The prefix dominates our screens, from shows about baking to pottery to rivers. But its twee origins are now becoming shorthand for post-Brexit chest-puffing
![National anathema: how did the ‘Great British’ format take over our TV schedules?](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/21e05e61162b305dc7025088bda840f8d556e9c9/0_135_2000_1200/master/2000.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=8420fc1cf41261cdb2f02b0343df2f9e)
• Modern Toss on The Great
British TV shows
In the Guide’s weekly Solved! column, we look into a crucial pop-culture question you’ve been burning to know the answer to – and settle it
The novelist Jonathan Coe tweeted this summer: “Looking at tonight’s TV guide, I see BBC2 is offering us Great British Railway Journeys followed by Great British Menu, with The Great British Sewing Bee over on BBC1. Plus a Panorama report called ‘Am I British?’” He forgot to mention The Great British Photography Challenge on
BBC Four. In fact, you can barely slump slack-jawed in front of the box nowadays without being force-fed Greatness and Britishness until you feel bilious.