Panorama’s recent Kids in Care special may not have been groundbreaking in either its subject matter or its execution, but it demonstrated that the BBC, despite its faults, can still churn out good quality documentaries.
The programme focused on three children in care in Coventry and the social services staff who help to look after them. Although I am sure this type of documentary has been done many times before, the length over which it was shot, six months, and the intimacy it was able to create, made it impressive.
The programme came as a response to the Baby P case, which gripped the nation’s media. It demonstrated what can happen to some children once they are taken into care – which can be far from an escape, even if they removed from a violent or dangerous home. Indeed, both of the teenagers in the Panorama programme actually wanted to return to their mothers, despite a difficult past.
Kids in Care raised a number of serious questions. Social work has to be one of the toughest professions to go into and many positions remain unfilled. When Connor, 14, attacks his social worker’s car as a result of changes to visitation rights for him and his mother, you begin to realise that this is one of the most complex and difficult of jobs. Things were also particularly difficult for the foster family who were caring for another Connor, this time a three-year-old. He had become part of the family, but his foster parents knew that ultimately he would leave them when social services found a permanent home for him.
Those who get it toughest of all are the kids. Here, all three struggled with the absence of their parents and the shuttling between foster homes that they have had to endure. It is apparent that all any of them want is a loving, permanent home, but circumstances have continually denied them this – a sad truth about state care system.
It was a fascinating documentary, which tackled a subject we feel we know something about, but in reality we are largely ignorant.
Channel 4’s new series Wedding House is, well, truly awful. When the promotional trails were shown, it did not look like it could be so bad. Instead the impression was that the programme could be quite good for just slumping in front of the television.
The immediate problem with Wedding House is that there is no sense of structure. The speed at which the couples are married makes it feel like you are simply sat in a registry office for the day. There is no lead up to the weddings, the couples just roll up in the morning, have a bit of a chat with the woman who will marry them, trying to convince us and themselves that they want to get married and then off they go and get hitched. There is no reason for us to care about the couples – we barely know their names, let alone the background to their nuptials.
The point of Wedding House is that they want to have a unique ceremony.
Initially, this is engaging. Then you see how ludicrous the ceremonies are. For example, one couple sang their way down the aisle – so badly that, had I been a guest, I would have left out of sheer embarrassment. If you love weddings, this might be for you. If you have an attention span longer than 10 seconds, then you will probably hate it as much as I did.
