Pitching In

Will there be another series as finished in a strange way?

Could not get past the first episode. It played like a old time sitcom with canned laughter, and just very slapstick. Had all the current "socially acceptable" type characters in it but really poorly produced, and overall too silly to waste time watching.

As someone else remarks, the script just ticks boxes and wastes some strong acting potential. But the context - an English run caravan site in Wales (another country, BTW!) makes so many patronising or simply ignorant gaffes (let's be generous and say they were accidental not deliberate) it quickly goes from jarring to ear- achingly annoying.

1) Set in 'beautiful Wales', Welsh people play a token rôle, all voiced in a generic 'Valleys' accent (no such thing - like saying all people of one racial type 'look the same to me') 2) aiming for the bitter-sweet, slice of real life 'comedy', the comedy rests too much on badly staged 'japes' and soap opera or even pantomimery 'conflict' exchanges, (derived from plotted 'events' more than character development), but the 'real-life' is predictable and clichéd and ignores or rides roughshod over the reality of its premise - life faced by the communities all over Wales (and similar places throughout UK and Ireland) that depend on tourism. Too many examples to list, but they include: absentee 'buy to let' landlords; holiday-home driven housing markets forcing local young families into exile; 'let's retire early to the coast' immigration creating 'costas geriatricas' over burdening social and care budgets while depressing GDP; the combination of factors eating into the strength of the Welsh language like acid (if it were a species, it would have legal protection and conservation support - many feel endangered languages are no less significant to the survival of mankind). The powerful dynamic being missed (or ignored) is this external one - between the collapse of rural life and cultural conflicts around immigration and integration, between urban and rural... This narrative can also be internal, but navel-gazing over growing old, singlehood beyond a 'certain age', etc too easily becomes 'same old, same old'! 3) Telling details that are so inauthentic as to verge on the solipsistic, even close to racial stereotyping: the 'local' re-enactor 'yobs' (their props - and extras I presume - portraying the Anglo-Normans not the Welsh!); comparison with the sharper writing and satirical barbs of BBC Wales' 'Tourist Trap' (re-commissioned, with Sally Phillips and Tudur Owen) shows Pitching In to be the inferior project, despite its undoubtedly larger budget. I was bored, then impatient and finally, increasingly angry at the imposition, yet again, of centralised 'BCB' (British Colonial Broadcasting) attitudes and platitudes.

It's one of those shows you watch, and you have no idea what it is, a drama? Comedy? I honestly don't know where it's pitched. It's entirely silly, I'd even go so far as to say as to say stupid. However, in a time of dark mysteries, death and misery, it's been nice to watch something a little different, I can't say I'd wholeheartedly recommend it, but It's worth watching for Larry Lamb, he really is a class act.

I was a bit disappointed, as it was something I really looked forward to, but it's watchable enough. 6/10

This has obviously been produced using a tick box. Disabled check, homosexuals check, ethnic minorities check, check check, angst ridden single mother check. What a shame they couldn't make better use of a fine cast of actors.