Diana: My Sister, The Princess (BBC 1, Wednesday) Panorama (BBC 1, Monday) Designs On Your . . . (Channel 4, Wednesday) Lost In France (BBC 2, Tuesday) World Cup Football (Every channel, everyday)
Simpering and servile, Sally Magnusson cooed to Earl Spencer about his late sister, Princess Diana. Dressed in brilliant white, Sally looked like an upmarket ad for an industrial-strength detergent. Would she get Hello! celebrity and media-basher Charles to come clean about his reasons for using the BBC one week in advance of opening his memorial to Diana? Would she even try? For more than a half-hour of the 45 minutes of Diana: My Sister, The Princess she was about as penetrating as Teddy Sheringham against Romania.
But, with time running out, silky Sally briefly went on the offensive. This switch, like the introduction of Michael Owen, was welcome, if overdue. It served, however, to point up just how offensive the early simpering had been. Certainly, respect and sensitivity were required - after all, Charles was being interviewed about the tragic death of his sister. But his routine banalities and rather self-satisfied quips were not only indulged but encouraged and swooned over by Magnusson. "You called her Brian, I understand, from the dim-witted snail in The Magic Roundabout," whispered Sally, pseudo-interrogatively. Now, of course, it is possible to name somebody after a dimwitted snail in an affectionate way. But it's equally possible to do so with nastiness in mind. Sally, however, remained in ooh-aah, coochy-coochy, cutesy-cutesy mood as though she were a doting mother watching a video of Baby's first steps. She fluttered her eyelashes, tilted her head and smiled ever so fondly. This was not respect - it was simpering.
"Diana's element was water. I love the idea of her being buried surrounded by that element," said Charles. Well, it's hard to know just what that might mean but, what the hell, it scarcely matters. Already 140,000 people have paid £9.50 each to visit the new memorial on Charles's £89 million Althorp estate. Understandably, some critics have been suggesting that Charles's element is money, dosh, filthy lucre. All the while, a tinkly piano soundtrack sought to maintain a mood of wistful reverence.
We saw old home-movie footage of Diana and Charles playing as children. There was, of course, a poignancy to this - as there almost invariably is when you see film of the happier moments of a recently deceased person's life. "We had a very privileged background, really," said Charles. The addition of the "really", as though there might be any doubt about the fact, was telling. Sally smiled beatifically and hunched her shoulders ever so slightly. It was body language which denoted a kind of adoring approval.
And so it went. Shots of white lilies and black swans, Diana's wedding dress and a letter written by her as a child accompanied the tinkly piano. The BBC was constructing its own on-screen shrine. Finally, Sally asked a few questions of relevance. She referred to Charles's bullish, blood-oaths eulogy at Westminster Abbey. "You must have known that this was dynamite," she said. "No," said Charles. "You must have been naive then," she said. "No," he said.
Maintaining her low, reverential voice, Sally pressed on. "You are not above using the media when it suits you," she said, albeit apologetically. "You're going to create a tasteful Graceland, no matter how tastefully you do it," she continued. The charge was belated but, in fairness, at least it had been made. The irony was that Sally's simpering had contributed hugely to the Elvisisation of Diana up to that point. The notion of the superiority of English aristocratic taste was treated throughout as being beyond question.
This was the central problem of the too-cosy interview. Charles Spencer was due respect - no more and no less than any other recently bereaved brother, regardless of social status. He has a reputation as a prickly peer but, mostly, he acquitted himself reasonably well. "I will never profit from Diana's death," he said bluntly. Well, if he doesn't, it won't be Sally Magnusson's or the BBC's fault. There is a distinction between due respect and undue veneration.
When Diana was killed last year, the BBC lost so much proportion that complaining British viewers forced it to treat them with some respect. For all but five or so minutes of Diana: My Sister, The Princess, the corporation indulged Charles Spencer. We can't really blame him for this. He was accorded a huge chunk of free, prime-time PR and he took it. Britain's television licence payers have certainly made their contribution to the Diana memorial in Althorp. List this one alongside the margarine tubs and scratch cards being promoted by the Diana memorial fund and castigated by tasteful Charles. Very tasteful, eh?
THE other big Beeb interview of the week was on Panorama. Diana's interrogator, Martin Bashir, faced Louise Woodward, (see Weekend 2). There was really only one question which viewers could have been asking: is she innocent or guilty? It's not that there was ever any hope of Bashir producing a verdict beyond all reasonable doubt. But maybe there would be indications - little hesitations or contradictions, which, when totalled, would suggest the truth.
In the event, it all remained thoroughly inconclusive. Composed and confident, Woodward didn't quite cut it as the wronged heroine ludicrously promoted by Sky News. Neither however, did she appear to be a cold monster. But there were contradictions. Repeatedly, she spoke about being lonely and being "only 18" (it sounded like a schooled PR tactic). On another occasion, however, she cited being 18 as good reason why she ought to be treated like an adult and not have a curfew imposed upon her by the Eappens.
Woodward's answers and demeanour suggested that whatever about being a nanny from hell, she clearly wasn't one from heaven. Then again, her employers, it seems, wished the relationship to be coldly business-like. Basically, Woodward's line of defence is that the Eappens felt they had to blame somebody for their child's death. This may be so, but there were clearly tactical aspects to Woodward's answers which detracted from earlier notions of her as simply a hounded youngster in handcuffs.
"I felt that if I presented a case to at least pose reasonable doubt . . . that I'd be believed," she said. Given the awfulness of the tragedy and the gravity of the charges against her, this sounded too much like detached lawyer-speak. But she has always seemed to get her smiling and crying wrong, except for those choking sobs when she was convicted. Opposite Bashir, in what, even forgetting the overstated Di overtones, was essentially a celebrity interview, she seemed far too coached - rather like Hoddle's England - and not sufficiently natural.
Certainly, it appears that the murder charge originally levelled against her, in so far as it implies an intent to kill, remains as dubious as it always was. On the other hand, suspicions that Woodward was less than loving and caring towards Matthew Eappen could not be dispelled by this TV performance. For performance - every bit as much as the late Di's - it was. The result is that Louise Woodward, unusually unemotional for a young person, will almost certainly not become the celebrity victim such a high-profile interview might have made her.
In certain respects, the victims again are viewers. Few people will support either of the extremes about Woodward - cold murderess or utterly innocent, hounded child. There are messy truths in there somewhere. All we can say with certainty is that the schooling and coaching of people facing TV interviews shortchange viewers. The consistency of Woodward's demeanour throughout her interview with Bashir suggests that she doesn't lack confidence. It also suggests that viewers can never be confident of hearing the truth in these set-piece confrontations.
In lighter vein, though dealing with weighty matter nonetheless, Designs On Your . . . challenged designers Dick Powell and Richard Seymour (an apt surname) to devise a new type of bra. At first glance, this looked like Channel 4 saying "Hello Boys" to compete with the World Cup on most other channels. And indeed, with film of bare-breasted women jogging through woods, there was a Loaded aspect to the programme.
Still, there was science, or, at least, technology too. The female breast, we were told, can incorporate a load of "up to 20 Newtons". Well now, the mechanics part of Leaving Cert physics never made Newtons so interesting, relying, if I can remember, on apples falling on heads and equations describing the laws of motion and gravity. Anyway, with Newtons (a measurement of force) explained, Dick and Richard got to the meat of the matter.
Doing unspeakable things to a ring-shaped frisbee, they eventually (it's common for there to be initial rejections over bra manipulations) came up with the Bio-form. The Bio-form made support wiring redundant and, it seems, has led to one of the most revolutionary breakthroughs in bra manufacture since the item was invented in 1914. There were predictable blokeish asides as the documentary wore on. But the new bra, having factored in all the Newtonian stresses, is likely to be well supported (and vice versa) by the women of the future.
Finally . . . football. Halfway through the World Cup, RTE, though it is poorer than in previous years, is leading the group for humour - the Johnny Giles of apres match proving to be a revelation. BBC is best for niggle, a real midfield battle between Jimmy Hill and Alan Hansen, with Martin O'Neill prepared to get stuck into everybody too. ITV is much more pallsywallsy even though Ron Atkinson and Kevin Keegan scored spectacular punditry own-goals as England crashed to Romania.
It's too early yet to evaluate how the coverage and punditry will all turn out. But the scale of the television coverage has been alarming. Mind you, much of the football has been as excellent as much of the refereeing has been appalling. But it is clear that global capitalism - just look at the bloody ads - is screwing the transnational appeal of football for every penny. Objections to the south-east Asian sweatshops of the major sportswear manufacturers are as scarce as Norwegian elegance.
Even BBC 2, not usually a football channel, has joined the game. Its minidrama, Lost In France, about a lumpen British family - the Rudds - travelling to France in a van is a bizarre mixture of the surreal and the crass. Screened nightly in 15-minute episodes, it has things to say, albeit obliquely, about contemporary British culture. It hasn't quite addressed the question of nobs and yobs yet, although the notion is permanently present as a backdrop. But the idea of worth based upon hierarchies, in which people look up and down at each other, says as much about the English yobs of Marseille as it does about the BBC's indulgence of Charles Spencer.