Witness to Yesterday

A local television station ran this show late, late on a weekend night. I think one night my sister watched with me, but most of the time it was just me. I remember that the Sandy Dennis Joan of Arc was amazing. I remember not caring much for the the episode in which the presenter Patrick Watson interviewed himself as Leonardo da Vinci. But the episode I'm talking about was the Bernard Shaw episode, which liberally quoted from Man and Superman. I had never heard of Shaw and it was clear that his-- Shaw's-- writing was profound and novel. I got the play including The Revolutionist's Handbook and Maxims for Revolutionists, and that was the beginning of my education about Nietzsche and the criticism of conventional morality.

This show could be described as a time machine on a shoestring.

Concentrating on the subject and historic accuracy as much as possible, Patrick Watson "interviews" such historic figures as Mata Hari, Alexander Graham Bell, Norman Bethune and Sir John A. Macdonald.

Watson's incisive questions, performances by accomplished actors, sparse period sets and costuming suspended disbelief without any visual wizardry or pretend machinery.

Perhaps, long after Watson has passed on, someone will engage a curious audience with their portrayal of Watson and his prolific journalism career.