I dream of a world where making a cake isn’t described as someone’s “toughest challenge yet” and where the simple act of having a job interview doesn’t require an operatic underscore. These once-original tropes are now stirred into the recipe for almost every programme; the MSG of popular factual entertainment, making the information easier to swallow but causing a furry buildup that slowly prevents the free passage of ideas, like the fat-balls that clog our sewers.
A bright spark at BBC4 decided to turn this greasy tide, for a week anyway, with a season called BBC4 Goes Slow, offering seven evenings of output stripped bare of narration, incidental music and the editorial tinkering usually found in contemporary television. On Sunday, Frederick Wiseman’s glorious three-hour observation of the comings and goings at the National Gallery in London gently kicked things off, and last night Handmade: Glass was quietly followed by Handmade: Metal, both of which featured 30 wordless minutes of craftsmanship and modest manufacture, unhindered by breathless reminders about what was at stake and why you should keep watching.
I genuinely wondered whether to include a spoiler warning here when discussing the glass episode, because if you haven’t seen it yet, you should, and the reveal as to what the two glass-blowers have been making was genuinely delightful. Unlike the Potter’s Wheel interlude, designed to fill short gaps in the schedule in the 50s and 60s, these half-hour peeps behind studio doors allowed you to see the finished result. Even they couldn’t help editing out the boring bits in order to cut to the money shot.
When all the other bells and whistles were removed, sound design and editing suddenly took centre stage. The soothing roll and polish of the glassmaker’s tools on the unidentifiable vessel was replaced by the harsher clank of the metalworker’s hammer in the second film. But it was the lack of human voices that was so refreshing and so surprising. If everyone just shuts up for a minute, you can really take in what you’re seeing and appreciate the skill, both of the craftspeople and the person behind the camera, framing one beautiful picture after another.
There was a moment during the glassblowing episode where the unwanted remnants of a recently blown item (I refuse to spoil it) were plunged into ice on the end of their recently discarded blow-pipe (there was no voiceover to tell me the correct technical term). The shot cut away briefly to a closeup of the steaming glass in the bucket. After several seconds, the glass perfunctorily shattered, suddenly contracting as it cooled. It was like music: a genuinely wonderful moment.
Salvation of a different kind came in the form of The Stranger on the Bridge (Channel 4), a one-off documentary following Jonny Benjamin, a young man who tried to jump from Waterloo Bridge in 2008 as schizophrenia and thoughts of self-destruction overwhelmed him. When all seemed lost, a man stepped out of the rush-hour crowd and talked him down. Distressed and confused at the time, Benjamin never found out who he was. Last year, he launched a campaign to find the man he believed was called Mike and a documentary crew filmed every painful, gruelling second of it.
What began as a search for a mystery man fuelled by a media campaign and an obligatory hashtag led Benjamin to hear from the suicidal, the recovering and their families from all over the world. The unassuming man who admitted his terror before every media appearance, gradually mastered the medium and grew in confidence over the course of this hour.
In one particularly difficult but ultimately helpful encounter, he talked to the twin sister of a young man who threw himself off Tower Bridge. As the two sat uncomfortably at a table, only half-finishing sentences and avoiding each other’s eyes, she emboldened to ask him the questions she clearly longed to ask her late brother. Did you think of us? Could we have stopped you? It was powerful and useful: a reminder to externalise such thoughts and not hug them close, protecting them from the people around you. He, inadvertently at first, and then purposefully, destigmatised mental illness with every stuttering, blushing encounter.
And of course, this was television, so the eventual discovery of his hero that day was saved for the smallest of big finishes. Benjamin broke almost in two as Neil, the man who told him there was another way, walked into the room and quietly bear-hugged him. It was an overwhelming moment but, aside from the tiniest and least showy burst of tension strings, was unsullied by heart-prodding music, telling you to cry. The tears came anyway.
