A DECADE or so ago television gave us a historical reconstruction of the opening up of Africa with In Search Of The Nile. Now comes Rhodes, less reconstruction than deconstruction as, 10 years and £10 million down the line the BBC jemmies up the marble myth of Empire to expose the darker side.
In these post apartheid, times, anything other than a revisionist view of Cecil Rhodes as Bringer of civilisation to the otherwise damned natives would be pretty unthinkable, probably unfilmable and definitely unfundable, given the starring role of Africa herself.
Nonetheless even before the first episode is broadcast tomorrow (BBC 1, 8.30 p.m.) pro patria knives are being sharpened.
"He created modern Africa, so why is TV smearing him as a sadist and sexual pervert?" headlined the right wing Daily Mail last Tuesday, followed by a half page diatribe.
Of course from Napoleon to Kennedy, de Valera to de Klerk, the good egg bad egg version of history depends largely on your politics. But the story of Cecil Rhodes is pretty extraordinary whichever side of the PC divide - you fall.
The son of a Midlands parson, young Cecil was a sickly child not even fit to be sent away to boarding school. In 1871 at the age of 18 he was sent out to Africa for his health and joined his older brother on the Northern Cape, the then safer alternative to America as a place to make one's fortune. And fortune indeed he made, first from diamonds and later gold. In a series of canny manoeuvres, the self taught Rhodes revolutionised the whole mining operation, imposing structure on the each man for himself chaos that then prevailed.
Twenty years on and in spite of continued poor health, Rhodes controlled 95 per cent of the world's diamond production through the De Beers diamond syndicate.
He then went north in an attempt to colonise Africa with "the highest ideals of justice, liberty and peace". His stated desire was "to fulfil God's purpose and make the world English". And at the same time, of course, get the mineral rights.
As we all know, the map of Africa post Rhodes was a great deal redder than it had been before (he added nearly a million square miles, including Rhodesia - on its own the size of Europe). But British red or bloody red? The pro imperial view is that you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs. Just how many eggs were broken, however, is where the traditional version of the Great Man of Africa and the BBC version part company.
Antony Thomas, the "writer and creator", sees Rhodes's story in terms of classical tragedy: a young man's corruption in the pursuit of power. For Thomas, as a white South African (turned activist in his mid twenties) Cecil Rhodes had long been a symbol of the greed that even now continues to eat away at his country's future. Whether Rhodes was an architect of apartheid is another hot potato. In any event, this version apparently has the ANC seal of, approval - whether that's a guarantee of objectivity, however, is, questionable. Another hot potato is Rhodes's sexual bent, though why anyone these days should be exercised at the allegation that Rhodes had homosexual leanings beats me. If Thomas's claim that he "made it a strict rule never to stray from the authentic accounts" is accurate, then the chances are that Rhodes was indeed not of the marrying kind.
Rhodes has the advantage of a cracking story with all the necessary side orders to stimulate the appetite: power, corruption, money and good looks thanks to a budget made to go twice as far through being a South African coproduction. Martin Shaw, still (to his chagrin) best known as Doyle in The Professionals, plays the older Rhodes, his son Joe the younger version and there is a pleasing family echo in their body language.
As Rhodes's right hand man, Between The Lines's Neil Pearson will doubtless increase his already considerable appeal among female viewers (lots of dash, lots of charm, lots of facial hair). And Frances Barber shows off her hour glass figure very nicely but that's about all she has to do. And there's a bit too much of the "God knows what we're storing up for ourselves in the future" hindsight heavy dialogue But the story of Cecil Rhodes is certainly worth the telling, and probably worth the watching.