No.271 : Worzel Gummidge (TV) (2019)

Wozrel Gummidge at the IMDb

Look out scruffy kids - you’ll be getting a new nickname at school in the new year!

I always liked the creepy Jon Pertwee adaptation of the classic children’s books featuring the lively scarecrow, so I was interested to see were this reboot would go. Overall it was a good effort, but some elements had been sanitised and a few modern issues had been added in, in a not so subtle manner.

I’ve only seen the first episode which aired on Boxing Day 2019 with one more standalone story to follow. That one features Michael Palin as The Green Man, so that may be the pick of the litter.

Anyway, we open with two inner city kids heading into the countryside. We learn that they are foster children heading to a new home. It seemed a bit strange that they were travelling alone and that their new ‘parents’ weren’t exactly welcoming, but I guess twenty minutes of a social worker filling in forms and going through the house’s drawers would slow the narrative somewhat.

On the way in the boy, John, captures a scarecrow waving at him from a field on his phone - of course, his older sister Susan doesn’t believe him. On arrival they are met by grumpy foster Dad Steve Pemberton and his slightly nicer wife whom you’ll recognise off ‘Peep Show’, ‘Mid-Morning Matters’ etc. Farmer Pemberton says ‘Look what they sent us’ making us immediately wonder if he’s a big racist. Don’t worry, he’s only moaning about their weediness, meaning he’s in to child slave labour, which is seemingly OK.

The kids head off to Ten Acre Field where they encounter Worzel, played by Gareth from ‘The Office’. Worzel shouldn’t be talking to humans but he takes to the kids and lets them know he’s worried about the environment - the crops haven’t ripened as expected and the family of robins in his jacket are overdue their flight from the nest.

They establish from Aunt Sally that a key is needed to unlock the season and, after massing all of the local scarecrows, Worzel tries to save the day with the additional help of his erstwhile enemies, the crows.

This was good family fun with no real peril and a heavy handed message about saving the environment. To be honest I preferred the creepier Jon Pertwee version who was horny for Aunt Sally and who could change his turnip heads to suit his moods.

Gareth's Worzel was a bit more humble and naive and I think he could have done with being a bit more bombastic - I didn’t get the sense that scaring a crow was within his powers. The two kids were decent but didn’t really convey the wonder that a real life scarecrow would inevitably bring.

I did like the summoning of the other scarecrows and felt that this could have been developed more. Some of their designs were fun but we didn’t really meet any characters amongst them.

There was a long side quest were Worzel had to enlist the help of crows to gets some carrier bags out of a tree that was too heavy handed. As the twentieth bag was pushed by a bird into a recycling bin, even the most pissed up Christmas hangover induced viewer would be shouting ‘I get the message’ - I knew I was!

The design, music and feel of the show was reminiscent of ‘Detectorists’ which is no bad thing. I just wish they’d added a bit of edge or humour to make this more than just an educating outing for pre-teens.

Best Bit : Scarecrows Assemble!
W Rating 15/23

No. 261 : Wonderball (TV)

My regular reader (Hello!) will be shocked at after 260 entries we have moved away from the movies and into regional TV for this post. Fear not, soon we will return to obscure straight to video films and 1930’s Westerns shown at 3 am on Film 4.

The reason for our change of focus is a request. I know! I can’t say 'reader’s request' but we’ll take what we can get. Yes Julie from the office, who has followed my own stellar game show career, advised that she was soon to star on the glitzy new show ‘WonderBall’ and could I take a look? She didn’t actually ask that I write a sarky review and post unflattering photographs of the event, but that’s what she’s getting!

Firstly, the format. ‘WonderBall’ is shown on the new BBC Scotland channel at 7pm on weekdays, and is hosted by news reading lovelie, Catriona Shearer. I’ve been a fan of the Amazon like Catriona since her days of giving local traffic updates, so it wasn’t a hard sell to convince me to tune in. She has a chirpy sing-song accent and sometimes looks like she dressed out of a pantomime’s costume box. Did she wear this one?

Oh yes she did! The King of Hearts called - he wants his outfit back!

The game is played with three teams, each of two people. Each team have five balls numbered between 1-15. These are slung in a bag and the teams each pick one out in each of the four rounds. If they get an opponent’s ball they answer an easy question to take it out of the game. If they get it wrong it goes back in the bag. If they pick their one of their own balls they have to answer a harder question to get it back in the bag and if they’re wrong it stays out. The idea is to have your ball the last one in the bag which makes it the ‘WonderBall’ and wins you £2000.

There is also a danger ball which is the boo hiss baddie ball - if that’s the WonderBall at the end everyone gets hee-haw (apart from sold balls cash but we'll get to that soon). A new danger ball is added each round and if picked out the three teams can confer to give a correct answer which will take it out of play. Still with me? That’ll change!

At the end of each of the first three rounds players are offered a cash bribe to sell one of their balls - £100, £200 and then £300. If you sell your ball it stays in the bag but if it’s the WonderBall you get nothing apart from looks of disdain for your weak willed, money grabbing tendencies.

Each team gets to appear on two shows, but if you win the jackpot on the first you forfeit your second appearance. A flawless pair of games means you could trouser a decent £3200 overall if you sell a ball every round and still retain the WonderBall. That’s just less than what I won on ‘The Weakest Link’!

That complicated explanation can be simplified by reading the BBC page for the show or by watching it. I would recommend neither - unless Julie is on!

Julie appeared on the show with Stephen who left one circus to join another. They had some decent banter and clearly weren’t intimidated by the slightly low rent set which includes some large balls and the colander on wheels which contains the game balls.

My first gripe is that the regular questions are too easy - “Where is Ayers Rock?” and the hard ones are too hard “Which vice president was in a duel?”. Lots of ‘oh I know it’s…’ before ‘Aaron Burr’ was announced to a roomful of shoulder shrugging.

Julie and Stephen’s games followed similar paths with early optimism soon giving way to money grabbing economic decisions. The main problem is the luck part of the format. If your balls are constantly picked you have no chance whereas if you’re lucky you can bluff your way to the jackpot without knowing a thing. Julie and Stephen suffered badly with their luck in their first game and had to salvage £300 by selling their last ball. This was a slightly dodgy decision economically as their ball had a real value of £400 (1 in 5 chance of £2000) but £300 in the hand was too tempting and ultimately proved to be the correct decision when it failed to gain ‘WonderBall’ status.

On show two any nervousness had gone, evidenced by some better play and, more importantly, some decent banter. “I’m putting in a complaint to Scotrail’ quipped Stephen as a Railway employee eliminated one of his balls. Julie did well too by getting an answer about Isaac Newton correct - tempered slightly with her comment that she heard about him on ‘The Big Bang Theory’. The hostess did well too despite a late alarm call meaning she had to do the show in her dressing gown…

This time our dynamic duo had two balls in the mix meaning they had a 40% chance of winning the £2000. They opted however to sell one for £300 meaning they had a 1 in 4 shot of the top money. Sadly it didn’t come to pass and they were correct to sell as neither of their blue balls reached the winner‘s podium.

My main problem with the format is that it makes sense to take the cash, but by doing so the players take any thrill out of the game. You’d do it too - potentially £600 in the hand for an outside chance of £2000. If it was five grand people would risk it, but there simply isn’t enough gain to offset the allure of the easy money.

The show is only 30 minutes long but even then it gets a bit samey as the rounds are repeated each time with the last round twist being there are no questions, so it gets even less demanding! There is canned applause added in which makes the whole thing seem a bit contrived and the method of passing down the balls and then displaying them on an Ikea lamp from the 70’s just looks a bit cheap and cheezy.

I enjoyed the shows I watched but manly because I knew someone on them. Julie’s howlers such as thinking Benjamin Franklin was a president of America and her wonderfully delivered ‘Horse please’ line will never be forgotten, as long as slaggings are allowed in the workplace. Stephen was good value too although I thought he was going to smash the set up when he missed the ‘Glasvegas’ answer. Maybe he should have done  - he could have caused hundreds of pounds of improvements!

It was also strange that there was a long conversation about juggling on a show about balls an no one thought of having a quick demonstration. They must have been worried that entertainment may have broken out!

All in all a fine effort and a good day’s work - £300 each for grabbing some balls. You can insert you own joke here………………