I’m sure I’m not the only Spectator writer (or reader) who doesn’t watch television any more.
I’m sure I’m not the only Spectator writer (or reader) who doesn’t watch television any more. Blame middle age, or lack of time, or the grim, brutal feeling that you’ve seen it all before and can’t be bothered to see it again, or in my particular case the eight years I spent working as a TV critic for newspapers. (In the eyes of one or two people I worked for, no longer enjoying telly would make me better qualified than ever to write about it.) But what with one thing and another, until Christmas Day I hadn’t sat down and watched anything on television (other than cricket) for about five months.
And what did I see on that day, within the slightly drunken bosom of my extended family? The Christmas Top of the Pops, of course.
For if we non-viewers have anything in common, it’s the unshakeable belief that telly has got so much worse over the years, and that all the great shows cruelly cancelled by idiot executives a few years ago should be brought back exactly the same as they were before. Not that we’d watch them ourselves, obviously. But the nation’s cultural life would surely be richer for their existence. As it happens, it’s only three years since Top of the Pops vanished, after a long and agonising decline into irrelevance. Countless producers had come along, fiddled with the format, and made the show worse. The producers of this Christmas edition were cleverer. Here were the biggest hits of the year, presented straightforwardly — no videos — but with a goodly helping of low-budget cheese. Fake snow, Santa hats, dubbed-on cheers, all in that ridiculous tiny studio watched by 11 goggle-eyed teenagers.
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