Away from politics, Paxman's bulldog interviewing style hits a wrong note The Victorians BBC1

Determined not to be impressed

Suddenly, the thought occurs: is Jeremy Paxman shy? I'm serious. Until Sunday night, when I watched the first part of his new series, The Victorians, I had always assumed that his habitually curled lip was a sign only of supreme self-confidence. Now, having seen him interact with civilians (as opposed to politicians, on whom the sneer falls deservedly, like handcuffs on a shoplifter's wrist), I'm not so sure.

I think he is shy, and that the rudeness is a defensive cloak as well as an interviewing technique. In The Victorians (Sundays, 9pm), Paxman is required to talk to all sorts of people, from ex-foundry workers to museum assistants, and, after a while, you can't help but notice that he finds it difficult to look any of them in the eye, poor thing. Not that I'm making excuses for him. When he sounds cross, exasperated or disbelieving at the latest robotic words of, say, Hazel Blears, it is absolutely fine by me: isn't he just acting as our proxy? But when he comes over the same way to a nice old boy who works as a visitor assistant in Glasgow's Kelvingrove Museum, it is not quite such a pleasant thing to see.

This particular old boy had agreed to show him his favourite painting - James Guthrie's A Highland Funeral. Once in front of it, however, Paxo seemed determined not to be impressed, and only after some brave nudging on the part of his amateur guide did he grudgingly concede that the work, which depicts the tiny coffin of a baby, does have a certain power. His face, though, told another story. Oh, go on then, it said, have and so, just for once, I will grit my teeth and resist the temptation to rip your argument to pieces.

Oh, well. The truth is that over the course of the next month I am going to ignore this kind of stuff because, in every other respect, The Victorians could have been made with me in mind, and I am grateful: probably only the likes of Paxman could have got the thing commissioned and safely on to BBC1 in the first place. It's not just that its mission - the series hopes to reveal the Victorians to us through their paintings - is so seemingly old-fashioned and high-minded. It is also that Victorian painting is very unfashionable these days, and the galleries that house it are too little celebrated. (It honestly amazes me how few supposed art lovers down here know what's up there - and if you live up there, where I was born, and where my family still resides, please forgive the way I've written this sentence.)

For sure, the thrust of The Victorians' narrative is predictable, and the information that its presenter dishes out is hardly new: Victorian cities were terrifying and dirty, but their town halls were beautiful and, yes, the Industrial Revolution really did change everything. And who really needs to see Paxman steering a barge to Manchester, or pushing a wooden spoon through workhouse gruel? But the paintings, now, they are worth gawping at, from Eyre Crowe's idealised millworkers in The Dinner Hour, Wigan, through James Sharples's thrillingly modern depiction of foundry men in The Forge, to the blissful ochres of lamplight falling on wet pavements in the work of Atkinson Grimshaw. These are paintings of which the eyes could never grow tired, and which, even better, can be seen for free, just about any day of the week, in Bury and Blackburn, Leeds and Liverpool.

This, then, is my only real criticism of The Victorians: why have the places that house these works not been given their full due? Paxman will show us a painting, teeming with life and colour, and the artist's name and the title will duly appear on screen, but we never find out where it is hidden. Surely civic pride - another of the Victorians' great inventions - now demands that the curators of the galleries in question march on the Newsnight studio, and force him and his producer to add a few extra subtitles before the series ends. Sales of postcards and, ultimately, the long-term future of some very cash-strapped museums depend on it.

Pick of the week

Law and Order: UK
23 February, 9pm, ITV1
No ideas at ITV? Well, this is a British version of the US drama.

Horizon
24 February, 9pm, BBC2
How your internal body clock works . . . or doesn't, in some cases.Margaret
26 February, 9pm, BBC2
Mrs T in 1990, thrown to the wolves by podgy men in suits.

Post your comment

Please note: you will need to login or register before you can comment on the website