Gavin Searle's documentary offers a brutal case study of climate change at the sharp end. But wait... before you flee to watch something that sounds less taxing, this is also an involving human story about Lee White, the Manchester-born scientist who became Gabon's unlikely environment minister, fighting to save the country's pristine forests from ivory poachers, miners and Chinese logging giants. It's an extraordinary tale, set in the lush Congo basin rainforest,
Pity the eager documentary-maker who next pitches an idea to TV bosses about venturing into a jungle to live with a remote tribe…. It’s hard to imagine many people beating My Year with the Tribe for insight, intrigue and, frankly, entertainment value. We don’t often get to see a furious local threatening to kill our BBC presenter with a bow and arrow because he won’t give him £1,200 for a boat. It was a documentary cum reality TV show airing all its dirty laundry…. It was also great television because it was the truth.
BBC2’s utterly brilliant I Bought a Rainforest…should be required viewing for anyone with a serious interest in conserving a jungle that provides a third of our oxygen...director Gavin Searle, has an eye for religious imagery – and as the conservationist loaded a sawn log on to his back and staggered through the undergrowth, he did indeed resemble Christ on the Via Dolorosa. Charlie had taken up his cross, or his white man’s burden, and at last realised that his ideals might actually cause human misery.
In Gavin Searle’s programme, the poor of Lagos are “resourceful, energetic and extremely optimistic”, adjectives that could all equally be applied to his extraordinary new documentary series. Searle sold the dump to us as representing “everything fantastic about the people” of the Nigerian capital and as the ultimate in recycling. His claim seemed fantastical but the lives he followed were inspirational.
Billy and Steve may not have a television, but they are on it as part of Broke (BBC Two), a profile of that swelling minority of Britons who struggle to keep their noses above water….This is a proper documentary made according to old-school rules: watch, listen and stay out of the way.
By the time Chief Yapa and co are gleefully frolicking in the snow (which they've never seen before), you'll probably be watching them through a haze of joyful tears. If TV manages to broadcast anything as simultaneously thought-provoking and charming this year, I'll be dumbstruck. And I'll probably have to switch the set off for good. I tune in to start hating, dammit. Stop being so nice.
This is just one of the extraordinary scenes in Fish! A Japanese Obsession (BBC4), Charles RW's journey around Japan to get to the bottom of the country's passion for fish. He meets koi carp worth £50,000 each, and a rock singer who wears a real tuna head on stage (Tuna Turner?). It's all lovely. I was a pushover because I too have a thing about fish, and although I've never been to Japan I've always wanted to. It looks beautiful, of course, and Charles brings a nice dry amusement to it all - not mocking, just sometimes a little surprised (it's a thin line).
Gavin Searle’s film watches while British and Polish builders carry out work on two almost identical extensions. Searle, who directed Tribe and Meet the Natives, adopts a jaunty tone that belies an underlying seriousness, and the result is a revealing, bittersweet piece of social anthropology.
This is where a good director comes in. I've been lucky to work with a real maestro, Gavin Searle, who didn't know anything about fishing, but who does know what makes a good dramatic story. His secret technique for getting an emotional reaction out of me is to swear a lot, and if that doesn't work resorting to violence.