The humble heroes who fought them on the beaches
When it comes to history documentaries, Channel 5 has its pet subjects. The royals. The Victorians. And the Second World War. Its head of programmes, Ben Frow, has explained the strategy: “We’re not niche. We know that our viewers like British history. We give them really good, rewarding history, so that they will think, ‘I know this story but I hadn’t thought about it this way.’ And let’s put it on in prime time.”
D-day: Invasion was a prime example. The first of two episodes (concluding tonight), took a familiar subject and gave it urgency by taking us through the action minute by minute. The result was a documentary done supremely well. Instead of stuffing the show with talking heads, as so many of these things do, the producers stuck to just two experts: Sir Max Hastings, the military historian, and Dr Onyeka Nubia, a university academic. Together with solemn narration by Tim Mcinnerny and simple graphics laying out the invasion plan, they provided a clear and detailed picture.
And then there were the veterans, proudly displaying their medals and recalling that day with vivid detail: not just the terrible memories of men
drowning under the weight of their backpacks, or being blown to smithereens the moment they set foot on the beach, but of other things they remembered with absolute clarity after all this time. Kenneth Cooke of the 7th Battalion, The Green Howards could still tell you what he had for breakfast that morning, as a 19-yearold about to face combat for the first time: “Scotch porridge – with salt, not sugar, terrible stuff – a mug of tea, a corned beef sandwich and a small tot of rum to give a bit of courage”.
For the soldiers no longer with us, their children appeared on their behalf. Mike Mckinney, said to be the first American on Omaha Beach, saw his best friend die. “He never made friends after that,” said his son.
Margaret Brotheridge’s father, Lt Den Brotheridge, was part of the glider-borne advance, taking the Germans by surprise at Pegasus Bridge. He became the first Allied soldier to be killed in action on D-day, two-and-a-half weeks before Margaret was born.
The heroism, no matter how many times you have heard it told or seen it played out in Hollywood films, was humbling. Stanley Taylor, then a 20-year-old corporal with the 1st Battalion, East Yorkshire regiment, put it best: “We had a damn good set of lads.”
Sometimes it feels as if the panel show has taken over TV comedy. It’s a knowing, aren’t-we-ironic, smug sort of comedy, which mostly involves comedians laughing at each other’s jokes. It’s Mock the Week and 8 Out of 10 Cats and Have I Got News For You. Give it a year and A Question of Sport will probably consist of Nish Kumar and Katherine Ryan competing to say how much they hate sport.
The Goes Wrong Show (BBC One) contains none of the above, so by rights I should like it. A spin-off from the wildly popular West End and Broadway show The Play That Goes Wrong, it is an unashamedly oldfashioned farce – the debt to Morecambe and Wise is obvious. The premise is that an am-dram theatre company stages plays, extremely badly. The production is beset by disasters both on screen and off. This week the company attempted to perform Summer Once Again, a Downton-esque tale of a son returning from the Great War. It featured creaky sets, collapsing props, an actor forever confused by his lines, and a director (Henry Lewis) drunk on power after his predecessor was ousted from the job in disgrace and reduced to appearing in this production as an oik shovelling manure.
The cast’s comic timing is impeccable and impressive – a scene in which a character narrowly avoided being whacked in the head with a shutter, but was then whacked in the head with a door, was perfectly executed. But the whole thing left me cold. I can imagine this working a treat in the theatre, and feeling a communal sense of joy when sitting in the audience, but television puts viewers at a remove. Shots taken from the back of the studio, showing the cameras pointed at the stage, only served to underline that point. And there was genuine audience laughter, but also canned laughter as part of the script, which felt weird.
Some reviews have suggested that the only other show currently providing this kind of slapstick is Mrs Brown’s Boys. But as a parent of young children I can tell you that it’s alive and well on kids’ TV – Horrible Histories, Danny and Mick, Crackerjack – and actually done rather better than this.
D-day: Invasion ★★★★★ The Goes Wrong Show ★★