By Jasper Rees

 

LONDON, UK -- All summer the small screen has been urging the nation to bawl its eyes out. Just when you thought it was safe to stash away the Kleenex, guess what? The BBC has gone and scheduled Gareth Malone. Again. Like a multitasking Pied Piper, Malone has taken tone-deaf sixth formers to the Royal Albert Hall, socially disadvantaged kids to Glyndebourne, and a gaggle of soldiers’ lonely brides to number one. You have to wonder whether the tried and trusted formula all gets a bit here-we-go-round-the-mulberry-bush for the television’s choirmaster-in-chief?