TV review: Garrow's Law: Tales From the Old Bailey | The Human Zoo: Science's Dirty Secret

Published on Sunday 1 November 2009 18:48

Garrow's Law: Tales From the Old Bailey, Sunday, BBC1 The Human Zoo: Science's Dirty Secret, Sunday, Channel 4

I PUT it to you sir!" Who here among us, inspired by roistering courtroom dramas, hasn't dreamed of donning a barrister's wig, rounding on a faltering witness, and yelling these words in the pursuit of justice? Lucky Andrew Buchan, star of ITV's The Fixer, was given plentiful opportunities to do just that in Garrow's Law: Tales From the Old Bailey, a new historical drama about the pioneering 18th-century defence lawyer, William Garrow.

Sunday night period pieces are primarily known for their anaesthetising qualities, so I was pleasantly surprised by a programme that not only kept my interest, but also enlightened me to a pivotal historical figure about whom I hitherto had known nothing.

Against much resistance, Garrow introduced the art of cross-examination for the defence to British courtrooms. As Alun Armstrong, playing our hero's "dear mentor", handily explained, prior to Garrow's intervention lawyers were of about as much use to the defendant as a stuffed olive. They were refused copies of the deposition sworn against their client, weren't allowed to visit them in prison, or to address the jury, or to deliver an opening statement or closing speech in court. Garrow changed all that.

Maverick idealists are a gift for dramatists such as veteran screenwriter Tony Marchant. Like Jimmy McGovern in a powdered wig, he wove a stirring, if occasionally laboured, tale of class prejudice, social injustice and a determined underdog standing up for a noble cause. Buchan, with his kindly oblong face, imbued Garrow with an appealing blend of quiet assurance and barnstorming decency.

Admittedly, although Garrow's cases are based on actual Old Bailey records, the surrounding drama – including a symbolic relationship with a conscientious noblewoman – felt contrived. But nevertheless, this assured courtroom drama successfully embodied those old Reithian demands, to educate, inform and entertain.

Entertainment aside, the same could also be said of The Human Zoo: Science's Dirty Secret. This shocking documentary showed how 19th and early 20th-century western scientists displayed indigenous people from around the world in – for all intents and purposes – freak shows for the edification of gawping audiences. But this wasn't mere entertainment: the move was also intended to prove the innate superiority of the white race.

In 1904, 20 million people swarmed to the St Louis World Fair to see Pygmies such as Ota Benga, whose story illustrated the human price of this sickening phenomenon. According to one historian, the Pygmies believed they were on a diplomatic mission to educate the world about their culture. They were unaware that the exhibition owner was marketing them as exotic savages.

Worse was to come: Benga was later displayed in the monkey enclosure at the Bronx Zoo. Thankfully, this caused public outcry and he was released to an orphanage. Not coincidentally, Bronx Zoo was founded by notorious racist and crackpot anthropologist, Madison Grant. His book of scientific racism was Hitler's Bible; at the Nuremberg trials, the Nazis argued they had only been following American theories. And Benga? Unable to return home, he eventually committed suicide.

This shameful saga of ignorance and exploitation contained one final dispiriting twist. After leading us admiringly through his family archive, the grandson of the man who brought Benga to the United States eventually revealed his own racist beliefs. He is Benga's biographer.