Express & Star

TV review: The Flying Archaeologist

I went on a school trip to Wroxeter Roman City many moons ago. It was – and I'll probably get a fatwa from archaeologists for typing this – a bit of a let-down.

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There was a wall, which was once a bath house, and I distinctly remember another, smaller bit of a wall, and I think that was pretty much it.

Walls.

Well, bits of walls at any rate – not much to show for what was once the fourth most important Roman city in Britain and home to 5,000 people.

It's not like when I visited Pompeii (ooh, hark at me), which was frozen in time one morning in AD79.

Wroxeter was buried by time, and trying to picture its past is no easy task. (Secretly I've always wanted to turn up with a spade, just to see what's there, but I presume English Heritage would – quite rightly – shoot me on sight.)

Apparently getting a picture of these sites is much easier from the air, as BBC4's The Flying Archaeologist demonstrated.

Although the title made it sound like the forgotten action series Roger Moore made in between The Saint and The Persuaders, this was an occasionally educational programme in which a very enthusiastic chap called Ben Robinson flew enthusiastically around Norfolk showing – with no lack of enthusiasm – how crops revealed the outlines of ancient buildings that cannot be seen while on the ground.

He flew over these sites, pointed out what was there, solved a couple of murders and bedded Svetlana the Russian agent.

No, sorry, that was Roger Moore.

Ben simply flew over the sites, pointed out what was there and asked questions about what he was seeing, which – annoyingly – he didn't always answer.

He visited the former Roman town of Venta Icenorum. From the ground it's a field, but a picture taken from above in 1928 clearly revealed the outline of streets and buildings.

The next year archaeologists moved in for one of the biggest digs of the century, but we were told that this never answered a question which is still puzzling historians: why the town failed when the Romans left.

And it's still puzzling me today because the The Flying Archaeologist didn't really give an answer.

"I'm trying not to get carried away," enthused Ben, in an enthusiastic sort of way.

"It does look as if we have got an Anglo Saxon building here.

"If we have got one it will be a really important discovery."

But – and unless I'm being thick (which, let's face it, is a distinct possibility) – he didn't really explain why.

Instead, perhaps fearing viewers' brains would atrophy if he devoted more than a few minutes to one subject, The Flying Archaeologist flew off to look at something else.

Afterwards he returned to the dig and, yes, the evidence showed that there had been a number of settlements at the site after the Romans went home. But I still didn't really understand why that was so important.

Or why everybody left.

If the flying archaeologist had devoted more time to this one subject he'd have made a stronger programme.

And failing that, solving a couple of murders wouldn't have hurt.

Meanwhile, there was more archaeology on ITV at 9pm when a crack team which had spent months scraping the earth off a style of sitcom production last seen in George and Mildred, showed off the fruits of its labours in the second episode of ITV's queenie sitcom Vicious.

There were a few decent lines, but I imagine future historians who dig this series up will probably decide to leave it where they found it.

Andrew Owen

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