Hi,

Apologies but I still haven't written up a blog about the London Transport Museum visit I mentioned last time round. Instead I went to Bristol and saw the Clifton Suspension Bridge for the first time. It was pretty impressive. I should have that LTM story for you by the next newsletter.

The Pole Who Changed Science on TV

Before Brian Cox. Before Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Before Carl Sagan. Before Robert Winston.

Before any other popularising science presenter you can think of, there was Jacob Bronowski.

Bronowski was the brain and face behind the first big documentary that went deep into history and science, The Ascent of Man, which debuted 50 years ago this week on BBC2. In honour of that anniversary, here are some words about it.

Millions watched the 13-part show, and it's still regularly seen as one of the greatest documentary series of all time. It was in the BFI's top shows of the 20th century, for example.

Even Black Mirror's curmudgeonly Charlie Brooker praises Bronowski in his scathing Screen Wipe show, calling him the archetypal expert TV presenter (while also comparing him to Justin Lee Collins):

A Łódź lad

Bronowski was originally from Łódź. His family moved to Germany and then the UK when he was 12, hence he only just managed to avoid keeping a thick accent (accents tend to be set in stone in our early teens).

He went on to have a varied career in science, and was an expert in bomb damage. He was actually on the MI5 watchlist as a potential communist spy, so was passed over for several projects during the war.

His media career began in 1946 when the BBC interviewed him about the aftermath of Nagasaki. After working on some smaller shows, he became a household name in the mid-1950s when he became one of the regular panel members on a show called The Brains' Trust.

He later moved to the US for a few years, but was coaxed back to the UK when somebody asked him if he'd like to make a new TV show to rival Civilisation. And The Ascent of Man is what he came up with.

Back in my day...

Bronowski isn't the only ever BBC presenter with Polish connections. Other than a few news and weather people, there is a very Polish-sounding TV presenter today who does lots of BBC art docs called Waldemar Januszczak.

But in the 21st century, Januszczak is relegated to BBC Four, which doesn't get many viewers. I'm not entirely sure whether young people even watch terrestrial TV. Now with Netflix and Youtube, who has the time?

But in 1973, there was no Internet video. No cable TV, no satellite channels.

There were only THREE television channels.

If you wanted to mindlessly stare at a screen, as we all love to do, you had to pick from BBC1, ITV, or that crazy new colour channel BBC2.

It's hard to fathom now when we all have screens in our pockets. That's probably one of the reasons Bronowski's show was so popular. It also might explain why his accompanying book based on the show was a bestseller (it still gets reprints now and then) - back then, people even read entire books for leisure.

Also difficult to imagine these days, Bronowski worked without a script and mostly improvised what he wanted to say. It seems he had rehearsed and written everything in his mind beforehand, and somehow came onto set speaking eloquently and wisely. This is an intellectual feat that few of us could attempt today because we so dumb have smart phones.

Putting some colour in your cheeks

In fact, things were so basic back then, one of the initial inspirations behind the show was to simply make an epic TV show in colour. That was the premise of the much-loved David Attenborough, who was actually head of BBC2 at the time.

My father Marek was one of the many millions who enjoyed the show too. Although, he watched the whole thing in no-frills black and white. Here's what my mother Maria recalls about it:

"Yes, we never had a colour one. I bought a colour television only after Marek died. I don't remember him ever wanting colour. He only wanted to watch the news and his favourite programme, Patrick Moore after Newsnight on BBC2, The Sky at Night. Those two and Bronowski. He really was a fan of them both. But that was it, no other TV."

You can watch the whole of The Ascent of Man on YouTube nowadays (it's not on iPlayer unfortunately) or similar unofficial sites. And yes, it is in colour.

The most famous scene from the show is in the 11th episode where Bronowski visits Auschwitz, the concentration camp where his own relatives were among the many who were murdered.

Apparently, it was another scene where he spoke without a script, having simply collected his thoughts as the crew walked around the camp filming b-roll:

The hugely popular interview show Parkinson later released an interview with Bronowski, which included his stories about moving to the UK not knowing any English. It also included a further discussion about Auschwitz.

Reflecting on his 30-year career later on, and having interviewed over 2000 celebrities, Michael Parkinson said his Bronowski interview was his favourite out of all of them. Not Rod Hull and Emu, as many of us would have assumed.

Sadly, Bronowski passed away in August 1974, just a year after the documentary came out. He didn't live to see it released in the US where it helped pave the way for the influential 1980 Carl Sagan show Cosmos (the next big project from the same producers). And he certainly didn't live to see the long line of all the other science popularisers influenced by him either.

Exhibition of the week

I learnt today that two photographs featuring the book I co-wrote are in an exhibition in Gorlice in southern Poland. They're part of Książki i Ludzie (Books & People) by photographer Barbara Dorrell, and fittingly on show in the city's library.

The top-right photo in the photo below shows illustrator Magda Burdzyńska signing copies of our book in London:

You can read about the exhibition (if you read Polish) and see more photos here. It's on until June 30th. Gorlice is a beautiful town in a picturesque part of Poland, and always worth a visit.

Personally, it's just nice to know that Quarks, Elephants & Pierogi continues to travel as an exhibition one way or another - my colleagues from the book are hoping to take its official travelling exhibition to a few more places, but nothing is definite at the moment.

That's it for this week. Thanks for reading. You read this on phone? Put phone down, outside good.

Adam

Adam Zulawski

TranslatingMarek.com / Other stuff

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