Wikipedia
Empire is a 2012 BBC and Open University co-production, written and presented by Jeremy Paxman, charting the rise of the British Empire from the trading companies of India to the rule over a quarter of the world's population and its legacy in the modern world
Episode three: Playing the Game
Paxman traces the growth of a peculiarly British type of hero - adventurer, gentleman, amateur, sportsman and decent chap, and the British obsession with sport. He travels to East Africa, following the paths of Victorian explorers searching for the source of the Nile; to Khartoum in Sudan to tell the story of General Gordon; to Hong Kong, where the British indulged their passion for horse racing by building a spectacular race course; and to Jamaica, where the greatest imperial game of all, cricket, became a battleground for racial equality when the West Indies white captain was replaced by a black man.
Reception
The series was criticised by some for its handling of controversial material while trying to avoid offense to numerous stakeholders and audiences. Associate editor of The Guardian, Michael White, said that "the structure of the programme was ramshackle" and he found the narrative to be "episodic and superficial". He said that Paxman "was diffident charm itself", as opposed to treating "the former subjects of empire with his customary ... abrasiveness". While White also found "the photography pretty as always", he concluded that "the overall effect was curiously patronising, serving to reinforce the impression that the great man was basically on a jolly and going through the motions".[2]
Stuart Jeffries, also for The Guardian, offered similar views, concluding that "Jeremy Paxman fails to argue strongly enough". Nick Wood, for the Daily Mail, stated that Paxman's approach was "all too predictably straight out of the cultural commissar's lecture notes", calling the series "cartoon propaganda"; Wood concluded that it "may be Mr Paxman, cowed like those poor dupes in 1897, was merely issuing a coded cry for help, hoping that a latter-day viceroy like the imperious Curzon, might free him from the mental chains of the Beeb's script writers
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