TV R re S
www.|ist.co.uk/tv
DOCUMENTARY THE QUEST FOR THE LOST ART Channel 4, Mon 14 Apr, 9pm .00
As Harrison Ford prepares to dust off his fedora, khaki shirt and bullwhip for the belated fourth instalment of Steven Spielberg’s swashbuckling Indiana Jones adventure series, a documentary about a non-fiction quest for the Ark of the Covenant seems timely. ‘Real-life Indiana Jones’ Professor Tudor Parfitt has spent decades searching the world for the Ark, the sacred container housing the stone tablets on which Moses inscribed the Ten Commandments, and which has inspired hundreds of failed investigations since its disappearance some 2500 years ago.
According to the Bible, this ancient ‘super weapon’, which breathed fire over God’s enemies, guided the Israelites out of Egypt and helped break down the walls of Jericho, was last seen in Jerusalem, somewhere around the Temple Mount. According to Parfitt, this site has proved a particular lure to treasure-seekers despite its political sensitivity: a 1911 investigation
led to a riot.
After 20 years, the good professor now believes he has cracked the riddle of the Ark and can reveal its location. Parfitt’s narration ramps up the tension and excitement from the outset. ‘My findings will change everything everyone has ever believed about the lost ark,’ he asserts, before conducting his eager audience on a journey from the Ark’s origins in Sinai in Egypt via the Middle East to Ethiopia and an African tribe called the Lemba, who claim to be a lost tribe of Israel. His findings are ultimately a little on the inconclusive side and, unsurprisingly, his ‘discovery’ of the Ark’s location involves something of a fudge. Still, this is an engaging expedition through the history and folklore surrounding this most elusive of
ancient treasures. (Allan Radcliffe)
REMOTE CONTROL
Allan Radcliffe finds it’s yesterday once more in tellyland, as various documentaries do their bit to get
to grips with our cultural past
Nostalgia is currently big business. and television producers have always been quick to take advantage of our romantic yearning for times gone by. whether endlessly revisiting classic
programmes or winding the clock back
92 THE LIST 10—24 Apr 2008
to our political and cultural past in documentaries. Having tapped into the perceived dissatisfaction with the culture of the present in incessant rose-tinted clip shows about how great the 608/708/803/908 were. the Beeb is now setting her time machine coordinates for a much more arduous jOurney —— to explore the people. psyche and innovations of the Middle Ages.
BBCA's Medieval Season kicks off with the pithily entitled Stephen Fry and the Gutenberg Press — the
Machine That Made Us iBBC-i. Mon 1-1 Apr. 9in m -r‘ which the .it‘iguitous po’ymatl‘ goes search of Johannes Gutenberg. the genius who inuented the {)Tl'lIlllQ press more than me years ago
While Gutenberg's early prototypes are no longer in existence. Fry enlists the help of a pan of medieval experts to recreate the machine that powered the early Renaissancr-z. At this point Fry's voiceover becomes so excitable he sounds like he's narrating a particularly exhilarating chapter from the latest Harry Potter novel, but his enthusiasm for his subiect is infectious. While the character and motivation of Gutenberg himself remains eluswe. in the end it's the deveIOpment of the most revolutionary advance in technology since the invention of the wheel that is the most compelling aspect of this documentary.
As a safe pair of TV presenting hands. Fry's documentary is laVished with a budget that allows him to travel from 15th century Mainz. down the Rhine to Strasbourg's famous Rue des Ecrivains. Pity poor Professor Robert Bartlett. whose Inside the Medieval Mind (BBC/1. Thu 17 Apr, 9pm .0 ) was obViously cobbled together usuig the leftover cash from the commisSioning editors bar kitty for the Christmas night out. Bartlett. one of the world's leading authorities on the Middle Ages. is forced to offer his inSight into the emergence of SCience and logic at a time Widespread superstition and all-pervading religion to a setindtrack that has been lifted from The Omen and with the unintentionally comical addition of some tacky Visual aids. It's a shame as the premise IS lascmating. but the execution proves fatally distracting.
Over on IN. the venerable MeIVin Bragg has his knapsack packed for his own Journey back in time. this time exploring the literary heritage of these islands. Melvin Bragg’s Travels in Written Britain llTVl, Sun 20 Apr. 10.45pm m. ) sets out to explore both the heritage literature inspired by the diverse landscapes of Albion as well as that other, hidden tradition of
diaries. letters and menu iirs which gm- an insight into ordinary lives. While the first episode brought the presenter to the north of t. nglanil, forthcoming instalments locus on how I onrlon has been brought to lite in the work of Charles Dickens, Monica Ali and Peter Ackioyd. while the Midlands l“. portrayed by such divergent literary voices as Tolkien. Philip larkin and Sui- Townsend. Biagg's lively. £l(Ill( )ll packed whi/x across moors, shires. dates and industrial skylines Winds up in Scotland for its final episode (broadcast on Sun 137' Apil Where the likes of Alex Salmond Ian Rankin and. er, Gail Porter, consider the Work of Burns. Scott and IlVlllt? Welsh aiming others.
Comedian and writer Deni Joly is also nostalgic for that nonexistent time when there was no little or no bureaucracy, less intervention by the authorities and fewer annoying people. In The Complainers (Five. Mon lt‘l Apr. 9pm .0 ) Joly enlists soiiie pals to help him ‘take revenge on life's irritations'. which involves shouting over a tannoy at hoodies and litter louts caught on CCTV and sneakily clamping an industrious clainper. Hil A riousl The sequence in which a group of Neanderthals working on a building site are given a taste of their own medicine when the obiect of their lecherous howling lifts her skirt and reveals that ‘she' is in fact a 'he' is vaguely satisfying, but overall this is lust a reactionary version of Bead/e About or Candid Carrie/a. .Jereriiy Clarkson wrll love it.