Poldark’s back This tonguein-cheek entrance was worth the wait
The return of Poldark (BBC One, Sunday) is fast becoming an annual cause for early-summer celebration. It’s as sure a sign as a budding rose that something ridiculously romantic is about to unfold. And good fun, too. The sight of Ross Poldark (Aidan Turner) striding bare-chested from the waves in the opening scene was as much a knowing wink to viewers as an invitation to leer. Any drama with the confidence to indulge in such headline-grabbing self-parody is well worth welcoming back.
The episode didn’t disappoint. Four series in, we’d reached the year 1796. Britain was at war with France and Pitt the Younger’s call for a general election had set hearts racing in Cornwall, offering the prospect of unseating George Warleggan (Jack Farthing), that most malign of local MPS. The question was, could heroic Ross Poldark, that square-jawed social conscience in a tricorne hat, be persuaded to stand against him?
Conveniently, the export of good Cornish corn – “for Portuguese dandies to eat” – while the population starved, was provoking riots on Truro’s quaintly cobbled streets. This was a situation that George, true to form, used to settle some personal scores, having three good men sent to the gallows and giving Ross a chance to reprise his race-tothe-rescue hero act.
Meanwhile, the fallout from Demelza’s (Eleanor Tomlinson) roll in the sand, last series, with her pale and wan paramour Hugh Armitage (Josh Whitehouse) had to be dealt with. More than rioting, hanging or politicking, this was the real meat of the episode, with both Ross (all too aware of his wife’s attachment) and Demelza forced to weigh the balance of past betrayals in a desperate attempt to salvage their fractured relationship.
To be fair, Hugh Armitage, who spends most of his time composing constipated adolescent verse (no wonder he suffers those crippling headaches) has never looked like a serious threat to win Demelza away from hirsute swashbuckler Ross. But scriptwriter Debbie Horsfield never fails to wrestle big, true emotions from the Poldarks’ romantic troubles, even at their most potentially absurd. And though they were finishing each other’s sentences again (“How can it be that two people who love so much…” began she. “Understand so little,” finished he. Sigh!) by episode’s end, they clearly have a long road to travel yet. I for one look forward to continuing the journey with them.
Director Clare Beavan’s
Germaine Bloody Greer (BBC Two, Saturday) was a terrific portrait of a born contrarian whose life’s mission, it seems, has been to challenge every word that comes out of anyone’s mouth. Certainly, there aren’t many for whom the art of provocation comes as naturally as Greer. She has been raising eyebrows and temperatures around the world for over 50 years, since arriving from Australia in 1964, with a tongue as sharp as a samurai sword and a gift for self-promotion.
The title was not only an apt character assessment but an echo of DA Pennebaker’s film Town Bloody Hall which recorded the moment that Greer administered a skin-peeling duffing up to that great bellowing silverback of the US literary scene Norman Mailer. And Beavan brilliantly captured both the power and restlessness of Greer’s spirit and intellect in a balanced blend of then and now – mixing archive of her at the peak of her fame in the Seventies with fresh footage of the now 79-year-old Greer packing up the contents of the sprawling Essex property that she’s leaving after three decades.
Unsurprisingly, at the heart of this film was The Female Eunuch, the excoriating feminist primer that Greer lobbed, grenade-like, into the cultural debate in 1970, and for which she will always be best remembered. Camille Paglia, Rosie Boycott, Beatrix Campbell, Zoë Heller and Bidisha were on hand to testify to its electrifying, enduring influence. This was a book that had lit up their lives and minds, its inspiration palpable.
Greer, though, refuses now to be defined by labels, not even that of feminist, and offered plenty of pithy jabs to make sure we got the message (“#Metoo, #Timesup – it’s all b------s. None of it is going to happen”). It was this quality of always tilting against whatever windmill was in sight, of being unable to resist igniting any blue touch paper to hand, regardless of the kickback, that Beavan’s film captured best. And the fact that, despite Greer’s bristling resistance, we continue to love and admire her for it.