It’s about me, actually

TV reviews are not really my style, but there’s one programme I enjoyed the other day that I feel the need to comment upon. Sean Fletcher, who I hadn’t seen before (my televisual habits being somewhat ungenerous), was walking a stretch of the River Lea towpath in east London. A real treat, offered to us by a man almost gurgling with excitement about his subject, yet who – unlike so many presenters – didn’t get in the way of his material. Instead, what he gave us was half an hour of easily digested information, a useful sample of statistics, explanations, reasons, history, intelligently simplified maps, glorious aerial vistas - plus the stylistic riot that is the Abbey Mills pumping station, the golden gasometers of Bromley-by-Bow and the funny little lighthouse where the Lea meets the Thames.

More importantly, what he gave us – gave me - was his enthusiasm, and a subtle and seductive invitation to explore a part of a great city that many people surely dismiss, if they ever think of it at all, as a drab, post-industrial edgeland. It isn’t, despite the encroaching plasticised banalities of the Olympic Park and done-over Docklands. It’s every bit as varied, as quirky and as fascinating as the rest of London.

What Sean Fletcher demonstrated implicitly is that these sort of place-based programmes (of which there are many) are best aimed at the viewer, at you and me, rather than being about the glorification of the presenter. We see far too much of the sort of characters - some of them genuinely worthy personalities, others less so – who are whisked off to places we might want to visit ourselves, and then encouraged to be embarrassingly inept at skills that require a lifetime to master, or undergoing peculiar procedures, therapeutic, masochistic or otherwise, or gawping at something you’d give your right arm to see, and mouthing “wow” and finding everything “iconic”.  Or someone the other night exploring Sydney, allegedly, and all we saw was the inside of a very ordinary room supposedly at the Opera House, the inside of a tattoo parlour in a seedy suburb, and the inside of a club - full of odd and sweaty people - that could have been (almost) anywhere. What a wasted opportunity.

No, I like to watch a travel documentary that’s all about me – that is, about what I will find at a particular destination, how it will improve my quality of life, why it will make me happy, why I should be interested in it, why it’s visually or otherwise stunning, why it should be important to me and my understanding of the world, why I should go there. Call me egocentric but - with respect  - unless you, the guide, are specifically the subject matter or have a rare talent for inventive presentation, I don’t want a programme about you.

 
So, on that basis I shan’t be going to Sydney in the near future. Admittedly easier and cheaper for me to reach, I will, however, most definitely be revisiting stretches of the River Lea as soon as I can. Thank you, Sean Fletcher, for whetting my appetite, and for channelling that remarkable waterway directly into my field of vision.