It’s apes against diggers . . . and tragically there’s only one winner
TELEVISION documentaries have a duty not merely to inform but to warn us, to make us aware of injustice and impending disasters. And we have a duty to listen, because life is not just quizzes and costume dramas
From the scourge of plastic in our oceans, to the dangers of excess sugar in processed food, and the destruction of ancient treasures in Syria, telly has been doing a pretty good job of ringing the alarm bells recently.
But a sense of desperate frustration bristled from Red Ape: Saving The Orangutan (BBC2) — because no matter how loud the warnings, the extermination continues of these almost-human animals.
It’s hard to imagine how Red Ape could have been more shocking. Director Rowan Musgrave threw everything into this hour- long survey of the orangutan’s plight, from sickening footage of the creatures starving and mutilated, to stark graphics that showed how Borneo’s rainforests are being cleared for palm oil plantations.
Some segments were simply too upsetting to be described in a family newspaper. To see the treatment of a juvenile ape called Jojo, chained as a pet in conditions of sheer torture, was awful.
It is understandable that Carmele, the vet who found Jojo, felt compelled to start a rescue centre for apes. But the harder she fought to save them, the more powerless she seemed. When her team were called to collect a young mother orangutan found by loggers, they discovered her lodged in a single tree that had been left standing, amid a wasteland that stretched to the horizon.
Baby orangs cling to their mums for their first two years of life. But this mother had lost her infant — stolen for the pet trade, perhaps, by the lumberjacks. The anguish in the animal’s face was heartbreaking.
If emotion could not wake the world, perhaps statistics could. The documentary battered us with them: an area of rainforest the size of a football pitch is razed every 47 seconds. Even protected areas are destroyed as land-grabbers start forest fires — 100,000 of them in 2015. A third of surviving orangutans will be wiped out by 2020, with 3,000 killed deliberately each year.
This was television doing all it could to stem an animal genocide. It was truly disturbing, a gruelling, haunting programme.
One extraordinary image summed it up. As diggers ripped up tree roots, a courageous lone ape walked slowly along a fallen trunk towards the machines. At the last moment, he burst into a run, throwing himself against the metal jaws with his fists flying. The digger gave a flick, and tossed his body aside.
Television is also here to comfort us, and Mary Berry’s new contest, Britain’s Best Home Cook (BBC1), does just that. The dishes are imaginative but straightforward — no fiddly squiggles of sauce or veg like flower arrangements here, just steaming platefuls of inviting food. Katie from Swansea, a 32-year- old emergency call handler, summed it up as she splashed a boozy sauce over her fish: ‘I don’t know much about wines but I do like prosecco,’ she said. Can’t argue with that.
The format is neatly arranged: as in Bake Off, we have ten contestants with one eliminated each week, and three cookery challenges per show.
But there’s a tweak, with three judges and just one presenter, Claudia Winkleman — who might not be a foodie but has lashings of professional experience at keeping events bubbling.
After a lot of trial and error, the Beeb have cooked up a proper hit here.