Royal rejects

Spectator, The, Nov 23, 1996 by Hoggart, Simon

With lunch digested, rain drizzling down outside, the papers a rumpled mess on the floor, what greater pleasure could there be than to settle down to almost four hours of BBC 1 last Sunday evening? With a fire in the grate, a glass of New Zealand Gewurztraminer to hand, I started luxuriously with the Antiques Road Show. Here, sadly, the successful formula has become formulaic. Early on they realised that the programme's hook was the moment of discovery that something forgotten from the attic was worth thousands of pounds. So now each item gets a cursory look (`the maker's mark there tells you that this is a lovely piece of old Shaggerware...'), the estimated value is announced, there's a one-second cutaway to the owner, gasping with delight or terror at the new premiums, and we're off to the next piece.

It's like a soccer highlights show, consisting entirely of goals, or even a porn film endless sexual encounters without any context. It doesn't take long for a succession of climaxes to become dreary. They ought to have a few people learning that a prized heirloom would be worth more as kindling. It would be just as much fun as having pensioners find their chamber pot is worth two grand. `Well, Viscount Lymeswold, thank you for bringing in this magnificent-looking dinner-service. Your family has believed for generations that it's Meissen? Now, this characteristic signature under the tureen shows that it's actually a cheap Brummagem knock-off (bow-tied expert upends table, sending 32 plates and a gravy boat crashing to the ground).

A rare let-down last Sunday came when one punter was told, `but thanks to the Restoration, it's not worth as much as it might be'. This sentiment could easily apply to our own royal family, whose latest reject made the mistake of inviting Ruby Wax into her home. This was shown straight after the ARS. As someone who's occasionally on the circuit myself, I know that there is almost nothing so humiliating that an author won't do it to plug a book. Even so, there are limits, and Ruby Wax is way beyond them.

For a long time she was a mystery. Why was she always on television? Who at Television Centre thought she was funny? If she was funny, why did nobody you knew ever ask if you'd watched the Ruby Wax show last night? Then she started doing celebrity interviews with Pamela Anderson, Imelda Marcos and the like (and Vauxhall ads) and the public began to pay some attention. The trouble with her slash-and-burn style of interviewing is that nobody in their right mind who'd seen one would ever invite her in - unless they had a book to plug.

It takes a lot to make the British public feel sorry for Fergie, but Ruby Wax managed it. Was it the sheer stupidity of her preparations, dressing up in a pantomimeprincess outfit, and then sternly announcing, 'I don't bob,' as if in herself she embodied the sturdy egalitarian principles of her homeland? (In fact, having turned herself into a stereotypical loud-mouthed American, she has become the kind of American who makes other Americans deeply embarrassed, much as we'd feel if Bertie Wooster had his own chat show in the States.)

Or was it the way she wouldn't let Fergie get a word in edgewise? Whenever she threatened to say something interesting, Ruby Wax butted in. And if she didn't speak, she interposed her body, so we were distracted by that instead. Often there seemed to be two quite separate conversations going on; when Fergie tried to say something, Ruby Wax showed off by saying something smart-alecky at the same time.

Was it the questions which were supposed to sound tough and probing, but which were actually hand-me-downs from tabloid editorials? No, the worst aspect of the whole wincing, goose-pimpling, stomach-churning farrago was the way Ms Wax mugged at the camera when her back was turned in order to make fun of this wretched, sad woman - who, to her great credit, did not respond. Ruby Wax contrived the impossible, she invested poor old Fergie with some dignity.

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall followed. Most people assume that nobody would pay attention to the novel if Anne Bronte's sisters hadn't written much better ones, and I fear they may be right. The first half was desperately slow. I've been reading David Lodge's account of how he wrote the screenplay for Martin Chuzzlewit, and the problems he had squeezing so much material into a BBC timeframe which changed every week or so. Here David Nokes and Janet Barron have had the opposite problem: finding enough events to spin out the first 50 minutes. Part 2 was brisker, but the drunken lout of a husband (`No, no, our baby!' `Curse the damn thing!') would have been given greater depth and characterisation in Brookside.

Not their fault, I suppose, and I liked the way the Tenant refused to obey the lush conventions of costume drama. No gorgeous ball gowns, no honey-coloured mansions, no parasoled picnics on emerald hillsides. This is Hattersley country (there is such a character, played by Jonathan Cake), in which man's grim struggle for survival in the harsh, unforgiving land is interrupted only by lunch at the Gay Hussar. (Sorry, wrong Hattersley, but the styles are easily confused.)