On the Box: Susan Boyle - 2 Weeks That Shook Showbusiness | Martin Clunes: Islands of Britain

IN RAIN-LASHED, pebble-dashed Blackburn, West Lothian, a wee wummin tried to encapsulate the moment: "There's a right furoo about it, intit?" For a moment, I wondered what she meant. But then I understood: the Susan Boyle phenomenon is more than a "furore" and it's more than a "hullabaloo". It's a mixture of both and only one word will suffice: furoo.

Susan Boyle – 2 Weeks That Shook Showbusiness gave the STV continuity announcer a rare chance to utter the immortal words: "And now, in a change to the published programme…" The tartan station doesn't boot many shows off the schedules, but such is the sheer elemental power of the bigger-than-Obama Boyle furoo that this half-hour documentary could not be denied its plum slot, sandwiched between episodes of Corrie.

The Boyle furoo is a big slavering beastie, chewing up newsprint and spitting out headlines of war-declared dimensions. I imagine the producers waited until the last moment before delivering their programme for transmission to ensure new developments were included. Even so, it missed the following day's splash story: "Susan's Pal In Drugs Swoop". And "Susan's Fit To Burst", the dramatic revelation of how she'd gone out in an ill-fitting blouse – no, really – broke too late as well.

This was by no means a definitive study. There was no new interview with the singing sensation from Britain's Got Talent and some key questions went unanswered, such as: did Simon Cowell, he of the astonished left eyebrow, really have no inkling beforehand about her belting voice? It would have been interesting to have met the "The 1.24 Girl". This is the audience member who's seen – at 1 minute and 24 seconds into the web-busting YouTube clip – to pull an anguished face in response to the pre-madeover Susan speaking of her dream of duetting with Elaine Paige, an action which has resulted in the lass being demonised the world over. But for what it was, 2 Weeks That Shook Showbusiness was still pretty good.

We got the thoughts of various media talking heids and, although they struggled to improve on furoo as a description, these were informative – as much about the media as anything else. The editor of one of our small, funny papers recalled his first glimpse of "this dowdy West Lothian woman" and how his staff gathered round a TV for a sneak peak at Susan's audition and enjoyed a "good old giggle". By the way, I know this ed from journalism college. Back then he was a chubby lad – rubbish at football, too.

In the programme's voiceover, Susan was described as "tabloid gold and genuine front-page news". We saw front pages being made up, and sure enough, there was Susan, although at my old chum's paper she had to share pride of place with "Hampden Swine Flu Alert", while at the office of his bitter rival in the shock-horror stakes she didn't quite manage to relegate some dirt about the Bay City Rollers to the inside.

Remember them? Furoos were a bit more straightforward when the Rollers ruled the hit parade. Stuart Cosgrove said reaction to Susan's performance had spread "like a viral contagion". Thanks to the net, she'd even reached Demi Moore's inbox, reducing the Hollywood star to tears (this has been my reaction to all of Moore's films; apart from Striptease, obviously). "It's been one of the most bizarre media phenomena I've ever witnessed," added Cosgrove, and Michelle McManus was able to remember where she was when it all started: backstage in Liverpool, fixing false eyelashes. Each generation, you see, needs its own "JFK moment".

Back in Blackburn, a teenage girl told how she cried when she heard Susan sing – "and my whole hair stood up on my skin". This made me think of West Lothian's previous claim to fame as a good place to spot UFOs: maybe one of them actually landed, offloading werewolves. Older women, dressed in rain-macs and fleeces, said they always knew she had talent – now, thanks to 100 million web hits, everyone does.

The entire village seems to have been interviewed for their favourite Susan anecdote, with the furoo wifie revealing: "My brother – he plays the piano – it was the CNN who were at him last week, aye." Then, as if to prove she wasn't fibbing, she ran her hands along an imaginary keyboard. Some enterprising channel should commission Blackburn's Got Talent right away.

There are different kinds of fame in Scotland. Few question Susan Boyle's but some wonder about Ian Rankin's and many more actively dispute Jack Vettriano's. Both are extremely popular, but the former's crime thrillers have never won the Booker Prize and the latter's paintings have never been displayed in the National Gallery. So When Ian Rankin Met Jack Vettriano brought them together to discuss Fife mining backgrounds, success, a mutual interest in the sleazy underbelly – and, of course, critical snobbery.

This was a nice idea (from BBC Scotland's Artworks) which didn't quite produce the stunning character insight we might have hoped, though Vettriano admitted to feelings of "shame" when early work, produced with what were then limited skills, comes up for auction, while Rankin confessed to never being satisfied: "Each book I publish is yet another small failure."

They trawled nocturnal Edinburgh, an inspiration to both, and nipped into the Cafe Royal for a drink. A few pints later, Rankin declared: "You've got to admit, we've done all right." Vettriano – who'd stuck to coffee – wanted to talk some more about sex, love, lying and cheating. At last here was the Hyde to Rankin's Jekyll, minute secretary of this mutual admiration society, but unfortunately the cameras were about to stop running.

Journalists rarely get to do travelogues any more – you have to be a comedian. A funny face or, in Martin Clunes' case, a set of funny ears. In Islands Of Britain he struggled to find words other than "unique" to describe Unst, Forvick and Muckle Flugga and the Scottish dots on the map. Maybe someone else was responsible for the "script", but coming so soon after that wonderful Alan Whicker retrospective, this was bound to suffer in comparison.

On the Box: Susan Boyle - 2 Weeks That Shook Showbusiness | Martin Clunes: Islands of Britain | When Ian Rankin Met Jack Vettriano