The Beeb’s occasional romps into dramatic recreations of classic novels, plays and musical extravaganzas seldom turn up real duffers. After all, for all of the Corporation’s understated arrogance and occasional abuse of tax-payers’ funds, it does have a well-defined responsibility to its viewers, as a result of its public standing.

Tell me, then, what the hell happened to ‘The Day Of The Triffids’, which appeared in Christmas 2009’s TV schedule, offered a stellar cast line-up, heaps of expensive CGI effects and a production team that has lifted innumerable awards for its other efforts? Wait. I think I may be able to tell you the answer. It became too big for its boots! This sounds like a too familiar story for ‘Auntie’ at the moment, a broadcasting organisation that is protected from the pressures of advertising revenue shortfalls, by its Licence Fee and a hefty annual chunk of additional governmental funding.

Let me explain. I have zero issue with the cast. Dougray Scott, Joely Richardson, Eddie Izzard, Brian Cox, Vanessa Redgrave, Ewen Bremner and Shane Taylor, with a token American input from Jason Priestley, are all top-billers and came to the Power & Prodigy production with largely unsullied CVs.

I have no issue with the modernising treatment given to John Wyndham’s original 1951 apocalyptic best-selling novel. We have all endured eco-this and environmental-that, rammed down our throats for the past handful of years, since it became so wrong to criticise a movement that was once poo-poohed so conveniently by all and sundry, including HM Government. Carnivorous plants are one of the driving forces of organic horror stories.

However, to render the inhabitants of London largely blind, while an intriguing device, would have been far better had most of the supporting cast not turned into comical zombies in the process. Anyone with even the merest smattering of knowledge of London’s geography would be able to tell you that most of the locations chosen for this lame production were singularly unfeasible.

Yet, perhaps the worst insult to that star-studded cast lies in the feeble script (by Patrick Harbinson) and a ‘Saturday Club’ directorial stance (by Nick Copus), which delivered more clichés and pathetic errors that would have had the aforementioned Mr Wyndham (aka John Beynon, or Lucas Parkes) spinning in his grave. To launch the DVD as a two-disc ‘Ultimate Edition’ and also on a single Blu-ray disc is to miss the point completely. Most of the special effects are over-the-top and a thorough waste of resources and, rather than presenting a truly chilling and pacily suspenseful drama, all that has been produced is a laughably inept and eminently forgettable joke on the tax-payer. Dear BBC, you should know better!