BBC Recent coverage

[Steven Broomfield]

2 hours ago, 593jones said:

 

Personally, I always found it quite touching.

 

Listening to it again, yes, I do rather agree. It has memories - mum, dad, dog. I might not go so far as 'touching', but resonant with memory.

[phil andrade]

That programme A Scottish Soldier was worth watching.

 

A degree of understatement and a very dignified presentation by the black lady who gave us the poetry.

 

The maritime cities of GB must  have had a significant number of black people living there for generations before the Great War.

 

There was something about this that worked better than I’d expected : a case of less is more , perhaps ?

 

Phil

 

 

[keithfazzani]

On 15/11/2018 at 11:51, PhilB said:

Agree on Dan Cruickshank`s programme. Just wish they`d strapped his hands to his sides.

 

Just watched the programme on iPlayer. Yes excellent but agree about the hands. 

[Steven Broomfield]

I'm surprised Dan Cruickshank's wandering hands haven't fallen foul of the #MeToo movement, just in case.

 

And to see how NOT to do it, Channel 5 had a programme yesterday on the 100th anniversary of the RAF, narrated by Sir Martyn Lewis. I turned off after 10 minutes - dire. Repetetive clips of old aeroplanes with a few modern restorations thrown in, a few interviews with veterans and a 'read it off the autocue, Sir Martyn and we'll pop the cheque in the post' narration. Cheap and nasty.

Edited 17 November , 2018 by Steven Broomfield

[stripeyman]

Steven

You managed 10 minutes of it, very brave of you, I had it off before that. A mismash of out of sequence film clips and same old same old. Blinking awful or a lesson in how not to make a interesting documentary.

[Steven Broomfield]

1 hour ago, stripeyman said:

Steven

You managed 10 minutes of it, very brave of you, 

 

It was like seeing a pile-up on the motorway: a sort of horrible fascination.

[Frank_East]

I think that Dan the man is probably getting too much BBC exposure.......mind you they tell me that TV viewing can be enhanced at a cost of £70/month 

[GWF1967]

On 16 November 2018 at 21:16, phil andrade said:

That programme A Scottish Soldier was worth watching.

 There was something about this that worked better than I’d expected : a case of less is more , perhaps ?

 

Phil

 

 

It worked for me too; more from the diary wouldn't have gone amiss!

  

[Gunga Din]

In the last four years of BBC coverage, there has been lots that has fallen short of the mark. "90% duds at the Somme" was probably the low point (still available on BBC iPlayer).... However if one is focused on the positives (and there were many) I would highlight Jeremy Paxman's "Britain's Great War" which is currently rerunning on iPlayer.

 

The breadth, depth and scope was quite superb. Nothing has surpassed this in my view. He managed to open the layperson's eyes to aspects of this Total War that are not immediately apparent, particularly the social unheaval among workers and women (in particular) on the home front (episode 2). It was an excellent piece of documentary making with a thoughtful script that directly engaged modern people with tangible links to the tectonic shifts in British society (striking Clydebank ship workers, women leading rent hike refusals and the introduction of the Rent freeze (groundbreaking legislation for the working classes) conscientious objectors, the Govt secret financing of the Suffragette rallies to the "right to serve", munitions worker who died (none incidentally recorded on CWGC) Irish republicans, as just a few examples of those impacted who were very far physically (but spiritually close) to the  Western Front). While I have sympathy with some of the above (but definitely not all), these were extremely important dynamics that still resonate today; aspects of the fighting on the Great War that had far reaching implications for Society. In the sharp-elbowed scramble for the choice of the next female to adorn the British paper currency, one might consider the working class Glaswegian heroine from the Govan who, against great odds managed to get Lloyd George to change British law. That part is definitely worth watching again. 

 

The clip of Paxman interviewing two present day Clydeside Shipbuilding Union men (there are some left - no pun intended) whose forebears threatened to strike when men were dying on the Western Front is gold dust. They argue that the War was extended by Capitalist profiteering from the war. I don't agree with the view but it is interesting that 100 years later these men can still hold this view - a belief among some Socialists that the War was a Capatilist construct at the cost of the workers. The Home Front is an aspect of WWI that impacted a significant majority of the UK population that hardly any documentaries address; obsessed with mud, blood and the fields beyond. There was another war of social change on the Home Front that reshaped our Society, more than any other singule event in our history. It is just as important as the First Day of the Battles of the Somme. 

 

Interestingly a significant amount of WWI film footage was the same as that used by Peter Jackson in his sublime digitially enhanced and colourised documentary, however despite the technical brilliance of Jackson's production, the voice overlay of the well-informed Paxman gives a far greater insight into what we are actually viewing; the back-story  presenting important context (absent from Jackson's documentary) for me provided much greater educational value. I know they had different aims and it is perhaps unfair to compare, however if one was teaching the next generation about WWI, Paxman's rather wonderful four-part series would be a useful aid.

 

If Jackson digitally enhanced the footage in Paxman's documentary, it would be a thing of greatness. 

 

GD

 

Edit.  Episode  3 is even better....

Edited 20 November , 2018 by Gunga Din
Lots of typos