This article originally appeared in The Dundee Courier on 17 September 2016.
Joanna Lumley’s Japan:
Friday, STV
Celebrity Home
Secrets: Monday, STV
In
the far-flung court of the celebrity travelogue, Palin is the unconquerable
king. He started this whole racket in the first place with Around the World in 80 Days, but let’s not blame him for that. He
knew not what he wrought.
However,
if we must put up with programmes in which famous people go on expense-free
foreign holidays – and clearly we must – then Palin does at least have two
highly capable lieutenants: Billy Connolly and Joanna Lumley. Like him, you
always get a sense that they’re genuinely interested in the cultures they
engage with. They’re the best at what they do.
In
the latest episode of Joanna Lumley’s
Japan – a title which suggests she’s gone mad with power and staged a
political coup – the charming Thesp once again displayed her natural command of
the formula.
With
that warm, familiar voice set to Maximum Caramel mode, she marvelled at the
vast wonders of thoroughly modern Tokyo.
Western
documentaries about Japanese culture often adopt a condescending tone, but
Lumley is too courteous to mock its supposedly wild and wacky weirdness.
Instead she strove to celebrate Japan as a country in the gradual process of
laying to rest its old social restrictions.
Its
image as a strict beacon of conformity was challenged by Lumley’s visit to a
progressive kindergarten where individual expression is encouraged. This
laudable institution may be a notable exception in Japanese society, but it’s a
step in the right direction.
By
contrast, her conversation with a traditional Geisha Girl was rather sad. It
appears to be such an oppressive, lonely life. There was also something
slightly dubious about Lumley’s encounter with an 18-strong girl band, whose
audience consists almost entirely of men. Have they just come to ogle these
girls? Or is it just a bit of harmless, innocent fun? I couldn’t make my mind
up, and nor, I suspect, could our host.
If
Lumley didn’t come across as such a nice, genuine person, her breathy style of narration
and gushing expressions of awe would be laughable. But I find her quite
endearing, even when she flirts with self-parody by using verbose phrases such
as “an unfathomable matrix of discombobulation.”
However,
such borderline pretention is preferable to enduring the likes of a bored Paul
Merton staring wryly at some unusual foreign hats. At least Lumley
looks like she’s being enriched by her adventures. Like Palin and Connolly, she
also seems to enjoy meeting people and enquiring about their lives.
For
that reason, I actually learned something new about the subject at hand. That
should be the point of any travelogue, of course, but it’s all too rarely the
case in reality. Long may Lumley broaden her carbon footprint.
While
watching the latest episode of Celebrity
Home Secrets, it struck me that Janet Street-Porter would be a dreadful
travelogue presenter.
I’ve
always liked her, despite disagreeing with some of the guff she comes out with
for coins, but just imagine her spectacular disinterest when faced with some of
the people and wonders that Lumley encounters.
She
was reliably unsentimental during this supposedly nostalgic piece of flotsam, in
which celebs return to homes which defined certain chapters in their lives.
Basically an over-extended One Show
item, it’s the shrugging definition of a TV time-passer, bolstered on this
occasion by Street-Porter’s natural gifts as a caustic raconteur.
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