Edinburgh Fringe 2010
Low Down
This is a love letter, and a reminder that the BBC, whilst educating, entertaining and informing, has the power to genuinely change lives. This message is delivered – pretty much in a BBC RP style voice, thanks to Toby’s accidentally sounding posh – via the claim that the BBC has, in its small quiet way, profoundly changed Toby Hadoke’s own life. Along the way, Toby himself manages to educate, entertain and inform in no small measure.
Review
It’s essentially a potted history of Toby’s own relationship with the BBC – not with television, not with commercial TV, which he’s careful not to overly demean – mainly because the BBC is about the only business with which you can have a genuine emotional attachment with. In this, it’s fair to say that he’s very likely preaching to the converted – it would be a surprise to find anyone in the audience who wasn’t at least a reasonably staunch defender of the licence fee, but it’s good to have these things reconfirmed. We’ve already lost the art of enjoying children’s television before it had be separated by title from ‘grown up’ television, and we run the risk of losing the BBC altogether.
