Last updated 11:24, Monday, 27 October 2008

Reiver has been enjoying the new BBC series Stephen Fry in America. An hour in Fry’s company is always a pleasure and in this programme he visits all 50 US states, in a London black cab, for reasons which I have so far failed to grasp.

Can you take my picture? Melvyn Bragg in Travels in Written Britten

Watching the series brought to mind another recent travelogue featuring a much-loved Brit – Melvyn Bragg’s Travels Around Written Britain.

But while watching Stephen Fry in America, I couldn’t help feeling that our Melvyn has been short-changed.

Fry has spectacular aerial views of oceans, valleys and skyscrapers, maps charting his progress across the country like those from the Indiana Jones films, and a variety of camera angles which bring his adventures to life.

Melvyn, on the other hand, had the ITV treatment.

Over the years Melvyn and his team have battled heroically to keep the arts alive on ITV on a budget which would struggle to meet Stephen Fry’s comfy pullover and sensible shoes bill.

Melvyn travelled Britain telling fascinating stories about the nation’s writers but this viewer struggled to shed the impression that he was travelling alone, with a single camera which he switched on, pointed at the horizon, then scuttled in front of to deliver his thoughts. I was half expecting him to plead to the viewers: “Scuse me guv, have you got 10p for a bit of aerial photography?”

It would be nice to think that a lack of frills would not detract from the overall experience, but when the medium is largely visual it inevitably does.

It is difficult to escape the conclusion that ITV’s lack of arts spending is a symptom of its general malaise.

The threat to Border has brought home to this part of the world the channel’s disregard for the viewing public. Never mind the quality, feel the thrift.

Of course, the BBC’s lavish productions are a lot easier to finance when the corporation is handed fistfuls of money by the licence payer.

That’s little consolation to Melvyn. Look out for his next series: Melvyn Bragg’s Travels Around His Office, And Maybe The Street Outside If We Can Stretch The Cable That Far.