TV reviews: Alexander Armstrong Across America; Taylor Swift: A Story of Love; Wimbledon
Alexander Armstrong’s contribution to the comedy duo Armstrong and Miller suggested that it was Miller who did most of the heavy lifting. His stints on quiz show Pointless point to the opinion he’s little more than a posh, camera-mugging attention seeker who can’t switch off the smarm. But you can’t carry over prejudices when reviewing a new TV series, can you? – which is why his latest travelogue Alexander Armstrong Across America (5, Saturday) was watched with the generosity of a man with two hearts.
Yet, right from the start, AA tested this resolve. “I’ll be getting to grips with the REAL America,” he declared with the anthropological voice of a social explorer set to look under heavy rocks, tackle all that’s mad, bad and dangerous about the country’s darker cities. However, he then announced his dramatic analysis wouldn’t commence in New York, but in “the mean streets of Philadelphia”, and then took us to a nice diner where he proceeded to scoff a very large cheesesteak sandwich. Now, to be fair, there is little doubt that eating such a baguette bulging with cholesterol is an extremely dangerous thing to do to your vital organs. But already I was beginning to choke on the silliness.
Next up, Armstrong took a ride on a steam train, again not very scary at all, except perhaps to the climate. But he then went off the rails, indicating he was entirely at one with the real America by dressing up like Doc Holliday. A few seconds later, he reappeared looking like Casey Jones. And the likeness would have been uncanny if the train driver from the Fifties series had gone to Trinity College and spoke like he shopped in Bond Street.
Casey, sorry Armstrong, then sort of forgot about his declaration to show us the real America, instead offering up inane choo-choo information, the like of which he’d probably read in The Ladybird Book of Steam Trains. “She uses a ton of coal an hour,” he avowed. What? Did we think the train ran on the shoofly pie he was soon to sample when visiting a Pennsylvanian Dutch family?
But just as we figured the closest this presenter has ever come to danger is providing the voice of Danger Mouse, he drove into the dark, drug-riddled suburb of Kensington alongside former addict turned counsellor Sarah.
Now, Sarah was interesting – a woman who once worked in a strip club to feed her heroin habit – but Danger Mouse’s astonishing cluelessness left her almost speechless. “What were you doing at the strip club?” he wondered. Perhaps the locals were wondering about the vacuity of Armstrong’s questioning because they began throwing bottles at the car. And indeed, it was a surprise the bottle throwers didn’t follow him down to the city library, where he was shown 19th century archives detailing the cruel, desperate ‘lives of enslaved people’, the black community confined to the most miserable of existences.
The smoothie Classic FM presenter actually asked of the researcher, “Was there a sense of a growing consensus for change?” And surprise, surprise, there was indeed. But the real problem wasn’t the asinine questioning and suggested idiocy. It wasn’t that he believed himself to be Alan Whicker reborn, or Michael Palin. No, Armstrong presented himself as a Simon Reeve figure, a tough social explorer - while dressing up as Casey Jones and continually producing gurgles of froth. “I’m on a mission to discover where America came from – and where it might be going,” he exclaimed.
And we were all left wondering the same of this rather pointless travel show presenter. There was a little wondering about the intent behind Taylor Swift: A Story of Love (Channel 4, Sunday), the premise suggesting the pop star was rather unique in scanning the tear-stained pages of her diary to come up with the lyrics for her songs. Didn’t Carly Simon access her own personal jotters to create You’re So Vain, or Dolly with the likes of Jolene? Or Joni Mitchell – with just about everything she wrote?
Well, yes. But that practice apart, we were asked to consider was this incessant personal writing by Swift simply a cynical, opportunistic move on the part of the one-time country gal from Nashville? Did the pop star consider her own teen torment as an ideal chance to suggest empathy with young girls across the world – and make lots of money in the process? Jonathan Ross certainly thought so, suggesting during a chat show interview that Swift was little more than a malicious minx for “getting love songs out of heartbreak”.
Was Ross right? The documentary looked closely at how Swift merged her diary notes into song and asked whether the men behind the lyrics deserved to be subject matter. It considered former Disney star Joe Jonas – who dumped Swift during a 25-second phone call. ‘You told me you loved me – were you just kidding?’ she sang plaintively.
The songwriter embarked upon a relationship with actor Jake Gyllenhaal, who failed to show up at her 21st birthday party. She dated Tom Hiddleston. And while she didn’t name either of them, her teenage fans had a great time playing Musical Cluedo, trying to work out which song lyrics related to which of the two dumpers. And we learned too that Harry Styles was a paramour (which irked the anti-feminist tabloids, who reckoned the country gal may have had one too many boyfriends).
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There was no dubiety however about lyrical description when it came to Matty Healy, the surly bad boy of pop band 1975. Swift reckoned he saw her as an opportunity to boast about a conquest. And her song to him? The Smallest Man Who Ever Lived. Perfect.
Then followed a six-year affair with nice English actor Joe Alwyn, and Swift took time out of touring to live with him in England. But the singer-songwriter’s desire to get back out there performing brought about a breakup. What was interesting, however, about the lyrics that followed the Alwyn relationship was that Taylor Swift readily took the blame. She wrote about her regrets. And it knocked on the head any idea she only used song to lay blame on the boys who’d behaved badly.
In fact, what this hour-long documentary revealed is that Taylor Swift isn’t an opportunistic lyricist at all. When she met and fell in love with an American footballer Travis Kelce (he’s described as a ‘tight end’, and we have to assume this to be a good thing) she wrote lots of songs believed to be about how he inspired her. “I was the fate of Ophelia, till you said, ‘Not this time.’” And all this suggested that while Swift is no Joni Mitchell, she’s a nice songwriter, who wears her heart on her record sleeve and has long been compelled to write intriguingly honest lyrics – which make her incredibly relatable.
Perhaps Jonathan Ross was simply being mischievous when he suggested Swift used her experience with men to sell records, but he was wrong to suggest it. She’s a woman who was only ever looking for a fairy tale ending. And what’s wrong with writing about the worst – and best – times of our lives? Yet, now that Taylor Swift has achieved the fairy tale ending she’s always dreamt of, you have to worry for her song writing success. Everyone knows the best lyrics emerge from broken hearts.
There were quite a few broken hearts this week at Wimbledon (BBC One and Two, from 10.30am). Serena is out of the singles, and the fun didn’t last for Cam Norrie either. And it didn’t even begin for the greatest tennis showman around, Carlos Alcaraz, nor Jack Draper or Emma Raducanu, who seems to be picking up more panel lines than she does appearance money.
But that doesn’t mean we will give up on Wimbledon. Oh no. Jannik Sinner, last year’s winner, may have industrial technique that’s as exciting as a bag of spanners, but that’s fine because we need a panto villain to dislike (particularly if 39-year-old Djokovic doesn’t go the distance). And we can’t give up on the greatest tennis tournament in the world simply because the best players are absent.
It’s a stage like no other, a magical place where a slight, ginger Australian like Maya Joint can beat a 24-time grand slam champion. And where you can get a laugh at seeing David Beckham attempt to boost his PR profile by turning up with his mum.
