If television is meritocratic, where does that leave the aristocracy? Acting up, that's where, says AA Gill

In Tristram's Revised Almanac of Television Characters and Scenarios in Great Britain and Ireland (the bible for the broadcasting professional and pedant), the entry under Aristocrat reads: "Comic character once ubiquitous, now rare. Invariably used to elicit sniggers, giggles and light nostalgia. Treat with extreme patronage and, whenever possible, show silly walk in middle-distance. Dress: tweed, silk, leather and decorations, often hat of indeterminate shape and texture. Habitat: kennels, stables, dry rot, dust covers and decay; occasionally blinking uncomfortably in studio. Call: a strang-ulated 'whaa-whaa' and confused 'eaugh-eaugh' when disturbed." 

It is a law of physics that no aristocrat can look like a normal human being on television. Something mysterious happens to them in the process between the director shouting "Cut" and the continuity announcer saying, "Now here's the Earl of Spoonbill and Ongar to talk about his remarkable family and that glorious summer before the great war started ­ again." Which is odd, because if you ever stumble across a real duke or marchioness in, say, a vet's waiting room or at a second-hand car auction, you're always amazed at how frightfully ordinary they are. What an unremarkable little man, you think, even of the women. By its very nature, the television set is meritocratic. But when titled folk swim onto its pixels, they are anachronisms, voices from a museum. However hard it tries, television can't get behind its smirking amusement at the ventriloquist's consonants and startled bushbaby faces. 

I don't think there has ever been a fictional television aristocrat who has been anything more than a comic or pathetic turn. Even Brideshead, which as a book was an uninterrupted paean to privilege, was, by the time it got to the screen, populated with deformed, weak, stupid and congenitally doomed titled folk. And this was rather the starting point for The Aristocracy (Wednesday, BBC2), a four-part look at inherited country folk. 

It began with the received assumption that the story of the aristocracy was a slow tragedy, and it cantered in a pedestrian manner (can you canter in a pedestrian manner?), pointing out dates, facts and light information of interest over film and stills of absurdly corseted and coiffed folk, in the manner of an ancient butler guiding you round a stately home. Punctuating the worthy monologue were interviews with living fossils. These creatures were so extraordinary and riveting that they completely overturned the National Trust script. I kept saying: "No, no, go back to that absurd specimen who has obviously swallowed a hunting horn full of horseradish. I want to listen to those old biddies who have their hair done by a taxidermist. Forget the boring old Reform Act of 18-twiddly-something, give us back the Duke of Devonshire!" 

In the end, the programme gave up any attempt at dry socio-political investigation and just wallowed in anecdotage and near-certifiable gentility. "How can people like that be let out unaccompanied in the 20th century?" my companion on the sofa gasped in awe. But they are not all they seem, dearest. Never underestimate a nob. They've survived 1,000 years by adapting, and that's what they're doing now: they're barking on purpose, mumming for the entranced camera. The aristocracy has seen as much television as you or I, they know what's expected of them. They're turning in the performance of their lives, literally. Generations of playing charades to keep warm has meant they are the finest light thespians in the world. Now that they can no longer afford to rule over rural Britain from great houses, they'll adapt and rule as lovable fools and idiots from your living room, over the balmy land where it is always the golden summer before the great war again. 

It's all the Queen's fault, of course. She started the whole thing by getting crowned on television and putting a box in every home in the land. Her younger sister was the subject of the ever-infuriating Secret Lives (Tuesday, C4). It was impossible to feel any pity for Margaret as she was pilloried. She is, among all the royals, uniquely and utterly unlovable. While the rest of her family have made a dash for middle-classlessness in an attempt to become relevant and accessible, Maggie has remained a prickly, snobbish, inconsistent fag hag, growing ever more bitter and bizarre, like a regal Miss Havisham. 

The programme started with her gloriously ungracious letter to the Duchess of York, in which she fumed about bringing shame to the family. This, it was pointed out, was ocean-going hypocrisy. It was Margaret who gave us the first royal divorce of the telly age, the first royal sexual indiscretion with, of all people, a Welshman and wannabe popstar toy boy. She is the dumpy Windsor version of Paula Yates. Both have a taste for tiaras. 

It's an old saw that television has invented a new aristocracy; people we want to lead us in matters of taste, protocol, manners and decency. Melvyn Bragg is our electronic Princess Margaret ­ well, what she might have been if she hadn't been born the wrong side of the middle class. Bragg is the chap most ladies of a certain age would most like to be locked in a Claes Oldenburg exhibition with. What he was doing wandering around Wigton talking about America, looking like the back page of an Aquascutum catalogue, heaven alone knows. This two-part special, Bragg on America (Sunday, ITV), was special only in the sense that it bellowed an unusually big Why? in the mind of the viewer, and answers came there none. 

The other, smaller question it raised was: Why does Bragg reduce himself to doorman at the Harvey Nichols of culture, the South Bank Show? His real strength is in front of the camera. He is the most natural, relaxed and effortlessly understandable presenter, with a knack for making polished and cogent thoughts appear fresh and spontaneous. The ramble around the idea of America reeked of lazy wing-and-a-prayerism, and the fact is that there is no Tristram brave or senior enough to tell him he's lost the plot. 

Whenever anyone talks about Joseph Conrad, they always say with deep awe that he taught himself English so that he could write. Well, I'm sorry, what's so great about that? I taught myself English so that I could write, and nobody says: "Oo-er, that Gill learnt all that language so he could brighten up my Sundays." And it was the first language I ever tried. Conrad had already had a practice go on German. Anyway, Nostromo (Saturday, BBC2), crazy name, crazy guy. The most unreadable of all Conrads and utterly unfilmable. Television adaptations have become a sort of macho weightlifting contest. "What's that you're doing? Anne of Green Gables? Wimp, anyone can do Anne of Green Gables. Bet you can't do Nos-tromo." "Oooooh, bet I can." "Can't." "Can." "Go on then." "Well, I will." "In Colombia." "You never said Colombia." "Yes, and with an international cast, and Italian music." "Okay then. I will, you just see if I don't." 

Has the BBC pulled it off? First the good news: Colombia. Colombia was inspired casting. After yards of honey-coloured stone and rolling Cotswolds, it was a breath of fetid air. It looked ravishing, amazing mountains, terrific steamy Spanish frontages. And Serena Scott Thomas. Again, ravishing, amazing mountains and steamy English frontage. And finally the crowd scenes, directed with gusto, panache and élan and 1,000 other Spanish-sounding extras. 

Now the bad news. The early shot of a mine brought an uncomfortable déjà vu ­ oh no, it's Rhodes all over again. But it wasn't. Where Rhodes had too much to do and too little time to do it in, Nostromo has far too little and far too much. The plot is very, very slow, and unfortunately not propelled any faster by the acting. There is no acting. There are loads of actors, but no actual acting. Every so often Albert Finney does his Albert Finney impersonation but gives up at the sight of Serena Scott Thomas, ravishing, etc. I think the problem is the international nature of this pan-global co-production. Everything is going to have to be dubbed into more languages than Conrad wrote in. So they can't say very much on camera. And the motivation is left wanting. Colin Firth's is utterly opaque and probably buried somewhere under the silver. The last bit of bad news is the Italian music, which is about as hysterically Italian as it gets. 

A late PS: good news, the best. None of this is written by Jane Austen, so it doesn't have a single aristocrat in it. And, as yet, no dancing. Keep your fingers crossed. 
 

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