Russia: A Journey With Jonathan Dimbleby, Sunday, BBC2
The South Bank Show: The Damned United, Sunday, STVTHERE are some things in life that I never thought I'd see. Never wanted to see. And yet, once seen, will never be able
to forget.
Such as, last night, Jonathan Dimbleby lying naked in a Moscow bathhouse, being soaped and slapped by a beefy masseur while he whimpered out a piece to camera about the Russian psyche. It may seem like the kind of moment for which, if you missed it, the BBC's iPlayer was invented, but be warned: future viewing of any serious political programme he hosts may be forever tainted by flashbacks to the quivering Dimblebum.
Even if the veteran presenter's private life hadn't been dragged all over the papers – the death of his opera-singer lover, his divorce and subsequent remarriage to a woman half his age – you would be able to tell from Russia: A Journey that something has changed Jonathan Dimbleby (which is the only reason I bring it up). Once authoritative, even belligerent, he now seems tentative and questing, willing to try anything from the bathhouse bashing to visiting an old Russian witch.
Before entering the banya, where Muscovite businessmen and Mafia do deals while they sweat, he muttered: "They tell me in the brochure you will gain the health and joy of full life, harmony and self-confidence. I need all of that."
For once, the "journey" description of this travelogue was appropriate. Usually one suspects that Michael Palin or whoever is merely trotting around the locations pre-scouted by their producer and researchers, but Dimbleby really did seem to be in search of something, whether the true nature of Russia – as if that could ever be summed up – or a new role for himself. St Petersburg in particular appeared to confuse him: "I read, I listen, I try to learn, but I've still got very few answers."
The programme told us more about him than the new Russia, concentrating mostly on the past – the suffering of the war, the legacy of the Communist regime. But there was an interesting point of view from a man who had been raised amid many families in a crammed communal house, where he was assigned just one half of a cooker (two hob rings – presumably they took turns with the oven). There were tensions and a lack of privacy, but it was not so bad, he mused, because Russians make a distinction between everyday, material life and their real, deeper life. Jonathan Dimbleby listened intently.
There were thought-provoking ideas in The South Bank Show's profile of David Peace too, exploring the implications of his recent novel The Damned United, based on Brian Clough's time managing Leeds United. But for a non-football fan like me, it was an immensely frustrating programme for one simple reason: it was never clearly explained what exactly had happened during Clough's 44 days in charge, which seems to be pretty much the point of the book.
Obviously many would know and I could have looked it up (and subsequently did), but it was a basic error which made the show less accessible. In a profile of a contemporary novel one wouldn't normally spoil the plot entirely, but in the circumstances they should have given a quick recap for the sportingly-challenged.
That aside, the programme did a good job of putting Peace's work in context with earlier generations of Northern writers and considering the problems in writing about a famous figure of living memory. It was very blokey though, populated almost entirely by bluff Yorkshiremen of a certain age.
The full article contains 614 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
