Repeat viewing: The vintage shows we need back on our screens

With productions on hold and major events cancelled, the coronavirus crisis has turned TV schedules upside down.

In response to looming gaps in programming - and in some cases, as an attempt to lift the nation’s spirits - many channels have chosen to dust off old favourites from the archives and bring them back to our screens.

Saturday nights on the BBC now involve soothing sitcoms Gavin and Stacey and Outnumbered, with the broadcaster also set to air the 2012 Olympic opening ceremony this spring along with some memorable moments from the London Games.

iPlayer, too, is awash with an influx of throwback boxsets (is this a good time to remind you that it’s currently streaming every episode of Tracey Beaker?) and ITV has also jumped on the nostalgia bandwagon, offering up classic games from Euro '96 from May in lieu of - sigh - any new matches.

But with decades of programmes to choose from, there is plenty of TV gold - be it a forgotten series, a sporting moment or a musical performance - that’s yet to return to schedules or streaming platforms.

Here’s what the Standard team would love to see make a comeback...

Footballers’ Wives - ITV (2002-2006)

The diamante in the tiara of Noughties television, Footballers’ Wives has been lamentably AWOL from any legitimate streaming platform since the show’s final whistle blew back in 2006.

Airing as WAG-mania reached a peak off-screen (the last episodes came in tandem with real life scenes of Coleen, Cheryl et al shopping in Baden Baden), the ITV series chronicled the increasingly unhinged antics of the fictional Earls Park squad and their partners. Zoe Lucker’s Tanya Turner, a fake-tanned Machiavelli, was the reigning Queen, with glamour model Chardonnay (whose breast implants spontaneously combust during one memorable set piece) her second-in-command.

The storylines were as outrageous as the outfits, encompassing everything from affairs and catfights to babies swapped at birth and Tanya’s drugs conviction (cue the most ambitious crossover event in ITV history, when she popped up in Bad Girls...)

Katie Rosseinsky​

Any Dream Will Do and Over the Rainbow - BBC One (2007 and 2010)

Forget X Factor. Forget Bake Off. The only reality TV talent competitions we need back in our lives right now are the ones where Andrew Lloyd Webber got to make or break the dreams of young musical theatre wannabes while sitting on an actual throne.

Presented by Graham Norton, the sing-offs were peak drama and the eliminations were even better. Who could forget the exterminated Josephs singing Close Every Door while the remaining contestants circled them, before finally tearing off their ACTUAL dreamcoat? (Metaphor alert.) Or the Dorothys returning their ruby slippers to Lloyd Webber’s lap before they were transported away on a giant, not entirely stable-looking moon?

These are the repeats we deserve.

Jessie Thompson

Changing Rooms - BBC One and Two (1996-2004)

There’s a ton of interior design shows on daytime television, but none as chaotic as Changing Rooms. From transforming perfectly sensible guest bedrooms into tacky Roman temples or adult film sets, airing this now would be a complete hoot as tastes have really moved on.

Of course, there would need to be a primetime full day marathon of just one Changing Rooms episode - the one where designer Linda Barker convinced a reluctant couple to put their entire prized teapot collection on a freestanding shelf, only for it to crash to the floor and shatter all of them.

Megan Hills

Lost in Austen - ITV (2008)

Among the many versions of Pride and Prejudice – and there are many – this 2008 gem did something different. Lost in Austen is highbrow fanfic, in only the best way.

Jemima Rooper, whose character is an Austen obsessive, climbs through a door in her bathroom and ends up trapped in Meryton, while Elizabeth Bennett takes her place.

Her presence in the novel sends the whole story careering off-track, with some marvellously unexpected revelations and a few painful plot-twists for the purists.

Elliot Cowan gives a brooding performance as Mr Darcy and does us all a favour by very gratuitously recreating the lake scene. There are lots of really big names among the cast list: Hugh Bonneville, Lindsay Duncan, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Alex Kingston. Well worth a revisit.

Zoe Paskett

Sumo - Channel 4 (1990s)​

On paper it’s preposterous. Two fat men in what look like nappies-as-evening-wear, chucking salt around a ring on the floor before violently giving each other a wedgie until one or other of them falls out of the circle. But when Channel 4 started showing Sumo wrestling during the 1990s, my Mum and I got totally into it (that and Ski Sunday).

The ceremony - the salt-throwing and thigh-slapping; the referee in his full kimono; the grunting that rivalled Wimbledon; the proud man-boobs. And the wrestlers!

Our favourites were the Wolf (Chiyonofuji Mitsugu), a mere 18.6 stone, who relied on nimbleness and muscle to manoeuvre his hulking opponents, and the Dump Truck (Konishiki Yasokichi), a vast, 45-stone Hawaiian-born Japanese-Samoan, the first non-Japanese-born wrestler to reach his level (level 2, since you ask - this is Japan, bureaucracy is everywhere). God, it was fun.

Nancy Durrant

Jay-Z at Glastonbury - BBC (2008)

I can still remember all the furore around Jay-Z headlining Glastonbury despite it happening well over a decade ago.

As the very first rapper to ever headline the festival, his hotly-anticipated appearance thoroughly irritated the likes of the Britpop elite, with Noel Gallagher raging: “Glastonbury has the tradition of guitar music ... I'm not having hip-hop at Glastonbury. It's wrong.”

Jay-Z’s reply? Opening his set on the Pyramid stage playing Gallagher’s criticism, before rapping Wonderwall and Amy Winehouse’s Rehab. A truly legendary debut, paving the way for the likes of Kanye West, Stormzy and (now unfortunately postponed) Kendrick Lamar.

Kimberley Bond

Tess of the D’Urbervilles - BBC One (2008)

A pre-fame Gemma Arterton and Eddie Redmayne made the perfect Tess and Angel in the Beeb’s gorgeous adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s second most depressing novel.

As far as period dramas go, this one is less cosy comfort watch in the vein of the Firth/Ehle Pride and Prejudice, more cathartic tearjerker. But from the photogenic central duo - Arterton also nails the Wessex burr - to the script by writer David Nicholls (whose much-loved One Day was then inspired by his re-reading a particular passage from Hardy’s book) to the supporting cast now wildly famous in their own right (Gavin and Stacey’s Ruth Jones plays Tess’s mother and future Doctor Who Jodie Whittaker is her friend), all the component parts knit together perfectly.

KR

Glue - E4 (2014)

It’s been a long time since something has moved me in the way Glue has.

One of Jack Thorne’s more under-the-radar hits, this somehow found its way to me a few years ago all the way in New Zealand, where I binged it over two days and proceeded to yell at my friends about how it was the greatest show they’d never seen.

Somewhere between Broadchurch and Skins, Glue uses a murder-mystery plot to lure viewers into the lives of young Brits feeling stifled by their small-town existences.

It’s a beautiful story about teenage loneliness, with each character desperate for their own version of a reprieve from the isolation they feel in rural Britain, and it features delicate and sensitive performances across the board by an astoundingly talented cast.

George Fenwick

Man O’ Man - ITV (1996-1999)

What a concept – an audience made up of braying women vote on which men they want to see shoved into a swimming pool, obviously hosted by Chris Tarrant because it was the nineties. The show sells itself. What it ended up being was a giant hen party with hundreds of women drunk on prosecco and power.

It might sound shallow (sorry) but please allow me to surprise you: it was! There were challenges to create the illusion that it was something more – but really, it was just a male beauty pageant with a pool. To be honest, I can’t even remember what the winner left with: Love? Cash? A motorbike? None of that matters; there was a pool, and for some reason all of their mums were there. Perfect. Bring it back!

ZP

Jane Eyre - BBC One (2006)

There’s nothing like a good old period drama to make us feel better, and the BBC back-catalogue is full of solid gold.

Among the gems we’d love to see again is the 2006 adaptation of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, featuring a brilliant, star-making performance from Ruth Wilson in the lead role. Toby Stephens plays Mr Rochester and together the pair had enough sexual tension to set Thornfield Hall on fire (spoiler alert).

Reader, she binge-watched period dramas for the sake of her sanity.

JT

Look Around You - BBC Two (2002-2005)

Maths, water, ants – how would we understand any of these things without the help of Peter Serafinowicz?

Look Around You was an affectionate satire of the educational TV shows of the '70s and '80s, which saw the likes of Olivia Colman, Edgar Wright and many more British comedic titans teaching us how to do science completely wrong.

This would be the perfect TV show for homeschooling parents to sit the kids down in front of… just to check they’ve been paying attention in lessons.

ZP

The Line of Beauty - BBC Two (2006)

I only read The Line of Beauty a few years ago, and having adored it, I was thrilled to discover it became a BBC mini series in 2006, starring a pre-Hollywood Dan Stevens and Hayley Atwell. Both are perfect in their roles as Nick Guest and Catherine Fedden.

True to the novel, the three-episode series captures the collision of class and opposing political views in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain via the Fedden family, whose Notting Hill abode becomes Nick’s home in London after he befriends their son Toby. It’s a touching and powerful story about gay life in Britain in the '80s, and the repugnant attitudes towards homosexuality that men like Nick had to encounter.

GF

Panorama: Princess Diana - BBC One (1995)

From Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s emotional Africa tour documentary to Prince Andrew’s car crash BBC Newsnight appearance last year, there’s no doubt that Princess Diana paved the way for the nation-stopping royal interview. When she spoke to Martin Bashir on Panorama about her divorce from Prince Charles and exit from the Royal Family, she didn’t hold back and it was a glaring crack in the monarchy’s prim and perfect image.

From referencing Prince Charles’ affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles (“there were three of us in this marriage”) to how she believed that “the establishment” she married into suggested she would never be queen, it would be pretty interesting to contrast with where the family is today - especially as her son Prince Harry has just stepped down as a senior royal.

MH

Sabrina the Teenage Witch - ITV and Nickelodeon (1996-2003)

If there’s ever a time when we can be excused for regressing to childhood, it’s when the world is complete meltdown.

Bring back the glory days of marathon repeat-watching of shows like Sabrina, where you never knew which episodes you were going to get but you’d definitely seen them all before.

We could really do with Sabrina Spellman’s ability to walk into her airing cupboard and magically transport herself away from her house right now - and spiritual guidance from Aunt Hilda and Aunt Zelda.

JT

Stormzy at Glastonbury - BBC, 2019

The first ever Black British musician and grime artist to headline the iconic festival, Stormzy’s performance will forever go down in history.

As well as performing Know Me From, Shut Up and Big for Your Boots, the 26-year-old used his top billing as an opportunity to promote BAME dance group Black Ballet and speak out against the disproportionate amount of minority ethnic people in the criminal justice system.

Universally hailed as iconic, it was Adele who summed up the nation’s mood the best: “It’s been a joy to watch you unfold at lightning speed with absolute grace.”

KB