I Watch TV: Worzel Gummidge
I haven’t read the books and was not a regular viewer of the old TV show (I think it clashed with something else on TV? Or maybe we had swimming or something?). So I had the impression that Worzel Gummidge was a very silly show.
And so it is in this revival, but that silliness is overwhelmed by the need to have several scenes of genuine magic and thoughtfulness and atmosphere, and there only being two episodes made. John and Susan are sent to the countryside by their foster home where Worzel, thinking that their fashionable town clothes must make them scarecrows, reveals himself as being alive. He gets them into trouble as his scarecrow mates do things then turn back into scarecrows letting them take the blame. So far so silly.
However in the first episode the seasons are locked and the harvest won’t ripen. Worzel has to figure out how to fix this in his bumbling silly way, and leads to (as I said) some good old-fashioned children’s TV magic. The second one, without the need to introduce Worzel, the farm etc. has the scarecrow biker gang and the scarecrow competition at the big house as its main plot, and that’s pretty silly. However it has Michael Palin as The Green Man (maker of living scarecrows, countryside deity) telling Worzel what’s what and then having Worzel make his case for revealing himself to the children. And that’s got some proper thoughts about countryside living and change and nature (at a children’s level but interesting nonetheless) that overwhelm the main plot.
The Green Man goes about in the human world as an itinerant hedgelayer called Jack Wodewose, and of course he’s called Jack and of course he’s called Wodewose.
Anyway, good on Mackensie Crook for doing this. I’d say he should do more, but a regular series would have to dilute the powerful magic he evokes. Maybe he can make two or three a year and have it work.
Watch This: For some excellent family friendly TV with something to say about England and the Countryside
Don’t Watch This: If a bumbling weird-talking living scarecrow is just going to annoy you.
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