If BBC made The Crown a guy in wheelchair would play The Queen and Prince Philip would be played by Idris Elba

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TWENTY years ago, I was a fervent defender of the BBC. And not just because it paid my wages.

I genuinely believed that it was the gate guardian to all we hold dear, and that it alone forced ITV and Channel 4 to make quality programmes. They had to if they wanted any viewers at all.

Jeremy Clarkson says Idris Elba would play Prince Philip if the Crown was made on the BBC

Without Auntie, I reckoned that naked commercialism would take over and, soon, wed end up with television like they had in Italy or Spain.

Hours of incomprehensible game shows followed by a shouty weathergirl in not much of a bikini.

But then along came Volvo sponsors Sky Atlantic with a host of dramas in which a Swedish detective in a jumper would solve crimes by staring into a lake for six weeks. We loved them.

And then there was Amazon and Netflix, who realised that if we were going to give them our money, theyd better bloody well give us some brilliant, intelligent shows in return. So they did.

All of this meant that if we had the cash, we could get home after work and watch Breaking Bad or Ray Donovan or Dexter, or The Man In The High Castle or The Last Ship, or Ozark, or a Swedish woman staring into another lake, or Game Of Thrones, or The Sopranos or The Wire or 24 or Billions, or True Detective.

Or we could watch a skateboarding duck on The One Show.

Prince Philip on The Crown, played by Matt Smith

Then theres football. Right now, if youre a fan, you must pay BT, Sky and Amazon to stay in touch.

Thats expensive, especially as you are also forced to pay your licence fee for a service that offers almost no live football at all. Or decent sport of any kind.

To fight back against the onslaught of choice, the BBC has announced that by 2027…ready…drum roll…two-thirds of its staff will be based outside London.

So what? Sure, you can have a technology hub in Newcastle and locate your Sounds app in Salford but if all the decisions are still being made in Islington, over a plate of nuclear-free, vegetarian peace kale, it wont make any difference.

The fact is that the BBC is effectively governed by the monoculture that is social media. Its terrified of offending Twitter, so it abides by the rules.

Far-right politics are bad. Far-left politics are fine. Veganism is good. Donald Trump is not.

You get the impression that if the BBC made The Crown, the Queen would be played by that guy in a wheelchair from Countryfile and Prince Philip by Idris Elba.

Prince Philip is now into his late 90s
Clarkson says he is even tiring of Sir David Attenborough

And all theyd ever talk about, because all anyone ever talks about on any BBC show, is bloody climate change.

I know its very noble but after a while, it becomes wearing. And I find myself sitting there thinking: Oh for Gods sake, cant they just have sex?

No. Obviously, no one can have sex on the BBC because a baby might result. And babies need food which, of course, causes global warming.

The BBC was set up to inform, educate and entertain. Not lecture, bombard and lecture again.

Its got to the point now where the only BBC programmes I regularly watch are Pointless and Match Of The Day.

I cant even bring myself to listen to Attenborough any more. In the past, it was: Look at this amazing fish which can breathe through its anus.

Now, it is: Look at this amazing fish that can breathe through its anus and which is threatened by climate change.

Soon, its entirely possible the licence fee will become voluntary and when it does, the BBC will quickly learn that to survive it must make shows people want to watch.

Thats people everywhere, not just Twitter people in a Shoreditch juice bar.

Killing Eve. Fleabag. Earths Tropical Islands. More of that.

And less of everything else.

CD player and speakers?

Plans to make Big Ben toll for Brexit were too expensive

FOR reasons known only to a lunatic, it would cost 500,000 to ring the bell in Big Ben to celebrate our departure from the EU.

Hmmm. Seeing as the tower is currently hidden behind a million tons of scaffolding, why doesnt someone go up there with a CD player and some big speakers?

Wed never know.

iCars? Beemer me up

A FRIEND of mine was driving along a dual carriageway this week when his super-green hybrid BMW i8 decided to have an electric duck fit.

Give me a petrol powered car any day

The power steering and power brakes both failed and it was only by using Herculean force he was able to coast, eventually, to a halt on the grass verge.

He tells me that BMW hopes to have the car back to him very soon.

But hes not sure he wants it. He reckons hed be better off with the petrol-powered M4 theyve lent him in the meantime. Cant say I blame him, really.