'Bonekickers' is as dippy as I feared judging by the trailers and the hype surrounding this major new series. 'Never forget - history is now!' screamed the BBC website. I think that's the worst tag-line I've ever heard. Pre-transmission I thought it all smacked of desperation - I was right.
The series uses various 'historical', usually apocryphal, events as a jumping off point, all centred in and around Bristol - (Bath Uni masquerades as the campus of the 'University of Wessex'.) Bristol is not only where members of the hugely popular Channel 4 'Time Team' and series consultant Prof Mark Horton are largely based, but I suspect the producers thought, 'Bath-the-new-Torchwood-Cardiff'. I think not, especially as the Royal Crescent Bath is featured. The requisite 'babe' of an archaeo leader, (Julie Graham) seems to live there. Does she make that much money? She seems deeply dippy herself, at one point she hunkers down at the trench edge and murmurs. 'Come on, give up your secrets.' I always find talking to a hole really helps. She also snaps and barks frequently to establish her status as boss, turning on the hapless Postgrad (also a 'babe'), with the urgent pronouncement, 'Use your archaeological imagination!' In my day it was called thinking.
The said Postgrad, Viv Davies, whom we are to believe had her pick of placements, is also worrying; she doesn't know how to catalogue using the Pitt-Rivers method, (spuriously mentioned but not explained), nor does she seem to know how to use a trowel, as at midnight with a stranger in tow, she heaves a huge piece of the 'True Cross' out of the ground with no concern for stratigraphy, context or recording.
The 'trenches', (at one point for dimmer viewers helpfully cross shaped), would make any archaeologist cringe. At times the poor actors look like they are preparing to lay a sewer pipe. The first thing down it must have been the script. I have never seen such a preposterous use of a dovecot in my life. (You'll have to see that for yourself). Never has one episode, nor I fear a series, fitted the phrase 'holy crap' so well as this one.
The cast is starry - a cynical punt for ratings in my opinion, especially as the script is such a fumbling hoot. While Adrian Lester looks uncomfortable throughout, the wonderful Hugh Bonneville - (he must be doing it for the money) - tries to throw himself into the meagre pickings he's given. Hugh, looking uncannily like a cross between Time Team's Robin Bush, (historian) and Phil Harding, (archaeologist), hat and all, seems to fulfill the major characteristic required, i.e. at one point he pronounces, (rather too realistically I thought), 'Please, for the love of Jehovah, can we go the pub!?' A cry for which I think I will adore him forever. I await with bated breath, next weeks 'Dolly' gem, 'Does anyone else have a brown trouser situation?'
That's not even to mention the names: they rejoice in some wonderful handles, Julie Graham is Professor Gillian Magwilde, - Mug-wilde would have been better as she does a fair bit of earnest mugging to the camera. Gillian is the driven daughter of an archaeologist who is clearly carrying the torch and secretly in search of the treasure that seems to have sent her Mum to the madhouse. Adrian Lester is Dr Ben Ergha, to be honest, I'm not quite sure what he does. The resident evil is an arrogant TV historian, Professor Daniel Mastiff, played by Michael Maloney. Hugh is Professor Gregory Parton - who introduces himself airily to the young Postgrad, with the words, 'Everyone calls me Dolly'. I assume this is purely to illicit the line, 'Hello Dolly'. Not to mention he becomes Prof. 'Dolly' Parton, - a 'joke' so lame, it's surely only funny to six year olds and writer/producers who've downed a few pints...
For a series made by the same team who produced 'Life on Mars' and the wonderful 'Ashes to Ashes' I am deeply disappointed. I think this will get an award - for the worst, but maybe funniest series on TV. Will it sink without a trace or fall into the cultish so-bad-it's-good category - in which case I think the fans should re dub it 'S--tkickers'.
