Drought 2012 – Inside Out - TV review

Comedy, they say, is all in the timing. Yes it does seem slightly slapstick that a programme about drought came on the back of the wettest April on record, when umbrella sales went through the roof, many regions around the UK went onto flood alert and I personally began to grow webbed toes.

Drought 2012 , a timely investigation by the Inside Out team, last night took a look at why, when there has been so much rain, many areas around the region are officially in drought, and how it is all going to affect us this summer.

As puddles lingered in my back garden, it questioned if enough was being done to avert a major national crisis.

Er, clearly not.

The team, looking forlorn in standard issue kagouls, reported how, even though parts of the region are in drought, the Midlands' biggest water supplier, Severn Trent, has water supplies in bucketloads. Enough to pipe surplus stocks to Norfolk.

So said a bloke from Severn Trent called David Essex, whom I fully expected to burst into a rendition of Hold Me Close – complete with the meteorologically sage lyric: "With your love light shining, every cloud's got a silver lining".

Maybe he'll do it when other parts of the country come off their hosepipe bans.

But more farce ensued. Apparently Environment Agency licenses for abstraction currently pour cold water on many bright ideas to alleviate the strain on the likes of struggling farmers in dry areas.

So, were water companies and the Environment Agency were doing enough to tackle the problem of drought. Answers on a postcard, please. In a bottle, of course – just pop it on your local swollen river.

We were reminded how already there have been two unusually dry winters; if there is a third this winter then vital groundwater reservoirs will not be replenished and we'll be up the creek without a paddle.

It'll be like the summer of 1976 only without the sunshine and clever trousers.

The programme asked if the government had a clear and workable plan to deal with such a scenario.

And discovered that it appeared not. One university boffin said any such plan looked to be "based on hope that it rains".

Ah, the glass half-full view. Bit worrying, that.

Reporters also looked at the issue of how water companies tackled pipeline leaks.

Badly, evidently.

Especially when you find out that water companies are frittering away much of our daily supply by having pipes apparently made out of old colanders.

Drought 2012 was far from a dry programme. Informative and well put together, it offered us both the local and national picture on our current and future supplies of water.

And being a bloke who's mostly made up of the stuff, I was certainly made more aware of where I personally could do more to conserve our most precious of commodities.

I don't want to go back to washing my knickers in puddles. Again.

The programme ended, appropriately, with Shefali doing today's weather forecast. Due to start off wet apparently. Bring a brolly, drought people.

Drought 2012 might not have been a comedy, but the circumstances which precipitated it meant you had to laugh.

Maybe when the comedy awards roll round again it will be our water authorities' moment in the sun – a Perrier perhaps?

Ben Bentley