I am writing this at teatime on Sunday — day nine of the Olympics. So far: 34 medals, we’ve all gone completely bananas, and the Great British mood has improved by what commentators call 110 per cent. Andy Murray has just won gold, beating Roger Federer in straight sets, and by the time I finish writing he may have won another gold in the mixed doubles’ final.
To write about this week’s television and not mention the Olympics would be peculiar, but to write about nothing but the Olympics would be foolish because what I write today will be old hat by the time you read it. Today the Games are the most important thing on television; by the end of the week they might not be — they might have turned from buttered crumpets to stale buns. Perhaps you are settling down on your sofa — instead of standing on top of it, cheering, and throwing all the cushions in the air — and saying to one another, ‘I tell you what — shall we see what else is on tonight? Apart from the Olympics?’
Well, there’s Young, Bright and on the Right (Thursday, BBC2), a documentary that follows two enthusiastic Tory students (Joe at Oxford and Chris at Cambridge) as they try to cut their teeth in Oxbridge politics. This is a film that seemed, at its outset, determined to prove once again that it is not difficult to make young Conservatives look ridiculous on national television. The set was dressed with familiar props — patterned handkerchiefs, colourful cocktails, silver spoons and framed portraits of Margaret Thatcher — and my toes prepared to curl. However, just as I was about to mouth the words ‘Why oh why’ at the ceiling, the film suddenly sprouted and grew right out of its pot: what had been a rather predictable-looking, neatly contained aspidistra became a thorny and intimidating beanstalk.
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