Today We Are Watching….
…..Come Outside, a programme so ancient that it predates even CBeebies (yes indeed, there was a time in the dim and distant past when CBeebies didn’t exist – let us think of it as ‘the before time’.). So old, in fact, is this stalwart of preschool viewing that the nephew, now aged nine, used to watch it in his toddler days.
With this knowledge in mind, it should come as no surprise to learn that it’s from a kinder, gentler era of children’s TV, before the days of dayglo CGI technology and perky presenters imploring us to visit the channel’s all-new website after practically every show. And one can’t help thinking that the archive is exactly where it should have stayed, for the adventures of Aunty Mabel (Lynda Baron – yup, that is Nurse Gladys to you and I) and her uber-talented pooch Pippin really does feel like the product of another era.
Or perhaps I think it’s time it should be consigned to the annals of history because it irritates me so bloomin’ much.
This is a show about a nice middle-class lady, clad in Laura Ashley florals, who roams the country in a big spotty plane whenever she has to do something as mundane as have a dental check-up or buy groceries. Her canine buddy (who, given the fact the show was first made in 1993, probably shuffled off to doggie heaven a long time ago 
) accompanies her everywhere of course, occasionally rolling in mud or doing something similarly comical to allow her to end every show in a kind of eye-rolling ‘awwwww but how can I be cross with you when you’re this cute?’ kind of way. It’s all very gentle, the kind of programme your mum might watch if it was on BBC1 on a Sunday night and had a whole bunch of quirky supporting characters thrown in.
All of which leads me to wonder what it is this woman actually does that allows her to swan all over the country in a private plane. She might look like a kindly middle-aged lady but part of me thinks she is actually a ruthless businesswoman of the sort that turn up on The Apprentice every so often. Clearly whatever it is she does though allows her time off to visit toothpaste factories and the like, since she seems to spend most of the episode time examining the goings on on production lines (I can only think she must own the factories, otherwise the manager should be informed that a mad woman with a dog and a spotty plane has infiltrated the premises in order to check the stripes in her Aquafresh are in alignment. But anyway….).
Like so many of these shows, however, it was clearly made on a budget of about £1.20. Last week I came across an episode in which Aunty Mabel jets off to Spain (er, Spain? In a tiny one-seater plane? All the way from the English countryside???????) to see how marmalade is made. Cue lots of shots of her standing in front of a slightly wonky-looking backdrop of orange groves and the like which suggests she is nowhere near Seville but probably in a studio in Grimsby or somewhere similarly distant from the Med. There’s something rather glorious about kids’ shows that are clearly a bit short on cash (my current favourite is I Can Cook, which may well have cost a fortune to make but really does look as if it was whipped up in the presenter’s kitchen) but frankly, this is pushing it a bit. I confidently expect to switch on my TV some time soon and see our leading lady standing in front of a photo of a beach, claiming she has jetted off to Aruba for a spot of winter sunshine.
Still, as annoying as this show may be, I realised just how much it had seeped into my psyche when Lynda Baron showed up on EastEnders a few months ago. “Look!” I shrieked. “It’s Aunty Mabel!” Not that these shows are messing with my head or anything. I think I’d better go and have a nice liedown……
