Oh Captain Podlark!

I grew up with the TV costume dramas of the 1970s, so I approached the re-make of Poldark with a mix of curiosity and nostalgia – and found myself watching three episodes in as many days. Ah, brave new world that has iPlayer in it!

Of course, back in the day – pre-digital, pre-VHS – there was no option for such shameless gorging and there was no reprieve if, heaven forfend, you missed an espisode. Lives had to be structured around TV schedules, not the other way round. There was none of this pausing mid-real time viewing while you put a second coat of emulsion on the bathroom walls. Even if it was ITV you’d be lucky to get the kettle filled during the advert breaks they were so fleeting – happy days!

The other thing that has happened in the forty years since Poldark first hit our screens is the costume drama parody. It’s just all so funny now. Every close up of a smouldering look or heaving bosom, all those long shots of Ross Poldark astride his horse galloping along the cliff top. And then there are the hilarious servants – Jud and Prudie, or French and Saunders as I cannot help thinking of them. But the absolute killer – the thing that took the series to a whole new level – was the sublime line of dialogue uttered by match-making mother Mrs Teague. Hell bent on persuading our hero to sample her daughter’s delights, she assured him, ‘One has only to taste her syllabubs to know their succulence.’ Victoria Wood couldn’t have penned it, or delivered it, any better.

I’ve no doubt my thirteen-year-old self would have thrilled at the prospect of watching back-to-back episodes of her favourite TV programmes, instead of all that annoying waiting. And the comic potential of costume dramas would have delighted the playful rebel and clown in her, as it does me. But I can’t help feeling that something rather special has been lost in the process.