Witness (Channel 4, Monday)
Anatomy Of Desire (Channel 4, Monday)
Naked (BBC 2, Wednesday)
Omnibus (BBC 1, Wednesday)
The Late Late Show (RTE 1, Friday)
Wearing only a wristwatch, veteran British naturist Norman Tillett recalled the good old days. Back in the 1930s, Norm and his friends had "a philosophy" to justify getting their kits off. Naturism then, he said, was primarily about physical self-improvement, based on the ideals of classical Greece. A strict "naked etiquette" - being modest while being in the buff - civilised the movement. Now it is being stripped of its highmindedness and "radical nudists" are fed up with Norm and his fuddy-duddy brand of conservative nakedness.
In a week of unprecedented nudity on mainstream TV, Witness: Acting Natural reported on the cracks in British naturism. Radicals such as Mark Nisbet, campaigning editor of Starkers magazine, are intent on a reformation. We could see that Mark is a seriously radical nudist - so radical, in fact, that he wore clothes while being interviewed. Clearly, the man has no respect for old-world decencies. British naturism is 75 years old this year but it has fewer clubs than it did in the 1960s. "It still lacks," said naturist historian Michael Farrer, "the intellectual fire and openness of the continental movement".
Oh dear! Without intellectual fire and openness, running around in the nip is stripped bare. It's all very well to play nude tennis, dive starkers into lakes, strut your stuff in a spot of naked gymnastics, go picnicking and hoola-hooping in the buff or just lounge around in your birthday suit reading newspapers. But, divested of a coherent philosophy, naturism is dumbing down. Post- modern nudity is cheap: so cheap that radicals are even prepared to allow single people to join their clubs.
It's difficult not to snigger at naturism/nudism. Practitioners prefer the term "naturism" because, they argue, "nudism" emphasises the nudity aspect of the gig. Well, fair enough. But most people seeing a group with no clothes on tend to be especially struck by that fact. Few, even among the more philosophical, are likely to think "how natural!" immediately they see naked people. Anyway, Witness wisely decided not to impale itself on the nature/nudity debate, leaving antagonists and viewers to uncover their own truths in the matter.
The problem for the nature lobby is that being naked just doesn't look natural. In fact, it looks quite the reverse. Gardening in the nude, for instance, looks quite insane. As for knitting or playing the violin naked - well, picture it if you didn't see it. But Norman Tillett, a lawyer, disagrees. Delivering an impassioned, courtroom-like dissertation, he insisted: "We are absurdly modest in this country. We must not expose our genitals. But why not? Why not?" Look, Norm, just take a peep in the mirror and you'll understand why not.
The rot for the traditionalists began in the late 1960s, when Mark Wilson, the "bete noire of British naturism" (there's an epithet!), opened his Eureka club. Eureka allowed single people to join and became notorious for its naked Saturday night discos. Face it: disco-dancing in the raw has a rather different, less domestic appeal than gardening or knitting. Traditionalists insist that "sex has nothing to do with naturism", but Wilson's gigs did get temperatures rising. Former president of the Central Council of British Naturism, Gerry Ryland, just shook his head at the thought, muttering condemnations of "the maverick nudists of the left".
And so it went. There are class politics in nudism - and the old-timers long for a return to the rule-book: no dogs; no visibly excited males; no photography without special permission; females to keep their thighs together. But the new, laissez-faire nudists argue that all those rules take the fun out of their carry-on. In making people self-conscious about keeping all the rules, the oldies are defeating the aim of freedom, the radicals contend. But the greatest threat to naturism now is not internal dissent but paedophiles. Nude families - once the ideal of the traditionalists - are becoming scarcer.
Witness opted to make this film as straightforward as possible. But still, it was impossible to wring out all the smut. There was nothing erotic about the naked creatures on display but the film might have probed deeper into naturism's alleged "philosophy". The movement developed in Germany in the second half of the last century. The period and the place were very taken with body culture. In time, ideas of Aryan physical perfection took root. Just realising that makes it easier to understand why the old guard remains so obsessed with rules. The bare bones of naturism's "philosophy" never did promote health for all.
The nudists had just finished when it was time for a visit to a commune. Anatomy of Desire: Repression focused on New York's Ganas community. Ganas is an anachronism - a left-over from the days of free love. Its members seem to try everything from celibacy to group sex and then, horror of horrors, they have meetings to discuss their experiences. So, they sit around and talk earnestly about when and where who did what to whom. Why? Don't ask. It's supposed to be about why restrictions are put on expressions of sexuality.
We heard about the "harem principle" - the stockpiling of women by powerful males. In Inca Peru, for instance, low-ranking men making overtures to harem women were not just taking their lives in their hands. Their families, including distant relations, would be killed and their homes and lands burned. Getting the hots for somebody was truly an incinerating experience. Poorer men would have to save up to buy a wife. Like houses in contemporary Dublin, the odds were heavily stacked against those just starting out.
Then there was "hymen-rebirthing" - a popular form of surgery in Japan. "I'd like to become a virgin again," a 27-year-old woman told the consultant. No bother. It was reminiscent of the remark made by the Hollywood wit, who claimed he knew Doris Day "before she was a virgin". But it was also indicative of the hypocrisies of traditional societies. Still, men have had their problems too. A Catholic priest, reared on cold showers and brisk flagellation, recalled that his mother once cut the crotch out of a childhood photo of him in tight trousers. The priest, by the way, is now a sexologist.
Anatomy of Desire, a few anecdotes apart, was boring. It didn't even have the deadpan absurdities of the nudists. Ganas was, if anything, an advertisement for monogamy, or at least stability at any given time, because even there, jealousy and rivalry about sex flourishes. It did provide some intriguing history about why repression and rumpo are two sides of the same mattress. But common sense and a passable level of emotional balance allow most people to intuit the story. Promiscuity always has a price. What's new?
Next up for nude week was Naked: Eighteen 'til I Die. The title didn't explain that most of the nudes were closer to 18 stone than 18 years of age. But the candid camerawork and easy interviewing of director Lucy Blakstad (who made the splendid Lido for Modern Times a few years back) did illuminate the relationships middle-aged people have with their bodies. Mind you, beside this one, even tiresome Witness seemed like a festival of erotica.
We heard and saw fiftysomethings talk about their increasing feelings of mortality; middle-age spread; becoming corrugated with wrinkles; even about the shattering arrival of grey pubic hair. "When I saw that, I thought it was time to consider hanging up my bits," said an ageing cockney Casanova with shoulder-length grey hair. When he told us about his younger girlfriends being mistaken - genuinely - for his daughters, it was, for a moment, difficult to know whether to laugh or cry. Of course, laugh won out easily in the end.
Both men and women worried about their sagging bits and spoke about their efforts to slow down the clock. Facelifts and liposuction and "augmentations" sounded incredibly painful. Porsches and Calvin Klein underwear sounded sad. Fifty-year-old Mike, now that his physique has even less pulling power than his personality, has the car and the undies but he realises he's fighting a losing battle. "The Calvin Kleins are comfy," he said, "but they do b***** all for my arse." Right, Mike, very good!
Next week the second episode in this fourparter looks at people in the prime of their lives. But this opener, focusing on people at an age when their expanding midriffs suggest that they'd be well-advised to shift from belt to braces, was at least human. At the root of much of the wistfulness about past youth was an undeniable vanity and a suspicion that a last chance at exhibitionism was also motivating many of the naked punters. Indeed, being nude is one thing - but being nude on television (whether as a naturist, a warrior against sexual repression or a middle-aged malcontent) - is a starker reality entirely.
Snobbery, not sex, was the focus of Omnibus: The Whirl of Vanity Fair. Using the hook that Thackeray's novel is currently being serialised on TV, the programme sought to examine contemporary ideas of social manoeuvring and celebrity. Talking heads such as Max Clifford, Peter York and the thoroughly tacky Taki spoke about the social scene in 1990s London. Writers John Mortimer, Nigella Lawson and Kathy Lette also had their say. In fairness, there were a few perceptive remarks but too much reticence about doing a Vanity Fair on the current scene.
Serious satire was called for here but only John Mortimer, smiling to himself, supplied it. All agreed that fame has changed the face of society in the last 30 years and that the 19th-century snobberies of title and estate count for less than they once did. But we knew that. We also know that the relationship between fame and talent is not straightforward. Listening to Max Clifford explain how to push nonentities through the media was comical at one level and despair-inducing at another. Wannabes pay their vanity fares to Max and he laughs all the way to the bank. Sadder than middle-aged spread.
Finally, The Late Late Show special on Omagh. This oozed genuine, heartrending sadness - not sadness in its contemporary usage as a synonym for inadequacy. No group of people could have been more deserving of a tribute programme. The sheer horror and scale of the bombing were utterly monstrous and in a month when the phrase "Lest we forget" has a particularly acute resonance, the show was timely. Not that it was easy for any of the guests or, in fairness, for presenter Gay Byrne, to say much that was consoling or meaningful. But sometimes it really is the thought that counts and that was justification enough for this one.
There was, however, Bob Geldof's contribution and Byrne's agreement with it. Describing the bombers as "pigs" he would like to see "rot in hell", Geldof introduced a fundamentalist note to the evening. None of the people who had suffered through injury or bereavement expressed a similar sentiment. If they had, it would have been thoroughly understandable. But they didn't. Indeed, the message from the bereaved was that such remarks were more likely to sustain hatred than to end it. As an example of the naked difference between real experience and dangerous (even if genuinely felt) vicarious emotion, this was telling. Forget hell. Jail is the answer.