All Aboard! The Country Bus on August 29th

Update 24th October 2017: All Aboard! The Country Bus is repeated on BBC4, commencing midnight tonight (00:00 Wednesday, during Tuesday night). Thanks to Richard in the Slow TV Fans Facebook group for the heads up.

Update August 2016: All Aboard! The Country Bus arrives on BBC4 on Monday 29th August, 8-10pm British Summer Time (Bank Holiday for England, Wales and Northern Ireland). Trainspotting Live aired in July. Also starting on 29th August from 9am BST - 12 days of cows in a barn in Norway with NRK Fjos. More here.

The next lot of UK Slow TV happens in a right grand county

We've had a canal trip, an amble around the National Gallery, peeps at craft making, three glorious dawn choruses and a reindeer trip into the snowy wilderness of northern Norway. Have we had enough of Slow TV in the UK? Thankfully, no. The BBC have commissioned another two bouts of Slow TV, both transport oriented but different in presentation.

The first will be a pre-recorded bus journey from Richmond, Yorkshire to Ingleton. Unlike the reindeer journey which picked us up somewhere in the wilderness and left us not entirely sure where we were - in order to fit the constraints of a TV schedule, or The Canal Trip which was a few miles of the segment of the Kennet and Avon canal which is 87 miles long, All Aboard! The Country Bus has a sense of completion to it in that it takes in the broadest part of The Yorkshire Dales by road.

All Aboard! The Country Bus at The Market Place, Richmond

This sense of completion is important. Slow TV is another way of telling a story on TV. Would you watch a couple episodes of Game of Thrones to consider you've seen the story of the season? Does following the progress of The Fellowship of the Ring from Rivendell to Lothlorien give a sense of completed journey of The Lord of The Rings? Obviously, no. In the same vein it is my contention that much of what is getting made of Slow TV is not getting the story-telling framing of the format right. It needs to be the whole story.

So, this bus journey looks promising. Leaving The Market Place at Richmond and ending up at Ingleton Community Centre a couple hours later, The Northern Dalesman route takes in some breathtaking natural landscapes and a wonder of Victorian engineering, the Ribblehead Viaduct.

The Ribblehead Viaduct
on the route of The Country Bus Slow TV

One assumes there will be an element of surprise as to who gets on the bus. Depending on the time of day or week will there be hikers looking to rest their feet? Will the bus get stuck behind bicycles on the country lanes? Could we even get "the nutter on the bus" of Jasper Carrot's comedic eulogising? Part of the joy of Slow TV is the unfolding unexpectedness of what might happen. Not that someone getting off the bus has quite the same shock as an important character's elimination in Game of Thrones... but hopefully you get what I mean. Drama is more subtle and microcosmic in Slow TV.

As the BBC continues to build its portfolio of All Aboard! Slow TV transport shows, this is a welcome production and I'm hopeful this framing of its content shows promise of a stronger conceptualisation of telling the whole story. Like previous journey based Slow TV productions, it will be made by ITV owned The Garden Productions for BBC4.

Thacking Lane, Ingleton
It may be Slow TV but there's no need to swear about it

Now, if this were to be like buses (you wait ages for one then three come at the same time), we need another Slow TV show announcement from the BBC (or another UK broadcaster would be welcome). A second Slow TV production with trainspotting as its subject has been announced, and it's live.

This liveness is very important, too. It has that sense of 'now', that we're witnessing something unfold at the same time as we're watching it. Yes, there has to be the expectation of what trains will be coming through and when courtesy of timetables. What if there are delays? Cancellations? What type of locomotives? Which carriage numbers? Diesel - steam - electric?

Based at The Didcot Heritage Railway Centre, veteran broadcaster Peter Snow will be joined by a mathematician, Dr Hannah Fry with a rail-roving reporter, Dick Strawbridge (with probably the most amazing moustache on UK TV) over three (simultaneous?) evenings on BBC4. Friday, Saturday, Sunday, maybe? Would give a very different pattern of train timetable, different types of passenger and reasons for travelling, with more time for the dedicated trainspotter and the Slow TV curious viewer to tune in.

Trainspotting is like a box of chocolates...
...you never know what you're going to get

This extended series of live events will allow greater interaction with the show, online and maybe in person, too. Could Dick Strawbridge's appearing from different locations allow unexpected interactions? (Probably welcome and unwelcome interactions! I am continually delighted at how well behaved the uninvited interactions on the Norwegian format are - even if the last one from Saltstraumen included a group of men and women running in their underwear across a bridge). Unstaged behaviour helps populate a Slow TV production with an added element of surprise for viewer and producer - and in the case it is unsuitable, hopefully cutting to another camera would be an option.

Trainspotting Live obviously is not a journey from A to Z (or F to M), but embraces a good principle or two of Slow TV. It is a surprising thing to put on TV, a novelty - therein lies a hook to attract viewers, besides any core audience attracted to its subject. It also allows a sense of waiting and expecting something interesting to happen. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. If it doesn't, then the viewer will find interest in the picture somehow, if the producer will refrain from cutting from something quickly if they feel 'nothing' might be happening.

All Aboard! The Country Bus Slow TV goes across the broadest
part of the Yorkshire Dales National Park

Scenes need to be allowed to speak for themselves. Think of the slowness in Slow TV like an old friend. You don't need continual chat and information, just being in each others' presence is good enough.There will be moments for saying things, imparting information - when the time's right - but not some nervous chit chat in case that awkward-silence-thing happens. Slow TV is about allowing things to have their time. Not prolonging, not artificially reducing speed but having its own innate speed.

So, these two productions from the BBC should play out in the next few months. Trainspotting Live while we still have light evenings, perhaps The Country Bus as the evenings draw in as a memoir of sunny days past as Christmas twinkles on the temporal horizon and maybe another festive Slow TV offering comes from a UK broadcaster.

Early morning near Ingleton - perfect for Slow TV

Did you hear about the Russian Slow TV? Have a look at What was so right with Russia's War and Peace Slow TV?

Slow Down - a dedicated Slow TV and Slow Radio show starting on RedShift Radio from 8th September.

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