Posh Telly on the march

TV REVIEW: Into the StormBBC2, Monday, Beyond the Berlin WallRTÉ1, Tuesday, The ClinicRTÉ1, Sunday, The Schoolboy Who Sailed Round the WorldChannel 4, Thursday

HE WAS HIS country’s saviour – although his country was far too reticent to say so. But at one time he had cut a lonely figure. His predictions of disaster went unheard. In the end, of course, he was vindicated. Indeed, as the international landscape darkened, he became a beacon both of hope and of certainty. During the early days of the conflict, a bewildered population gathered each evening to hear his famous broadcasts to the nation. And then he went and joined Fine Gael.

We shall get to George Lee in a moment. But back in the day before economists were the people most likely to be on television (David McWilliams is the new host of The Panel on Thursday nights – economists make Jedward look shy), there was a little thing called the second World War. And during this war Winston Churchill, a most peculiar person who would now be judged far too fat for television, was the leader of Great Britain.

This was fortunate, involving as it did the defeat of fascists and so on. But one of the longer-lasting results of Winston Churchill’s political career is the opportunity it has provided ever since for the production of Posh Telly. You know Posh Telly. It comes with “worthy” stamped across it, and feels a lot like hard work.

It is not that we don't all admire Winston Churchill and Brendan Gleeson, the actor who has won an Emmy for his portrayal of him in the HBO/BBC co-production, Into the Storm(some achievement given that Albert Finney had portrayed a wilder Churchill in a previous programme, The Gathering Storm). But the makers of Into the Stormloved Winston too well. If Winston suffered a heart attack in Washington whilst opening a window, then he was shown suffering a heart attack in Washington whilst opening a window. Into the Stormwas far too literal, besotted with its own accuracy, and for those of us with even the most superficial knowledge of the old buffer, it had nothing to add. It was purely educational.

The sheer poshness of Into the Stormjollied us along though. The beauty of the locations and the costumes, the skill of the acting, all demonstrated how Britain's television empire has become the cultural product on which the sun never sets.

Everyone in Into the Stormwas a great deal lovelier than they actually had been, notably Clemmie Churchill (as we at The Irish Timeslike to call her) and the King. Never in the field of television drama has so much been reproduced so faithfully to such little effect.

Churchill was a man who created himself and wrote his own scripts. The makers of Into the Stormwere wise enough to draw heavily on his speeches, and to show how much trouble he took in constructing them. It was Churchill, for example, who first came up with the term "Iron Curtain" to describe the division of Europe between the West and Soviet Russia.

GEORGE LEE HASN'Tcredited Churchill with the phrase yet, but then Beyond the Berlin Wallhas another three episodes to go. Four episodes may be stretching it that little bit too thin. My main complaint about Beyond the Berlin Wallis that it is too short – just a commercial half-hour, which is to say not even a real half-hour. Lee has always given good voice-over, and he was looking quite Sally Bowles in a very black raincoat.

It is pretty clear from all the promotion being given to the series that RTÉ regards Beyond the Berlin Wallas very Posh Telly indeed, and demands that we should like it as a matter of patriotism – quite a Soviet attitude really.

The first episode was lively and well done, but for all their research the programme-makers could not find one German woman whose life had been altered by the Berlin Wall – all four Berliners interviewed were male. And the nice Polish lady, whom Lee told us we would meet in later episodes, does not make up for that little oversight. Similarly, it was surprising that both the academic commentators analysing recent German history – and I do love an academic commentator – were Irish, based at Irish universities.

And another thing: it is a bit sleazy to shoot George Lee with the ex-Stasi man as if through a long-lens camera, freeze-framing as you go. This was not actually a John Le Carré novel and it was in bad taste, surely, in the face of all the suffering which Lee had emphasised for us several times, to imply that it was.

THERE IS NOshortage of women on The Clinic, thank goodness. Clinic women are all top-ranking professionals and they confront every medical emergency by hissing something like "Get me another cocktail dress – quick! And make it tight!"

The Clinicis accurate without labouring the point. This week the lovely Dr Edel Swift (Victoria Smurfit) reassured the father of one of her young patients (Eamon Hunt) by telling him that if his son took a turn for the worse he was to be brought straight to the A&E department of the local hospital. Wasn't that very nice of her? I'm sure it made the staff of A&E departments around the country look forward to their Monday morning with added enthusiasm.

CHANNEL 4'S The Schoolboy Who Sailed Round the Worldturned out to be a lot longer than expected, both for viewers – the programme was one hour and 40 minutes long – and for young Mike Perham, who ended up spending almost nine months at sea.

There is a theory that teenagers should be given far more onerous tasks than they are charged with in our protective society. Perham – brave, weepy, sensible and given to great whoops of joy – was a good argument for that theory. Both he and his father, also Michael, agreed that the son was fulfilling the father’s dream.

The young Mike battled technical setbacks and stormy seas in a dodgy boat while, back in Potters Bar, old Mike lost his job. The love between them was extraordinary. As he approached the home port, Mike, who is 17, declared: “I can’t wait for my hug with Dad. That’s what I’m looking forward to most.”

His ex-girlfriend, Beckie, was a much less certain prospect, but that’s both another story and young Mike’s adult future. This was great television, a Boys’ Own Adventure for our times.

Better than what you planned: highlights of the week’s accidental viewing

There is a book to be written on television that you end up watching by accident, but in the meantime this little patch of print must do. The thing about television you watch by accident is that, like the dress you buy in five minutes, the dinner you cook from cans and the guy you never fancied that much anyway, it frequently turns out to be more interesting than the stuff you had planned.
On Monday night, you could stumble across the courtship dance (or swim) of sea dragons. This was Life, narrated by David Attenborough and repeated on BBC1. Having seen the convict fish, the mud-skipper and the gobi, we came to the father clown fish guarding his eggs. You could see the beating heart of each tiny fry quite clearly, through the egg.

On Tuesday, there was Black Widow Granny?(BBC1), the story of a lovely old lady, Betty Neumar, and of how she probably killed not just her last husband but at least some of the previous four. It had taken Neumar's brother-in-law, Al Gentry, 22 years to bring her to trial.

Al Gentry was the only smoker I saw on TV last week, besides King George VI in Into the Storm. I fell asleep at this point and woke up at midnight to see the Czech presidentreluctantly signing the Lisbon Treaty.

On Saturday night you could watch The X Factortake over the planet, and on UTV on the same evening X Factorjudge Dannii Minogue was interviewed - very well - by Piers Morgan on Life Stories. Apparently, Minogue's fashion stylist has saved her career, and possibly her life.

Michael Bublé was on The Graham Norton Showon TV3, along with Sue Perkins, Lily Cole and Isabella Rossellini - chat-show heaven. Bublé had been a coach to the performers on X Factorthe previous week and was sensible about "Jedward". But this re-transmission of Norton's BBC show was marred by the way TV3 crashed it into ad breaks, shooting a Dettol ad into the material with great suddenness. This did neither Dettol nor Graham Norton any favours. Just because it's not Posh Telly does not mean that you can make it look accidental.

Hilary Fannin is on leave