IT comes as something of a shock at the beginning of Greta Thunberg: a Year to Change the World (BBC1, Monday, 9pm) to learn that the climate activist turned 18 this year. She is so small and slight she seems younger than her years, and it only seems a blink of an eye ago that she was protesting outside the Swedish Parliament in one of her school strikes.
As this three part documentary shows, there’s an old head on those shoulders, one that fears time is running out to tackle climate change. So in the year she became an adult, Thunberg decided to take 12 months off school to learn more about her subject and raise awareness of the cause.
Accompanying her were a film crew, and her father. He admits to being terrified for her when she made her first big speech. Thunberg has autism, and he was not sure how she would react to the pressure. As hours and hours of tapes show, she is fearless in front of a crowd. So tiny she needs a box to stand to be seen at a podium, her presence is nevertheless towering.
At the start of the film she says she would rather people listened to the science rather than her. Much of the first part of the documentary is taken up with a trip to Canada then down to California, taking in everything from shrinking glaciers to forest fires. Scientist after scientist, from various specialisms, and from all over the world, share the same core message: humans cannot carry on as we have been doing, As we are already seeing, that way lies ruin.
For all the emphasis on the science, many of Thunberg’s admirers will watch this three-parter in the hope of learning more about the young woman who has become as famous, if not more so, as presidents and prime ministers. “People think I’m an angry teenager who screams at world leaders. That’s not who I am,” she says. We see that here. Not least in the moving scene when she and her father return home to mum and their dogs for Christmas. For a second she is just another young woman who has missed home.
So what did YOU do in the great war against the virus? With lockdown now easing and everyone soon to emerge blinking into the light, it seems we all need an answer to that question. Save for the essential work done by NHS staff and teachers, I imagine most of us tried our best just to plod on and get through it.
Some took up new hobbies, though, including one of the contestants in The Great British Sewing Bee (BBC1, Wednesday, 9pm).
The other 11 candidates come from all over the UK and, as quickly becomes obvious, are of varying abilities. There is nothing like having to make a garment, on deadline, that someone can wear, to separate the serious stitchers from the rest (some insist on calling them sewers, which is technically correct but always looks odd).
Representing Scotland, should you wish to stitch together a Saltire and hoist it up the flagpole, is Serena, a medical student living in Edinburgh. At just 21, she is the youngest in the competition.
Returning for judging duty are Esme Young, a lecturer at Central Saint Martins, and Patrick Grant, a designer and tailor by trade. There is nothing these two don’t know about making clothes, and they are always generous with advice.
Though they will point out where contestants go wrong, this is no Britain’s Got Talent for stitchers. No one is buzzed off briskly. The atmosphere is always upbeat, with much of the mood down to naughty but nice presenter Joe Lycett.
Last week it was Matt Baker down on the farm (Our Farm in the Dales (More4, Wednesday, 9pm). This week sees the return of Our Yorkshire Farm (Channel 5, Tuesday, 9pm), and Escape to the Farm with Kate Humble (Channel 5, Thursday, 8pm).
No first prize rosette for guessing why such programmes are proving so popular. Moving to the countryside has been the dream of a lot of people in this pandemic.
Yet as these shows about farming demonstrate, it is hardly an easy option. You need to be on the go, all the time, which can be particularly hard with children around.
Not that this is an issue for Amanda Owen, the matriarch at the centre of Our Yorkshire Farm. Amanda and her husband have nine children. Nine. Plus 1000-plus sheep. Yet she is the epitome of cool, calm and collected. Though you could put the success of this show down to the glorious scenery, it is really Amanda that many viewers drop in to see. Like Joe Lycett on Sewing Bee, she sets the tone and the rest follows.
There doesn’t seem to be anything that fazes her, from trouble with a ewe during lambing to a son and his bike stuck in the mud. Watching her cope with it all makes for a calming watch. Amanda for Prime Minister. You heard it here first.
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