Victorian Pharmacy

In a week dominated by the past in the form of a Take That reunion which finally incorporated Robbie Williams, you may remember, between tear-soaked heartbreak of Take That's initial collapse, and the pure ecstacy they surely brought to your life, that in the dark and distant past, I wrote about the spectacular "Victorian Farm Christmas". Well, if you're sitting there eager with delight, going "I love that show, but I'm not sure how much more we can examine the farming process from the Victorian era, having covered hay to the fullest possible extent", I have some tremendous news for you! There's a spin-off show, "Victorian Farm..acy", about, surprisingly, a Victorian Pharmacy.

This show follows the adventures of, and I fear you may have leapt ahead of me and worked out what this is already, but in the interests of stragglers, I'll continue. It's about a Victorian pharmacy, opened by Patrick Stewart lookalike and sometime television presenter Professor of pharmacology, Nick Barber, and his able and willing assistant, Tom Quick. Also featuring loosely is someone called Ruth, whom, I must admit, I took a pretty bitter dislike to after about ten seconds, pretty much solely for her love of inane chitter chatter. Thus, I spent the whole show making callous jokes about her appearance to myself, but people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones and all that malarkey. But you're pondering to yourself, pontificating as follows, no doubt "The name Ruth rings a very faint bell somewhere in the deepest recesses of my nightmares. Ruth...Ruth...Good LORD!" you exclaim internally, only letting a single gasp indicate your true emotion to the world at large. "Could this be the very same Ruth from the initial Victorian Farm, brought in to make the change utterly seamless?" you doubtless wonder. Well, I have some simply stellar news for you, curiously avid Ruth-fans, she's back!

I jest, of course, there's no way you could possibly remember Ruth from that long ago, but perhaps, just PERHAPS, you're thinking "What I really loved about Victorian Farm was that everyone, regardless of location or pifflingly tiny role in the show, was fully clad in period dress. I think the show as a whole would suffer if they were to even let the facade that this were not reality fall for even the briefest of moments, and the magical element of suspense would surely have been cast asunder like a wax-plaster stuck to an elderly gentleman's chest". You may possibly be reminiscing about those great times of elaborate outfits. Luckily, they're still consistently in place, so you may stop reminiscing and savour their glory in televisual magnificence once more.

Anyways, onto the actual documentary element of the show, which seemed to focus on "Person A comes into shop exhibiting symptoms. Pharmacist recommends treatment, but then says "We can't use that, obviously, because it has opium in it". Interesting alternative treatment is made up on camera. It is given to the patient. The patient is then largely unhealed at the end of the show.", which was repeated for four people, all with varying degrees of cough. What I really ended up with in terms of knowledge from the show was "Victorians all had coughs, and as a cure, they all took opium. Also, they thought cold water was good for you".

That said, I alarmingly really enjoyed it. Perhaps it was Ruth having cold water poured down her back by a delightfully malicious old man, who was practically giggling as he did it. Maybe it was the vague seeping in of weird little facts and knowledge (Worcester Sauce is fermented and was initially a medicine, for example) that I now have in my head for Victorian-era medicine based dinner party anecdotes. "That's a funny story about Leeches, Dave, but you know they were used as medicine in the 19th century? So was Worcester sauce! No, really!" and, from there, inevitably, the dinner party is a roaring success.

Anyways, drink from the bowl of documentaries. It might taste horrible, but unlike most of the medicines on display in the show, it really is good for you.

Victorian Farm Christmas

I for one, think the BBC have outdone themselves once again! Clearly, when I generously threw my money into their faces, they were shellshocked. Cheekily, Jonathon Ross scampered over and gathered the money off the ground like the young scallywag that he is, leaving the BBC with but a pittance to make excellent programming for the nation. But my, with this measly amount of money, they created "Victorian Farm", a show dedicated to showing the people of Britain the workings of, surprisingly, a 19th century farm! Now, I for one, was astonished when this was pulled from our screens, and replaced with something else, doubtless a "Panorama Special" on how McDonalds makes people fat, or something else that I would have clearly missed if I had not given them my licence fee, so joys abound when I spotted a Christmas edition of Victorian Farm! My heart leapt with unrestrained glee as I casually, in order to throw off any onlookers who may have surmised the fact that I was desperate to watch this, clicked the link.

As I clicked the link, I settled back, ready for an evening of jolly entertainment from the BBC and the archaic farming methods used by our friendly staff at Acton Scott. From that moment on, I was enthralled with the events! First off, everyone got reacquainted after their year apart, during which time we had seen nothing of Victorian Farm, and indeed, I had nearly forgotten about it. Fortunately though, it still resided in my deepest, darkest memories, and I quickly caught up with the events, after all, it is easy to see how something such as the kneading of bread could quickly escape any casual viewer's grasp, and leave them baffled. It was good to see, therefore, that the BBC spent 5 minutes on the topic, lest any stragglers not yet be fully informed.

But the over-arching storyline was that of the hay. The hay, as was made clear, depends on sunlight, and the absence of rain. At times, it seemed like the hay dominated the story a bit too heavily, and took time from other key moments, such as "Checking the machinery" or "Buying a new ram", and eventually I found my initial tension about the hay dissipating more on each mention. Luckily though, the hay was rained on heavily, thus bringing back my tension, with a new feeling of guilt. "Oh God!" I thought "If only I had worried about the hay!". Fortuitously for me, and my guilty conscience, the hay collection went off without a hitch, and at the end of the episode, we see the group merrily celebrating around the hay.

For me, though, the star of the show was Mr Acton himself, landlord and all-around great guy. Never have I seen someone with such an excellently upper-class accent sniff hay to verify its capability to sustain life in his stock. When he donned his monocle to verify the amount of rainfall for his meticulous records, I nearly swooned.

All in all, Victorian Farm Christmas is an excellent way to prepare to free yourself from the misery of life and jump wildly out of the nearest window, screaming "Oh God, I didn't need to know the origins of the expression 'Grind to halt'!", before screaming the blood-curdling yelp of a man who has heard the expression "Make hay while the sun shines" too much for one mere hour.

You heard me, all this joy was condensed into just ONE hour. A whole HOUR of your life could be dedicated to "Victorian Farm Christmas". I highly recommend this if your alternative is to club yourself to death with a hammer, or run, blindfolded, in a hall of mirrors, with surprise boxing matches against David Hayes every six or seven feet.

Should you, against all reasonable advice, foolishly decide to watch this, I implore you, first of all not to, please God, DON'T, but if you must, say, you're writing a thesis on Victorian Farming and think this would be a good break, then try to remember the BBC does provide other, better, MUCH better shows to watch, so try to forgive them this one blatant mishap on their part, and think about the good times.