Andrew Marr’s – History of the world – Survival
“Using dramatic reconstructions, documentary filming around the world and cutting-edge computer graphics, he reveals the decisive moments that shaped the world we live in today, telling stories we thought we knew and others we were never told.” – Sorry BBC but not what I had in mind watching the show! Mediocre reconstructions with scantily clad extras, simplistic (at best) computer graphics and stories the average person would know is a more accurate description.
So flying the flag for Sunday night television for the BBC this week was Andrew Marr reporting on “The History of the World”. An interesting title for the less than interesting content of the show. Episode one of eight being about “Survival” is rather ironic as you would need pretty good survival skills to watch the full length of this show without finding your attentions wondering elsewhere, maybe another re-run of Top Gear on Dave! Cramming thousands of years’ worth of history into 56 minutes clearly proved to be of some difficulty for Marr and the BBC, but then again I think I would have switched off if it went on much longer…
The actual content of the show does touch upon SOME interesting points. Marr uncovers extraordinary handprints left by settlers in European caves 30,000 years ago and shows how decisive human ingenuity led to inventions that are still with us today. Marr discovers how the first civilisations were driven to extremes to try to overcome the forces of nature. It’s all part of a story about adapting and surviving against all odds. Marr explores our origins in Africa, global colonisation, the agricultural revolution/settlement of the first famers, brutal battles, the rise of empires, the battle of hierarchy between the Neanderthals and humans, and discoveries into iron and the digital age. Marr does give his audience some (however slight it may be) insight into the situation of early human beings. It’s just unfortunate I couldn’t take most of the points he was trying to get across very seriously (maybe it was the Samuel L Jackson and Jimmy Hill Neanderthal cross pointed out to me by someone!)
On a slightly different but not unrelated point – “History is falling off the radar in modern education with the majority of 11-18 year olds simply not caring” someone (probably with no interest in the subject) quoted on the TV recently; being a history student this caused an element of somewhat unnecessary debate in my house that morning. But then again there was a student on Pointless last week who’d claimed to have never heard of Karl Marx – so maybe Marr is right to assume that students don’t know anything at all about history, but it still couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit patronising. It’s a shame really. The BBC had a real opportunity to explore some fascinating aspects of early human history and they have let it slip through the net (especially if episode one is a glimpse of things to come over the next seven weeks!).
The cons definitely outweigh the pros in this account of the World’s history. What obviously wasn’t good at all though is the ridiculous “dramatic reconstruction” – the mud-caked trudging Africans, the Neanderthals and the olive-skinned ancient Egyptians (some who speak ancient Egyptian, others who speak English with ancient Egyptian accents). In all honesty more historical information can be remembered from a 20 minute episode of CBBC’s Horrible Histories than in the hour long episode of Andrew Marr’s reports. Despite its negativities, the show definitely does what it says on the tin, unfortunately I don’t feel that it is enough for me to come up with many positive things to say.
The results of the show speak for themselves, Marr’s eight-part documentary launched with an average of 3.3 million viewers and a 12.4% audience share in the 9pm hour. This was 66.5% down on the BBC1 slot average for the past three months.
The History of the World predictably lost out to the second episode of the third series of Downton Abbey, which averaged 8.4 million viewers and a 31.8% share on ITV1 from 9pm.
I wouldn’t recommend anyone watch this for enjoyment, maybe out of intrigue or curiosity, or maybe just to pass an hour of time if there isn’t any paint available to watch dry.
Still fancy a watch?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p00xnr47/Andrew_Marrs_History_of_the_World_Survival/
Author – Fiona Gray
crontonhistoryblog 