Death brought to life by a prize-winning potter
Nothing says “Channel 4” like Grayson Perry: Rites of Passage – a four-part series, presented by the Turner Prize-winning potter, on how the secular world marks the biggest events of all. You can see where the idea came from. Perry’s art has always engaged, seriously and thoughtfully, with social questions. And, as his previous TV work has shown, he’s an astute, articulate cultural critic. But can he change the way we think about birth, coming of age, marriage and death?
In this first episode, taking on the last of those, Perry declared that Britain has an awkward, evasive relationship with death: we “shroud it in silence”. But does that really ring true? We might be awkward and evasive about lots of important things, but I’m not sure this is one of them (consider the current debate about assisted dying, or the career of Philip Larkin).
Still, Perry went off to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, home to the Toraja people, in the hope that he might be able to learn “something important” from their approach. Toraja funerals often don’t happen until a year after someone dies, and the ceremony lasts for days. Perry, attending the funeral of a village elder, seemed particularly impressed by the ritual of buffalokilling, in which the number of animals sacrificed is proportional to the social status of the deceased (“satisfyingly tangible”, he called it – unless, I suppose, your much-loved grandpa only gets one buffalo).
The rest of the programme was devoted to two cases closer to home. The first was that of Roch Maher, who had been living with motor neurone disease for eight years but now wanted to “get it over with”. After visiting him and his wife in Hounslow, Perry travelled to Middlesbrough to meet the family of Jordan Seddon, who was killed by a drunk driver aged 17.
These were heart-rending tales, albeit very different. Roch was upfront, even jokey. Jordan’s family, on the other hand, had been completely shattered: his stepmother, Alison, told how she couldn’t “let go”. Inspired by his fieldwork, Perry set about creating personalised rituals and artwork for both of them (I wondered what the Toraja would have made of this, given that their funerals, though elaborate, are pretty codified affairs).
He was sensitive and sincere – but, as things went on, it became less clear what his role was. I couldn’t help feeling that Roch and Jordan’s stories would have been powerful enough without him on the sidelines, and their circumstances were too unusual to support his universalising, quasi-anthropological patter (“I can understand how world cultures were born”). In the big moments of life, it seems, words can fail even Grayson Perry.
I’ve never been to Alton Towers. But Inside Alton Towers (Channel 4) a behind-the-scenes look at Britain’s biggest theme park, didn’t have me rushing to catch the next train up to Stoke-on-trent. It documented the theme park’s attempt to lure back the crowds after the “Smiler” ride crashed in 2015, resulting in 16 injuries and a £5million fine. How? By creating a new attraction, scarier and decidedly more outlandish than all the rest.
We were introduced to Bradley Wynne, the man with the vision. I’d always imagined that “rollercoaster designer” was one of those jobs that couldn’t really exist, like “video game engineer” or “gin taster”. Not so – though Wynne appeared to recognise the whimsical nature of his work. “I need to imagine I’m Willy Wonka”, he told us, “on his lightest day, on his darkest day, on his craziest day.” We followed him and the rest of the team as his idea of a Wicker Man-themed ride (key components: wood and fire) became reality, with many a fraught safety test along the way.
We also met the people on the other side. There was a rollercoaster connoisseur who’d found all kinds of ways to get into the Guinness Book of Records (“most naked people on a rollercoaster”). One man had started coming to Alton Towers to escape bullies at school.
These were touching moments. And, though this was a fairly soft investigation, you couldn’t fault the staff ’s commitment to the phenomenally stressful business of helping people have a good time. In the end, though, I couldn’t get that excited about it. Maybe it’s just my pathetically limited experience, but I didn’t feel my pulse quicken upon learning that the new ride was “the first wooden rollercoaster to be built in Britain for over 20 years”. And if you’re a theme park veteran, is a TV programme going to be any kind of substitute for the real thing?
Grayson Perry: Rites of Passage ★★★ Inside Alton Towers ★★