Unreported World customarily contains more human misery per square minute than any other programme. This documentary is no different
Unreported World customarily contains more information and human misery per square minute than any other programme on TV, and last night's half-hour documentary by Jenny Kleeman, Sex, Lies and Black Magic, was no exception.
It examined the effective mental enslavement that prefaces the forthcoming physical servitude of women trafficked from Nigeria to Europe.
They participate in a juju ritual in which the priest takes possession of part of their souls. They must swear to the invisible spirits that can protect and destroy at whim that they will be loyal to their sponsor (the pimp who is helping organise their journey into 70-punter-a-week hell) so that they and their families will not be sent sickness, madness and death.
It makes you want to weep with horror and frustration. Vivian, who is 23, hopes that she will only have to work as a prostitute when she first arrives: "I know how to plait hair and do lots of things." Kleeman tries to persuade her to stay in Nigeria, but magic, poverty and the need to provide for her younger siblings have all cast their own spells. "I've made up my mind that I go there," she says gently. "And I must go."
At the other end of the televisual spectrum last night sat Baboons with Bill Bailey – a thin, uninformative half hour about three troupes of the primates living on the Cape Peninsula, interspersed with shots of Bailey gurning at the camera.
We watched one of the troupes steal some tourists' picnics. There was a bit of a show fight between the alpha male of another and one of its females. The third troupe contained a female who had a broken leg but was taken care of by the leading male. We saw her limping.
It felt like a teatime treat for children. Bailey's narration was soporific – his dry delivery suits drollery and, as there was none here, it remained simply flat and unaffecting. There are five more episodes of this. I don't know how. Or why.