In this hour-long documentary, Oxford academic Janina Ramirez tours the country in search of Anglo-Saxon art treasures. Her basic thesis - and it is a plausible one - is that we should not look upon their era as a "dark age" as compared, for example, to Roman times, but rather celebrate it as an age in which creativity flowered, especially in terms of artistic design as well as symbolism. She shows plenty of good examples, ranging from the Franks Casket to the Staffordshire Hoard, and the Lindisfarne Gospels.
Despite her obvious enthusiasm for the topic, the program remains rather unsatisfying. Partly this is due to lack of structure: Ramirez moves from treasure to treasure, without actually pointing out any particular links between them (other than the prevalence of familiar symbols). It would have been good to have had more sense of historical context; how the Anglo-Sacon era evolved both culturally and artistically, and how such developments changed the ways in which designs and symbols were used on weapons, religious and secular materials. Nor do we get a clear picture of how Christianity came to Britain, and how (and whether) it had a particular influence over the way in which the Anglo-Saxons used their symbols. Perhaps more explanation and fewer treasures might have been useful.
The script - uncredited but perhaps written by Ramirez herself - contains a fair share of howlers. At one point she refers to someone lying "prostate" on the ground, rather than "prostrate" (the image is a fascinating one). On another occasion she describes a design as both "naturalistic and realistic" (isn't there an important distinction between the two terms, especially for contemporary audiences acquainted with Modernism?); and, perhaps best of all, she describes how a swirl on a design "moves the eye." Perhaps some more attentive work by the producers might have worked here.
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