Andrew Marr's History Of Modern Britain, BBC2
MacIntyre: Edge Of Existence, Five
THE "modern" bit of Andrew Marr's History Of Modern Britain, now reaching the mid-1950s, is quite appropriate. Take his sly description of Anthony Eden, who "took this country to war in the Middle East on the basis of a lie cooked up in Downing Street and achieved national humiliation". Marr doesn't labour any parallels that one might draw from that, but his presentation of Eden's career from popular charmer to disliked scapegoat said it all.
The 50s and, especially, the supposedly Swinging 60s are old territory for TV retrospectives, many of which resort to flinging together a few clips with a pop soundtrack in a cut-and-paste version of history. Marr is trying something more ambitious, using his insider knowledge of where we are now to go back and make a case for how we got to this place. He's still using the well-known incidents as hooks - here, the Profumo scandal as the symbol of how government changed - but with a broader canvas of a changing society.
During Eden and Macmillan's premierships, he argues, the whole traditional way of ruling Britain was ripped open: "The chaps lost the plot - and they've never found it again, not quite, ever since." The "chaps" being the traditional establishment, with Old Etonians dominating the government and the media, in a cosy symbiosis of power and privilege.
Marr didn't actually have much to say about the Profumo case itself, but began with the unexpected disastrous intervention in Suez, arguing that this began to reveal the simmering discontent under the safe 50s façade.
It wasn't all politics, with digressions into the changes in West End theatres, the Mini as a symbol of the new age and the success of Beyond The Fringe - the latter giving Marr an opportunity to do his impression of Peter Cook's impression of Macmillan (Alistair McGowan shouldn't be too worried).
These cultural shifts were obviously meant to support Marr's argument, but they seemed a bit arbitrary (why not the rise of the New Look or teddy boys?) and were probably there to edge things into The Rock And Roll Years territory.
Where Marr's history really scores is on the incidental details which bring his narrative alive, like a story about Macmillan crying in frustration during a summit with de Gaulle, who later made a mean Edith Piaf-related joke about it, or the startling fact that 35 of Macmillan's ministers - including seven in the Cabinet - were related to him by marriage.
Thankfully, the series is free of too many visual gimmicks of the kind that made the recent elections even more of a joke (such as Jeremy Vine's tennis-court graphic featuring Tony Blair serving up balls of votes - Chris Morris couldn't have made it up). But Marr, always one of the most accessible of pundits, did indulge himself to illustrate an anecdote about Eden fleeing the failure of the Suez invasion with a holiday at Ian Fleming's home Goldeneye - a perfect excuse to jump behind the wheel of an Aston Martin for a steely-eyed action sequence.
Well, who says James Bond can't be a thin-armed, jug-eared middle-aged man? If Daniel Craig can do it[ellips]
And who says Donal MacIntyre can't pass himself off as a crocodile-hunting jungle tribesman? After all, he's previously gone undercover as a football hooligan.
But the timing of Edge Of Existence confuses me, Five having already shown the "sequel" Return Of The Tribe, in which his hosts came to Britain. That odd scheduling aside, it was interesting to see them in their element and MacIntyre out of his. A night hunt on the river left him shaking, and pointed up who the real tough guys were.
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