IT’s murder

1:45pm Friday 21st November 2008

Comments (0)   Have your say »

Unreported World (C4, 7.35pm)
The IT Crowd (C4, 10pm).

VIEWERS of Channel 4 would be hard pushed to find two more different offerings from the same channel tonight. The first investigates the lawless street gangs that are, it would seem, running riot in Venezuela, the country with the world’s highest murder rate.

And the other? A sit-com chronicling the goings-on in the technical support department of a large, dysfunctional organisation.

The latest instalment of Unreported World reveals how Venezuelans are increasingly turning to a mysterious cult that worships the spirits of dead Robin Hood-style gangsters (you know, they robbed from the rich and gave to the poor) as they seek supernatural protection from a crime wave that the police seem unable to contain.

Reporter Nima Elbagir discovers that murder is so commonplace that infamous gangsters are worshipped as saviours, not feared as criminals.

The programme takes us north to the city of Caracas, where we meet Santiago Rondon, a self-styled witch.

He explains that increasingly large numbers of Venezuelans are turning to gangster worship as a result of the country’s unprecedented rise in murders – and the failure of the police to put a stop to it.

Venezuela, the world’s fourth largest oil producer, has seen its murder rate triple after nine years of leadership by President Hugo Chavez.

At least one person is murdered every 40 minutes.

The team visits one of the city’s largest hospitals, where staff claim that between 80 and 90 per cent of the patients they treat have gunshot wounds, statistics that surely put “Broken Britain” into some kind of perspective.

Investigating the cause of the huge rise in murders, the programme gets into El Rodes Uno, one of the most violent prisons in the world, where a knife-wielding gang member and self-appointed “security guard” boasts that he has seen more than 500 murders take place.

Unreported World does not make for comfortable viewing, and not just because of the subject matter.

The language barrier – and lack of subtitling – means the reporter is constantly having to explain to the audience who is saying what and when.

And the programme is only 22 minutes long, hardly time for a supposedly indepth, hard-hitting world affairs documentary to scratch the surface.

Because the story moves at such a frantic pace, there isn’t time for the programme makers to answer – or even start to answer – any of the questions they leave viewers asking. Unreported World crams a lot of information into a short period of time. It could have benefited from another 15 or 20 minutes to tell its tale.

IN the opening episode of The IT Crowd, returning to your screens for its third series, the bumbling management team of Reynholm Industries is trying to come up with money-saving strategies to beat the credit crunch.

Elsewhere, the systems department is giving its full attention to queries from staff: “Hello, IT... have you tried switching it off and on again?”

Realistic portrayals of life in a large, multi-national company? I’ll let you decide.

One notable cast absentee is Mighty Boosh star Noel Fielding, who guested as Richmond in the show’s first two series, but was unable to take part in the latest run because of scheduling commitments.

Although this first episode is not without its laughs – fans of toilet humour, in particular, are in for a treat – you can’t help but feel that the writers will need to be on their game if the show is to repeat the award-winning success of earlier series.