Nothing fishy about this warm portrait of friendship
Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing (BBC Two) sounded selfindulgent on paper, as longtime friends and comedy stalwarts Paul Whitehouse and Bob Mortimer embarked on a six-part angling jaunt around the UK. On screen, though, it was sheer delight.
The pair’s first stop was Norfolk and while fishing for tench, mischievous novice Mortimer tried to impress experienced fisherman Whitehouse with his childhood rod – and failed. This prompted a heady rush of nostalgia for their youth, recounting corned beef, trigonometry, Scalextric and smoking behind the bike sheds.
There was, nevertheless, some semi-serious intent beneath the geniality. Whitehouse was taking Mortimer on the trip to help him recover from a recent triple heart bypass – which Whitehouse could empathise with, having had three coronary stents fitted himself.
They discussed facing up to their mortality, compared chest scars, cooked heart-healthy food and lamented how much they missed cheese. Men are notoriously terrible at opening up about their health problems, so this was a valuable piece of television that found a simple way into a difficult subject.
After a brief refreshment break at a local microbrewery, they camped down in well-appointed yurts, before returning to the riverbank the next day. The elusive tench evaded them once more. Well, until the very last minute, when they finally landed a sizeable specimen. Whitehouse was jubilant, exclaiming, “Look at its beautiful orange eyes. What a creature!” before lovingly putting it back in the water.
Throughout the episode, the pair reduced each other to boyish hysterics by riffing on such disparate topics as Robert De Niro, Noël Coward, Thai massage and their favourite tea towel.
Their freewheeling repartee recalled Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’s The Trip, but with fewer impersonations and more fish. Or Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones in Detectorists, whiling away the hours in bucolic surroundings with affectionate bickering. As Whitehouse said: “Who cares if we catch anything when it’s this glorious and you’ve got me for company?”
It’s hard work to make broadcasting look this easy. Gone Fishing felt a bit like eavesdropping on two old mates talking nonsense. It also had a lot of heart, both literally and figuratively.
Secrets of Mcdonald’s: 50 Years of the Big Mac (Channel 5) was the latest in the channel’s strand of glorified corporate videos, telling the soft-soaped story of our biggest businesses. It was marginally better than the recent Marks & Spencer one but only by the width of a French fry.
The documentary traced the fast food company’s journey from Route 66 diner to planet-conquering giant. We saw how it revolutionised the restaurant industry with its assembly line approach to food preparation, then harnessed aggressive marketing with the Golden Arches and a cartoon character called “Speedee”, later to become clown Ronald Mcdonald.
Franchising deals fuelled its virus-like spread across America and eventually overseas. DJ Ed “Stewpot” Stewart cut the ribbon on the first British branch in Woolwich in 1974. Even Russia and China embraced the none-more-capitalist company in 1990. Mcdonald’s now feeds 69million people daily. In the US alone, 17 burgers are sold per second.
It wasn’t until the timeline reached the Nineties that this film became remotely critical. Controversy beset the company, with issues over obesity, animal welfare and advertising to children. It became a focus of anticapitalist protest and took two activists to court in the infamous “Mclibel” case, described as “the biggest corporate PR disaster in history”.
With pleasing irony, we heard from schoolboy Ben Williamson, who won a competition to open their flagship Hampstead branch in 1993, before growing up to become one of the company’s biggest adversaries as head of animal rights organisation PETA.
Amid ever-changing food fashions, an ethical backlash and with rival competition, can Mcdonald’s stay on top? Its future could lie in lab-grown meat, while a Mcvegan burger is currently being trialled in Scandinavia.
Sadly, this bland film focused on the spicy details much too late. In fact, it left me feeling like I’d just eaten a Mcdonald’s: ultimately unsatisfying and full of regret for indulging.
Mortimer & Whitehouse: Gone Fishing
Secrets of Mcdonald’s: 50 Years of the Big Mac