Unspoken rivalry has us hooked
T wo TV art whodunits that take the viewer through the archival and forensic challenges of art authentication are grabbing record numbers of viewers. Fake or Fortune notched up more than five million viewers for one programme, including post-broadcast iplayer hits – a record for an arts broadcast. Its young rival on BBC Four, Britain’s Lost Masterpieces, was not in the same league but still boasted 750,000 viewers for its final programme, a record figure for what is one of the most popular arts programmes on the channel.
BBC One’s Fake or Fortune has been going longer (since 2011), has a celebrity co-presenter (Fiona Bruce, alongside the show’s originator, dealer Philip Mould), has a bigger budget and is, essentially, about money – has a private owner won or lost a substantial sum?
Lost Masterpieces doesn’t have the same cash attraction because it has been working
with public collections.
Yet the two make fascinating viewing because of the unspoken rivalry between them. Lost Masterpieces presenter Bendor Grosvenor originally worked in Mould’s gallery and on Fake or Fortune as a researcher. But just as he was becoming increasingly popular as an art world equivalent of Ian Fleming’s Q, he left to create his own programme, going from humble researcher to expert and presenter.
If both return the contest could become interesting.