Mongolian massacres

Genghis Khan (BBC1, Monday) was a remarkable 60-minute documentary. Normally, something filmed on such a massive scale would be stretched to last several hours over many weeks. I can only assume that the Mongolian extras work for much less than their British counterparts. Mongolians playing Mongolians, eh? In television terms that’s the equivalent of people selling you double-glazing by phone from Bangalore.

And the battle scenes were terrific. The standard BBC technique is to have, say, half a dozen chaps on horses filmed from below so that 24 thundering hooves come to symbolise 10,000 warriors. Here we had, well, quite a lot of chaps on horses, sweeping majestically, or at least speedily, across the steppe.

I had fears for this mini-epic when a voice intoned: ‘In 1162, a child was born. He was clutching a blood clot, a sign that he would be a great warrior.’ Luckily his mother did not add, as is traditional on these occasions, ‘I’ve always thought Genghis was a nice name,’ and that was a relief.