Boxing clever

Nostalgia is the order of the day as BBC2 revisits Britain in the '90s and Channel 4 wheels out Noel Edmonds in a bizarre new box-obsessed quiz show

If the 1960s had its Summer of Love, then the 1990s had its special summer too: across the water in Britain, 1997 was the Summer of Idealism. It's only nine years ago, but in Britain that sense of idealism – when pop and politics walked hand in hand – already seems as distant as the nefarious social diseases, body lice and dandruff of that summer of unwashed love 30 years before. This is partly because a whole new generation of young Britons cannot imagine the Tories as anything except a squabbling, ineffectual opposition and cannot remember a time when Tony Blair was not in government.

But, back in 1997, another generation had only known 18 years of Tory rule and were desperate for change. With Tony Blair now viewed with suspicion and cynicism, it is hard to believe that standing proudly, and not out of place, amid the mud of the 1997 Glastonbury Festival was a well-visited tent for the Labour Party, and a host of young musicians and actors added their weight to the campaign to get Blair elected that summer when Oasis and the Spice Girls ruled the world. The Summer of 1997 (BBC 2, Saturday, 9.10pm) revisited that summer when Britain didn't want to be cynical anymore, but saw itself as young, funky and hip. It wanted the Tories out – most especially Neil Hamilton, who was defeated by journalist Martin Bell in Tatton, where other candidates included a seven-foot cross-dresser.

Showing the admirable political qualities of never forgetting or forgiving, Hamilton's wife recalled Martin Bell as "a hypocritical sanctimonious little prick", while Bell's own memory of the frantic scenes at Tatton was that it was "very difficult in the heat of the moment to make small talk with a transvestite on stilts".

That summer's anthem was "Things Can Only Get Better". I hope the composer is not depending on royalties because, nine years on, many people who packed the Royal Albert Hall to celebrate the rise of New Labour throw things at the radio when it is played.

One composer doing well on the royalty front is whoever wrote the theme music for the bizarre Deal or No Deal (Channel 4, different times, most days), which this week reached its 200th episode. Normally something this strange merits a warning about the danger of cults from religious leaders. Presenter Noel Edmonds looks so unchanged since the 1980s that there must be some supernatural force driving it. Contestants dare to open, or not open, various boxes which are "minded" (rather like Dougal used to mind the corner flags in Father Ted) by nervous wrecks who feel personally responsible for what is in their box. The show is completed by a mysterious voice on a telephone (who may be God, Godot or the controller of Channel 4) known only – rather like Dublin criminals – as "the banker", who makes financial offers to stop the contestants opening boxes.

I have no problem with watching people open boxes, but when they start talking to the boxes I get nervous. Contestants compose impromptu monologues addressed to the boxes with the zest of performance poets at open-mic readings. Boxes with small sums are blue inside. These you want to eliminate. Boxes with big sums are red inside. On Friday, the contestant began whispering to herself "blue, blue, blue" when staring at the closed boxes, and slowly and hypnotically, the audience joined in the chant.

Feeling my hair rise, I turned off, knowing that if I kept viewing my watch would stop and every spoon in my kitchen would become mysterously bent out of shape. Tune in if you dare, but I'm just not paid enough to have to buy new cutlery every week.