Andrew Marr's History of the World - TV review

It was his third appearance of the day, following the regular Andrew Marr Show first thing on Sunday morning and then his look back at the last four years in America in Obama: What Happened to Hope? With Andrew Marr.

He gets his name in the title every time. And don't forget Mr Marr's new publication, a History of World, out now priced £25 from all good book shops.

While he may look more and more like Gollum as the years go by, Mr Marr is clearly the blue-eyed boy at the BBC, which has pumped a significant chunk of change into his latest pet project. His History of the World has impressive production values, although last night's effort, The Age of Industry, seemed a little light on, well, the industry.

This, he said, was "also the story of those who said no" and it was clear that was where his sympathies lay, whether it was with the Chinese forced at the barrel of a gunboat to accept the importation of the drug opium, or the last Samurai fighting bravely, but vainly, to stem the tide of modernism in 19th century Japan.

No word for the benefits that industrialisation brought, freeing ordinary people from a life tied working the land and instead laying the seeds for a modern Europe where their decendants are better off than at any time in history. There's some shots of Stephenson and his steam engine Locomotion, and talk of the spread of the railways. There's even some credit for Great Britain, where a unique combination of legal rights, the free flow of ideas and our political system created the ideal environment for genius to flourish and profit.

But then, at a breakneck pace, we are off to China, to Russia where the author Tolstoy labours in vain to reform Russia's medieval society, then to America and the Civil War, and off to Japan with barely a pause for breath.

This was a tale of industrial nations forcing their will on the less developed; the most extreme case singled out was the appalling Belgian empire in the Congo, a story of massacre and pillage that horrified even people at the time.

And then we get to the First World War, a direct result of the Industrial Revolution, Mr Marr suggests. The lunatic ambitions of a German Kaiser might have had something to do with it as well, but no time for that.

Instead we get the bizarre and fascinating tale of Arthur Zimmerman, the German foreign minister who sent Lenin to Russia to foment revolution and, inadvertently, brought America into the war.

Andrew Marr sweeps over time like a historical jackdaw, occasionally picking up a shiny tale that catches his eye and then moving on. The sheer pace of the programme allows him to get away with it.

To be frank, this was the kind of programme about the industrial revolution you would expect from a Cambridge English graduate.

As an aside, it would have been nice to get a name-check for Blists Hill Victorian Town and Ironbridge, where many of the shots of Andrew against an industrial background were filmed. But not a sausage, not even in the credits.

Over on Channel 4, however, biker and lorry mechanic Guy Martin provided plenty of meat for the industry-friendly viewer. This mutton-chop whiskered heir to Fred Dibnah was working, or "grafting" in his own words, on the Victorian pier at Llandudno for the latest episode of How Britain Worked. He's an engaging TV presence, clearly loves getting his hands dirty, and knows what he's doing with a spanner.

I know which series I'm tuning into next week.

Simon Penfold