Speed Dreams: why the people are the thing

Speed DreamsBy chance, I caught the first in a two-part documentary on BBC2 at the weekend – Speed Dreams: The Fastest Place on Earth and it completely gripped me.

It follows a number of different amateur British engineers in their quest to build a vehicle fast enough to break a world land speed record and take it to the annual Speed Week at Bonneville Flats, near Salt Lake City, Utah.

So what, I hear you cry? Well, I should point out that I have no interest in cars whatsoever. I never watch Top Gear, don’t know the difference between ‘torque’ and ‘talk’ and only own a car as a way to get from A to B (it’s a Ford Focus, for goodness sake).

Passion’s the fashion

And yet, I was transfixed by Speed Dreams. And after I’d spent an hour glued to the screen, I stopped to ask myself how a subject I have no interest in could have grabbed me.

The answer, as you might imagine, was quite simple. It was the brilliance of the content and, specifically, the stories of these passionate, obsessed and, in may cases, hugely eccentric men who have given up months and years in the pursuit of something they believed in.

In the same way, the new BBC4 wildlife documentary, The Lost Land of the Tiger manages to tread a similar path – being compelling viewing even for someone who doesn’t necessarily normally watch ‘that sort of programme’.

The uniting factor in both cases are the people and their ‘magnetism’ to the viewer. Although the shows have a good reason for being filmed – speed and animals – the reason they’re great viewing is that excitement, humanity and ‘realness’ of all involved elevates them above the norm.

Brand challenge

It’s exactly why so many brands are returning to brass tacks and trying to get ‘human interest’ into their everyday marketing.

We’re all overrun with messages and advertising coming at us from every direction and need a reason to be engaged with something. It needs to stir the soul and tug at the emotions.

That’s exactly why so many people mourned the loss of Christopher Martin-Jenkins recently (and continue to adore Test Match Special). His ability to put over his passion for cricket and set the scene for fans made him feel like a friend to the millions who have listened to him over the years.

What’s brown and sounds like a bell?

Returning to the TV, though, it was impossible to not feel the joy of Dr George McGavin in Lost Land of the Tiger, when he reached into a huge pile of elephant poo and pull out ‘the biggest dung beetle I’ve ever seen’.

Now that’s the power of storytelling!

The real reason X Factor judges don’t want Christopher Maloney to win

Christopher MaloneyThe X Factor reached crisis point this weekend, when one of the hot favourites, Ella Henderson, was booted out after no-one voted for her.

According to the Daily Mail both the X Factor judges and Twitter went into meltdown, because she was nailed on right from the beginning as the one to beat.

In contrast, Christopher Maloney – the act who didn’t originally make Gary’s final 3, but was brought back from the cold in a public vote – has been pulling in the votes, despite being dismissed as cheesy and ‘not relevant’ by the judges.

In fact, there seems to be a concerted campaign to stop Christopher winning this year. Louis Walsh even admitted as such in a Guardian interview at the weekend, saying they’ve “got to find a way to stop Christopher Maloney from winning X Factor”.

So why is “Mr Shake and Fake” – as the other contestants call Christopher Maloney – such a threat?

Not a trained monkey

The bottom line is that Christopher Maloney is a wildcard – in more senses than one.

You see, the majority of contestants who reach the final stages of X Factor are anything but ‘amateur pop hopefuls’. They’ve nearly all got managers before they audition, according to finalist Kye Sones.

In an interview given to The Standard after leaving the show in early November, he revealed that practically every artist has management.

It seems that Christopher Maloney doesn’t fall into that category. He’s not as malleable.

The Brookstein effect

Simon Cowell is nervous, because he can see Steve Brookstein all over again. The winner of the first ever series of X Factor in 2004 briefly flickered before ending up on the trash-heap of failed former contestants.

And, although there’s no guarantee that winning X Factor can guarantee you a long-lasting pop career (see Shayne Ward, Joe McElderry and Matt Cardle for proof), it’s much easier if Simon Cowell has something to work with.

From his eyrie in LA, he would have looked at the likes of Jahmene and Ella and seen dollar signs = in much the same way he did with Leona Lewis.

Christopher Maloney – on the other hand – is popular enough while the show is on, but his appeal outside the confines of the Fountain Studios on a Saturday night is limited.

What about Britain’s Got Talent success?

There are many who will be citing the likes of Susan Boyle or Paul Potts for proof that you don’t have to be young and attractive to make it big, but they’re forgetting that both of them had a strong USP and were discovered not on a singing show, but a ‘talent’ show.

Potts was the insurance salesman with the operatic voice that blew everyone else away.

Boyle was the frumpy, slightly dotty Scotswoman who ‘sang like an angel’.

Maloney? His USP is that he’s a cheesy, camp, Scouse, mummy’s boy. And you can probably find them in any number of holiday camps, wearing a red coat.

Don’t panic yet, Simon

The chances are, Christopher will implode before the end, and Jahmene will walk off with the crown. However, if he does win, it will be interesting to see how much they invest in his career, following the obligatory Xmas single.

Keep watching this space…

Why UK Television needs more dramas like The Bridge

20120519-182558.jpgAs the latest Scandinavian drama sensation, The Bridge, comes to an end tonight on BBC4, what’s struck me most about the programme is that we need more shows like this in the UK. And now I’ll explain why.

For me, there are two main elements to The Bridge that mark it out as being different to much of the UK drama output.

1) The main female character is completely unfeminine
From the very first episode, when the Swedish detective Saga Noren refuses to let an ambulance containing a patient due for an urgent transplant across the titular bridge, she’s marked out as behaving in a very masculine way.

Saga picks up men in bars and has one-night stands, while her male Danish colleague is portrayed as the ‘sensitive’ one.

That’s not to say that strong, female characters don’t exist in UK dramas – the ITV cop show Scott & Bailey has three, including the eponymous S&B’s boss Jill – but they’re few and far between.

In fact, with The Killing, Borgen and now The Bridge, Scandinavia is leading the way in this regard, with possibly Claire Danes’ Carrie in Homeland making up the list.

2) My second point does relate to the first slightly. Part of Saga’s character is driven by her autism – probably Asperger’s – a fact that’s never explicitly acknowledged. And for me, this is a hugely brave and impressive thing to do in a drama.

To give a main character a medical condition to which you never actually refer and deliberately not make it the thrust of the storyline is rarely done.

A disability is normally the reason for a show, not a side issue. If more writers wrote this sort of thing into their scripts, it would help to break down the stigma about disabilities and illnesses that persist across much of society.

In the meantime, enjoy it while you can.