It’s History, Ken; but Not as We Know It!
Remaking and reviving a revered and much-loved television hit from another era is a gamble than can go either way. The BBC is doing it at the moment with ‘Poldark’, forty years on from the original series that was one of the 1970s’ most iconic period dramas. I won’t deny it; I’m a fan of dashing Robin Ellis as Ross and exquisite Angharad Rees as Demelza. But I gave the new version a try on the first episode and I thought they did a pretty good job – good enough to make me watch again every week since, anyway.
The Beeb is not having as much success in remaking one of its genuine landmark productions from an even earlier era, however – Kenneth Clark’s highbrow documentary series, ‘Civilisation’. Produced in part as a means of inducing the purchase of newfangled colour television sets in 1969, Clark’s lavish history of western art and architecture set the bar and threw down the gauntlet for the classic series that followed, such as Jacob Bronowski’s ‘The Ascent of Man’, Alistair Cooke’s ‘America’ and David Attenborough’s ‘Life on Earth’. Why the need to remake something that still stands as a high watermark of British broadcasting isn’t entirely clear, but that is the intention – only, they can’t find anyone to present it.
Numerous distinguished names have been bandied about, but none of them want to do it. Melvyn Bragg is the most recent to refuse the alleged offer, and some of the BBC’s elder statesmen such as Dimbleby and Paxman appear reluctant to step into the shoes of Kenneth Clark, sensing they’re on a hiding to nothing. It almost feels as though Mick Jagger has left the Stones and the band are auditioning for a replacement. Yet, the irony is that the BBC currently has an abundance of intelligent, charismatic communicators bringing history to life, and most of them are hidden away on what is arguably the corporation’s finest channel, BBC4.
Bettany Hughes, Amanda Vickery, Mary Beard, Alice Roberts, Lucy Worsley, Janina Ramirez, Kate Williams, Suzannah Lipscomb and Helen Castor have all presented history series on either BBC4 or BBC2 (and on the odd occasion, Channel 4) over the past decade, all of which have illuminated specific and often overlooked eras of history. The fact that none of them have a penis may not have escaped your attention, but it’s interesting that only a tiny percentage of the programmes they’ve written and presented have focused on ‘the female experience’ of history, as rarely told as that has been on television. Instead, they have proven to be as versatile and as capable of painting the bigger picture as any Schama or Starkey, so why so few of their names have led the list of prospective presenters for the new ‘Civilisation’ is curious. Perhaps if they too were asked, they’d be smart enough to know anyone selected to present it would be in a no-win situation.
Viewed from the perspective of far slicker twenty-first century presentation, ‘Civilisation’ can appear a bit creaky; Clark presents the programme with all the detached, donnish air that was true to his own character and makes no attempt to dumb down for the plebs; instead, I feel that his approach forced the viewer to make the effort to clamber to Clark’s level rather than expecting him to descend to theirs. After all, isn’t that was a teacher is supposed to do, anyway – to raise the pupil onto another intellectual plane? It would’ve been ridiculous to expect Clark to play the trendy vicar or take the politician’s route of pretending they cook their meals in kitchens as miniscule as those belonging to the ‘ordinary’ electorate; and it was a sign of Clark’s broadcasting times that he demanded the viewer put a bit of work in as well.
Making a subject such as history accessible needn’t require the presenter to appeal to the lowest common denominator; otherwise, the script may as well be dispensed with altogether and the host could simply rap the story of the Norman Conquest in the manner of a ‘Horrible Histories’ sketch. If I’m to be told a historical story, I want the teller of it to be an authority figure whose rich knowledge of (and passion for) their subject is evident in their demeanour and presentation. They don’t necessarily have to be a tweedy lecturer, but simply to convey their message without resorting to the hyperactive mannerisms of a CBBC continuity announcer. Trying to tell such a story by using the lazy language of the masses is both condescending and dishonest.
Channel 4’s recent coverage of the Richard III reburial – admittedly, a fairly unique and once-in-lifetime event with no precedents to fall back on – was an occasionally awkward mix of solemnity and triviality. The service itself I found quite moving and the sense of genuine history was palpable; but to fill the gaps in between necessitated the kind of banal fluff usually found on ‘The One Show’, although David Starkey being characteristically rude to the woman whose dedication to the cause located the grave beneath the Leicester car-park provided an uncomfortable highlight. The producer attempted to make the programme accessible to all, not merely those with an interest in the Plantagenet dynasty, and so reliance on authentic images from the era gently panned by a rostrum-camera were kept to a minimum in favour of live chat constantly emphasising the excitement of the occasion; that some of these live chats included men in medieval armour occupying the daytime TV-type sofa undeniably added a Pythonesque touch to proceedings, inadvertently upping the entertainment ante.
The idea of even remaking ‘Civilisation’ rather than attempting something entirely new, however, is inherently problematic and seems to tap into the same lack of imagination and/or unwillingness to gamble on uncharted waters that has become a hallmark of Hollywood and its chronic sequel-itis. When the original series was proposed, there were many within the BBC who thought it madness; it would be more expensive than any other documentary series ever produced and would also be shot in colour when only a small and select amount of people owned colour sets and when both BBC1 and all the ITV companies were still broadcasting in black & white. That the programme went ahead regardless demonstrates the devil-may-care attitude prevalent at the corporation in the 1960s; the creative spirit housed in Shepherd’s Bush was fuelled by a belief in the potential of a young medium to continually stretch its boundaries and break new ground instead of playing it safe by resorting to tried-and-trusted formulas.
The original ‘Civilisation’ has a sedate charm that modern viewing sensibilities wouldn’t allow; every shot today in which the presenter isn’t addressing the camera has to encompass a sweeping aerial panorama of the landscape, along with accompanying sweeping strings. It’s as though the programme-makers fear a static camera will cause the viewer to immediately reach for the remote control. God knows how they’d react if confronted by the test card! But, again, it’s the timidity when it comes to challenging the conventions of presentation that underlines the difference between then and now. And I think the wealth of history presenters at the BBC’s current disposal probably all know this would be the fate awaiting any remake of the programme that essentially created a genre that has provided them with a living.
As with performing a cover of a classic song, attempting to replicate the original always fails; equally, trying to update it with flashy contemporary technology is futile. The key is to come up with a version so different that it becomes a new idea altogether. By all means, have a crack at something that possesses the same pioneering spirit that ‘Civilisation’ had; just don’t call it ‘Civilisation’.
Petunia Winegum
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April 12, 2015 at 9:45 am -
I hear that a certain Mr Clarkson is currently available…… Failing that, how about our own Brother Gildas ? An investigative historian with proven presentation skills.
(I believe both may be in possesion of the obligatory penis, so problem solved).-
April 12, 2015 at 11:36 am -
“I believe both may be in possession of the obligatory penis”
If the Mad Monk doesn’t get his arse back in gear with the Sunday sermons soon, then he may be relieved of that problem – and any accoutrements.
Regards,
The Landlady.-
April 12, 2015 at 11:44 am -
Where is our mild mannered, fluffy, Landlady and WHAT have you done with her?!
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April 12, 2015 at 10:07 am -
It will probably be Claire Balding. She seems to be presenting everything nowadays.
Don’t go much on some of the lady presenters. Too much silly dressing up and making it all about them. You get five minutes of history and forty minutes of presenter throwing themselves at the camera after a raid on the dressing up box from “Play School”.
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April 12, 2015 at 8:07 pm -
Hear, hear.
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April 13, 2015 at 4:03 pm -
Bettany Hughes for me. Wonderful presenter.
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April 12, 2015 at 10:19 am -
the host could simply rap the story of the Norman Conquest in the manner of a ‘Horrible Histories’ sketch.
I want them to ‘do’ the Norman Invasion with the show’s host speaking Norman French and Saxon throughout, with subtitles for those of us who can’t speak either. One of my favourite TV highlights EVER was on Melvyn Bragg’s “English” with the bloke reciting Chaucer etc in the original ME. We lose so much of history if we can’t hear the language it was made in. Dubbing history into Modern 21st Century LOLCAT English can give us insights too like innit….. but most of us still prefer our “French Films” (Remember them, late night’s on BBC2 I think?) with subtitles.
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April 12, 2015 at 10:22 am -
April 12, 2015 at 10:47 am -
Perhaps we have left that kind of culture behind in our stampede to be dumbed down. A classics education has been sneered at for the last 40 odd years as being worse than useless. None of those left standing have the gumption to front up for such a programme. Boris might make a goodun for that, as it would be a fun presentation. We are supposed to return all the art we ‘stole ‘anyway. So how dare someone stand up and use any of it to illustrate our version of so called civilization. A favourite ploy to get rid of contestants in quizzes is to ask questions based on Greek myths and gods. Working for the beeb can be a bit fraught these days when past ones sell by date. So it is best to be cautious and refuse the honour.
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April 12, 2015 at 10:48 am -
Still watching television?
Abandon hope all ye who enter. -
April 12, 2015 at 11:45 am -
They are all devoid of penises? Perhaps, some of them have penises, but hopefully attached to their partners! Reminds one of the old chestnut where the small female responds to the small male in the shared bath on said subject with “My Mum says that with one of these I can get one of those anytime I want!”
Perhaps Ms Balding qualifies as not having one as her partner doesn’t either.
On a serious note, a series such as ‘Civilisation’ (sounds a lot like ‘Savilisation’ to me) has to be slanted to a set of opinions. For example, is it forwards or backwards to allow same-sex ‘marriage’? I suspect that from a female perspective, the key positive changes include: tampons, anaesthetics for childbirth together with reduced mortality of mothers and babies – the rest is just fads.
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April 12, 2015 at 11:57 am -
“It’s as though the programme-makers fear a static camera will cause the viewer to immediately reach for the remote control.”
I was watching a programme somewhere on the beeb the other day about Monteverdi’s Vespers and they were doing a lot of the filming in Mantua, but for one scene they had the camera on the floor pointing up at the presenter as he walked round it. He was literally talking down to the audience.
I thought at first that this novel approach might be to show the ceiling, (there are a lot of suberb examples of Italian Renaissance art on the ceilings of Mantua), but if it was for this purpose they must have chosen the blandest ceiling in Lombardy to film.
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April 12, 2015 at 12:29 pm -
Strange obsession about this corpse they’ve dug up. I don’t believe for one moment that it is any more likely to be Dick III than it is to be Dick Tracy but what is even more fascinating is the determination to undo the historical record. Dick III was always made out to be a domineering sexual predator and a child abuser who killed babies in the Tower of London. Now he’s the new hero for the Chatterati. Has studying the coccyx of the corpse revelaed something they simply have to place on a pedestal? I think we should be sold. I suspect we have been.
https://youtu.be/5-P0xHwjxiI
And if they are right now, what lesson can we learn from the previous history that is now being unwritten?Media whores! Media whores! My Kingdom for some Media whores!
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April 12, 2015 at 8:12 pm -
Bravo!
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April 12, 2015 at 1:17 pm -
Spot on, Mr Winegum. As it happens, I’ve just finished viewing the DVD box set of Civilisation and I can’t imagine today’s BBC producing a comparable version. The DVDs include a description by David Attenborough of the background to the production in which he says that Kenneth Clark was utterly unprepared for the extent of its success, so much so that (as Clark apparently reveals in his memoirs) his reception at some function in Washington was so embarrassingly enthusiastic that it caused him to seek refuge and break down in tears.
Clark’s final remarks on the DVD show that he was himself a truly civilised man, with (as he said) “stick-in-the-mud” beliefs in courtesy, order and genius. He preferred “gentleness to violence; forgiveness to vendetta and believed that “man hasn’t changed much in the last 2000 years, so we must still try to learn from history; history is ourselves…..we are part of a great whole which, for convenience, we call nature; all living things are our brothers and sisters”.
He concluded “the moral and intellectual failure of Marxism has left us with no alternative to heroic materialism and that isn’t enough. One may be optimistic, but one can’t exactly be joyful at the prospect before us”. Plus ca change.
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April 12, 2015 at 3:23 pm -
I agree, having just re-watched the Kenneth Clark box set, how hard it would be to resurrect Civilisation successfully.
And given that history, especially art history, is fixed in time, one could be forgiven for wondering exactly what new “insights” a re-make could possibly add – apart that is from manic, may-fly-like cutting, shaky, hand-held camera-work, a regionally-accented presenter to simplify everything and talk down to us (which Clark never did), and pointless muzak piping away like an empty lift with the door jammed open.
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April 12, 2015 at 5:23 pm -
One problem seems to me to be that historians, excellent in their own field, are sometimes let loose in areas well outside their real area of expertise. Ramirez, clearly a splendid historian of art, made it rather obvious in her recent programme about monasteries, that she isn’t an ecclesiastical historian. Castor, again wandering into churchy matters, explained the strange mediaeval teaching about baptism (with strange concepts like sin and redemption) as if to the infants’ class, obviously blissfully ignorant that the doctrine remains the same in modern Angilcan and Roman Catholic practice. She saw “christening” as a lovely, sentimental ceremony to name the dear little one.
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April 12, 2015 at 5:48 pm -
They should do it in “found footage” style, think “Night at the Museum” crossed with “The Blair Witch Project.” They could end each episode with the presenter found dead somewhere… solving the problem as they’d only have to sign up for one episode each …
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April 12, 2015 at 6:06 pm -
Totally O/T…almost
Pet, don’t know if you have watched this or if I have even linked you to it before now (my memory left with my liver long since): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9sMZ_5NjM8
Might give you something for a future article.
…eighties…EIGHTIES…I’m living in the eighties…
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April 13, 2015 at 4:03 pm -
I do remember that; just catching a glimpse of the opening minute has unsettled my stomach!
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April 14, 2015 at 1:12 am -
just catching a glimpse of the opening minute has unsettled my stomach!
It is a bit Dark Satanic Housing Estates.
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April 12, 2015 at 6:13 pm -
I think you’re right Pet about the qualities of the ladies you mentioned. They do engage while giving us the story, though there are rather too many presenter-in-shot looking at something far away. I also confess to some distraction from the programme topic on occasion, which doesn’t happen with the male presenters.
Are there any patrician style presenters now? I rather liked the style of the military chap, Richard Holmes, but isn’t he dead now?
I wonder if rather than remake old masterpieces we might have a grand series on Empire & Commonwealth. Perhaps some international comparisons and a look at how things have turned out. At several programmes per continent it could run for years.
But balanced, informing, not handwringing.
So the BBC won’t be doing that then.-
April 12, 2015 at 6:22 pm -
Before I gave up injecting my brain with Cake in early 2012 (auspicious timing it turned out) the best docu’s all seemed to be via Ch4. Niall Ferguson was sublime in their own oevre, and “Citizen Smith” was pretty neat on local history, but they also did a great line in bring independent docu’s to the screen. Nick Broomfield stands out for me too.
The BBC seemed to have long degenerated into giving outlets to idiots such as Joanna Gurkha Lumley and her ilk.
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April 12, 2015 at 6:40 pm -
Joanna Gurkha Lumley and her ilk.
the ones who really annoy me are the “LOOK I have a double doctorate, an Imac G4 and read the Guardian. Watch me jet set around the world, tweeting from my Iphone or showing off my #rightonfriends”. Dr Alice Roberts and Aleks Krotoski being prime examples of the species.
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April 13, 2015 at 9:04 am -
“…a grand series on Empire and Commonwealth..”
What a splendid suggestion, sir! There must be any number of pointers to good governance and human relations at the national level to be learned from the history of the rise and fall of empire – not least that so much of it was returned to the natives without bloodshed, and the nations concerned often in better constitutional shape than before the British arrived. However, as you rightly say, not very fashionable subject these days. Sadly.
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April 13, 2015 at 9:18 am -
Niall Ferguson’s series on exactly that theme is recommended. I think he put out a book too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSbMBh0YC1c
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April 13, 2015 at 3:57 pm -
April 13, 2015 at 6:32 pm -
One thing I will say in favour of the younger female presenters – a certain Ms Ramirez springs to mind – is that they have done a Siren-like job of attracting a few viewers who perhaps wouldn’t ordinarily watch programmes about history on TV; I can think of one particular regular commentator on here who has fallen under her spell. Naming no names, mind…
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April 13, 2015 at 8:49 pm -
I suppose the attraction of some of these presenters is proportional to ones age.
Not really into the semi-goth black leather wrapped Ms Ramirez, or the Sky at Night lady, but is Alice R. the fit one seen climbing up a cliff & Bettany H. the one just fetchingly short of breath?
I do try to behave, but while the blood’s still warm & circulating; I know it is because I’m wired up again …….
What were those programmes about?
And sorry B. Dwarf, but Joanna L. will be ever fragrant in my mind as Purdey. You can’t take that away from me.-
April 13, 2015 at 8:55 pm -
April 14, 2015 at 1:02 am -
And sorry B. Dwarf, but Joanna L. will be ever fragrant in my mind as Purdey
I didn’t say she wasn’t. However I was brought up by my Ol’Man to regard anyone other than Mrs Peel as heresy embodied. There is but one true faith.
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April 12, 2015 at 7:30 pm -
I was out of the country when the series was shown (am delighted to read above there is a boxed DVD set).
When I left the country again, probably for good, I was careful to pack the BBC book. Ironically, I was furiously cursing the BBC at the time – the reasons don’t matter here.
Anyway, if I remember aright, I got the book from Amazon, though there may be other sources. I hope it stays in print: my copy is becoming thoroughly dog-eared from reading.
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April 12, 2015 at 8:20 pm -
I suppose Neil Macgregor, formerly of the British Museum, will be too busy in Berlin now to even want to be in the running, but I thought that the History of the World in 100 objects was fabulously evocative and gave a real sense of the huge reach of history. He seemed amazingly erudite and eager to share all the fascinating stuff he knows. He’d get my vote.
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April 12, 2015 at 8:27 pm -
The only two people who immediately sprang to mind when I read today’s blog were either Brian R Sewell or Bamber Gascoigne, but I suppose they’d both be considered far too old now. Anyhow, as I haven’t watched TV since 2009 it doesn’t really concern me. The odd snippets I catch when I visit my mother at the nursing home do nothing to tempt me back to the goggle box.
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April 13, 2015 at 3:16 pm -
On a point of detail, making Civilisation in colour wasn’t really such a way out idea. BBC2 – for it was a BBC2 series – had been transmitting colour since July 1967, and in fact most of the early transmitted colour material was documentary (because a lot was already available), sport, music (e.g. Colour Me Pop from June 1968), and live studio discussions.
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April 14, 2015 at 11:23 am -
The original ‘Civilization’ was flawed only by the total absence of any mention of Germany. Where was Durer? (Hungarian by descent). I think that Brian Sewell is a candidate, but he’s q. old. The Clark (Labour Peer) series was highly selective, although very watchable…
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