A dramatisation of how David Bailey and his girl-next-door muse Jean Shrimpton click-started the 60s had a lot going for it but tried a little too hard
We'll Take Manhattan (BBC4) told the story of a baby David Bailey and his muse and mistress Jean Shrimpton ? still very much the raw prawn herself ? jetting off to New York in 1962 to do the rule-shattering Young Idea Goes West photoshoot for Vogue, all battered teddy bears, gritty streetscapes and the extraordinarily ordinary gangly girl next door, that would establish them for ever as icons of the 60s' cultural revolution.
Expectations of Mad Men ? or indeed Mad magazine ? levels of subtlety and nuance were dispelled in the opening seconds when we were greeted with the informative full-screen captions: "In 1962 no one had heard of the Beatles. No one expected to be famous who was not born rich or titled. And," ? I hope you're listening at the back there ? "there was no such thing as youth culture."
We then cut to 1960, where a Beatles-less Bailey was taking his consolations where he could find them, which was up the chiffon skirt of a d�shabill�e debutante while reading an art magazine. Picasso in one hand, penis in the other ? some would think he was already living the dream.
But baby Bailey had even bigger ambitions and the rest of the drama was a quick trot through some simplistic but stylish set pieces towards their realisation. Discovery by Vogue. Discovery of Jean. A few years of kicking against the system before his talent was universally recognised and even the old guard came to kneel in awe before him and, as the final caption had it: "David Bailey became the foremost photographer of his generation." If you weren't still listening at the back there by then you would have missed some fine performances ? Aneurin Barnard capturing and blending the arrogance and charm of the man in perfect proportions, Karen Gillan managing to portray a na�f (Shrimpton was barely 18 when she started out) in his thrall with enough energy and edge to prevent her from lapsing into ditsiness or dumbwittedness. And there were some funny moments (Bailey, on hearing his brief for the shoot from Vogue fashion editor Lady Clare Rendlesham, pauses and replies: "So, it ain't young, and it ain't got an idea?").
But there wasn't much else. Fine, it wasn't aiming to be Heimat, but did all those terribly posh people heff to be seh fratefully, unremittingly creshing snobs? And it would have been both kinder and simpler to put Barnard in a little fez and bolero and send him capering round the set chattering: "Oim a plucky li'l monkey, oi am" than ask him to deliver some of the speeches he was landed with ("There's a new world where everyone will be applauded and be beautiful not because of who their daddy was but because of who they are!") with a straight face.
The documentary that followed, David Bailey: Four Beats to the Bar and No Cheating (BBC4), took its title from Count Basie's famous definition of jazz, which Bailey cited as a definition of his working ethos. His longtime friend and collaborator Martin Harrison supplemented this with a series of rather lovely extempore panegyrics about the photographer's talent, its roots and influences (from dyslexia to love of birdwatching). The voiceover sabotaged it with sentimental waffle ("his London studio is a refuge far removed from the pain of the world").
Let us turn instead to Putin, Russia and the West (BBC2) ? a documentary series short on any kind of waffle, and long on what happens when a megalomaniacal former KGB operative forced to witness the destruction of his country as a superpower on his boss's drunken watch takes charge and is then expected to stand quietly by, perhaps trying on new fur hats or re-reading the classics ("Try Austen, Vladimir. You know Tolstoy only upsets you"), while the agents of Mother Russia's destruction blithely fund pro-democracy groups, shelter dissidents and hack away at her bleeding breast. He doesn't get mad, it turns out. He gets popular with the people and then he gets even. A dash of dioxin poisoning here, perhaps, a spot of Kremlin aid to supportive parties and a gentle rejigging to funding rules for NGOs there, or chewing up US bromides about the rule of law and free elections and spitting them out over Chechnya and, really, you're halfway back to glory already. The likes of Condoleezza Rice, Leonid Kuchma and Viktor Yuschenko were on hand in the second episode of the four comprising this densely packed, compelling series to guide us through the wheels within wheels within wheels so we didn't get crushed. Superb.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/2012/jan/26/well-take-manhattan-david-bailey
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