The Trump Show

BBC2

****

SHOULD you be staging an alternative fright night this year instead of a more traditional Halloween, the final instalment of this masterful look at the 45th President of the US would make ideal bone-chilling viewing.

With so much coverage of Donald Trump in print and on television it might have been thought there was nothing new to add or see. This trilogy of films has proved that notion wrong.

It was not just that new footage, or clips that those outside the US may not have seen before, was brought to the fore. Familiar material was extended and arranged in such a way as to deliver a devastating indictment of the President. Few have loved the camera more than The Donald, but it has not always loved him back.

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A case in point was the opening scene of Mr Trump in the Oval Office, surrounded by evangelical Christians “laying hands” on him and praying. The President, his eyes closed in contemplation, could be heard muttering “Yes, thank you Jesus”.

This was at the time of his impeachment, just one of a number of events covered. Enough happens in the Trump presidency in a week to fill an hour of TV, but series producer Kate Quine had filleted carefully, including all the essential elements and adding footage of Mr Trump when he was off camera. There was a lot of “resting Trump” faces here, with the President looking variously furious (particularly when being contradicted by Dr Fauci on the virus) or distracted.

The last year was cued up by three captions. “Trump has triumphed over his Democratic opponents and silenced opposition within his own party,” said the first, summing up his acquittal on impeachment. “His path to re-election is clear,” came next. The next shot was a cityscape simply titled “Wuhan, China”. Enough said.

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Everything after made for depressing viewing, from George Floyd’s death to the President’s frequent attempts to downplay the severity of the coronavirus crisis even as the death toll climbed ever higher.

The talking heads in this series have ranged from journalists to such Trump allies as Rudy Giuliani and former pals turned doubters and enemies John Bolton and Steve Bannon. Though not a lot new was said each gave good quote.

If the series had a failing, it was in not placing this presidency in a wider context. There was little to no analysis of how America got to the point where it thought it was a good idea to elect a reality TV star to the highest office in the land.

Perhaps that is a question more for historians than documentary makers delivering the first draft of history, or in this case an early edit.

With the score becoming ever more portentous – the music was not quite Mars, the Bringer of War, but it was in the same postcode – the film brought events as close to bang up to date as possible with the President leaving his hospital bed and returning to the White House, proclaiming his victory over Covid-19.

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This series has finished but there is of course another episode of the Trump show, the real one, coming next Tuesday, election day. That will be when we find out whether viewers/voters have given this President that tricky second series or the bum’s rush. It will be unmissable viewing.

All three episodes are available on iPlayer

 

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