Moonshot Spirit of 69 (ITV, Saturday), (Channel 4, Sunday)
Dockers Writing The Wrongs (Channel 4, Sunday)
It Must Be Done Right (RTE 1, Tuesday)
Little Town, Big Circus (Network 2, Sunday)
It didn't make sense, but Neil Armstrong's "small step for man, giant leap for mankind" comment will always rank among the 20th century's legendary remarks. The omission of the indefinite article before "man" might be expected of a Coronation Street or Last of the Summer Wine bloke on his way "down pub". But coming from an American astronaut, it made the statement a contradiction in terms. Nowadays, of course, Armstrong might be wiser to remain on the moon if he indulged in such sexist guff at all. "A small step for a person, a giant leap for humankind" would be the prudent phrase today.
Thirty years have passed since Apollo 11, with Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins aboard, was launched from Cape Kennedy on July 16th, 1969. Four days later (though quiz freaks should note that it was July 21st, not July 20th, in Ireland) Armstrong did his step'n'leap routine. In a documentary which was part Rock'n'Roll Years, part standard interview and comment, Moonshot - Spirit of 69 recalled the period. Three decades and huge technological advances later, mankind - sorry, humankind - has never quite recreated a moment of comparable awe. In terms of space travel, it was hardly even a small step - but like a full moon on a clear night, it illuminated some deep realities.
In particular, our sense of Earth could never be the same again. Seeing television and still pictures of our planet suspended in infinite blackness generated a cluster of complex emotions: pride at being able to see its beauty; humility at being able to see its insignificance in the grand context; wonder at the thrill of such a communal, out-of-planet experience. To the sounds of The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Fleetwood Mac, Marvin Gaye, Jefferson Airplane, Thunderclap Newman and others, footage from the dying embers of the 1960s revisited a time now so remote that Manchester City were over the moon at being the FA Cup holders. Yes, truly awesome!
Trevor McDonald was equally awesome. Commenting on the moment, Trev compared it to his leaving Trinidad to go to London. "The Eagle has landed" was the understandably dramatic and triumphalist statement from NASA when Armstrong and Aldrin's lunar module touched down on the moon's surface. Clearly Trev's ego still hasn't landed since he landed a job reading the news on TV. In one sense, it was fair enough to contextualise a personal leap within the grander framework of the moon landing. After all, that's what Neil Armstrong's, albeit botched, remark sought to do. But the gap between Trev's sense of the universal significance of his own life and that of the moonlanding was suspiciously thin.
Yoko Ono pitched in too. Back in 1969, Ono and John Lennon seemed spaced-out as they bedded-in for peace. Of course, the egos required for this caper were of Trev proportions. But PR-ish and attention-seeking as it all undoubtedly was, there was nonetheless a strong connection between their self-indulgent carry-on and the wider politics of the day. Compared with the typically antiseptic pop bores of today, their anti-Vietnam war PR reminded you that there was a vibrancy to popular culture then. It also reminded you that popular music was once anthemic in a way that it has long since ceased to be.
Still, perhaps the most heartening aspect of this documentary was the fact that the brilliant Peter Green of the original Fleetwood Mac is now back on Earth. For a few decades, Green was so far out, as a result of LSD, that re-entry to the community of humanity appeared very unlikely. As his still haunting Albatross played over those awesome pictures of Earth shot from the moon, the effect was that of early multimedia before the word was coined. The conjunction of late 1960s electric blues and those electric images of the floating, blue and white Earth was as trippy as Green in his heyday.
Mind you, there was other stuff back in 1969 too. It wasn't all John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Peter Green. Simon Dee and Clodagh Rodgers were in their pomp too. And George Lazenby was James Bond. A likeable chancer, Lazenby's acting was as wooden as an oak tree and he had the good grace to admit it. Nichelle Nicholls (Lieutenant Uhura in Star Trek) was more philosophical. Nichelle - now there's a name to rival "Clodagh" - did a Trev, comparing Star Trek and her role in it to that of the Apollo 11 lads and their historic trip to the moon. To boldly go to where only Trev had gone before, proved that there is more than one astronomical ego on the planet.
Overall though, Moonshot Spirit of 69 was engaging and evocative. The walking of the first man on the moon provided science and technology, though both have progressed immensely since, with their most resonantly popular moment in the century that is now breathing its last. An estimated 600 million people (more saw this year's European Cup Final, which, you might remember, did NOT feature Manchester City) watched on television. As outside broadcasts go, it was also television's finest moment, even if many people didn't quite believe what they were seeing. It was, ironically, the glorious, cosmic triumph of our own insignificance.
Back in 1969, full-blooded, ideological struggle permeated daily life. Indeed, the space-race between the US and the USSR was a grand expression of such political competition. At more local levels, trades unions and managements clashed frequently. Dockers, co-written by 14 participants and Liverpool screenwriter Jimmy McGovern (Brookside, Cracker, Hillsborough and The Lakes are also among his credits) dramatised the 28-month-long Liverpool docks strike, which began in 1995. It was, at least in part, a eulogy for traditional trade unionism.
Typically McGovern, the thrust of Dock- ers was to portray the effects of an ideological struggle for justice on the personal lives of some of those most closely involved. Turning issues into characters is the trick, of course, and, presumably in the interests of transparency, a documentary, Dockers - Writing The Wrongs, was screened two hours before the drama itself. McGovern got his rookie cowriters to write scenes - only scenes, no lectures on the wider issues - to humanise the strike. In the event, the documentary was a free master-class for aspiring screenwriters.
The core dramatic tension was provided by the conflict between hardliner Tommy (Ken Stott) and his friend Macca (Ricky Tomlinson), who, after early fervour, eventually crosses the picket line. Within the larger context, the drama is a series of betrayals - the militant dockers are betrayed by New Labour, by their own union big-wigs, by their "scab" colleagues, by the media and by the time in which they choose to engage in what they term "class struggle". The fault-lines of the world of, say, 1969, are shown to be no longer clear-cut. Solidarity, we see, is not a prized trait in the era of "because-I'm-worthit" individualism.
Opening with a collage of dockside imagery - cranes, chains, containers - Dockers quickly sets up its lines of tension. It moves on to contain key scenes of confrontation - communal on the picket lines and personalised at a wedding and a funeral. During his master-class, McGovern warned the dockers that he intended to give Macca strong, emotional arguments for turning "scab". He did. At a wedding confrontation with Tommy, Macca explains that he has decided "to look after me own - me wife and family". The speech captures the atomisation of communal life, the shrinking perspective of the individual, brought about by the global victory of capitalism (Thatcherism in a British context) and continued by New Labour.
"Working-class struggle is always sexy to people who have never known it," wails Macca. We know that he's speaking the truth but we also know that, regardless of pressures and context, his actions are undermining his colleagues. The only options, it would appear, are to be a pragmatic scab or a dinosaur with integrity. There were, as you would expect from McGovern, scenes of great power and concentrated dilemma in Dockers. But there was also the fact that we knew the outcome - that the dockers lost the strike, even if they held their self-respect.
Meanwhile, casualisation and longer working hours, sold as freedom, continue apace throughout the world of work. Middle-class tears will fill the next, grave economic depression when people discover that their propaganda-fed sense of self-worth is not shared by those who wield real economic power. In that sense, Dockers was an understated cautionary tale wrapped in a conventional TV drama. Its conclusion, focusing on the regained solidarity of Tommy's stressed family, was as plaintive as it was uplifting. One giant leap back for Liverpool dockers; one small step back for human solidarity.
If Jimmy McGovern provided a screenwriting master-class, Donal McCann was somewhat less forthcoming in providing an acting master-class. Talking to Gerry Stembridge at last year's Galway Film Fleadh, he wasn't so much reluctant to explain, as seemingly uninterested in, analysing his own celebrated technique. He can, of course, be brilliant and perhaps he is wary of attempting to deconstruct his ability, for fear that he might not be able to put it back together again. Still, he is an engrossing talker, partly because he rarely gives interviews but more pointedly because he clearly thinks about what he's saying.
It Must Be Done Right mixed snippets from the Stembridge interview with snippets of stage and screen performances by McCann. Actors, simply because too many of them have full-blown Trevor McDonald egos, seldom make interesting interviewees. But McCann, crucially astute about his current, post-alcohol perspective on his days of alcohol abuse, clearly understands that being a human must always supersede being an actor or an astronaut or a docker or whatever. In that, his on-stage interview was as valuable to his thespian and wannabee thespian audience as any of his celebrated on-stage performances.
Finally, Little Town, Big Circus. Screened in a graveyard slot (6.05 p.m., Sunday, Network 2) this busy, well-paced documentary recalled summer 1998, when the Tour de France peletoned through Enniscorthy, Co Wexford. Narrated by Wexford-born newscaster Anne Doyle, it was essentially a slice of, albeit well-produced and directed, community TV. Doubtless it achieved phenomenal viewing figures around Enniscorthy and doubtless, too, David Curtis - the Irish doctor in charge of drug-testing - will be remembered for his quote: "The riders would be crazy to be on drugs . . . because they'll get caught."
Well, OK, it's not quite in the league of Neil Armstrong's remark and, in fairness, many of the lads on drugs did get caught. But that, of course, was the principal problem with the 1998 Tour. Descending into disgrace, it became an event that most people would rather not remember. Seeing Enniscorthy en fete and appreciating the work which went into making preparations for the great event, there was something poignant about the small-town pride and innocence in the face of the big chemical circus which cycled roughshod into sporting infamy.