TV review

Published Monday 28 April 2008 at 14:20 by Harry Venning

I am a big fan of BBC4, but too often the channel’s output just resembles Radio 4 with pictures. For example, this week Inside the Medieval Mind explored sex, sexuality and romance in the Middle Ages and jolly interesting it was, too. But I could have happily done without the overuse of the out of focus and wobbly camera pointed up at the cathedral ceiling. Perhaps the device was intended to represent the giddy confusion caused by the collision of Christian theology and secular sensuality, but the effect it had on me was pure annoyance with a hint of nausea.

Several of the medieval attitudes under discussion have survived the centuries and surfaced in BBC3’s new documentary series Glamour Girls. Modelling has always struck me as the only branch of showbusiness that requires absolutely no talent whatsoever and this programme, based in and around Samantha Bond’s prestigious Chelsea model agency, only served to reinforce that prejudice.

Bond’s offices are swish, her reputation prestigious and her second in command, Nikki, is a veritable saint. A former glamour model herself, Nikki lavishes seemingly inexhaustible supplies of patience, sensitivity and compassion on the array of hopeful young applicants it is her sad duty to disappoint. “Not this time, I’m afraid”, are her carefully chosen words of rejection.

The agency is clearly a classy operation, but at the end of the day it is in the tits industry. And what a bizarre, contradictory and confusing industry it is.

Nowhere was this better illustrated than during coverage of a location photo shoot on a crowded beach in Tenerife which, unaccountably, failed to anticipate the level of (male) interest it would attract. Whilst most onlookers were happy to just gawk and dribble from a distance, others ambled slowly closer like the living dead in a zombie film, making the models feel self-conscious and uncomfortable. Photographer, crew and models abandoned the shoot at the point where one enthusiastic amateur photographer joined in and started taking pictures for himself.

“Anyone would think they hadn’t seen a naked body before,” observed pert and perky page three girl Rhian from Cheshire, 19, missing the point whilst making it at the same time.

For while there is flesh aplenty on the beaches of Tenerife, it isn’t glamour model flesh. This commodity exists only on the pages of newspapers and magazines. And, of course, on programmes such as Glamour Girls which, despite obscuring most of its on screen nudity with discreet and tasteful camera angles, was more than happy for a nipple to occasionally break from cover. It is, after all, what the market wants.

Heist was a comedy thriller that told the true story of an audacious bullion theft from the vaults of Westminster Abbey in 1302, which saw small time crook Dick Puddlecote and his rapscallion gang successfully part Edward I from his war chest. Unlike modern blaggers, whose only concern is a clean getaway and the sharing of swag, Puddlecote and company had to also nullify the threat of eternal damnation and organise post robbery penance. In time-honoured fashion they were undone by internal treachery and went to the gallows.

Drawing upon all the much-loved cliches of the modern bank job thriller, from mugshot biographies of gang members to the obligatory Reservoir Dogs slow-mo stroll to camera, Heist was fast, furious and frenetic fun. It also successfully harnessed the charm and charisma of Kris Marshall, who starred as Puddlecote. Good work like Heist is possibly Marshall’s penance for all those terrible BT adverts.

DETAILS

Inside the Medieval Mind - BBC4, Thursday, April 24, 9pm

Glamour Girls - BBC3, Monday, April 21, 8.30pm

Heist - BBC4, Wednesday, April 23, 9pm