Srallen’s pain

Simon Hoggart

Wednesday, 21st May 2008

The Apprentice (BBC1); The Passions of Vaughan Williams (BBC4)

So the joy of the programme is watching them make idiots of themselves. Tough, ruthless, determined and hard-working they might be; clever they rarely are, and socially sensitive they are not. This week they had to market germ-resistant tissues, naming the product and making a 30-second television ad. One of the two teams at least had the sense to call the brand ‘Atishoo’ and put it in an eye-catching yellow box. The other called it ‘I love my tissues’, which was just weird. You might as well call a bath scourer ‘I love my bath scourer’. They also decided to market it as a family product, so they recruited weatherperson Siân Lloyd — in spite of the fact that tissues have nothing to do with weather, and she doesn’t yet have any children. You might as well get Rio Ferdinand to market bath scourer — why?

Srallen glowered in a pained way at most of them, and they looked stricken, like heifers who suddenly realise they’re about to be turned into veal. It’s what Hollywood calls the ‘money shot’, the moment that these inflated egos are destroyed as swiftly and completely as that Ming vase in the Fitzwilliam Museum, though with less chance of being reassembled later. There are now only six of them left, which means five more deeply satisfying sackings.

The Passions of Vaughan Williams (BBC4, Friday) was also deeply satisfying, but in an entirely different way. It was, of course, about his love life, but since this dominated and helped inspire much of his music, that was entirely right. The description of how his wife, suffering from terrible arthritis, came to accept his mistress was poignant. The programme was crammed with memories of people who had known him and loved him, including the mistress, who became his wife and outlived him by almost half a century. Best of all there was stacks of music. Too often arts programmes eschew the art itself, on the grounds that viewers will be bored. But this was thrilling to hear and entirely complemented the narrative. This is the kind of experience we can only get from television, blending words, images and sound in a way no other medium can. Thank heavens some people — in this case, John Bridcut — are still making such programmes. He deserves thanks and very hearty congratulations.