Dara Ó Briain is in a greenhouse, admiring the tomatoes. A very big greenhouse as it happens, about the area of 49 football pitches (football pitches I can picture; it’s Wales I have a problem with). This is a place called Thanet Earth in Kent, a hi-tech indoor farm that grows millions of fruit and vegetables throughout the year. The show is Tomorrow’s Food (BBC1).
Everything at Thanet Earth is controlled: the temperature, the weather, the insects. There’s no soil, no earth at Thanet Earth; tomatoes are grown in a dense wool made of volcanic rock. It holds water better, doesn’t have any dangerous bacteria and gives the grower more control. Precise amounts of nutrients and water are drip-fed to the plants along pipes, all controlled by computer. The plants are tricked into producing more fruit, using sudden drops of temperature. It means four or five times the yield of a more traditional method of growing tomatoes.
And just look at the results: perfect tomatoes, all the same size, shape and colour. Nobble-free. Go on, Dara, pick one, bite into it. But he doesn’t. Maybe he’s not allowed to; it might upset the delicate ecosystem. Perhaps a nozzle would appear from the floor, and immediately direct a jet of Daracide at him. Or maybe he – as I do – suspects that if he did try one he would be disappointed.
It’s Tomorrow’s World, for food. People like science, and technology, people love food, so it’s a winner. And people like Dara Ó Briain. I like him too. He’s clever, and gets science, as well as being funny. Although he’s not being that funny here, there aren’t many jokes in Tomorrow’s Food.
Dara’s not alone. Greengrocer Chris Bavin tries vending-machine pizza, and meets Australian robot farmers and robot sheep dogs. Chris rounds up British truckers to try out a seaweed pill that reduces the fat – and full English breakfast – that’s absorbed by the body. He’s enthusiastic, game, and very much like Gregg Wallace with more hair and fewer years. Dr Shini Somara is the tech expert, being served by robot waiters in Shanghai and having an expensive multi-sensory multi-media eating experience. Angela Hartnett is on hand for Michelin starriness and to visit the army kitchens where shelf life is being taken to new extremes.
Dara also visits the US to fly with the west Texan cloud seeders who can make it rain over an area bigger than Wales. There it is! Wales! Anyway, I think I knew about cloud seeding. Some of it is more surprising and more interesting than other bits. I like the tomato plant, tomato above ground, potato below. And the decanter that makes a cheap bottle of plonk taste like fine wine, though whether it works or not is inconclusive, so I’m not sure I’m going to risk the $250 to try it out for myself. The programme covers a lot of the world, and ground and stories in the hour. It’s crisp, well-formed, the right shape and colour, and ticks all the quality control boxes, but it feels like quite a long hour. It lacks flavour and personality. And nobbles. I like my television to be a little more nobbly, and more memorable.
***
Storyville: Cartel Land (BBC4) is memorable. Matthew Heineman’s film about the Autodefensas army of ordinary folk who took on the brutal drug cartels in the state of Michoacán in Mexico. Dr José Mireles, who leads them, is a dude – a charismatic leader, orator, lover and silver fox who could have stepped from the silver screen. But, as the Autodefensas grow in power and success, there are questions about whether they’re any better than the cartels they’re fighting.
There’s a parallel story going on, north of the border in Arizona, where Tim “Nailer” Foley leads the Arizona Border Recon. Another vigilante, taking things into his own hands because he feels let down by the state. It hardly compares though – playing soldiers compared to very much the real deal down in Mexico where the bullets fly, the bodies pile up and the tears flow.
The parallel is unnecessary. And questions remain unanswered, such as: what happened to the two captured leaders of the Knights Templar cartel? But it’s an incredibly brave piece of film-making – Matthew Heineman goes right in there with his camera where the bullets are flying and he takes us with him. The result is an extraordinarily brutal portrait of lawlessness.
