It's so easy to trash today's TV, say there's nothing on. Perhaps it has always been so. Perhaps we don't look hard enough.
Last night I caught a couple of half-hour programmes called Mediterranean Tales - Irma Kurtz recreating Mark Twain's travels from Innocents Abroad. It's programmes like this that make BBC4 a jewel in the crown. Shame that such a good programme is hidden away from peak viewing on a peak channel.
Although Irma Kurtz taught me at least half of evrything I know about sex, I don't really know much about her. She narrated an impressionistic view of Venice and Rome, but it never came over as 'Me, me, me'. She's laid back, but she cares. She adopts an intelligent and intellectual approach, but doesn't lecture.
The photography was self-consciously arty, at times almost achingly so. And the sound track was some of the most beautiful music ever written.
It's been shown before and no doubt it will be repeated in due course...
