Inside the Commons review: ‘Cockerell records it all with a mischievous eye’

Michael Cockerell is in da house. The lower one, making Inside the Commons (BBC2). Right inside, actually filming in the chamber, during PMQs. I know there are television cameras there already, but they are unmanned and fixed, and they show only what the Commons wants to show of itself. Michael is pointing his where he likes, and not everyone’s happy about it, to the extent that he actually becomes the subject of a Q.

“Will you find a safe place for this camera crew so he can film without getting in our way?” asks a furious-looking Bill Wiggins MP (Con). The Speaker quite rightly sees no issues with either safety or obstruction and Cockerell is allowed to continue filming.

Filming Bill Wiggins being furious, for one. And filming the ridiculousness of many of the Qs the PM is asked, certainly the ones from his side. The PM asks himself Qs basically; well, via his parliamentary private secretary who sends round an email beforehand suggesting some helpful questions. Along the lines of: does the prime minister agree that he is – and we are – doing an absolutely brilliant job, especially with the LONG TERM ECONOMIC PLAN ... and, ooops, I’ve actually disappeared up the PM’s A-R-S-E. (Yes Stephen McPartland and Andrew Selous, I am looking at you, disappearing, up there.)

“It’s pathetic,” says Charles Kennedy (remember?). The PM unsurprisingly disagrees. “Politics is about the team putting over a team message,” he says. And the blue team message is LONG TERM ECONOMIC PLAN.

He – Cameron – is less camera shy than Wiggins. Interviewed by Cockerell, he is quite open, tells him about “the total fear and trepidation” he feels every Wednesday. No one looks forward to it, says Ed Miliband, who also takes part in the film.

Loads of them do. Sarah Champion and Charlotte Leslie, greener (in experience, not politically – they’re red and blue respectively), to show what it’s like to be more modern and more female (well they are actual women) in a stuffy, old-school, male environment. Nicholas Soames to show what it’s like to be a stuffy, old-school male in a stuffy, old-school male environment. And Kennedy, for a splash of yellow, and to show us round the members’ cloakroom. The pink ribbons are to hang your sword from, apparently.

It’s not just about the MPs and PMs and wannabe PMs and PMQs. It’s also about Gladys Dickson who runs the tearoom (“just the most adorable woman,” says Soames, and you wonder if the adoration is reciprocated). And about Robin Fell who has been doorkeeper since about 1837. And about Sir Robert Rogers, clerk of the commons at time of filming, which is much more important than it sounds, as he’s keen to point out. He’s also eager to point out, not entirely convincingly, that he’s a thoroughly modern man and just because he wears 18th-century clothes doesn’t mean he’s got an 18th-century mind. We see Sir Robert taking a snort of snuff on the way in to work. “My goodness, that’s invigorating,” he declares. How thoroughly modern. Well, I think it’s snuff.

And it’s about the ancient codes and customs, 18th-century and earlier – the prayers that are more about seat reservations than God, the banging and knocking, the bobbing, the jeering, the hear hearing. And it’s about the building itself – those cloakrooms and tearooms, the miles and miles of corridors, the tower with the famous clock. It is, like everything that goes on inside, a gothic absurdity, monstrous and magnificent, falling apart but also sort of holding the country together, the centre of everything. “Half like a museum, half like a church, half like a school,” says Dave (the PM). Well, your school, maybe … Hang on though, half and half and half … doesn’t that make quite a lot more than a whole? Suddenly, if it’s based on maths like that, the old LONG TERM ECONOMIC PLAN isn’t looking so secure.

Cockerell records it all impartially and fairly, I think, but also with humour and a mischievous eye. I enjoyed the parliamentary sniffer dogs with “the eyes to the right and the nose to the floor”. And after the mention of a bar (as in a place where you drink) immediately cutting to Charles Kennedy. Coincidence? I don’t think so. It looks like it was fun to make and that translates to the viewing experience.

Just one small moan: the plinky-plonky comedy score, for the sniffer dogs, for example: the sort of music you find on a certain kind of observational documentary, to show when it’s supposed to be amusing. It’s not just unnecessary, it’s annoying, and this should be above that. Otherwise it’s irresistible, and I’m very much looking forward to three more sittings. Hear hear.