Eleven of One, Only One of T'other

It's a retroventure this evening, as GSGC turns its snobbishly loquacious eye on BBC4 this 7.30pm and a repeat of Richard Something-or-other (I'll be hereby saying 'Beckinsale' even though I know that's entirely untrue)'s classic historical jaunt series, War Walks. As a youth, I recall watching this one of an evening, and being excited by the whole notion of wars and walking around them, what with all the fighting and explosions and people dying in brilliant ways. Now I'm a namby leftist peacenik and I'm no longer a fan of fighting and people dying (explosions are still brilliant, though), let's give it a whirl with grown up eyes.

With an epic 'tache, looking like that one what was in Last of the Summer Wine, Richard not-Beckinsale introduces our locale du jour, today Bosworth, where Richard III got deaded by the Tudors, in a big fight he knew he couldn't win. Then, he bobs around some contemporary tapestries and portraits, explaining the political whatnots leading up to the big scrap of the day. It's standard-issue historical stuff, all kings and barons and no poor people unless absolutely necessary, which fits into not-Beckinsale's lovely BBC accent in a way that talking about peasants, pig-farmin' and being poor just never could.

Fifteen minutes of that and there's still been no walking, making me wonder if I could get a bit of my license fee back under Trades Descriptions. Instead, he has a chat with a local Bosworth barmaid and churchwarden who both reckoned, without any possible evidence to back their claims, that Dicky Three was actually one of the goodies, and that they'd've been cheering him on from the sidelines if they could only go back to 1485. If anything, I wish I could get my license fee back even more after that.

Ten minutes left, and at best not-Beckinsale has done a bit of sauntering at best, and no walking to speak of. He also rode a horse a bit. Instead, he's been watching the 'war' bit of the programme, provided by some typically worryingly keen re-enacters. This kind of thing always looks rubbish on the telly, because there's never enough of them for a proper war, and the ones that there are are never dedicated enough to their art to want to get stabbed. Then some bloke in post-production plays some clanging and vague shouting sounds over the top in an effort to help out. Never works.

Five minutes to go till programme's end, and finally Richard not-Beckinsale deigns to do a bit of the promised walking. He does a good job, too, with the classic one-foot-in-front-of-the-other technique we've all come to expect from a walker of this man's standing. Alas, he's just not putting in the effort - a thirty second piece to camera here, a two minute wander up to a stone there, it's really not what the fans have come to expect. Overall, an unbalanced effort from the wandering academic, who seems to have forgotten he's go two mandates to cover in this show. Conclusion: should be called "War and Fighting and Kings and That and a Little Bit of Wandering.”