The Hell of it All

by Charlie Brooker

  And the two of them don’t get on. Sophia shouts at Saffia. Saffia shouts at Sophia. Which is which? I don’t know, and before I can work it out, it cuts to Halfwit again. Marcus Bentley calls him Halfwit on the voiceover, but the other housemates still call him Freddie. Dogface (whose real name is Sophie) is telling Halfwit (Freddie) about the argument between Sophia and Saffia. At least that’s what I think is happening, until it turns out that it isn’t Dogface telling Halfwit this after all: it’s Karly. Karly is the girl who looks like Dogface (whose real name is Sophie). Silly me. Maybe they could broadcast a diagram at the start of each episode.

  As for the others, there’s a three-year-old Brazilian Disney boy, a lesbian in a comedy punk wig circa 1983, a bloke who looks a bit like James Lance playing an Iranian Justin Lee Collins, another woman, some sort of female weirdo who’s time in the house is clearly depriving Covent Garden of an annoying mime artist, and a nerdy guy who looks like Lemmy trying to bluff his way into an X-Men convention.

  Of this lot, two are currently having to walk around with a moustache and glasses permanently drawn on their face as part of another task. So out of 16 unfamiliar people, two have been given aliases, and another two forced to adopt a disguise. At this rate, by next week they’ll be filming the whole thing through a kaleidoscope. Just to alienate the viewer yet further.

  Diced Dumbo [27 June 2009]

  If you were to compile a list of 100 things you wouldn’t really want to see on TV, ‘watching someone methodically dissect the corpse of an elephant’ would probably feature somewhere around the mid30s point, sandwiched between ‘Simon Bates investigates naturism’ and ‘toddler being sick against a butcher’s shop window’.

  Certainly my initial reaction on hearing about Inside Nature’s Giants was one of incredulity balls-deep in glee. Once I’d got over the title, I thought: they’re ACTUALLY chopping up an elephant? For an HOUR? Bless their sensationalist socks. That’ll be fun to write about. Maybe they’ll use a chainsaw on the trunk. Maybe there’ll be a bit where they get 28 dwarves to climb inside the skin and form a human pachyderm, walking around like a giant pantomime horse while the producers play ‘Baby Elephant Walk’ on the soundtrack. Maybe they’ll pull one of its eyes out and demonstrate how tough it is by asking Vernon Kay to jump up and down on it till it bursts, except it won’t burst – it’ll be like jumping on a giant squash ball, so he’ll slip over and land face-first in its guts.

  None of that happens. Make no mistake, they take the poor creature apart. There’s not a bit of that elephant you don’t get to see. They pull the skin off, drag the intestines out, saw the legs into segments … and yet, and yet …

  And yet the overwhelming sense you’re left with is one of towering respect for the wonder of nature, for the excitement of science and its role in explaining the world. This is categorically not an empty freak show, but one of the most remarkable natural history programmes I’ve ever seen. The gore may sound off-putting but it isn’t really. It’s fine once you’re over the initial shock – like jumping in an unheated swimming pool that feels cold for 10 seconds until your body gets used to it.

  The first thing to understand is that the elephant wasn’t killed for the sake of the programme. It was dead anyway. Secondly, these dissections take place regularly, for the benefit of trainee veterinary surgeons (there’s a large number of them watching proceedings throughout). Thirdly, and perhaps most significantly, the programme takes each segment of the elephant – literally – and uses it as a springboard for a fairly in-depth VT sequence detailing how said part works and why it evolved that way.

  So we get an entire section on the digestive system, one on the trunk, another on the feet, and so on, all illustrated with bespoke reports from Africa, archive footage, explanatory CGI animations and even Richard Dawkins, who pops up a couple of times to share his awe of nature (and appears so delighted and enthused by the process of evolution, he manages to talk for several minutes without once calling all organised religion a bastard).

  At every turn, you learn new things about elephants – and not just things you didn’t know, but things you hadn’t even thought of questioning. Take the feet. I always thought of elephants’ feet as simply being stumps with toenails. In fact I scarcely thought of them as ‘feet’ at all, but legs that ended arbitrarily at the point they met the ground. I now know that, inside, the skeletal structure of an elephant’s foot is surprisingly human. They’re effectively walking around on tip-toes: the rear of each foot is a kind of fatty pad, a shock absorber, like a spongy wedge heel. It evolved to help them cope with their massive weight. That’s a small example, but one that’s genuinely changed the way I’ll look at elephants for ever. And it’s precisely the sort of detail that might simply wash over you in a more traditional nature documentary.

  This is a rare thing – a hardcore biological science documentary that will both entertain and enlighten almost anyone who watches. It’s also strangely moving. Because they chop that elephant to pieces all right – but they do so with palpable love. Watch it. It’s amazing.

  One small step for (a) man [4 July 2009]

  Neil Armstrong was the first man on the moon. Pretty impressive. So impressive that 40 years later, people still make documentaries wondering what that must’ve been like. Being Neil Armstrong is the latest.

  Its premise is this: Neil Armstrong has become a recluse. He never signs autographs and doesn’t speak to the press. Why? Why don’t you want to come out and talk to us, Neil? Why Neil? Why? Why? Why? What’s the matter with you Neil? What’s your problem? OI, NEIL! WHY?

  Since we’re repeatedly told that Neil Armstrong effectively now lives a hermit-like existence in which he scarcely acknowledges the existence of humankind, an interview seems unlikely, so presenter Andrew Smith has to find different ways of discovering what makes him tick. He goes to Neil’s home town and talks to a woman who used to be friends with his sister. She reveals that he wasn’t a particularly unusual or talkative character.

  The woman now runs a model airplane shop, so Smith buys one, goes back to his motel, assembles it, and throws it out of the window. Maybe Neil Armstrong used to do stuff like when he was a kid, he says.

  Then he chats to one of Neil’s old schoolfriends who reveals that, yes, Neil did play with model planes. Brilliant. We’re getting somewhere. When he wasn’t making planes, did he like to jump up and down yelping and pointing excitedly at the moon? No. The erstwhile schoolfriend also recalls Neil as fairly subdued person.

  We see photos of Neil at school, looking quiet. ‘Who would have guessed this quiet boy would one day become one of the most famous men on the planet?’ ponders Smith.

  Nobody did. Perhaps if he’d spent his childhood bellowing ‘I LOVE THE MOON’, or ‘ONE DAY I’LL GO TO THE MOON’, or simply shrieking the word ‘MOON!’ at passers-by, maybe someone might’ve guessed. But he didn’t, so they didn’t.

  Next Smith’s in his car, thinking. ‘Maybe he was just an ordinary, nice man,’ he says. As you may have gathered by now, not much is happening in this documentary. He drives to a house in the middle of nowhere where Neil used to live. Can he have a look round? No, because he doesn’t have permission. He’s not even allowed up the driveway. Someone else is in there, though: a couple being shown round by an estate agent. As they leave, Smith, still standing outside, stops them. Did they know this used to be Neil Armstrong’s house?

  No they didn’t.

  Thankfully, before things devolve to the point where Smith is looking at a napkin on the basis that Neil Armstrong probably once looked at a napkin, we get to the part of the story where Neil goes to the moon, and there’s lots of thrilling footage of that and some good interviews with other former astronauts. The pressures of fame would overwhelm Neil, they reckon. When you’ve been an astronaut, everyone asks you to repeat the story of how you walked on the moon again and again until you’re not even sure of the details yourself. For Neil, the pioneer, it would be intolerable. We meet a barber who o
nce sold a bag of Neil’s hair sweepings for $3,000. Little wonder the poor man became a recluse. Little wonder he lives in a lightless cave, shunning all contact with the world outside. It’s a sobering moment.

  So imagine my surprise when, after the credits roll, I visit Wikipedia in search of some more facts about this solitary, mankind-dodging loner and quickly discover that as recently as 2005 he approved the release of an official biography called First Man: The Life of Neil Armstrong. There’s also a photograph of him happily receiving a platinum disc of Fly Me to the Moon from Quincy Jones at a Nasa anniversary gala in 2008. He doesn’t look like a man crushed by the weight of human expectation, but a normal guy who probably couldn’t be arsed talking to the 7,000th film crew to contact him that week. Is that right Neil? Neil? Is it? Is it, Neil? WELL, NEIL? IS IT?

  – After this article appeared, an (apparently understandably) irritated Andrew Smith got in touch with the Guardian to explain that the preview copies of his documentary sent out by the BBC press office had featured a commentary not written or approved by himself, which was subsequently changed prior to broadcast. It’s only fair to point that out here. And to redress the balance, I’ll throw in a free plug for his book Moondust, even though I haven’t actually read it yet, on the basis that two friends of mine who HAVE read it tell me it’s very, very good indeed.

  Insert plinth pun here [11 July 2009]

  As I type these words I’m periodically switching to another window, in which a chubby woman sits on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, applying make-up. She’s occasionally shouting ‘morning!’ at people. Apart from that, nothing’s happening. Yet it’s so compelling, I can’t stop flipping over to look at it, even though I’m on deadline. Now she’s texting. Now she’s on the phone to someone. Now she’s stood up. This column’s never going to get written.

  I’m talking, of course, about Antony Gormley’s One & Other, the ‘public art’ project in which people take turns standing on the fourth plinth for an hour. It lasts 100 days, so that’s 2,400 people, each of whom has their 60 minutes of glory streamed live on the internet. There’s also a weekly catch-up ‘highlights’ show on the Sky Arts channel. It’s Big Brother: Tate Modern Edition, essentially.

  I say Big Brother: it’s actually more like the good old days of Big Brother, the early ones when we were astounded to watch live footage of people simply pottering around in a kitchen. When the housemates were left to ‘get on with it’ rather than dress as pirates and play party games every four minutes. The days when nothing happened and we didn’t mind. That’s what this is like, minus a Geordie voiceover.

  Mind you, even though the ‘plinthers’ have zero opportunity to form holiday romances or start racist arguments (what with being alone up there) they’re equally – if not more – attention-seeking than your average BB housemates. Half of them have come in fancy dress. We’ve already had a man dressed as a town crier bellowing about his pub, a man dressed as a cat fielding texts from the public, and a woman who did the midnight-to-1 a.m. shift disguised as a giant pigeon, occasionally emitting a rather half-hearted ‘cooo’ noise. (Her costume was particularly rubbish: she looked like the lead in an illegal Turkish version of Batman shot on a budget of 25p.)

  In other words, it’s ‘Britain’s Got People’. Except no one’s judged or voted off. They get their full slot regardless. The comedy writer Dan Maier (a regular TV Burp contributor, fact fans) quickly defined a condition called ‘Twenty-Minute Sink-In – the point at which plinthers realise their idea will sustain nowhere near an hour’. Andy Warhol was spot on: 15 minutes is just right. After that they start to visibly deflate. A mini-breakdown ensues. The town crier quickly seemed to turn on the passers-by, berating them for not asking any questions. No one’s done a shit or started jerking off yet, but that’s bound to happen before the 100 days are up. It’s like a David Blaine stunt taking place for no discernible point. So just like a David Blaine stunt, then.

  There’s also no technological ‘public interaction’ system in place, although you can go down there in person and shout at them. That happened a fair bit last night. Trafalgar Square’s pretty rowdy at 1 a.m. No one’s thrown a bottle high enough to catch one yet – and hopefully they won’t – but that’s bound to happen before the 100 days are up too.

  Every hour, on the hour, a cherry picker comes in to swap one plinther for another. Right now the chubby woman’s now being replaced by – uh oh – a man dressed as a turd carrying a loudhailer. He’s protesting that 2.5 billion people don’t have a proper toilet. Or clean water. Ah, he’s doing it for Water Aid. It’s like the London Marathon for people who can’t be arsed running.

  Fifteen minutes have expired for turd man, so now he’s gone a bit quiet. But he does, at least, have some props: a giant fish head, which he’ll presumably get to in a few minutes. If you’re applying to go on the plinth (which you can do, via their website), I’d recommend taking a good book, or at the very least a Nintendo DS. Or maybe a small video recording of the previous plinther to stare at. Because it’s a proper time sponge, this. Dangerously hypnotic. Sod the Angel of the North. This is brilliantly futile.

  A nice lie down and a bleed [1 August 2009]

  For all its delusions of grandeur, TV drama rarely deals with authentically frightening subjects. Except murder, which has been so overdone it’s almost ceased to seem like a real or scary phenomenon. If I died at the hands of a serial killer I’d probably just think, ‘Ooh, how exciting, it’s like something off the telly’, before enjoying a nice lie down and a bleed.

  Every so often, however, along comes a drama that takes a long, hard look at something you’d rather blank out altogether, something large and menacing and beyond your control. Take Threads, the BBC’s profoundly horrifying 1984 nuclear war epic, which brought Armageddon kicking and screaming into the nation’s living rooms. You can get it on DVD or find it online: even today, when we spend approximately 98% less time worrying about mushroom clouds, watching it feels like being repeatedly punched in the kidneys during a powerful comedown.

  It’s hard to know whether shows like this actually do any good. I saw Threads when I was about 12 - too young to handle it, frankly - and it left me feeling despairing and helpless. Perhaps if I’d grown up to be a policymaker it would’ve been a positive influence. But I didn’t. I grew up to be a neurotic bell-end.

  Threads wasn’t the only BBC drama about nuclear war. In 1966 they made The War Game, which was judged so terrifying its transmission was postponed for a whopping 19 years. Making shows on touchy subjects is a gamble; there’s always a chance real-life events could take an unpalatable turn, leading to your programme being yanked off-air. Of course in the event of nuclear war, you wouldn’t have time to moan about the schedulers. You’d be busy turning into a carbonised smudge.

  With all this in mind, my vote for Show Most Likely to Be Pulled from the Schedule at the Last Minute this week goes to Spanish Flu: The Forgotten Fallen, which I assume (given the lead times for drama) must’ve been commissioned before the first reports of swine flu started coming in from Mexico. It’s a drama-documentary looking at the attempts of Dr James Niven (played by Bill Paterson) to stem the spread of a deadly flu outbreak in Manchester circa 1918. Under normal circumstances the subject matter wouldn’t seem too remarkable. Since we’re in the middle of a contemporary outbreak, however, it’s inherently riveting. Even though our current strain is markedly less lethal than the 1918 lurgy, if you’re even slightly jumpy about public health issues it’d probably be best not to tune in. A cheery romp through a valley of saffron daffodils this is not.

  In fact, in the present climate, with ministers warning that unnecessary panic could harm the NHS more than the flu virus itself, I’ll be downright astonished if the transmission date doesn’t change. It’s grimly fascinating stuff, all in all, with uniformly excellent performances from the cast, but somewhat undermined by a few unnecessary lurches into sensationalism. The first scene depicts an angelic child dropping
dead in the street while watching another group of children playing ring-a-ring-o’-roses (the plague song, geddit?). This is soon followed by an absurdly OTT sequence in which a dying man, staggering around as though infected by an alien disease whose chief symptom is gory melodrama, coughs blood and phlegm all over a window in front of a horrified crowd. Before long Dr Niven’s running around trying to convince the doltish, avaricious authorities that there’s a killer on the loose, while the bodies start piling up in earnest. It’s Jaws, essentially, but starring an invisible microbe instead of a rubber shark.

  Oh, and just to keep you on your toes, each time you find yourself thinking, ‘Yeah, but the 1918 epidemic was far deadlier than ours’, the characters discuss the fact that they’d already had a previous, milder outbreak, that this second wave is far more virulent, and that that’s how plagues always work. At which point they might as well turn directly to camera, rub their hands together and emit a long, slow, maniacal cackle. Viewer discretion is advised.

  When hypotheses attack [8 August 2009]

  Good taste is overrated. I ate in a fancy modern Japanese restaurant the other day – like the despicable self-parodying media bastard I am – and the menu was so trendily, minimally written and designed I couldn’t tell where the starters were or how many courses to order, or indeed, whether half of it was actually a ‘menu’ at all. One list of dishes was simply headed ‘news’. Were they edible? I would’ve asked a waiter, but their tasteful uniforms rendered them far too intimidating to question. Instead I ordered at random. My first course resembled a tiny sliced diagram. Again, it was terribly tasteful. So tasteful I felt like shitting in my palms and flinging it around the room while barking like a seal. Hey, it’s a standard panic response. Don’t judge me.

  Bad taste is preferable. Eat somewhere where they hand you a wipe-clean laminated menu slathered with gaudy colour photos and you know exactly what you’re getting: something that tastes like it’s been retrieved from a murderer’s basement and reheated in an electronic armpit. Knowing it’ll be bad for you but tucking in regardless – that’s inherently glorious.