Me & Arthur Haynes, BBC4

After exhuming stars of silent films, Paul Merton jumps forward a few decades to enlighten us with another neglected comedy genius, Arthur Haynes.


Merton follows the same format he did when lauding the silent stars. An amusing lecture punctuated with clips to elucidate each point he makes. Only here there is one important difference. He is able to call on the wit and wisdom of Haynes’ straight man, Nicholas Parsons (who looks well for 87).


With Parsons, Merton is able to crawl inside the story of Haynes, feeding Parsons a notion of what he wants to talk about and letting Parsons recount what Hayne was like. This is made better by the evident rapport between Merton and Parsons from their time on Just A Minute together.


Perhaps the biggest revelation is how well the sketches have aged. In the context of the whole programme you build up an affection for the performance of Haynes and Parsons and the scripts of writers such as Johnny Speight.


Although many of the sketches follow a formula – Haynes playing himself, Parsons playing a vicar, a policeman or some other establishment figure – the way in which the two interact is redolent of every classic double act of the TV era from Pete and Dud, the Two Ronnies, Morcambe and Wise, Ant and Dec to Walliams and Lucas. And it’s this interplay that is humorous.


Watching a few of sketches without an introduction of who Arthur Haynes was might leave you feeling a little cold to a quaint comedy sketch from fifty years ago. But after getting to know them, the conflict between protagonist and antagonist is just as funny as any other era.


We also got an insight into the way TV has changed. With the shows broadcast live and Haynes a little lazy in learning his lines, Merton brought out numerous examples of where he forgot his lines and had to be prompted by Parsons. Or it might be that Parsons would corpse and the pair would have to muddle through until they regained their composure. Parsons, meanwhile, explained how health and safety worked in the early-60s: it was non-existent. With no rehearsals, live broadcasts would feature gushing flames singeing Haynes’s eyebrows off (or near enough).


Unlike the stars of silent screen lauded by Merton, we hadn’t really heard of Arthur Haynes and Merton did seem a little upset at the way he has ostensibly been erased from television history. And judging by the gems he brought out to back up his case, it’s a sentiment we can only agree with.

Jamie's Dream School, Channel 4

Jamie Oliver’s quest to rid the nation of all the things that rots its soul has arrived at stupidity. Only it’s not stupidity. The kids – from ‘all backgrounds’, ie, one token posh hoodlum and a bunch of distracted, disruptive, diabolical drop-outs – are, in his eyes, “brilliant”. A conclusion he rapidly arrives at, basing their educational misery as analogous to his own. And hoping that they will discover some latent, stellar talent that will be lured into existence through a few lessons taught by the great and the good (and the obnoxious if you include Alastair Campbell) of British culture.


It’s a noble ambition and one that continues Jamie’s heartfelt desire to enhance the prospects of the downtrodden and dispossessed members of society.


Sadly, all of his good work is smashed to smithereens within a few hours. David Starkey has been hired to teach history. To liven up the lessons and revive the slug-like grey matter lying dormant in the pupils’ craniums, he brings in some Anglo-Saxon gold. This, he hopes, will impress the ‘bling’-obsessed generation.


But it’s as misguided as the rest of the escapade. No sooner has Starkey started to lecture – which Jamie had said was the main reason the kids loathed school – the pupils (calling them “failures”) than he is embroiled in a slanging match with Conor. Starkey snapped: “You are so fat you can hardly move.”

This enrages Conor and destabilises everything Jamie had said about building up the kids’ confidences. Conor isn’t without blame. In spite of Jamie’s insistence that all the kids are “brilliant”, Conor is an easily recognisable type to anyone who has ever attended school. A vulgar, obstreperous bully. And so it’s difficult to feel much sympathy with him. Even more so, when he later says to his mother, “I felt like picking up a table and throwing it at him.”

 
Conor was one of the pupils picked out for star treatment in the first episode, and, provided he doesn’t get expelled, will be one of those through whom the success of the experiment will be measured.


You see, there are elements of Dream School ripped wholesale from the DIY Book of Inspirational Documentary Series. The first of which is to establish in the first episode a sense of hopelessness and despair not felt since the Luftwaffe were bombing the hell out of Coventry with sneering impunity.


The ever-jovial Rolf Harris is a broken man at the end of his first art class, lamenting his failure to inspire the pupils with the same despondency as someone who has just watched a small child drown after swimming to within three feet of the place where their soft, brown mop of hair was sucked beneath the churning waters.


But amid all this depression, we already have our first success story! Henry, the token posh kid, was sullen and apathetic ahead of his sailing trip with Ellen MacArthur, speaking to his long-suffering parents with the same ill grace and impudence as Kevin the Teenager.


However, one trip round the Isle of Wight, pulling a few ropes and getting a bit wet and he returns home a new boy. He apologises for putting his parents through years of hell and seems to be turning over a new leaf.


Seemingly, a couple of days later in a one-to-one class with Rolf and he’s throwing his toys out of the pram again.

Did Henry go from recalcitrant ogre to contrite son back to recalcitrant ogre all in the space of a few days? Of course, it’s possible given the caprices of adolescence but the contrived way in which Jamie’s Dream School is ‘scripted’ and edited makes it difficult for a bond of trust to form between viewer and programme, almost as difficult as the one the teachers are attempting to forge with the pupils.