4/29/2007

Victoria's Empire - Victoria Wood is no Michael Palin

What a very disappointing programme Victoria's Empire was this evening.

I had hoped the BBC had found another presenter able to fill Michael Palin's boots for a quality travel round the world adventure.

Sadly, what Victoria Wood served up was bland, uninformative, rather naive drivel. It was like a dumbed down version of Palin with no interaction with the people in the places she visited, just too much of Victoria Wood giving a commentary of what she was doing over the video footage along with some very silly rather twee music which seemed to get in the way of what was going on.

Perhaps the stupidest of comments was her talking about the

“monumental arrogance” of our ancestors placing British buildings in India. “I suppose we thought we were just giving them our best buildings."

I don't suppose it occurred to Victoria Wood that people from Britain kn ow how to build British houses, so that is what they did. It wasn't arrogance, its called building what you know how to build. It's practical, it saves time, and it makes sense. Perhaps we should get Ms Wood to look at the Mosque in Hyde park and ask her to lecture them on the "arrogance of building a building like that from the Middle East when you can see Canary Wharf in the distance"

All in all, very, very poor and not something I will watch next week.

10 comments:

David Anthony said...

I don't suppose it occurred to Victoria Wood that people from Britain kn ow how to build British houses, so that is what they did. it wasn't arrogance, its called building what you know how to build

This argument seems far too rational to have come from a Lib Dem. I actually found myself agreeing with a few of the arguments made down your blog ... what's going on??

Nich Starling said...

David, Don't judge all Lib dems by your own prejudices. I have some good Tory friends and a colleague of mine is a Labour Councillor and he makes sense nearly all the time. The problem is we are all judged against the nutters in our own parties.

David Anthony said...

NB, please don't take jest as prejudice. I thought I was paying you a compliment.

Nich Starling said...

Sorry, I did take it as a compliment and I was trying (but it is lost in text) to make the point that I am sure you are a thoroughly decent guy too, so long as I see past your political colours and see the person.

I'm pleased you agree with some of the things I say. Most Lib dems I know are very normal people and we are not all in love with Europe either.

Cheers !

Anonymous said...

I agree with Norfolk Blogger's apt comparison with Michael Palin.
In her standup comedy role Victoria is both charming and witty.
In Victoria's Empire she was just frumpy and grumpy. And her potted history was trivial.

Anonymous said...

I don't know what you lot were expecting on a Sunday night. BBC1 is the place to go for glossy, entertaining programmes. If Norfolk Blogger was looking for a serious documentary surely someone of his towering iltellect would have opted for BBC2 or Discovery Channel. I think her delivery waw great - it was exactly what I was expecting which was a light-hearted personal look at what's left of the Victorian Empire's Legacy. Good viewing for a Sunday night in my opinion.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe you have taken time to write such a lenghtly debate about it..., did it really offend you that much!?

Write something interesting and maybe you will have more hits on your site.

A worrying comment from another teacher...you want to learn from who exactly, us!?

Regulators aand observer's are watching this site.


A Female teacher

Anonymous said...

I'm not a massive fan of Victoria Wood, due to my mum making me watch her stand up shows on video all the time when I was young. However, I sat down with my girlfriend last night to watch Victorias travels. And I found her delivery painful. She walked into a gold toilet and instead of marvel, she expressed that because she's from Lancashire she don't like that sort of thing. Then she tucked into some birds nest soup and openly mocked her hosts by laughing at the very idea of eating bird spit soup. All in all I think someone with an open mind would have been a better choice of presenter. And someone with less of an annoying voice. Not the scottish man from the second series of coast, he's even worse.

Nich Starling said...

Readers might want to know that the above posting was one of nine messages left in the space of 14 minutes all from an anonymous user, all in a similar style and making the same point over and over.

I have not allowed the other eight to be published as they say nothing new or different and I suspect they are from the same person.

Anonymous said...

actually the British did not built British-style buildings in their colonies out of arrogance, nor out of conveniece (for surely it would be easier to build a traditional style bungalow in the Kandian highlands than a British pavilion - plus British architects were not restrited in their talents purely to European-style buildings).
Instead, it was out of firstly a home-sickness and cultural longing for upper-middle class rural life. Secondly, a nostalgia for the past that modernity and progress seemed to be leaving behind, and finally a fear of environmental determinism and cultural degeneration resulting from living in the tropics.
So, both of you are wrong

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