A colourful lament for the plight of the white rhino
Acouple of years ago, I was ushered into the presence of a southern white rhinoceros and her calf in a Zambian national park. They had 24-hour armed guard. Poachers spotted in the park, one guard languidly explained, would be shot on sight.
Alas, no such protection has been afforded the southern white’s Central African cousin. The northern white is down to one last magnificent, rickety old male. Sudan has two female descendants, but he is long past making the beast with two backs, and anyway they’re barely fertile. “How can you save a species which is already declared as extinct?” asked a German scientist. One for the philosophers.
There have been plenty of recent documentaries about the plight of pachyderms. Natural World’s film Sudan: The Last of the Rhinos (BBC Two) was the most melancholy yet. Why? Because it demonstrated that the lifelong work of admirable conservationists like Dr Kes Hillmansmith, who was singing exactly the same tune on current affairs programme Nationwide nearly 40 years ago, is no match for the depredations of geopolitics.
But this wasn’t just the story of violent African unrest subsidised by poaching. Several northern whites spent a long period of captivity behind the Iron Curtain, where a wellmeaning Czech zookeeper had no means of seeking expert support from the West.
The remarkable archive footage from Sudan’s long international odyssey will one day take on the antique patina of breastplated Romans or tricorned admirals. There were fascinating interviews with everyone who’d come into contact with him, from the man who captured him as a calf to the scientist leading the race to plant northern white eggs fertilised by Sudan’s sperm into surrogate southern white females.
The fact that it hasn’t happened yet meant there was no optimistic upswing in this dire lament for mankind’s blundering folly. Sudan is now resident in Kenya. The press release announcing his death is good to go. Meanwhile, he takes visits from media and tourists. One American woman could only blub: “This is not a Kodak moment.”
No one would have hoped for the synchronicity, but The Week The Landlords Moved In (BBC One) arrived with the welfare of tenants high up the national agenda. The Grenfell Tower tragedy has focused attention on the plight of council tenants; this new series shines a sharp torchbeam into the murk of the private sector.
The format is halfway to a life-swap doc: landlords with a sizeable portfolio of properties spend a week in one of their own lets, living on a tenant’s budget. In Linda’s place in Romford, father-and-son landlords Peter and Mark were soon wearing overcoats and gagging at the smell of mould. Linda, 66, can’t afford to retire or heat more than one room.
Meanwhile, landlord Paul is doing his bit to atomise society by turning half of Milton Keynes into houses of multiple occupation. Hayley didn’t know the other six tenants in her let, eats in her room and every weekend escapes home, 200 miles away.
Under a jaunty disguise, this is an eye-opening series about two Britains, about the gulf in understanding between haves and have-nots. The male landlords didn’t like what they found, and felt affronted their female tenants hadn’t alerted them, little comprehending what might prevent a tenant from complaining.
Paul, trading nauseating baby talk with his pampered girlfriend Prea, joined that long conga line of the unself-aware who learn the hard way that telly can make you look like a pillock. “Rats happen in built-up areas,” he reasoned, laughing nervously.
Mainly you were left with questions. In both cases the landlords stumped up for a significant refurb, as if they thought they were in a makeover show. Would they do that for their whole portfolio? They weren’t asked. Mark’s contrition turned him into a latter-day Victorian philanthropist offering to cap Linda’s rent and share her energy bills. It was touching, but would he have made the same pledge without millions watching at home? We will never know.
Natural World: Sudan – The Last of the Rhinos ★★★★
The Week The Landlords Moved In ★★★