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The Duchess in Hull

The Duchess of York with the Sargerson family
  • Posted at 3:19pm
  • 15 May 2008
  • by AlisonGraham-RT
  • 4 comments

You have to hand a big chocolate bar to the imaginative soul at ITV who dreamed up The Duchess in Hull (Monday 19 May and Tuesday 20 May, 9:00pm, ITV1). Take a working class family living on a rough council estate in one of Britain's least appetising cities (and before the outcry, can I say that I have lived in Hull, so I know exactly what I'm talking about). They are overweight and have no ideas about healthy eating.

One day there's a knock on their door and guess who it is? None other than the Duchess of York, a woman whose own problems with her weight have turned her into something of a totem for the chubby. She's here to help!

When I first heard about The Duchess in Hull, I was pretty furious. It sounded unbearably patronising. For all I know, it is unbearably patronising, as I have yet to see it (ITV1 didn't release preview DVDs to the press).

But I softened a little bit after reading Andrew Duncan's interview with the Duchess in RT. She seems a decent woman with good intentions so who knows, if The Duchess in Hull is a success, we might get a whole series where she wanders Britain, trying to convince people to eat carrots. The Duchess in Kettering? The Duchess in Abergavenny? It could be fabulous.

As someone who remains to be convinced that the original Cybermen have ever been bettered when it comes to sheer fright value - they could run and kill, for heaven's sake - I've thus not been particularly impressed by Doctor Who's more recent monsters. The revamped Sontarans a few weeks ago were just overdone baked potatoes in spacesuits and Saturday's (17 May, 7:00pm, BBC1) beastie is the most ridiculous giant wasp.

I laughed all the way through the episode, and not just because of the humungous flying pest, but actually because The Unicorn and the Wasp is meant to be funny. After the emotional, thoughtful episodes of the series so far, a bit of a laugh is a welcome thing, though I suspect die-hard devotees will find it all too silly and beneath them.

But I loved it. The Doc and Donna land at a 1920s country house party hosted by the enigmatic Lady Eddison (Felicity Kendal). But there's a body in the library, which sounds like something that would intrigue Agatha Christie. So it's lucky she's around, then, isn't it? The time travellers team up with the lady writer (Fenella Woolgar) to investigate a series of murders. Nothing here advances the greater story of the Doctor - it stands alone. But there's nothing wrong with that.

**

Alison Graham is TV editor of Radio Times - read her column in the latest issue of Radio Times magazine, on sale now.

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Comments

  • Posted on 20 May 2008
  • at 5:50pm
  • by polly13

Thanks for the kind words and the proposal of marriage, MazY. It's been a while since I received one of those!

Unfortunately for you, as well as being a 100% advocate for the city of Kingston-upon-Hull, I'm also 100% male and 100% heterosexual!

  • Posted on 20 May 2008
  • at 12:33pm
  • by MazY

I didn't watch the programme, and I've never been to Hull. But damn, polly13 sure knows how to write a rebuttal. If I weren't so scared of her refusal, I'd have proposed marriage, just on the strength of her fine response.

You must have known that you had that coming, Alison.

  • Posted on 19 May 2008
  • at 10:57pm
  • by polly13

Predicting an outcry was never going to be enough to stop one I'm afraid, Alison. Not when you then come out with the same boring old guff about my current city of choice.

"...I have lived in Hull, so I know exactly what I'm talking about".

Really?

Go on then - tell us all about it. Tell us how the Preston Road family are so typical of us fat-arsed inbred morons up here. Tell us how the health and obesity problems are so much worse than anywhere else here in this dreary, backward place. Throw in some more pointless statistics about how we have the worst schools in the country too, why dontcha?

Then - if you can be bothered - you can explain to everyone that the reason this fine city figures at the bottom of every poxy bloody league table is because it has some of the most unfairly skewed political boundaries this side of Tibet. The fact that its pleasant, well-educated and wealthy western suburbs were chopped off by the Boundary Commission and handed over to East Yorkshire means that we are tarred with a very black brush indeed, and makes us an easy target for people like you, who are either unaware of this situation or chose to ignore it.

Why spoil a nice stereotype though?

  • Posted on 16 May 2008
  • at 12:47pm
  • by micra12
I have read the article in the Radio Times (To Hull and Back) and I too know Hull well and maybe the Duchess is a caring person but there again that is the persona Tony Blair displayed! However there is one item in the article which I can't understand I know people on benefits and if a family with that number of children are only on £80 a week benefits I would be most surprised. Can you explain what that figure comprises and whether there is any other income? Otherwise I think the whole scenario could be very misleading.

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