Some light relief for the weekend \u2013 a TV review……<\/p>\n
Amongst other signs of an upsurge in interest in woodlands has been the appearance of a number of programmes about them, of which I was reminded by a recent rerun. Woodlands of course have been a staple of wildlife TV for years, but what made these new programmes different was their focus on people as a part of the woodland habitat.<\/p>\n
It could be argued that such a focus actually began with the \u2018Woodland House<\/a>\u2019 episode of Grand Designs featuring Ben Law, ten years ago now, but in truth there has been little in the intervening years (apart from occasional \u2018revisits\u2019 to Prickly Nut Wood). Until last autumn, that is, when in quick succession we had \u2018Jimmy\u2019s Forest<\/a>\u2019, with Jimmy Doherty; \u2018Kevin McCloud\u2019s Man Made Home<\/a>\u2019, and \u2018Tales from the Wildwood<\/a>\u2019 with Rob Penn. Just for fun, I thought I\u2019d give my personal take on all four series.<\/p>\n Grand Design\u2019s \u2018Woodland House\u2019 set the standard, showing the general public that building attractive and comfortable homes from locally-sourced materials was not just possible, but affordable too. Ben Law\u2019s wider philosophy towards his woodland came over well, and Kevin McCloud was clearly deeply struck by the project.<\/p>\n Jimmy Doherty is a lovely guy and has done great things in the field of food production. However, for me, \u2018Jimmy\u2019s Forest\u2019 felt a bit contrived; many of the activities shown gave the impression of being set-up for the cameras rather than \u2018fly on the wall\u2019 footage of what was happening anyway. Indeed, I wondered how much time Jimmy actually spent in his wood when the cameras weren\u2019t there.<\/p>\n