It’s wonderful to see gripping weekly TV episodes bring back water-cooler conversation, writes Moreen Simpson.
So, how do you think it’s going to end?
I mean, of course, the Beeb’s compulsive Sunday night thriller, Happy Valley – although some longer-in-the-tooth Aberdonians will recall that our very own, hallirackit Happy Valley pub and club (in Bridge Street, wasn’t it?) could be a bit of a risk any night of the week.
With the last episode this weekend, millions of us are trying to second-guess inspired writer Sally Wainwright’s climax. I’ve my own theory on what would make a cracker of a close to the whole series. No spoilers; I’ll tell you next week if I’m right.
Apart from the outstanding cast (although I’ve never quite forgiven Sarah Lancashire’s Raquel for doing the dirty on Corrie’s poor Curly), one of the reasons this drama has captured the nation’s imagination is that we’re all having to watch the episodes at the same time. No binge-sessions, when you often zonk oot on your chair after the fourth non-stop episode, having literally lost the plot.
When we watch at the same time, everybody’s speaking about it the next day – the so-called water-cooler telly-talk.
Who remembers Quatermass and the Pit?
My first memory of such a programme – although for hugely different reasons – goes back to the late 1950s, when I was at Mile End School. At the incredibly irresponsible hour of 6.30pm every Monday night, the only TV channel, the BBC, showed the horror serial, Quatermass and the Pit.
Each episode ramped up the horror, as the spaceship buried in an underground tunnel spewed out its cargo of crawling aliens. I remember being terrified, wee hairtie pumpin’.
The next day, there were boorachies o’ us 11-year-olds in the playground, scraiking about every ghoulish twist and turn. Word went roon one great strappin’ lad was still that scared he was greetin’. Ticky bets if you’re my age and saw it then, you’ll still be traumatised.
I booked the White Lotus resort before it was cool
Over on Sky Atlantic, I recently got hooked on the hugely entertaining White Lotus, with the joyous Jennifer Coolidge, and my secret crush, tiny Tom Hollander.
My pal and I got so into it, and the stunning Sicilian hotel where it was filmed, we took it into oor daft nappers to look into booking a holiday there. We could just see oorsellies breakfasting on the stunning terrace, or hitchin’ a ride on a boatie ower to Palermo.
So, we did the bizz to check oot the prices. Mamma-flamin’-fitever-they-say-in-Italy! It was workin’ oot aboot £4,000… per night… in the low season… B&B! That fair cooled oor jets.
I suddenly remembered me and my first hubby had actually booked for that resort of Taormina for April 1977 – until we discovered in the October before that I was pregnant. Sez I: “We got our money back on the booking.” Here’s her: “Ye’ll be hard-pressed to use that reason again.”
Moreen Simpson is a former assistant editor of the Evening Express and The Press & Journal, and started her journalism career in 1970
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