Paul Burrell: What Really Happened (C4)

Watching a Jaques Peretti programme is always taking a gamble with your valuable viewing time, principally because he seems to have attended the Dawn Porter School of Investigative Journalism. “You mean, Jacques Peretti sucked wall-to-wall cock to fill the gaping void where talent should be?” you cry. No, no, not that, I was referring to Dawn Porter-style research methods.

Peretti has been touted as ‘Channel 4’s answer to Louis Theroux’ but it’s difficult to discern any connection between the two, other than that they both have heads and facial features. Where Theroux uses a tried-and-tested method of faking naivete to lure subjects into a position of trust, Peretti simply is naïve, creating programmes that are essentially a clumsy rehashing of Wikipedia pages and tabloid stories that are already widely available to anyone with a functioning broadband connection.

There’s a strong degree of ambiguity in the series’ title. The ‘what really happened’ part announces itself authoritatively, offering an insight into the dark underbelly of a story that we, the ignorant viewer, can’t possibly see. Instead, the show’s title is more consistent with Peretti driving around aimlessly and repeating “What really happened…what REALLY happened?”, while never actually managing to answer his own burning hypotheses.

Placing Peretti’s complete incompetence aside, watching anything featuring Paul Burrell is invariably brilliant train-wreck TV. Public revulsion of him appears to stem from the fact that he is the concentrated incarnation of every middle-Englander that displays a disarmingly servile admiration for the Royal family. You know the type: they’re the same people that buy commemorative Diana plates that sing Elton John tunes at the touch of a button. And they’re responsible for every Christmas number 1 that Cliff Richard’s ever had.

Unfortunately, it still all comes back to whether the programme sheds any new light on the question of “Why is Paul Burrell completely mental?”

With a line of enquiry as inane as “who would play Paul in the film of his life?” it’s unlikely that we’ll ever find out, though the viewing of this programme does serve as a valuable reminder of Burrell’s weirdness.