Hands up if you’ve seen Coast (UKTV History, Wednesday, Midnight)? Chances are, everyone in Britain has seen Coast at least once when flicking through the channels. It’s been on the Beeb (BBC2 if I remember rightly) and now, it’s on all the time on UKTV History. Coast, unsurprisingly, travels around the coastline(s) of Great Britain, looking at sunken U-Boats, nature, smugglers coves and lots of moody looking rocks… if a rock can look moody. Out moodying them all however is host Neil Oliver.

Neil Oliver is the most Celtic man you’ll ever lays eyes on. No, that doesn’t mean he’s ginger, wears a kilts and does reels to fiddle-de-dee music. Oliver is more Celtic than that. On the occasion, Neil Oliver sports a black overcoat and stands facing the oncoming wind to yells in thick Scottish brouges. Seeing as we’re in the mood for learning (are we?), the word brogue comes from the Irish word “bróg”, meaning shoe. Apparently, the term was coined by an Englishman who met an Irishman whose accent was so thick that he spoke “as though he had a shoe in his mouth”. What’s this got to do with Coast? Everything you muppet.

Coast is a windswept education. Looking at just about everything that happens in and around a coast or port, we find out just how important our seaside towns really are. I mean, we’re an island aren’t we? The sea was always going to be a source of riches, heritage and wonderful tales wasn’t it? Of course, to front a show like this, you have to choose wisely. Imagine a cockney heading up Coast. “Awight? Today we’re lookin’ at Robin Hood’s Bay in Yorkshire… jeez guv’, it’s grim up Narf innit? Nah mate, I’m messin’… it’s pukka…” The fact remains that, if you want someone on the box to be trusted, you have to hire a Scotsman, an Irishman, a Lancastrian or a Yorkshireman (sounds like the start of a rubbish joke doesn’t it?).

Coast went for a Scot with a very sincere voice that sounds like it’s popped out of a fantasy novel for children. In fact, Neil Oliver has more than an air of fantasy about him. Watching him looking out to the horizon on some windswept coast line, with a rich melodious overdub (complete with brooding orchestrations), I often imagine him dissolving into the ground like a flash and turning into a crow, squawing as he tears the cloud with the tip of a wing. See what this programme does to you? It turns you into a twee Brit trying to be all poetic. To rectify, Coast… it’s an alright programme if you like that sort of thing. [Mof Gimmers]