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Review
Worzel Gummidge: Guy Forks, review: Bonfire Night special lacked a bit of sparkle
Mackenzie Crook's revival has provided some real seasonal family magic in the past, but this episode was without fireworks
Hitherto a Christmas treat, Worzel Gummidge (BBC One) returned this year for a Bonfire Night special. Sorry to say, but it was poorer for not having a festive twinkle. Previous episodes have been among the most charming family offerings in years - really, how many shows are there which every generation can watch together, including little ones? - but the prospect of Worzel’s cousin going up in flames wasn’t quite the heartwarming sort of tale we’ve come to expect.
Siblings John and Susan (Thierry Wickens and India Brown) are still living in Scatterbrook with the Braithwaites. Susan looks much as she always did, but the child actor playing John has shot up in size since we last saw him, a difference so noticeable that Mackenzie Crook (star, writer and director) felt the need to insert a joke about it from Worzel: “Have you shrunk? You look small.” Gags were a bit thin on the ground otherwise.
There is still a gentle beauty to the show: the lovely opening titles, the folksy music, and the countryside scenes. Toby Jones stole the show in no fewer than six roles of butcher, baker, alderman, mayor, postmaster and publican, and the warmth of the relationship between Mr and Mrs Braithwaite (Steve Pemberton and Rosie Cavaliero) remains a delight. But the story was neither here nor there.
It concerned Worzel’s cousin, Guy Forks - not a spelling mistake, his arms were made of garden forks - and was a slight tale in which the guy and the scarecrow swapped roles. Obviously, that was a more hazardous undertaking for Worzel, what with Bonfire Night coming up. Forks was played by Paul Kaye, unrecognisable under the papier-mâché head.
Crook wrote his way out of the fact that Forks would end up being incinerated by having him enjoy being set alight, plus the vague idea that he somehow regenerates every year (well, if it’s good enough for James Bond…). Being a 17th-century chap, he wasn’t aware of the environmental repercussions of burning plastic waste, but the kids were there to deliver a 21st-century lecture.
There is little point in comparing this show and the old Jon Pertwee series because they’re so different in tone, but I do miss Una Stubbs’s Aunt Sally. The hatchet-faced new version is the stuff of nightmares.