Coast

Madman

R4 DVD

Series 1,2 and 3

Coast is a highly celebrated BBC series which began in 2005. It proved such a success that it developed into five series with a sixth currently under production. The series is unusual in that it focuses on the natural, social and cultural history of the coast (and its townships) throughout Britain, Ireland, Norway, the Faeroe Islands and France. The approach is multi-disciplinary covering geography, historical, social issues, science, archaeology, animal life and much more. Each show is an hour and length and offers an array of content to keep viewer interested. It is unusual to have a show which is able to cover a range of different vantage points and bring them together into a coherent package. The sheer breadth of content is astounding and the research team behind this program must be immense.

One of the things that makes Coast work is the range of presenters, each an expert in their own field. These include Nicholas Crane, geography, Alice Roberts, anthropology and geology, Mark Horton, marine archaeology, Miranda Krestovnikoff, zoology and Neil Oliver, archaeology and social history. Other presenters were also used; Dick Strawbridge and Hermione Cockburn became regular presenters in the fourth series. Only the BBC could afford to have such a range of expert presenters in a continuing series.

Nicholas Crane was the presenter in series one but was replaced with Neil Oliver from series two onwards. Oliver has developed into a significant presenter at the BBC. His career began with Two Men in a Trench in 2002 where Oliver and Tony Pollard visited British battlefields and offered high tech recreations of the battles. His unique ability to capture the audience’s imagination while imparting lots of historical information made him an immediate success. He has a down to earth style, dry wit and scruffy appearance. All this moves away from the image of a polished, pompous historian in a tweed suit and towards someone who, while erudite, can talk to the man in the street. He admirably demonstrated this in his commentary throughout A History of Scotland. Two long and complex series, A History of Scotland was made accessible through Oliver’s unique style While some historians argued against the choice of Oliver (he is an archaeologist), ultimately the BBC’s decision to have him present the program proved the right one.

He took over as presenter of Coast in series two and has continued to create a series which mixed together all manner of disciplines from archaeology to zoology, social concerns to geography and history.

Series one started at the White Cliffs of Dover and progressed in a clockwise fashion around the coast of Great Britain (with a side trip to Northern Ireland). Series two started in a similar fashion while the following series extended to other locations including Ireland in series three. Series four started at Whitstable and ended at Hull with trips to Ireland, Normandy and Norway along the way.

It is hard to summarise the episodes of coast but to give you a taste, let’s look at episode five of series three, “Berwick-upon-Tweed to Aberdeen”. We open with a history of the region and learn that in the 13th Century Berwick was a thriving port and this was a time when England and Scotland were constantly at war and both wanted Berwick.

Miranda Krestovnikoff then dives into a spectacular marine reserve off St Abbs with underwater photographer Lawson Wood to explore an amazing array of underwater wildlife.

While Neil Oliver travels up to North Berwick to visit the Bass Rock, once upon a time the site of one of Scotland's most notorious prisons. Getting onto the island is just as difficult as getting off - as Neil Oliver discovers, it takes three attempts through very rough seas.

A fascinating series which offers a very different way to look at the world, highly recommended. I will be interested to see where it goes next!

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