An anti-climactic end to the most baffling of cases
It took six episodes to reach the verdict in White House Farm (ITV). Jeremy Bamber was convicted of murdering his parents, his sister and her twin boys, marking the end of a case that had horrified the nation. The vast majority of viewers will have known the outcome. It meant that, from a dramatic point of view, the finale had a sense of anti-climax. If this were a piece of fiction, perhaps Bamber would have screamed his innocence from the dock as he was carted away. But, other than registering slight shock, he remained unknowable.
Bamber’s motivations have never been explained. Was it jealousy? Greed? Was he a psychopath? Writer Kris Mrksa can’t be blamed for having no answers, because Bamber himself has never presented any. Having so little to work with, Freddie Fox could only emit ennui and self-regard.
It was left to the viewer to decide. Told during his police interview that his father had been beaten before being shot dead, indicating that the assailant was filled with “a lot of anger, a lot of hate”, Bamber coolly replied: “I wasn’t there. So I wouldn’t know about that,” as a tear rolled down his cheek. “You’re not telling the truth, are you, Mr Bamber?” the prosecuting counsel challenged him during the trial. “Well, that’s what you’ve got to try and establish,” Bamber replied.
The drama distilled a 19-day trial into a few scenes, which left it lacking. Key witness was Bamber’s ex-girlfriend, Julie Mugford (Alexa Davies), painted by the defence as bitter, but by the prosecution as someone whose account had never wavered.
Photographs of the bloodied bodies at the scene – for an awful moment I feared they were the real thing, rather than actors – felt gratuitous. It was another image from the farmhouse, of the children’s game Guess Who?, that packed far greater emotional power.
Mark Addy was the heart of this episode as DS Stan Jones, the detective convinced of Bamber’s guilt in an otherwise botched investigation. We shared Jones’s disappointment when he visited Mugford after the trial, only to find her selling her story to the News of the World for £25,000.
Supporters of Bamber continue to campaign for an appeal. They will no doubt seize on the line given to DCI Taff Jones (Stephen Graham), who told a colleague: “You think he’s a selfish, arrogant t---. But that doesn’t make him a murderer.” It left a hint of doubt in the air. But our sympathies were rightly directed to the dignified Colin Caffell, father of the murdered boys, pictured with them in happier times.
The BBC designated 2020 as the year of its most ambitious climate change coverage to date. Over at Channel 4, they are taking a less lofty approach. Who knows why they came up with Kevin Mccloud’s Rough Guide to the Future. I was none the wiser after watching it.
I like Mccloud and could bingewatch a year’s worth of Grand Designs. But, as far as I’m aware, he is no more qualified as an authority on the environment than the hosts of Homes Under the Hammer. Yet here he was giving us a stream-of-consciousness about food waste, population growth and greenhouse gases, warning that “the planet is at an environmental crossroads” and “humanity is facing monumental challenges”.
The premise of this sub-tomorrow’s World show was even more random: sending three “cynics” – comedians Jon Richardson and Phil Wang, and broadcaster Alice Levine – across the world (here’s hoping they went by boat) to see the future being shaped. Richardson went to the US, Wang to China and Levine to Japan. Richardson cast aside 15 years of veganism to try a chicken nugget made from lab-grown meat, and tested robotic gloves which can be operated in real time from any location, meaning he could stroke his wife’s face when he was in California and she was in London.
Wang went to a farm turning rotting food waste into lunch for cockroaches. Levine met a “digi-sexual” happily married to a pint-sized hologram, and spent the night in a tiny apartment measuring eight square metres.
If any of this sounded familiar, it was because all of these subjects have been covered in the press. Microapartments have been around for years. It all smacked of a bunch of junior TV researchers spending a couple of days on Google. Despite the presence of two comics, the best joke belonged to Mr Li, the farmer who invited Wang for lunch and presented him with a platter of deep-fried cockroaches. Wang politely choked one down, then noticed that his host wasn’t partaking. Mr Li laughed. “I don’t eat cockroaches,” he said.
White House Farm ★★★ Kevin Mccloud’s Rough Guide to the Future ★★