TV review, Quacks (BBC2): Rupert Everett's animated hernia

Plus: People Just Do Nothing (BBC 3)

Rupert Everett (left) as Dr Hendrick and Rory Kinnear as Dr Lessing in this curious, enjoyable creation (BBC)

It takes a special kind of genius to make a hernia seem comical, even one attached to the intrinsically comedic figure of Rupert Everett, essaying his show-stealing role as boss-doctor Hendrick in the last episode of Quacks. The last episode of this particular series, I hasten to add, as it does deserve many more runs.

So full praise then to Mr Everett, and to the team behind his animated prosthetic lump that throbbed with such dramatic polish. The point of such a contrivance (I confess watching a show set in mid-Victorian times does induce a slightly antique declamation in one – there I go again) was to prove the superiority of an English surgeon, namely Robert Lessing (Rory Kinnear), over a French popinjay named Patrice DuPont (nicely turned by Ben Willbond). You see, the point about the pulsation was that this hernia was not a hernia but an aneurysm, a still more dangerous complaint. The life of the royal physician (Everett/Hendrick) had therefore to be saved by the intervention of Lessing, hitherto merely unquestioning assistant to DuPont.

At the successful conclusion of this “operation très difficile”, assisted by his proto-feminist wife Caroline (Lydia Leonard), Lessing asked the assembled audience to “boo the Frenchman”. We were then reminded of the wisdom of Dr Everett when requesting Lessing’s participation on the grounds that, though undoubtedly brilliant, DuPont “is French and therefore not entirely to be trusted”. All very Brexity, I must say, and for some reason I was constantly put in mind of Michel Barnier.

I also enjoyed the send-up of our great grandfathers and great grandmothers’ attitudes to sex. Lessing’s unhappy wife seduces Lessing’s “alienist” (psychiatrist) colleague William (Mathew Baynton), the ensuing passion climaxing in the ravishing of her stockinged ankle. William, on the other hand, also becomes betrothed to Mina (Emily Jackson). Jackson put on a magnificent show as a character for whom there is no single term in the English language, being simultaneously silly, childish, naïve, delectable, sexless and manipulative – all oddly reminiscent of the Queen Elizabeth that Miranda Richardson played in Blackadder II. If we are allowed more “Quacking”, then I’d hope there’d be more of Mina, and her lovely apple snowballs, too.

Quacks is a curious as well as an enjoyable creation. It’s a genetically engineered combination of Doctor in the House, the aforementioned Blackadder and a Saw movie. For all the gore and blood-spattering carotid arteries spurting lifeblood away, most of the time is spent in parlours and male dens, and the humour is very contemporary (ie for us) – smart-alec word play, irony, satire and a bit of swearing. This is much better than the alternative, by the way, which would be genuine 19th century gags, which have not aged even as well as those in Shakespeare’s plays. In around 1860 most wisecracks took the form of execrable punning, some now incomprehensible. Such as:

Why is a dog like a tree? (Because they both lose their bark once they’re dead).

Why should the number 288 never be mentioned in company? (Because it is two gross).

(I should explain, on that, that a gross is an archaic measure of a dozen items of a dozen items ie 12 x 12 = 144. Therefore too/two gross = 2 x 144 = 288).

Maybe in a century and half someone will find Mrs Brown’s Boys all that foul language on panel shows equally bemusing, and revert to the fun of the pun. If that’s you, in about 2167, and you’re reading this, please do give me a belated credit for my foresight.

The last episode of the fourth series of People Just Do Nothing had more of an air to finality attached to it. Can the least listened-to pirate station in Brentford (Kurupt FM 108.9) last for much longer? Miche and MC Grindah got married (though Grindah was good enough to open up the prospect of divorce in his groom’s speech, which leaves room for some nice plot lines); DJ Steves was arrested under the Wireless Telegraphy Act 2006 and for possession of a controlled drug with intent to supply; the crew’s equipment has been seized by the “federales”, as Steves calls the Metropolitan Police Service; and Chabuddy G has finally managed to “thumb it in” (with Miche’s lusty mum), and to secure paid employment, though still sleeping in his van.

Like Grindah and family life, or Chabuds working for a boss, I’m not at all sure we’re any of us ready for life without Kurupt FM. Just what will people do?