Switching to the iPlayer app on the telly I was delighted to find Jonathan Meades’ face glooming out at me, and even more astonished to find it at the top of the recommended list. It’s been a while, it seems, and it’s good to have him back.
The new series is about France and plays a fragmented game, appearing to be an assortment of observations picked at random from his “arbitrary encyclopedia” but actually weaving a sly narrative about national identity. It’s both loving – Meades reflects on his personal lifelong relationship with France as his “second country” – and bitingly critical, admiring and pitying France in equal measures.
It is, in short, a delight. And there are two more to come.
Here’s a nice review in The Independent which, I confess, informed this post a fair bit.
