How to save 6 Music? Hmm, where can the Beeb make savings? It’s impossible to say …
Sometimes it’s better just to let the programme makers do the talking.
“Sixteen million lambs are born every year in the UK. It’s big business but it’s also a gamble. In this groundbreaking new series, Kate Humble and Adam Henson broadcast live from a sheep farm in Wales to capture this amazing life and death drama as it happens.”
Cue Kate Humble in a shed, she’s struggling to breathe – in fact, she looks like she might have just given birth to a lamb herself – maybe live TV isn’t for her? She introduces us to a farmer…
“Jim has been my mentor for the last six months”
SIX MONTHS, this show has been in pre-production for SIX MONTHS! It’s watching sheep have babies; it’s not a bleedin’ feature film.
“Is there any chance that one of these lambs will give birth in the next hour?” she asks Jim.
“Yep, there is every possibility.” Jim rather nervously answers.
Wait a sec, I’m investing an hour of my life into this – I don’t want possibilities, I want cast iron guarantees. I want to see a sheep born. Induce a birth, fake it, genetically modify it if you have to – but give me a lamb.
But no, this show is at the coalface of nature – and we’re just going to have to wait.
Luckily they’ve filmed hours of excruciatingly boring VTs about farm life to fill the gaps between lambs not being born, and well, lambs not being born. It’s like Countryfile 24 but without the charm of Craven.
Back at the lambing shed, Humble has caught her breath – and wait, are they lambs we see? Yep, they’re the offspring of Pickles and Bunion or whatever they’re called – but hang about, they don’t look newborn.
“They were born a couple of days ago” Jim says with discomfort. By this point even the previously enthusiastic Kate Humble is annoyed. There’s a short pause as the assembled cast and crew wait for the show’s slot to run out.
Kate tries to bail out the sinking ship.
“We’re here all week, so see you again tomorrow for Lambing live”
I doubt it.
—————————————————————————————————–
Back by popular demand, Mike’s shows to compete with Lambing Live:
Cramming Live – GCSE revision from Newport Free Grammar School.
Flogging a Dead Horse: Live! – Romanian import, does what it says on the tin.
Greers before Bedtime – Late night observational documentary following the highs and lows of life in esteemed Australian feminist Germaine Greer’s Essex home.
Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day – real-time CGI reconstruction of the capital of the great Empire – will you live long enough to see Nero and that famous fiddle?
