Until now, the women in the Bible have been split broadly into “pious onlookers or repentant prostitutes”. But in Jesus’ Female Disciples: The New Evidence, Bible experts Helen Bond and Joan Taylor are determined to prove that the women in the greatest story ever told have been gradually side-lined and all but erased.
Naturally, to do this they must go on a journey. I have long since given up hope that another means of historical TV investigation might be deployed. One where an expert with a headful of facts gets to show and tell their findings without the window dressing of a buddy movie. And every moment of significance being prefigured and accompanied by two dozen steadfast violinists, working their elbows like pistons.
And so, to Rome, bastion of religious tradition and seat of the resistance to female ministers. The two women spot the statues of Jesus and friends lining the rooftops in the Vatican – a boys’ club in sackcloth and sandals – and remark: “It’s all about men.” True, but this is hammered home several times by the narration, too, making these learned scholars seem less impressive than they are. I don’t need Kathy Lette-style pronouncements from eminent specialists. I want their brains. I am not scared of their knowledge and neither should their producers be.
Several times, it feels as if a higher power has asked Bond and Taylor to say something relatable, so viewers can plug into their warmth.
What they are about to show us amounts to some very specific interpretation of slender extracts from the gospels and a series of wall paintings unearthed in a Naples catacomb. But together they could indicate that women played a much bigger part in this narrative than we ever knew.
Was Mary Magdalene, in fact, an important dignitary from a town on the Sea of Galilee who essentially helped to bankroll Christ’s mission? Did Joanna flee the court of Herod and add her own wealth to the pot so that the men could gad about healing the lame and spreading the word?
Moving on to Israel, our experts laugh about hot flushes in the noonday heat as they question why Magdalene is always portrayed as a louche nympho with the hots for God’s son when there is no evidence for this in the Bible.
The theories they come up with may be hard to prove, but they save the best until last. A visit to Naples takes them under the city to a series of wall paintings uncovered in 2009 in which a woman is depicted holding the gospels in flame. This could only indicate she was a bishop, according to a local expert. Bond and Taylor are thrilled, and I am thrilled for them.
The final shot sees them back in Rome, wandering off to find coffee as a CGI sequence begins to insert female statues in among the men on top of the Vatican. It’s nicely done and feels like an important moment at a time when we need to keep the discussion about equality going.
In depictions of the Australian outback on TV, the Sheila/Bruce divide sometimes still recalls biblical times, but a new drama, The Heart Guy (Sunday, Drama), portrays a modern Oz where women run hospitals, the love interests have smart mouths and mothers can also be ambitious politicians. They are really trying. But this is ultimately the story of a self-important white guy who will presumably learn something about himself after interacting with ordinary folk, like Lightning McQueen rocking up in Radiator Springs.
“Should I save this guy or not?” muses hotshot Sydney surgeon Hugh Knight (Rodger Corser) as he gawps into the open chest cavity of his patient, Blondie blaring out of some nearby speakers. He’s a bit of a dill, as they might say in Oz; a heavy-drinking, coke-snorting pants-man on a self-destruct course.
When his arrogance trips him up, he finds himself packed off to his rural home town to work out a medical probation period at the local hospital if he wants his surgical licence back. The town is called Whyhope.
The Heart Guy has its charms, but is too flippant and none of the smartarse dialogue comes from character. We are presumably going to have to care about these people to keep watching them. But the protagonist is a prong and something this basically pleasant is going to struggle to compete with – I am doing a sweeping gesture here indicating the wide horizon – all of this other television.
It has been said elsewhere, but Ordeal by Innocence (BBC One) continues to be the best television of the year. What Sarah Phelps can do with a keyboard and her brain frightens and thrills me.
