BBC Two
For some inexplicable reason W1A gives yet another showcase for Clare Balding the Joseph Goebbels of the horse Holocaust (chief architect: David Milch). TV offers platform after platform for the deranged anti-equine campaigner to spout her bile at defenceless nags. She’s one third of the Britain’s Tastiest Village love triangle that is gripping Broadcasting House. Since Balding dropped the show like she drops the broken bodies of three generations of thoroughbreds into a gigantic ditch cackling¹ Lucy has been doing sterling work negotiating Carol Vorderman into the role. Vorderman is exactly the name communications officer Tracy “I’m not being funny” Pritchard wants on Ian‘s lips when he appears on Woman’s Hour with Jenni Murray as she tries to nail him on the Sally Wingate issue. Dead-eyed PR bot Siobhan is totally on board with this strategy and is tweeting like a bastard on Ian’s behalf on the sock puppet account she created for him without his knowledge or consent. Don’t let anybody tell you that acquaintance twrape is a fake issue.
W1A gives yet another showcase for Clare Balding the Joseph Goebbels of the horse Holocaust (chief architect: David Milch).
Only problem with the Vorderman strategy is that David Wilkes never fully cut the cord with Balding who, with the strength of mind and singularity of purpose you associate with somebody with the blood of a thousand beasts on her hands, lets it be known that she’s popping in to finalise details for her role on Britain’s Tastiest Village, right at the time Vorderman is doing the same. As Ian has to stall Jenni Murray, Tracy and Siobhan press up against the soundproof glass pushing Vorderman or Balding as the one name he must mention.
This is better than the first episode. It’s a gentle farce which (despite the insistence of sundry media gulls) doesn’t satirise anything of consequence. It’s a well-executed waste of everybody’s time which I suppose is something.
The verdict: Clare Balding doesn’t care about Seabiscuit.
Marks out of 10: 7
¹ Incident may not have happened.