I have seen the future of GW*
For those of us who are familiar with the Gardener’s World format, the penultimate programme of the 2016 series was a bit strange.
(Pic courtesy United Agents)
It started off in the usual way, Monty doing his introductory piece to camera in his typical Dr. Jacob-Bronowski-style, pausing, dwelling on words, pausing again, pausing some more, ( insert footage of Nigel yawning) all accompanied by his trademark hand gestures, including the sacred 'look all ten digits’ one where he might be talking to the almighty, what you might call The Full Monty.
Then there were the filmed inserts – Frances Tophill driving the continuity producer mad, in and out of jackets, gilets and jumpers as she walked around a wind-blasted Welsh garden that was enjoying four seasons in one day, nobody does cheerful quite so genuinely; Joe Swift was noodling about with more rocks; Adam Frost showed us how to mend a pergola in a large garden, the size of garden which would normally have its own gardener attached; and the ever-impressive Nick Bailey was snipping away and rescuing bushes and shrubs you would be tempted to uproot and lob over your fence. At least, I would.
All normal GW fayre.
But then at the end of the programme Monty welcomed back Rachel de Thame to Longmeadow. Rachel hadn’t been to the garden for quite a few years and they reminisced about how it had come on in the intervening time, before getting to work in the dry garden. It was the kind of work Monty normally does on his own, and while they were scrabbling around Rachel confessed that she really liked gardening with someone else, and her husband wasn’t that keen.
All of a sudden it had skipped from being Gardener’s World to an episode of In The Psychiatrist’s Chair.
For those of us old enough to remember Blue Peter, there was a sudden flashback to how producer Biddy Baxter used to introduce new presenting talent to the millions of viewers. There would be a filmed insert of the (yet to be revealed) new presenter showing Peter or Lesley some specialist skill they had and then at the end of the programme it would be announced that they were joining the programme. A kind of meet the new step-mum, easy introduction.
Now whether this is a good guess or not, the Rachel de Thame piece had all the same vibe as ‘this is your new presenter, or, 'this is your new co-presenter’.
The new hour-long format for Gardener’s World is long overdue, yet Monty has to be careful he doesn’t overdo it after his minor stroke in 2008. He’s also reportedly said that his painful knees aren’t getting any better. The BBC is making a conspicuous drive (and so it should) to get more women presenters in sport and presumably that applies across all subjects.
It makes perfect sense. This may not be statistically valid, but whenever I go up to Squires garden centre the proportion of single men loitering around the herbaceous perennials is small compared to the amount of women. Men are there to wield compost-laden trolleys and eye up the sheds, it's the women who are there for the plants.
Not wishing to denigrate The Don, who rescued the programme in 2011, It would be a fantastic to have a female presenter or co-presenter of GW to take it forward. And if not the experienced Rachel, who from time to time looks slightly nervous when talking to camera, why not the telegenic and totally natural Frances Tophill, the only person to make me feel unashamed about having tomato blight.
Although if they wanted the gig both of them would have to invest heavily in a cute dog that can go one better that Nigel. Maybe one that could do tricks between links. I wonder what happened to the one from the John Smith beer adverts...
*With apologies to Jon Landau
**Or Sunday if you were out doing Tequila slammers on Friday night, missed the programme and are watching it on i-Player. A few of my fellow garden centre browsers come up to me and say “Yo! blood, woulda been at the 1-litre alpines earlier fo sho, but I got scored some serious Jose Cuervo last night.”
