Television parody is strange. Rather than shaming those it lampoons into moderating their behaviour, it exacerbates it. After Brass Eye, you'd think TV current affairs shows would tone down their graphics, sober up their presentation, cut out the moral panic. Instead, they became even brassier, the graphics still more explosively portentous, the panics more moral. Similarly, after Little Britain and Tom Baker intoning the words "Britain, Britain, Britain" over a daft montage of We As A Nation types, you'd think the coffin lid would have been nailed on sweeping, cliched programmes with the word "Britain" in the title. But no. There's a current rash of such shows. Britain Is Not Broken. Britain Is Where We Are At Right Now. Britain, Britain, Britain.
Hence Jamie's Great Britain (Tue, 9pm, Channel 4), hosted by Mr Oliver, who's as British as a Britpop compilation in a charity shop window, next door to a pie shop in a shopping precinct. He's scouring the country for British recipes, with British ingredients made by British people with British stories to reveal what makes Britain so Britishly British. A similar theme's taken up in Great British Food Revival (Wed, 8pm, BBC2), in which Michel Roux Jr compensates for his Frenchness by encouraging us to buy British pears, British to their soggy core, while Gregg Wallace waves some rhubarb around.
You've also got Britain's Best Drives (Tue, 8pm, BBC4), this week featuring Richard Wilson driving through Scotland in a vintage British car, and showing off views of northern Britain. Tales From The National Parks (Wed, 8pm, BBC4) features Britain At War With Itself: the local British fusties and nimbies pitted against the New British boors who want to turn the Lake District into an "Adventure Capital". And there's Kirstie's Handmade Britain (Wed, 8pm, Channel 4), in which that vast, rural constituency of Britain that is forever 1958 (except, they pray daily, for the house prices), knits, crafts, sews, bakes, lacemakes, and gathers in marquees. Finally, there's Ray Mears in the title scene of Wild Britain (Fri, 8pm, ITV1) rowing manfully, staring determinedly through binoculars, smiling at butterflies. This is Britain, and everything is all right. It's OK. It's fine.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2011/oct/22/a-good-week-for-britain
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