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Jeremy Paxman

Jeremy Paxman
  • Posted at 5:35pm
  • 19 February 2009
  • by AlisonGraham-RT
  • 5 comments

I have a very low tolerance threshold when it comes to middle-aged men telling me things in television documentary series (hello David Dimbleby, Jonathan Dimbleby, Peter Snow, Dan Cruickshank, Simon Schama, Tony Robinson). Or, even worse, middle-aged men drinking too much then trying to tell me things (Oz and James Drink to Britain, the most singularly infuriating and pointless series currently on television, a homage to masculine self-indulgence).

Where are the women? We are seriously under-represented when it comes to the clever stuff (though the Oz and James farrago isn't clever, obviously). On second thoughts, maybe this is payback for the pitiful portrayal of men in just about every television drama. Sorry boys, but TV dramas invariably paint you all as saps, halfwits, bullies or dullards. Or metrosexual creeps (see Mistresses).

I'd like to say that I'm fed up with watching men striding around the countryside looking at views or standing in front of paintings and I am, really, but I shall make one exception - Jeremy Paxman in The Victorians (Sundays, BBC1, BBC HD). (And yet another exception, Andrew Marr in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, which is coming up early next month on BBC2, it's terrific.)

I didn't expect to like The Victorians, but I do, a lot. It's a lively, witty look at Victorian Britain through the prism of paintings from the period. Writer/presenter Paxman has freed me from years of guilt because I've never felt able to admit my love for the Pre-Raphaelites (Edward Burne-Jones, John Everett Millais, that lot) whose plushly lovely works are regularly derided as shallow and pointless. Yet now I can declare myself without shame, because Paxo loves them too.

The Victorians isn't in the least bit dry, and neither is it tricksy, or too clever for its own good. Paxman is a good frontman and it's nice to see him talking to "ordinary" people outside the hothouse confrontational atmosphere of Newsnight. His chat with a sweet and slightly overawed art gallery curator in the first episode was both engaging and revealing. Paxo, engaging? Yes, really.

*

Law & Order and its offshoots, particularly the brilliant Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, are some of the best crime drama series ever. Sadly the same can't be said of its pale British rehash, Law & Order: UK (Mondays, ITV1, ITV HD).

I can't see the point of it, though I can see someone must have thought it was a good idea that couldn't miss. And it couldn't, if only they'd stuck rigidly to the US format - a tightly written, smartly dispatched story - and not bothered with characters' personal lives or motivation/characterisation. What we've got is Judge John Deed lite. And who on earth needs that?

**

Alison Graham is TV editor of Radio Times - read her column in the latest issue of Radio Times magazine, on sale now.

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Comments

  • Posted on 26 February 2009
  • at 12:02pm
  • by Ionaclio

We are just loving "The Victorians" fronted by the excellent, dishy, Paxman. Who could say that they did not enjoy seeing him lace up the very nice middle class lady in to her corset on Sunday evening? Like you Alison, I am looking with fresh eyes at some of the Victorian pictures which Paxman explains so well. OK so it might have been fronted by a woman, but then, they might have picked Fiona Bruce and that is a step too far for my Sunday night viewing!!! Do you remember Lucinda Lampton's take on the Victorians too? Now she is a class act to follow...People are so cruel about Alison's writing and I think it is grossly unfair...I tend to agree with her on most things...Most of the time, Alison is probably playing Devil's Advocate anyway to get us to respond to her Blogs....

  • Posted on 24 February 2009
  • at 11:48am
  • by Kernow Keith

I'm sorry Alison (I'm not ignorant enough to just call her 'Graham') doesn't like Law & Order UK because I DID. I usually favour her comments and like the way she writes them but sorry, alison, I have to disagree this time! I did notice to my horror that announcers are, sadly, pronouncing it 'Laura Norda' as I expected.

  • Posted on 23 February 2009
  • at 6:01pm
  • by doughnut

In saying that not enough women present these programmes I sincerely hope that Graham does not propose to put herself forward for the role.If her comments are anything to go by she would make a proper mess of it !!

  • Posted on 23 February 2009
  • at 4:31pm
  • by john

I do hope that Alison Graham watches the final of University Challenge tonight so that she realises it is not Mastermind, as her write up in Radio Times would indicate!

  • Posted on 22 February 2009
  • at 10:45am
  • by david arnold

I went a screening of the first episode of Law and Order UK as I'm a huge fan of the original US series and all its spin offs. I absolutely loved the UK version, it WAS tightly scripted,acted and looks far better than any of the american versions. Also the US version has the same snippets of the chracters personal lives as this version has. I'm thrilled it's on our tellys!

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