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.

New to The Slow TV Blog? Have a look around...

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Three Slow TV shows in this week of July

Can't get enough Slow TV? Three to choose from this week:

Birdwatching in northern Norway up to and including Thursday evening

A Paddle Steamer in southern Norway from Tuesday to Saturday inclusive

Trainspotting Live - the first episode is here to watch in the UK. Two more episodes 8pm BST Tuesday and Wednesday on BBC4. Trainspotting Live arriving on Platform BBC4, 8pm, 11th July.

New to The Slow TV Blog? Have a look around...

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First Thoughts on Trainspotting Live

Courtesy Plum Pictures and BBC Four

From a Slow TV point of view, these are my first thoughts on BBC4's Trainspotting Live, produced by Plum Pictures.

What a marvellous celebration of the rail network and trains, from the Victorian period to now, from urban train stations to iconic lines and landscapes. BBC4's Trainspotting Live is not so much Slow TV but embracing several key principles of Slow TV.

At its heart, Slow TV is about taking your time to see what you can see if and until when something 'big' happens. It's in that waiting where the smaller details assume greater significance and then the mundane evolves into the spectacular. It's about finding the meaning in the meantime.

In terms of the images, the transmission itself is not very 'slow' in that we do not have a picture where not much is happening for a while. It is a steady flow of pictures and cuts from around the country, blended together with pre-recorded packages about rail history and enthusiasts. Even watching the Crewe built Black 5 approach the halt in Scotland, the broadcast was cut to the next piece of information before the experience of watching all of the train could pass. Slow TV is more about the experience than the information.

Yes, information unpacks and explains the experience - but the head-knowledge about something rarely replaces the experience knowledge of it. This is where English is inadequate to convey the nuances of knowledge. Think about the German verbs Wissen with Kennen, or French Savoir with Connaitre. Let's see more of the train as it passes, and hold off the producer's itch to cut to the next stimulating information feed.

27 minutes into the first episode the poet Ian McMillan, commenting on the poem 'Adelstrop' narrated by Richard Burton (what a fantastic voice that man had), he remarks about moments of stasis in a poem being a metaphor for moments of stasis in life - where you sit and wait, then somehow in that waiting, history turns and culture turns. That really is capturing some of the transformative essence of Slow TV.

However, Trainspotting Live is good TV medicine, something we need more of. It's a celebration of the everyday, a celebration of something not usually on TV. Thankfully there are another two one-hour segments of Trainspotting Live. Making special moments of the everyday. The mundane becomes the spectacle, the small things become the big things.

New to The Slow TV Blog? Have a look around...

The enthusiasm of the presenters and the participants in Trainspotting Live was fantastic and endearing. The passion for details and nuances, the celebration of 'nerd' ways. I used to take offence at the word 'nerd' but now I see it as something to be embraced - I too am quite a nerd for ancient sites, and yes, well, Slow TV.

Nice one Plum Pictures and BBC4. A live fest of history, heritage, rail-enthusiast excitement. Even if there's not much actual Slow TV in the production, the presence of several principles of Slow TV is a good thing in a media world where we used to having quick fire stimulation.

The first episode is here to watch in the UK. Two more episodes 8pm BST Tuesday and Wednesday on BBC4.

Trainspotting Live arriving on Platform BBC4, 8pm, 11th July.

Can't get enough Slow TV? More this week  - Birdwatching in northern Norway up to and including Thursday evening, and also a Paddle Steamer in southern Norway from Tuesday to Saturday inclusive, courtesy of NRK.

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Trainspotting Live arriving on Platform BBC4, 8pm, 11th July.

Between 8 and 9pm on the 11th, 12th and 13th July, BBC4 will be screening "Trainspotting Live". 

There will be times of waiting to see what happens - live, in real time - a core dynamic of Slow TV. It will be good to see how much it is a mix of a live news event, traditional 'information' film and to what an extent it is an experiential Slow Television celebration of trains and rail network, minute by minute. 

Will they include any delayed services? Even the very first Slow TV from NRK in Norway was lengthened by about 10 minutes due to a signalling problem between Bergen and Oslo!

There will an official live blog on the BBC website (some of it already being coupled together HERE). There's an invitation to get involved via Twitter (#TrainSpottingLive) and on Facebook from the page.

Also keep an eye on tweets from Plum Pictures and Didcot Railway Centre HERE and HERE, respectively.

New to The Slow TV Blog? Have a look around...

The BBC Press release reads:

"Trainspotting Live will bring three nights of spotting, joy and excitement to BBC Four as Peter Snow, mathematician Dr Hannah Fry and engineer Dick Strawbridge along with a team of rail train enthusiasts revel in the tantalising intricacies, trade secrets and true pleasures of trainspotting... live!

Live from the historic Didcot Rail Museum, Peter Snow will be asking the audience to join the spotting by recording the most frequent to the most elusive trains on the tracks all over country during the three days of live broadcast. Our team of expert spotters will also be waiting in anticipation to catch the full range of British rail stock on camera - from classic steam, to diesel locomotives, to high-speed electric and our rarest beauties - explaining how they did it and delving into their importance in our British heritage.

Mathematician Hannah will be breaking down the mind-bending equations that go into keeping the thousands of trains on the network every day, while engineer Dick will explore the historic hidden marvels of rail engineering and surprising, rich history of trainspotting as trains whizz past his trainspotting location in the north of England, live.

As the train spots come in thick and fast from our presenters and the Great British public, Peter will be joined in Didcot by collectors, photographers, record holders and poets.

This is not just a show for the thousands of trainspotters out there; this is a show for anyone with a passion for British history, travel and engineering. This is a love letter to trains told by trainspotters – the custodians of our train history.

Trainspotting Live was produced in partnership with The Open University."

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