Argos Bruce Parry?
Having been on Loose Ends with Donal MacIntyre at the weekend, I was inspired to tune in for his new series on Five, Return Of The Tribe. He's been barking up the same banyan tree as the BBC's intrepid Bruce Parry - whose Tribe series have been so enlightening and unpatronising - spending quality time with far-flung natives and learning their ways. In MacIntyre's case, the Insect Tribe from Papua New Guinea (which, curiously, the tribespeople seem to shorten to PNG - but then, they speak tremendous English).
Although MacIntyre rather hinted that he thought Five's schedulers were barmy, they are running Return before they show the original visit, because it's a sexier "sell" - ie. it's where he brings six of the tribe to Britain. Now if you're feeling uncomfortable about this set-up, so was I. Having seen George Of The Jungle and Tarzan Goes To New York, I think I'd guessed the ending. But Return Of The Tribe, a three-parter, was moving and thought-provoking. These six tribesfolk, four men (including the chief) and two women, had clearly come to trust MacIntyre when he lived amongst them and sampled their primal, hunter-gatherer existence, so it was only through him that they were persuaded to travel to the UK. Your worry, like mine, will have been that the "funny natives" would be the butt of a cross-cultural joke, but far from it. These peaceful and wise visitors made us look stupid and foreign.
Wrapped up in layers and layers of "Western" clothes, they were unused to the cold. At first, they refused to "climb" the London Eye, and only did so when their chief decided it was a matter of honour. Their failure to trust the safety and efficacy of a large ferris wheel by the Thames is a far more reasonable response than ours - to pay up and hop aboard. Also, I've been up in it, and it is a bit shit, so perhaps their gut reaction (one that's essential when you live off the land) was right. Macintyre and his wife took them to the supermarket (bafflement that pigs might be killed by someone else and the meat sold here, but admiration for the tough material of a particular shirt), to St. Paul's (which they regarded as our "spirit house" and couldn't understand why other buildings were permitted to be bigger than it) and canoeing on the Thames (where they felt right at home, coming from a swamp). These are such gentle souls. They were filled with awe at the beauty of St Paul's and, stroking the lifelike statues, said that God must have built it, as man could not have. The chief was perplexed that he could not meet the Queen when they visited Buckingham Palace, and said she had no respect, for he was a chief, and so was she.
In all, worth watching next week. It may restore your faith in human nature. On Loose Ends, MacIntyre said that when the tribespeople returned home, they couldn't wait to get away from our needlessly complicated and fraught life. They also missed their wives.
STOP PRESS
I am away to Lucerne in Switzerland tonight for the Golden Rose TV Awards. Wish Not Going Out luck against My Family, The Royle Family and The Thick Of It. (As a result I won't be watching The Apprentice until tomorrow, so be patient for my review.)
posted by Andrew Collins @ 11:15 AM
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16 Comments:
Andrew
Id didn't watch this but it seems to have been very thought provoking.
Best of luck for the Golden Rose TV Awards tonight. Enjoy Lucerne.
Good luck, you deserve to win in my opinion :-)
Good luck in Lucerne.
BTW, TMITC in Borders, Charing Cross Road on the display shelves. The Iggy Pop book on the shelf above, the book about the non-celebrity Celeb Big Brother blonde on the shelf below.
Bonne chance. Bring us back a cuckoo clock and some Nazi gold.
Good luck.
Not that you'll need it.
And don't get too bogged down with the Nazi Gold, bring some chocolate back too. Nazi All Gold I suppose.
Sorry.
Andrew,
Just seen the results. You must be walking tall - congratulations.
Many many congratulations on Not Going Out picking up the best sitcom award at the Golden Rose Awards. It is very well deserved. Well done to you and to all the team involved.
PS I have reached the beginning of the second chapter of your book and am enjoying it immensely. I've just got to the finger slicing episode - ouch!!
Fantastic, well done, you must be very happy. Hope you had a lovely night and the nibbles were good.
Top banana.
Andrew,
congratulations!
I saw this programme too and wasn't expecting much, possibly due to a little anti-Five bias.
I thought I'd missed the first one, where Donal goes to PNG. How strange that they haven't shown it yet.
Anyway, I thought it was generally quite a good programme, though I thought they laboured the point about our "money houses" being bigger than our "spirit houses". The way it was edited and Donal's reaction gave the impression of wise noble tribespeople telling us decedent westerners we'd lost our way.
I also sensed a bit of a set-up with the visit to Buckingham palace. I wonder if the chief might have been led to believe he would meet the queen in order to see his reaction when he couldn't.
Interestingly, a thought I came away from the programme was a sense of pride of what we can do as a species. Seeing the reaction of someone who's never been in a plane, never seen the London eye, never been on the tube (the city below a city) and never seen buildings like St Pauls made me think - "Bloody hell. These things are actually pretty amazing!" You lose that sense when you're surrounded by it every day.
Bloody hell, you won! I mean, you deserve it and all, but this is pretty huge. You are now a bona fide award winning sitcom writer, and a prestigious award it is too. Many congratulations.
Not that you'd know it by browsing BBC Websiteland. It's all about some "Blair" bloke. Come on Auntie, Andrew Collings fans pay their license fee too.
I notice (from The Guardian...) that Ben Elton won a lifetime achievement award of some sort. About 15 years too late, I think.
Congratulations Andrew - hope you celebrated (or are still celebrating)in a suitable manner - get cracking on series 2 now eh?
As you will see from the entry above, I was up at 4am this morning, on a flight home by 7am, and at my desk writing Not Going Out by 9.30am. I have had three and a half hours' sleep and I'm flagging, but the show must literally go on. No time for laurel-resting.
Incidentally, Gari, can I borrow that Nazi's All Gold joke for the sitcom?
It's all your sir.
Damn my spelling and punctuation.
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