From Goya to Bean
UK television viewers on the first Saturday evening in March will
be able to combine uniquely two cultural ‘must sees’.
In the first case, BBC2 is hosting BBC4 (Digital)’s launch
evening schedule, fronted up by Bob Hughe’s deeply personal
‘Goya Crazy like a Genius’: this assessment of Goya is
both insightful and raunchy. For female viewers who take offence
to the undeniable chauvinism of the celebrated commentator (and
survivor of a cataclysmic car accident and subsequent Goyaesque
dreams) it was possible to switch across channels on ‘ole steam
TV’ and pick up on Rowan Atkinson’s crazier and almost
a genius, ‘Mr Bean’ (ITV) at a suitable midpoint interval,
in Mel Smith’s ‘Bean’. Cut from anguished scenes
with Hughes in the Prado, (‘prefer it if there was a bit more
pink on the right nipple’) to Curator Bean’s mishap with
Whistler’s mother, as ‘delivered’ to (what appears
to be) the Getty Museum, Los Angeles. Bean skilfully replaces the
original painting which he has damaged irreparably in hanging with
a skilfully patinated poster as forgery (and as have other forgers)
gets away with it, avoiding apprehension by the Getty, the law and
transfer in hood and chains to a penitentiary in the process. Bean,
a genius of a curator, like crazy too, perhaps succeeds in luring
art viewers more. The preview of both filmic ventures suggests that
ITV will have secured the higher ratings by this cunning juxtaposition
of Bean. But, you gotta switch over midway to get it in time.
