In my ongoing campaign against the past, I’ve weighed up the evidence – extracted largely from those who still suffer chocolate and sunrise orange swirly carpet-related flashbacks – and concluded that it was shit. “Give me frappuccinos, an MI5 officer laughing at my Candy Crush Saga score on state-surveilled technology and the abject lack of any worthwhile future, or give me something else, I dunno,” is my attitude. Nostalgiaphiles, meanwhile, might want to take a break from rewiring their Dansettes or springing boners at CCCP hoodies (ordered online and hastily printed in China) and tune into Hasselhoff Vs The Berlin Wall (Tue, 9pm, National Geographic) for a wake-up call on how miserable their beloved past actually was.
Take for instance David Hasselhoff’s 1989 hit Looking For Freedom. It was a dreadful song. But it also brought together a fractured nation, promoted Mr Hoff – with his illuminated leather jacket and walnut patina – to a symbol of all the west had to offer and now, 25 years later, provides the mercilessly frequent music accompaniment to this one-(H)off documentary commemorating the fall of the Berlin Wall.
David Hasselhoff’s relationship with the Wall ranges not only from singing on it as it was being disassembled, but also passing near it while it was still standing. “I think the communist guards knew who I was but were too repressed to say anything,” David confides as he reflects on his defining role in history. “They were afraid to smile.” As well as David Hasselhoff cogitating next to memorials, David Hasselhoff looking horrified by a Trabant and David Hasselhoff walking through computer-generated death zones, David Hasselhoff also introduces East German refugees who, it could be argued, versus-ed the Wall in even bigger ways than him. Chiefly by escaping under, over and through it.
I can’t subscribe to the biz of honouring faded celebrities with the title of legendary simply because they’re naff, but blow me down if this entire Hoff operation isn’t an hour of enjoyable fact-based candyfloss, with David proving to be an unexpectedly watchable documentarian. I’ve never seen Simon Schama take a break from the history lesson to enact imaginary gunfights, punctuated by pew-pew-pews and dramatic stage whispers of “Get down!”. At least not with the gusto David displays as one successful escapee talks him through his father Hans Weigner’s breakout in a homemade armoured van. David is so moved he bursts into impassioned song. “Yes,” agrees Herr Weigner awkwardly, “he was looking for freedom.”
Berliners seem delighted by David, embracing him like lost family and dreamily gushing about how he opened frontiers and minds with his song. “In East Germany this was our hymn,” says one man. Things really must have been bad. We can all be uplifted by the unifying force of music, but nothing will match the depths to which humanity’s capacity to enjoy absolutely terrible scheiße can reach.
In related eff-the-past dispatches: Toast Of London (Mon, 10.35pm, Channel 4). If you missed the first series, Matt Berry is retro lothario and thesp Steven Toast. Berry is so perfect for the role it’s the only one he ever plays, so fans will be familiar with all the 70s signifiers and heavy-handed comedy sexism. “That’s Lola,” explains Toast’s Mrs P (Tracy-Ann Oberman) from bed, preparing Toast for the prostitute and celebrity blow-football tournament, “She is a really nice prostitute. Paige. She’s a great prostitute. Ruby – one of the best prostitutes around.”
Hmm, yes. Excuse me while I wring out my pro-lib hankie all over the pages of The Guardian but I find it hard to appreciate the clever touches and inherent humour of comedy shagging when it’s underpinned by a sense of glee at having a vehicle for a XXL load of problematic trash. Call me hysterical but I just feel Tracy-Ann Oberman deserves better than getting rogered while Matt Berry pulls comedy “O” faces behind her.
