“The presenter Konnie Huq’s argument that kids’ TV has often left grown-up society playing catch-up was cogently made, even if things may have become a bit relentlessly right-on for viewers just wanting a dose of nostalgia”
“The story of children’s television is much more than cartoons and competitions, declared former Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq at the start of her documentary Kids’ TV: The Surprising Story. The “surprising” bit was that programmes for children often tackled social issues long before those for grown-ups.”
Gerard Gilbert, The i
“The presenter Konnie Huq’s argument that kids’ TV has often left grown-up society playing catch-up was cogently made, even if things may have become a bit relentlessly right-on for viewers just wanting a dose of nostalgia. It was sharpest when reminding us of the less remembered stuff (as I think we all know about Grange Hill by now). When things came to Blue Peter, for example, there was no John Noakes up Nelson’s Column, rather a big-up for the female presenters who took mortal risks — Valerie Singleton in a crashing speedboat or Janet Ellis injuring herself in a terrifying skydive. Clips of a forgotten Saturday morning item called Growing Pains showed it covering such topics as eating disorders, Aids and parental abuse.”
James Jackson, The Times
“Why Don’t You? was, as Konnie Huq points out in her alternative history, Kids’ TV: The Surprising Story (BBC One), based on the same principles of user-generated content as YouTube and TikTok. It was cheap and cheerless, usually consisting of my swivel-eyed coevals suggesting that you could spend the summer holidays crafting rubbish rather than, as I did, lying in my jim-jams necking custard creams and being importuned by regionally challenged tryhards. Huq includes a clip of a girl in Belfast making the letter H out of cardboard, gluing coins to its surface and then hanging the resulting bling around her neck. She looks like the least badass rapper in the history of even Northern Irish hip-hop. And then – this is the best bit – she invited viewers to do the same if they want to look trendy. Why don’t you do one, I might well have told the telly.”
Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian
The Repair Shop: A Royal Visit, BBC1
“We learnt that the King loves clocks, which he explained at some length to the restorers. Tick-tock to Charles isn’t a social media platform but “the beating heart of the house”. He went on: “This is something I learnt from my grandmother — she had great fun trying to make them all to chime at the same time … all the clocks and cuckoos going off!” Such royal rosiness certainly distinguished what was otherwise the familiar Repair Shop fare of meticulous work and weepy emotion.”
James Jackson, The Times
“A little love and a lot of enthusiasm can fix almost anything. This wasn’t just feelgood TV but testament to the value of hands-on training and knowledge-sharing. Past masters were honoured but the future looked bright. An episode fit for a King.”
Michael Hogan, Telegraph
“Jay invited him to come and collect both clock and goblet when they were fixed up, at the Repair Shop barn. At that, Charles’s eyes twinkled. ‘You’ve got a barn, I’ve got a barn,’ he said. ‘We could have a barn dance.’ Two can play at the cheeky chappie game.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail
Doc Martin, ITV
“During its 18 years on-air, Doc Martin has become something of a TV anomaly. It’s never dark or edgy. No one gets brutally murdered. There’s no melodrama around vast kitchen islands. It’s gentle comedy-drama in an era when the genre has fallen out of fashion. Now that era was coming to an end but broadcast bigwigs would do well to learn from its consistently high ratings. Sometimes viewers want warmth, not chills.”
Michael Hogan, Telegraph
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