Jack Farthing’s favourite TV

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/mar/23/jack-farthing-favourite-tv

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Unmissable show?

Wolf Hall. It’s a special piece of TV, made by people at the top of their game. It’s the kind of telly that pulls you in rather than showing you everything. There are ambiguities, which is what every good drama should be full of. You don’t want one interpretation. You want lots. Also, one of my favourite things I’ve seen on TV was Olive Kitteridge. I’d love to make TV like that. It’s about everything: families, love, death, parenthood. It feels like an encyclopedia, that show. There wasn’t enough of it. There were only four episodes.

Bring back…

Fawlty Towers. With some of the original cast. I always go back to it. I think it’s timeless. It’s John Cleese being phenomenal, surrounded by amazing people like Prunella Scales and Andrew Sachs. Brilliant, bite-sized, well-acted comedy.

TV turn off?

The X Factor stresses me out. I don’t know why but it does. It’s not comfortable viewing. Having said, I have indulged in The Voice. Is that embarrassing or not? I don’t know.

Earliest TV memory?

The original BBC Chronicles Of Narnia. I think it was about 1988. It warms my heart even now. My own abiding memory is of the best and worst animatronic lion ever seen, which – up until quite embarrassingly recently – I thought was real. And then I went back and saw it jerking around.

Mastermind specialist subject…

As an actor it’s weird as you have these weird niches of knowledge. I’m not sure I’ve got a hobbyist specialist subject, but every time I come away with a very random specialist subject from the research that I’ve done. Right now, it’s tin mining in 18th-century Cornwall!

Gameshow have-a-go?

I love a bit of Countdown. But no numbers. I’d have to pair up with someone. I could do some of the word rounds. And I could definitely sing along with the clock-ticking music.