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.
