Oh I did so love The Famous Five when I was a young’un. The adventures of three spoilt siblings, their lesbian cousin and a dog, I particularly liked Dick (stop sniggering at the back.) Admittedly, even as a child I thought it was a bit much that one storyline involved him not knowing that Dick is short for Richard. He’s one of a team of genius child investigators and doesn’t even know HIS OWN NAME? Anyway, as I got older it became apparent this might not be the most controversial thing about the series, and I might want to look at the fact that it was always that dark feller wot done it, he’s got a shifty look about him.
The casual racism might not be front-and-centre in tonight’s Enid, but we’re promised a look at the darker side of Enid Blyton all the same. In the first of a brief run of BBC4 TV movies about famous British women (still to come: Jane Horrocks as Gracie Fields and Anne-Marie Duff as Margot Fonteyn,) Helena Bonham Carter plays Enid as she enters into an unhappy marriage, alienates everyone around her while writing jolly stories about who gets the red caravan. It also stars Matthew Macfadyen as her alcoholic first husband, and Joseph “Fit Dad” Millson who is in absolutely bloody everything at the moment and surely must have cloned himself. Best watched with lashings of ginger beer.
- Enid, 9pm, BBC4 / 10pm, BBC HD
