The Great British Weather (BBC1)

The Great British Weather

(BBC1)

It had all the ingredients of a high-suspense, edge-of-your seat drama: danger, obsession, unpredictability – yes, someone has finally made a programme about the Great British weather.

And imaginatively, just in case we didn't get it, it was called, er, The Great British Weather, writes Ben Bentley.

It started in sunny St Ives, Cornwall, where I noticed it wasn't raining – no, that would have cocked up the attractive beach shots, not to mention weatherwoman Carol Kirkwood's nice sky-blue blouse.

Then we were offered a series of blindingly obvious statements from the team of presenters – our Carol, Strictly's Chris Hollins and comedian Alexander Armstrong – about our obsession with British weather.

"It's so hard to predict", "It's unique", "We moan about it, "We get a lot of rain in the UK". Wow, tell us something new, will you?

And then they did. Kind of. That we here in Britain live under four different air masses which continually fight for supremacy, before it goes and rains anyway.

And forgive me if I'm wrong, but I thought weather forecasting had gone hi-tech. But no. The team demonstrated the air-mass phenomenon by getting four groups of fat blokes to run at each other full-pelt while carrying pictures of cardboard clouds. Whichever blokes were left standing won.

Duh. Now I understand.

This Tiswas science was repeated to illustrate how the sea keeps Britain warm. "Did you know we are surrounded by sea?" asked Carol. Honestly?

To show how being surrounded by water keeps us warm, two semi-naked skinny blokes were wheeled on – one wearing very little aside from a bowler hat representing Britain, the other, sporting little more than a birthday suit and a daft furry hat representing land-locked Kazakhstan (where it's cold, apparently).

They were both put in a fridge; the Brit in a bath filled with water, the other in an empty tub.

When our dithering guinea pigs were pulled out, they asked a random woman called Jean to have a grope of both of them and say who was the hottest. Sadly, random Jean got all hot under the collar and said the dishy Kazikstan bloke. In the heat of the moment I think she got the wrong end of the stick.

Now, I know this show was billed as interactive but, aside from having quick feel, at the very least I was expecting to be able to press the red button and make it rain.

Sadly it wasn't half that exciting. We had to send in our photos and Carol would pin them on her map.

The point? Presumably to prove, yet again, something that we already know. That the weather is, like, different in different places, man.

Age-old weather sayings were explored. Red sky at night, shepherd's delight. And guess what, the team tested it and it was true! A modern day shepherd was wheeled on to agree.

The Great British Weather had its moments – but all too often it blew hot and cold, and for a programme about unpredictability, it was disappointingly predictable.

And to be honest, all I want to know from a show about meteorology is what it's going to be like tomorrow.

Now, what time's the proper weather forecast on the box . . ?