like this. Before the videorecorder became commonplace . . . Look, I'm not going to tell you again . . . Christmases genuinely revolved around the telly schedules. Deaf Auntie Maureen, simple-minded cousin Bert and sociopathic Grandpa Joe would all crowd round the Bush Maxiview 2000 to enjoy this season's "big film". Oh man. It might be The Towering Inferno. It could be The Sting.If you were really lucky it was The Great Escape.
Such screenings were a real event. Most importantly, they imposed a blissful collective silence. For two lovely hours you wouldn’t have to listen to your appalling relatives droning on about their illnesses and worries. Nobody whined about how frightful the modern world had become.
Now I’ve got your attention. Doesn’t sound so bad. Does it?
