After the tsunami

There was much pre-publicity around Tsunami — The Aftermath (BBC1, Tuesday) implying that the second anniversary of the disaster was a little early to turn it into drama, and that the film would be distressing and demeaning for the victims’ families. I could see the point, though what struck me most was that with more than a quarter of a million people dead, there were enough tragic stories available without having to invent more. It was as if the producers had thought, well, there is plenty of grief and anguish out there, but it’s not quite the grief and anguish we’re looking for. Let’s bring in some scriptwriters to give us tailor-made grief and anguish, neatly trimmed to fit into our format and make the best use of our expensive cast.

And yet the whole thing was surprisingly moving and on the whole worked well. They used a cunning device for the pre-credits.