Saturday 1 February 2014

TV Column: BRITAIN'S GREAT WAR and OUTNUMBERED

This article was originally published in The Courier on 1st February 2014.


Britain's Great War: Monday, BBC1

Outnumbered: Wednesday, BBC1

Paul Whitelaw

The problem with Jeremy Paxman, especially when removed from his natural Newsnight habitat, is that his fundamental settings - wry incredulity crossed with a unique shade of weary bombast - tend to overshadow and infect his every utterance.

Take Britain's Great War, a major new series in which he traces the vast impact of World War One on ordinary British citizens. Paxman's intentions are undoubtedly sincere, but his grave subject matter is frequently undermined by his absurd affectations.

It's impossible to take him seriously when, in full Chris Morris mode, he solemnly declares that "the clock was ticking to catastrophe" in the hours leading up to the declaration of war. His bellowed repetition of the word "doom" in time with the chimes of Big Ben is already one of the comedy highlights of the year. It also doesn't help that he obviously gains unseemly enjoyment from saying "war" with erotically charged zeal. He's a ridiculous figure.

His lack of self-awareness is frustrating, as he's capable of spinning an engaging historical yarn. While tactfully avoiding outright flippancy, his eye for colourful detail illuminated the programme throughout. 

Memorable images included appalled cabinet ministers bursting into tears at the prospect of a cataclysmic war, and, grimly, a distraught woman refusing to let go of her husband's hand as a train carried him off to war. She was dragged underneath it and killed. He also recounted the little-known tale of self-serving MP Horatio Bottomley, a theatrical opportunist who became rich and famous by staging rabble-rousing recruitment rallies in music halls throughout Britain. Fat, tweedy and grey, he resembled a capitalist villain from a Frank Capra fantasia.

While refuting the generally accepted, and rather patronising, assumption that Britain marched into war with Germany on a crashing wave of naive optimism, Paxman showed how Lord Kitchener's infamous and hugely effective recruitment campaign ("Your Country Needs YOU") cunningly manipulated men into signing their own death warrants. Triggered by a sense of patriotic duty, over 33,000 new recruits signed up on one fateful day alone. But that optimism, however falsely manufactured, eventually vanished once the nightmare horrors of modern warfare became unavoidable. One particularly poignant aside was the revelation that many postmen gave up their jobs during the war, as they could no longer stand the trauma of bearing such incessant bad news.

Notwithstanding our host's underlying absurdity - his inability to relate to actual human beings is hilarious - this dynamic essay was mercifully free of distracting gimmickry. One of the benefits of Paxman's no-nonsense approach is that he'd rather die than clown around in period garb a la Andrew Marr (adopting a comedy German accent while reading a satirical piece about the Kaiser was, admittedly, an unfortunate aberration). 

Blessed with evocative archive footage and photographs, Britain's Great War - the expensive tie-in book will doubtless be available soon - is, almost despite itself, an effective and enlightening history lesson.

It won't be as funny when the kids grow up! If you're an Outnumbered fan, then you'll doubtless recognise this oft-repeated prediction. Hell, I've repeated it myself. But I was happily proved wrong by the opening episode of its fifth and final series. While it makes sense to end it now, this gag-packed and sharply well-observed family sitcom has lost none of its endearing sparkle.

The kids may have matured almost beyond recognition - with his lumbering girth and booming baritone, Ben has completed his transformation into Tom Baker - but their defining idiosyncrasies remain. In any case, Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner have always been more than capable of anchoring proceedings with their deft comic timing. Spending a few more weeks in their company will be a pleasure. 

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