Michelle Mone and the rise of the ‘fight back’ documentary

You can’t turn on the telly or fire up the internet these days without stumbling across some celebrity or other baring their soul in a glossily produced documentary. Three hours, was it, of David Beckham – taking us from talented nipper playing keepy-uppy to grizzled paterfamilias wiping down his barbecue in wistful retirement? Or Renaissance: A Film, which showed Beyonce as flawed and human in the same way and with much the same aim as the Bible shows Jesus Christ as flawed and human. Or there was that interminable Robbie Williams doc, in which – for no reason that was completely obvious – he spent about four hours sitting glumly in his underpants in front of his MacBook, watching footage of his own earlier career. 

The trade-off here is that in the interests of access these supposed documentaries are blurring the line between telly journalism and PR promo. The Beckham film jiggled the timeline here and there, and our hero’s alleged extramarital affair with Rebecca Loos was treated (without any direct reference to it being made) like some sort of natural disaster sent to test this blameless family man.