Soothing, hypnotic ... this was John Prescott without his punch
Deep,soo thing, authoritative ... the perfect television narrator is part teacher, part hypnotist, filling us with knowledge and reassurance in equal measure.
Jim Carter, Downton Abbey’s butler, has the rich, buttery tones for the job. paul McGann, with a voice like honey poured over sandpaper, seems to supply a new narration every night of the week.
To their number, add a new name. His throaty roar is like the sound of two Jags opening up their exhausts simultaneously. This is prezzaphonics — the sound of Lord prescott, formerly Deputy Labour prime Minister and now the bloke who does voiceovers on Channel 5.
In fairness to prezza, he kept his performance subdued on MPs:
Behind Closed Doors (C5). You might expect his links to come as a punch in the face, like so much else in his career, but he restrained himself and concentrated on getting the words in the right order.
We weren’t told how many takes he took, but the blooper reel of his mistakes and manglings must be worth a listen.
Another former Deputy pM, Nick Clegg, was one of the three Members of parliament who invited the cameras into their constituency surgeries to witness the humdrum but essential work they do, helping ordinary people to fix all kinds of problems.
It’s an odd contradiction that, when you stick 650 Mps in a room, they are incapable of anything but jeers and insults — yet take them one at a time, and they become diligent and immensely practical.
If you need someone to sort out social services, or give the local headmaster a dressing- down, you could waste a year trying to do it yourself... or you could let your Mp handle the job in 20 minutes.
Cleggy describes himself as ‘a battering ram’. For five years in power he was more like a doorstep outside No 10, the sort people noticed only when they stumbled over him.
Life’s been different since 2015, though, when the General election left the Commons without enough Lib Dem Mps even for a game of five-a- side soccer. Nick has been able to devote much more of his time to his Sheffield constituents.
He seems to attract the oddballs. One man enlisted his help in saving a pub from developers and promised that, if they won, ‘he’ll be the first customer, all on the house — crisps, peanuts, anything’.
Another claimed that assiduous use of cannabis oil was curing his skin cancer, and begged Cleggy to get the drug legalised. He went away happy: ‘I must say, I didn’t get no reptilian vibes off of Nick Clegg.’
No doubt, this chap is one of the inspirations for the former Lib Dem leader’s current campaign to decriminalise marijuana.
Meanwhile, in Bradford, Labour’s Naz Shah heard a steady stream of heartbreaking stories, some of which had her fighting back tears.
She was able to do some real good, especially in getting extra educational help for an 11-year-old boy driven to a break- down by bullying and his own learning difficulties.
But the surprise star was Jacob Rees-Mogg, a man who has apparently time-travelled from the 1930s, only to listen to endless conspiracy theories and tearful rants on everything from Brexit to Iranian computer viruses.
The Somerset Tory Mp, with his Home Service accent and pre-war charm, sent them all away mollified, even if most were puzzled at not being angry any more.
With such an intelligent, subtle documentary on C5, you might have been tempted to try out the channel’s other headline show,
Tour de Celeb (C5). If you did, bad luck — this was a slice of reality TV that made I’m A Celebrity... look like University Challenge.
The idea was that eight ‘famous faces’ would get in training for a crack at the toughest stretch of the Tour de France. What actually happened was that a girl called Lucy was almost run over, another lass called Angellica discovered that she couldn’t ride a bicycle at all, and an ex-model called Jodie twisted her knee.
There ought to be a law against screening rubbish like that. I’m writing to my Mp.