What Makes a Good Documentary Presenter?

April 21st 2012

On Tuesday night Mary Beard meandered onto our screens, peddling the eccentric Cambridge professor stereotype as she pedalled round Rome in the opening of her engaging Meet the Romans series. It struck me that this was the latest in a long line of outstanding factual series from the BBC, and so I decided to take a closer look at the different ways that they have hit upon a magic combination of fact and finesse in their documentary presenters.

My family and I were instantly entertained by Mary Beard. Not only was she a Trevi fountain of knowledge (I do apologise, it’s not often you can make a Rome pun), but she presented it with the unbridled joy of a slightly bonkers lady that the film crew had stumbled across and proceeded to follow round Rome, recording her excited and informed ramblings. At one point she told us that as she read tombstone inscriptions she could hear the voices of the dead Romans. Something tells me she didn’t just mean that as a figure of speech. Roaming round museums manhandling objects, chuckling gleefully at ancient wordplay, acting out a gladiator battle with miniature figurines a propos of nothing; Mary provided a glorious way into the fascinating world of Ancient Rome.

Another factual presenter who trades in a similar manner of enthusiasm is physicist Brian Cox, who rocketed to fame with his love of outer space. Whilst it goes without saying that documentary presenters are going to be passionate about their chosen subject, a special few find a way to infuse that passion in the audience, and Brian’s animated gesticulating and eager grin offered many a window into the wonders of the universe. Of course, in trying to attribute Brian Cox’s popularity merely to his infectious enthusiasm and knack for explaining confusing concepts, I am skirting round the elephant in the room. Brian is also famous for his ‘boyband good looks’, emphasised by many a lingering camera shot. It seems many viewers will become fascinated with any subject if the presenter has nice hair.

I apologise if my praise of Mr Cox sounds slightly disparaging. I don’t mean to discredit him: he’s very intelligent, a talented presenter and, for many, a heartthrob. But I cannot count myself among his legions of fans, because my heart belongs to Louis Theroux. He could make a documentary about soil (he may already have, such is the wide range of subjects he has covered), and I would still watch. His slight awkwardness, his innocent interviewing technique that can coerce all sorts of characters into suddenly blurting out something incriminating, and yes, his lovely face, all combine for me into the perfect documentary presenter. His polite probing into sensitive subjects leads people to reveal more to him than they would to others, and his open-mindedness and genuine interest in the people he meets has led to fascinating documentaries giving an insight into everything from the roughest of American jails to the home of Sir Jimmy Saville. A respectful tolerance for the weird and an ability to appear non-judgemental makes for superb factual television.

When I admitted my obsession with Louis to my sister several years ago she too praised his “doddery yet intelligent manner”, and I felt as if I had stumbled upon an underground religion. I now proudly number amongst his 172 thousand fans on Facebook, a veritable army of those with the good taste to recognise his humour, his consistently thought-provoking documentaries, and yes, his good looks (I won’t hear a word said against them).

Louis, Brian and Mary take on wildly different subject matters in their programmes, but all of them find a way to make their passions accessible and captivating for the audience. So it seems that the secret to being a great documentary presenter is having bundles of knowledge, passion and a lovely, lovely face. And if you haven’t got the latter, a bike and a bonkers demeanour will do just fine.

Homeland - End of Series

May 8th 2012

Homeland, Channel 4’s award winning US drama import, finished its first series on Sunday night, with its brilliance and popularity marked not by viewing figures, and not by the rave reviews, but by the fact that my housemate and I celebrated watching the last episode with a fry-up, a privilege previously only awarded to The Apprentice final. Nothing spells excitement like a celebratory fry-up.

The finale was as tense and rewarding as could be hoped, with Brody’s plan finally coming to light – kitted out in a bomb vest, he attended an event held by the Vice President, planning to exact revenge for a covered up drone attack the politician authorised that killed 82 children, including Abu Nazir’s son whom Brody befriended whilst held captive. Carrie, meanwhile, was depressed after her manic episode, pining for Brody, and jobless, with only Virgil and his van still willing to go along with her theories.

As rogue Marine Tom Walker unleashed his sniper attack on the event, only Carrie, roaming the area unofficially, understood this as a ploy to get Brody and his unorthodox undergarment into a secure bunker with his targets. Unable to get the CIA to listen, she had to rely on Brody’s suspicious daughter Dana to talk her dad down, in a thrilling race against time as Brody desperately rewired his bomb in the bunker.

Though Dana succeeded in getting the attack aborted, this left Brody still loyal to Nazir whilst appearing completely innocent, which drove Carrie to check herself into hospital to undergo ECT, worn out by her disorder and believing her theory incorrect. The series ended on a harrowing note as Carrie recalled Brody’s dream about Nazir’s son, a crucial indication of his links with Abu Nazir, but succumbed to anaesthetic before she could tell anyone. As she convulsed on the operating table, we were left to wonder whether this memory would survive the procedure.

The episode was a suitably exciting and nail-biting finish to a series that has been consistently superb, maintaining intrigue and intensity throughout. Possibly the best aspect of the series, however, has been Claire Danes’s outstanding portrayal of Carrie, especially in her accurate and powerful  depiction of her breakdown, leaving me genuinely upset to see her heartbroken and having lost the job she lived for at the end.

The character of Brody, meanwhile, was excellently handled, and given believable motives that made him more complex and interesting than a simple war hero gone bad, and was a perfect example of Homeland’s skill in blurring views of good and evil, and complicating the ‘them and us’ rhetoric of the war on terror.

The show is returning for a second series, and although the finale set up further avenues for the show to explore, with unanswered questions about a government mole and Brody’s missing confessional tape, I can’t see them topping the intrigue and originality of the first series now that we have a clearer idea of who Brody is. But while the second series will certainly have a different tone, if it can replicate the quality of the first series and its mature if bleak view on the war on terror, it will continue to be one of the best dramas on television.

Very Important People

May 1st 2012

When I first saw the advert for Channel 4’s new impressions show Very Important People, I had low expectations. Yes, the sample of impressions in the ad were spot on, but accurate impressions does not a side-splitting comedy make.

However after watching the show I was pleasantly surprised: Very Important People is not simply an impressions show, but a comedy in its own right. Undoubtedly Morgana Robinson and Terry Mynott are superb in their impersonations, but the show is not reliant on them for laughs. I remember being in stitches at Alastair McGowan’s impressions when I was young, but now I’m older and grumpier the mere ability of someone to pinpoint a celebrities’ quirks and exaggerate them feels somewhat tired and tame.

Where Very Important People sets itself apart, then, is in building its humour round the often bizarre ways celebrities make their fame, leading to hilarious sketches of Natalie Cassidy ambling around reading takeaway menus in her latest documentary “Natalie Cassidy is just doing this now”, and Danny Dyer taking on the hardest commutes, eventually becoming overwhelmed and having to bail at Didcot Parkway (although it bears more than a passing resemblance to Jon Culshaw’s Ross Kemp parodies, it’s funny enough to get away with it).

The show also works hard to feel cutting and current. Not only does it send up celebrities who are not often fodder for impressionists, giving us fresh laughs, the show doesn’t just rely on uncanny impersonations; it also takes a scathing look at the darker side of our obsession with a variety of unseemly celebrities. The ‘Fame Skillz’ sketch, whilst admittedly not the funniest part of the show, took a pop at throwaway celebrity culture and the absurd circus of the fame-hungry treading the well-worn route through perfume release, drug abuse, rehab and tabloid scandal, all hosted by an aggressively excited Fearne Cotton (a scarily accurate impersonation).

Amongst the send-ups of paint by numbers Jennifer Aniston movies (“Aniston and Owen Wilson in – Some Sort of Disagreement”) and Gordon Ramsey angrily demanding people get behind an anti-bullying campaign, the show also keeps itself right up to date, with a news segment that comments on the very latest celebrity scandals, allowing a take on the Cowell/Minogue revelations and a perfectly judged send up of The Voice mentors (it was dope, as Will.i.am has led me to believe the cool kids would call it). Even here we get a glimpse at the bite the comedy has: Amy Childs, hosting the news, finishes off with a passing comment on how lots of people are dying in Syria or something.

If you’ve written off Very Important People as just another impressions show, it really does deserve another look. Bolstered by the brilliant performances of Robinson and Mynott, if it can maintain its freshness and its satire, and avoid repetitiveness by taking on a big enough cast of characters, it could be the cleverest take on the genre that we’ve seen in a while.

Smash - Pilot

April 23rd 2012

Before I begin this review I should admit that I am an avid fan of Glee, and after seeing it steadily worsen after an outstanding first season, I approached Smash with a mixture of interest and trepidation, half wanting it to give me a new favourite show, half wanting it to fail epically and leave Glee the queen of musical drama.

Smash follows two writers staging a Marilyn Monroe musical, enlisting the help of a sleazy director and a producer I initially believed to be Dragon Dens’ Hilary Devey (it was actually Anjelica Huston), as they struggle to choose between Broadway regular Ivy and fresh-faced Karen for the lead role. It has been described, somewhat misleadingly, as “grown-up Glee”, although you can see where the comparison has come from: Smash is like Rachel Berry and co graduating and facing the real competitive world of musical theatre, where, as Karen’s father warns his ambitious daughter, “sometimes dreams just don’t mix with reality.”

But Smash would do well to distance itself from Glee, especially while it works out exactly what it wants to be. Despite this being a solid opening episode, I found that its realistic vision occasionally, confusingly, disappeared. The clever and arresting opening scene set what should have been the tone of the show: a rousing performance by a starlet glittering on a Broadway stage snapped back to reality to reveal a daydreaming hopeful auditioning to unimpressed producers. This is where Smash is at its best, achieving dark comedy and drama by undercutting the dreams of stardom voiced by Glee characters with harsh reality, leading to a gritty show occasionally brightened up by a dazzlingly slick Broadway number – the public face of all the hard work.

But at times Smash slipped jarringly into fantasy, with characters singing in the streets – standard Glee procedure, but odd in Smash. This confusion in tone was at its worst in Karen’s audition for Marilyn, which completely contradicted the opening scene. It felt contrived and unoriginal: the plain Jane turns up to an ultra-competitive audition, the producers sneer, but just by the sheer force of imagining she is singing to her boyfriend, she makes seasoned Broadway producers’ jaws drop as though they’ve never heard anyone sing competently before.

The excellent writing and strong acting that allows Jack Davenport’s sleazy director to escape the realm of cliché is nowhere to be found in this scene, perhaps because Katharine McPhee is not as convincing as Karen. Despite the contrivances of the show I couldn’t feel her challenging the phenomenal (and much more interesting) Ivy, and therefore couldn’t invest in one of the show’s central conflicts.

But this is not to detract from Smash’s strengths. The original compositions, particularly the baseball number, were superb, and an authentic world was built around the music, with a strong cast of characters driving the plot. As an embittered Glee fan I have probably been overly critical - I should emphasise Smash has a stellar cast, smart writing and great music. I personally prefer the escapism that a sing-a-long with Glee provides, but for those not as easily pleased as me, Smash certainly fits the bill.

Would I Lie to You?/Have I Got News For You

April 15th 2012

The BBC Friday night comedy juggernaut rolled back into town this week, with the return of well-established panel shows Would I Lie to You? and Have I Got News For You. Though strikingly different beasts, both abided by the adage ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.

The former kicked off proceedings with the familiar team captains David Mitchell and Lee Mack with Rob Brydon hosting. Now in its 6^th series, the basic format, if you can’t work it out from the title, has panellists reading unseen anecdotes about themselves, or claiming a connection to a mystery guest, while the others interrogate them to sort the truth from the lies. David Mitchell remains effortlessly brilliant destroying newcomers with his pedantry and gunning down their falsities with his ruthless logic machine, and Lee Mack hones his posh jibes in response.

I’ve no idea who thinks up the lies or discovers some of the bizarre truths about the celebrity guests, but at times they can be inspired, and the subsequent cross-examinations can be hilarious – I’ve never forgotten Kevin Bridges’ utterly implausible story of how he once accidentally bought a horse, with his tale being ripped to shreds before turning out to be impossibly true.

But the very nature of this show is that it can be hit and miss – it relies on the perfect combination of inspired lies and quick-witted guests. By these criteria, the opening episode of the series, with the hardly magic combination of guests Alex Jones, Alexander Armstrong, Mel Giedroyc and unfortunately Chris Tarrant, was very much a miss. Then again, all it takes is one brilliantly tall tale and it could feel like a different show next week. And not that I’m biased due to my slight obsession with him since Gavin and Stacey, but Rob Brydon’s short dance sequence elevated the show to possible BAFTA standard.

By contrast, Have I Got News For You, the satirical news quiz now in its 43^rd series, seems like it will always have legs so long as politicians insist on making fools of themselves. With recent revelations of the rich avoiding tax by temporarily leaving British airspace, and the flooding of Greggs by politicians desperate to be photographed with a soggy pasty, Ian Hislop and Paul Merton have plenty to take aim at.

Joined this week by Grace Dent, Miles Jupp and guest host Stephen Mangan, the show adhered to the familiar sequence of rounds that pick apart the news with aplomb. When faced with scandals where you have to laugh or you’ll cry, Paul Merton’s eccentricity is as perfect as ever for highlighting the absurdity of our ruling class, and for deflating Ian Hislop’s occasional pompous rants.

One of the few shows both myself and my parents enjoy (I don’t think I’ll ever convince them of the merits of Desperate Housewives), it is consistently the perfect tonic to depressing current affairs. Compared with a lacklustre edition of Would I Lie to You?, Have I Got News For You demonstrates that often the truth can be funnier than fiction.

The Matt Lucas Awards

April 11th 2012

What with David Walliams’ recent forays into the Channel and the Thames for charity, and his new role as a scene-stealing judge on Britain’s Got Talent, you could be forgiven for forgetting about the capabilities of his Little Britain partner Matt Lucas, who has been ensconced largely in the world of acting since their hit show.

On Tuesday night, however, his Radio 2 panel show The Matt Lucas Awards made the transition to BBC One, offering a chance for Lucas to try his hand at presenting. The premise is pretty self-explanatory: three guests make nominations for a range of silly awards, and after a good deal of bantering Lucas judges the winner. Fittingly for the casual pub debate feel of the concept, the show’s set is ‘Matt’s flat’, with his mum sat in the kitchen, and composer David Arnold also on hand to play jaunty links on the piano.

Undeniably it’s a fun concept, but these kind of shows usually depend on a strong set of guests -  Tuesday’s episode featured the reliable Jason Manford, Graeme Garden, and the brilliant Henning Wehn. The awards up for debate were Smuggest Nation of People (the Swedes and the English beaten by the Chinese), Most Artistic Guest, judged by a life-size Morph, and Dreadfullest Football Song Ever, awarded to Glenn Hoddle’s ‘Diamond Lights’ after all the guests had given a rendition of their nomination.

But it is Lucas himself that makes the show fly, being a comedian whose jolly demeanour can make him seem charmingly inoffensive even when he’s insulting you. He’s impossible to dislike and irrepressible – there aren’t many presenters who can get away with singing the theme tune and then standing up at the end to sing again for no apparent reason. Under him the format feels cohesive and good-natured: a moment that could have been painfully awkward when Graeme Garden uncomfortably sang his football song was saved by Lucas joining in and getting the audience going.

The show has worked hard to make the transition from radio, and to liven up the debates about the awards. My only real criticism is that David Arnold was underused – it felt as if the format hadn’t quite worked out how to fit him in. Whilst Lucas’s mum popped up just enough to provide an irreverent and homely feel, Arnold’s role was unclear. Perhaps he had a bigger role in the radio version, which I’ve never heard, but here he felt somewhat surplus to requirements.

The format feels strong enough to contend with the established BBC comedy line-up on a Friday night, and perhaps once the show has established itself it will earn a promotion from an ill-fitting Tuesday night slot. But the show has gotten off to a good start; previously I counted myself as a huge fan of the charismatic David Walliams – this made me wish there was more of Matt Lucas on television.

Scott and Bailey - series two

March 15th 2012

For some reason the first series of Scott and Bailey, the Manchester based crime drama focusing on two female detectives, passed me by, which is strange as both of its lead actresses  have been in Doctor Who, something which is usually enough to make me watch anything. Perhaps ITV had put me off by promoting it as “fearless and feminine”, as the continuity announcer rather bizarrely described the second series, which began on Monday.

The show is indeed feminine, not only due to the titular characters (played by Lesley Sharp and Suranne Jones) and their boss, DCI Gill Murray (Amelia Bullmore - not Doctor Who alumni but good nonetheless), but also the general women-driven vibe of the show, what with it having been created as a reaction to the lack of lead female roles on TV. Such a series can only be a positive force in my eyes, and it was certainly refreshing to see relatable female characters who don’t exist merely as an addendum to their husband or boyfriend.

The series opened with the team embarking on a murder investigation after the discovery of a couple of burnt bodies, which later evolved into a torture case, as both victims had been stabbed repeatedly with a screwdriver. Lovely. And Lisa Riley, of You’ve Been Framed fame, is somehow involved, which is always a bonus. But the real focus is on the characters’ home lives, with DC Scott attempting to calm the tensions between her mother and husband after the former moves in, and DC Bailey trying to cope with the arrival of her brother, who it turns out is a convicted armed robber, which is going to be major awkward at any office parties.

This emphasis on the characters’ personal lives, believable in a way that other shows rarely manage (I often wonder how some police put in a solid day at work, the amount of philandering and drinking they have to squeeze in), makes the premise of the show wonderfully innovative. It also means that it doesn’t have to rely on a ‘crime of the week’ to keep audience interest piqued, allowing us to invest just as much in Scott and Bailey themselves. And, surprisingly for a show that features screwdriver torture, it is very funny.

Unfortunately it very much carried the whiff of an established drama, and offered little by way of exposition for latecomers like me. As such I was somewhat disappointed not to see more of the dynamic to live up to the tagline of “best friends, better policemen”. This isn’t to the detriment of the show – Sharp and Jones are immensely likeable, but for those of us trying to jump on the bandwagon it was a little frustrating not to get to see more of their chemistry. But really, the only complaints I had about the show were to do with the fact that I had missed the first series, and that seems to be a good indicator of how gripping Scott and Bailey is.

Homeland - 'Pilot'

 

February 23rd 2012

After years of trying to keep up with critically acclaimed, high-concept American shows, watching with my face almost pressed to the screen for fear that I miss a crucial piece of garbled dialogue and inevitably ending the hour of viewing with a headache, I approached the much-hyped Homeland with some trepidation. In this case, however, such fears were completely unfounded, and I instead found a perfectly paced and gripping drama.

The central premise of the series is that a raid on an al-Qaeda compound stumbles upon prisoner of war Nicholas Brody (played by a terrifically beardy Damian Lewis), an American marine who has been missing for 8 years. Triumphantly borne back to America as a war hero, there is one woman who is not welcoming him with open arms: renegade CIA agent Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes). Based on information that an American POW has been ‘turned’, gleaned from an unauthorised visit to a terrorist in an Iraqi prison ten months earlier, she decides that Brody is the POW in question, that their discovering him in the compound was a set-up, and that he has been brought back to the US as a threat, a sleeper agent about to bring down the country from the inside. Overwhelmed with suspicion but in her superiors’ bad books after her sortie into the Iraq prison, she goes rogue and sets up surveillance in Brody’s home, determined to unmask him.

Playing brilliantly with post-9/11 paranoia, the key to Homeland’s success lies not just in this intriguing premise, but in the way these themes of paranoia and trust pervade the entire show. What could have been a simple “is he evil or not?” is complicated by the uncomfortable truths we unravel about his opposite number: Carrie turns out to be suffering from a mood disorder, on anti-psychotic drugs, and with a history of unstable and reckless behaviour – and it soon becomes not just a question of whether she can trust Brody, but whether we can trust her.

By the end of the episode, through clever use of flashbacks we discover that Brody is certainly hiding something, after it is revealed that he lied about his fellow Marine’s death – Brody, under orders from Abu Nazir who he had claimed he had never met, beat him to death whilst they were held captive. The details are hazy, but it’s a clever way to end an episode built upon conspiracy and deceit.

My only reservation about Homeland would be whether the central intrigue can be sustained over the entire series as masterfully as it is in the opening episode. The inclusion of clever sub-plots such as Brody’s wife, under the impression he was dead, conducting an affair with his best friend, plus Brody’s children – one an unruly teen, the other too young to remember his father – seems to show that the drama has mileage. Homeland has already garnered awards in America and has been renewed for a second series, which suggests that this intense and enthralling drama is most definitely one to watch.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog!
I am a writer for the arts section of The Yorker, an online student media outlet run by University of York students. This blog is basically a collection of all my reviews and features that I've written for the site, preserved here forever to be mocked or lauded, depending on how many of my family members read it.
I'll begin by posting my old articles, beginning with reviews for shows from a couple of months or so ago, and keep updating with my latest work.
Enjoy!