Coastal Railways with Julie Walters starts 8pm 26 Nov, Channel 4

[brianusa]

Programmes containing or about railways are surely fairly thick on the ground now. In the past few months I've seen Paddington, Inside the Tube, several on Crossrail, the second programme in The Channel series devoted to the railway operation of the Channel Tunnel, Julie Walters in Coastal Railways, several with Portillo, Chris Tarrant's latest Extreme Railways series, the one about Tornado's 100MPH run and a few others I can't name. Just how far CAN you travel on Britain's railways these days without running into a TV crew filming it? 

 

The Ch 5 series series currently being reshown  Inside the Tube: going Underground is probably as hard core engineering as you're likely to get on television. Rob Bell has a Masters Degree in mechanical engineering from Bath and does try to actually explain the engineering rather than just going wow- though he does that too. I've just been watching a couple of his curent Great Bridges series and on the Severn Bridge programme in particular he did a pretty good job of explaining non vertical suspension in suspension bridges, aerodynamic box girders, resonance as in the wobbly Millenium Bridge and the

 <<<< Tacoma Rapids Bridge.>>>>        He did a really good job of explaining the basic principle of the cantilever in the context of the collapse of two suspension bridges by the same designers as the Severn Bridge when they were under construction and the decks were being cantilevered out. In terms of giving ordinary viewers a degree of engineering literacy I couldn't fault it.  

Tacoma Narrows Bridge, better not be any rapids as its a principal waterway in the area!

 

Brian.

[ejstubbs]

Originally Countryfile was a programme written and produced for farmers etc and content that reflected that audience. Around a decade ago the BBC went and 'revamped' the programme in a bid to arrest its gradually declining audience figures - with most of the usefully farming stuff junked in favour of more 'lifestyle' content geared to middle class townies that liked the idea of living 'in the countryside'.

 

Unfortunately this revamp saw ratings figures increase significantly, with the basic ethos copied in numerous other programmes like Portillos railway series - which was less about railways and more about giving an opportunity to showcase various 'interesting people / places' that had nothing to do with rail transport.

 

The 2nd to last series of Time Team was also badly mucked around with - the late Mick Ashton is on record as saying he and the series producer were summoned to C4 by the new head of programmes who showed them a bit of the 'new style' Countryfile and said "that is what I want you to make"

 

The senior exec generally held responsible for the changes to both Countryfile and Time Team is Jay Hunt.  Her gardening leave from the Beeb before joining Channel 4 coincided with the employment tribunal of one of the sacked Countryfile presenters: the tribunal's ruling supporting the claims for age discrimination and victimisation were upheld on the day Hunt started her new job.

 

As Chief Creative Officer at Channel 4, the list of Hunt's major achievements includes: out-bidding the BBC for Bake Off, and buying Homeland and The Handmaid's Tale from the US.  (Someone somewhere must have a dictionary with a definition of the word "creative" which differs markedly from those in mainstream lexicons, eg Oxford defines "creative" as relating to or involving the use of the imagination or original ideas to create something, rather than having a big cheque book.)

 

Hunt resigned from Channel 4 after missing out on the Chief Exec job, and is now working at Apple (which does have a big cheque book).

Edited January 2, 2018 by ejstubbs

[Pacific231G]

The senior exec generally held responsible for the changes to both Countryfile and Time Team is Jay Hunt.  Her gardening leave from the Beeb before joining Channel 4 coincided with the employment tribunal of one of the sacked Countryfile presenters: the tribunal's ruling supporting the claims for age discrimination and victimisation were upheld on the day Hunt started her new job.

 

As Chief Creative Officer at Channel 4, the list of Hunt's major achievements includes: out-bidding the BBC for Bake Off, and buying Homeland and The Handmaid's Tale from the US.  (Someone somewhere must have a dictionary with a definition of the word "creative" which differs markedly from those in mainstream lexicons, eg Oxford defines "creative" as relating to or involving the use of the imagination or original ideas to create something, rather than having a big cheque book.)

 

Hunt resigned from Channel 4 after missing out on the Chief Exec job, and is now working at Apple (which does have a big cheque book).

I can't help seeing "Chief Creative Officer" as a role straight out of W1A, a bit like "Head of Better". In televison, creativity is or should be the core skill of everyone actually making programmes. Everyone else should just be there to support that.  

[Steamport Southport]

There's another one of these types of programme on tonight after Michael Portillo.

 

Kate Humble Off The Beaten Track,  http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09gybsx

 

 

In the first episode, Kate Humble and her Welsh sheepdog Teg travel from the most northerly farm on mainland Wales, just outside Llandudno, across to the sleepy hamlet of Nantmor in Snowdonia. Along the way, they experience the comeback of old style shepherding, learn how canine power is saving lives on the mountains and see a forest through the eyes of a pack of huskies. Kate sheds her layers to plunge naked into a freezing lake to experience the landscape in a very different way. And she finds out how to trick mushrooms into fruiting in the largest shiitake farm in the country.

 

 

I'm sure someone else has done Celebrity Walks With Dogs (or something).

 

 

 

Jason

[Captain Kernow]

I think I recall Julie Walters saying something to the effect of 'You won't catch Portillo doing this!', when she was going down the zip wire in Penrhyn Quarry.

 

I was much amused, therefore, to see Portillo doing exactly that, at that very same place, in his most recent British Railway Journey!