Best Anything Drama

I saw The Illustrated Mum again yesterday. They tucked it away amongst Channel 4's morning programmes, at 09:55, where nobody would notice it.

I'm not usually a soppy git, but I found this just the most moving thing ever.

The way that Dolphin stood by her mother and defended her even when she was clearly making a complete pig's ear of parenthood was very touching. And the bit where she asked her mother if she wanted her to take her home and tuck her up in bed was as funny as anything! It really brought home the fact that Marigold had abandoned the role of mother-figure, along with all the duties that are supposed to go with it, and had saddled her children with random fragments of that role themselves. But there was no role-reversal, because they couldn't cope with it, either. Which made the ending, much as I hated it, pretty inevitable, I suppose. Given the circumstances.

Apparently the programme won the Children's Bafta award last year for best "school drama", and Debbie Isitt, who adapted it for television, won the award for best adaption writer. I don't know what they mean by best "school drama". It was the best anything drama, I say.

It really annoys me that people sideline it just because it has been deemed a "children's" programme. I don't care who it was written for. It was a well-written, thought-provoking, and moving drama. They should have put it on at prime time.

And another thing... The Radio Times insists on naming Michelle Collins as the star. Look, here's their summary: "Michelle Collins stars in this drama about a depressive woman struggling to raise her two daughters." What a load of bull...! Yes, Marigold struggled in that she was saddled with manic depression and whatever other weirdnesses she might have had, but should she be commended merely for being ill? It's not as if she was striving to overcome her problems. She was only interested in pursuing her own whims throughout the whole drama.

Look, I'll rewrite the summary for them. "Alice Connor and Holly Grainger star in this drama about two girls struggling to live with a depressive mother."

It's just the usual ageist nonsense. Michelle Collins is the adult, so obviously she's the star, by default. No - it was Alice Connor.

They've been guilty of worse, though. When Simon Nye's adaptation of The Railway Children was last shown, they printed a fairly sizeable cast list. But guess who they listed in it? All the adult actors and actresses, right down to Richard Attenborough, who appeared for what must have been all of three seconds, just standing on a train and waving. And the children? "Oh, maybe we can just fit two of them in, right down at the bottom. Who cares about the third one?" It was called The Railway Children, for crying out loud! They were the railway children! They were the characters that the whole damned thing was about!

Ahem. Sorry. Completely off-topic, but I just had to get that out of my system.

The third child in The Railway Children was played by Clare Thomas, by the way. Also the star of Fungus the Bogeyman, out of the live-action part of the cast. Again, not that you'd know it from looking at the printed cast lists, but... Okay... I'll shut up now.