The morning after, the Question Time night before

It appears that 8million of us tuned into the most watched political debate of the year last night. That's three times as many people who normally watch Dimbleby et al and means that more than 5millon viewers turned their back on Piers meets Boris and Fearne meets Paris.

The fact that the appearance of the BNP leader drives almost 10% of the country to tune into a political TV programme is remarkable. Cameron vs. Brown vs. Clegg will do well to draw in as many as a re-run of Last of The Summer Wine.

The show itself was wonderful theatre. There was a bit of everything; bear-baiting, egg- throwing, muck- raking and lots of very sweaty chuckling and clapping. My excitement was heightened by combining my viewing pleasure with a stream of tweets from the Twitterati and my own observational humour. I even managed 2 mystery RTs of a funny comment about Mr Griffin!

But, now that the fun is over, what did I take as a viewer?

The show undoubtedly showed that Britain is capable of confronting it's demons and the BBC need to be commended for letting the public judge for themselves. I've purposely avoiding reading the press before writing this blog as each editor is going to influence his TV critic, political commentary team and senior staff writers to write the same stories they probably could have done without even watching.

I'm sure the Guardian says "Slimy Griffin squirms under scrutiny", the Express; "Griffin survives lynching" and the Mail; "Jan Moir branded a homophobe on left wing TV channel".

The reality is somewhere in between.

As much as Nick Griffin's private views are beyond repulsion, his public persona didn't crack. Under pressure he did seem like a laughing hyena or a performing seal but the magic bullet in the foot simply didn't materialise. The first 20 mins felt a bit like a midnight ambush but somehow Nasty Nick was still able to come out for the second round, bloody and wounded, and threw a few punches in the direction of Labour's Jack Straw, Iraq style.

Bonnie Greer was the people's champion on the night. She mocked Griffin subtley, often too much, so that the cameras missed it, and steered a very measured and sensible path. Bonnie managed to expose Nick's version of history as bunk. She showed genuine revulsion when the KKK were brought into the debate but didn't criticise everything he said whereas the politicians would have booed and hissed if Griffin had said that his party loved kittens. The only shame was it took an American academic to fill this role.

After the pantomime scenes of the first section there was at least some honest discussion of immigration and it seems like there was a broad concensus that immigration can't continue unabated. It's a topic that needed airtime and the more that the main parties accept that voters want to hear views on immigration the less likely a single-ticket party like the BNP are to get votes.

The debate on Jan Moir and her piece on Stephen Gately seemed to back-fire (assuming it was designed to lure Griffin into a honey trap). Everyone had the opportunity to say what Griffin eventually said which was that the dead should simply be left to rest in peace. Unfortunately there will be many viewers who saw, in that moment at least, a man representing the "way people used to be". I think the panel were too busy waiting for Griffin to condemn homosexuality. The lack of sincerity and sympathy to Gately's family smacked of political pawnbroking which disappointed me.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed the debate and the theatre last night but I'm not sure, sadly, that Griffin ended up reaching the intended status of "Britain's Most Loathesome Man".

HBO Time .....

This is a mini-blog.

Yes, I've still not made it through The Wire or Mad Men but C4 has thrown a massive spanner in the works by screening True Blood and Generation Kill back to back on a Wednesday night.

The latter is from the creators of The Wire, which is really all you (and I) need to know.

I watched the opener on Wednesday night (10pm, 4OD too) of True Blood and I was very impressed. Vampires are not really my thing but the premise is compelling. If you haven't read the hype, it's based in a parallel universe where vampires have come "out of hiding" and enter mainstream life. Facilitated by the production of synthetic blood to satisfy their nutrional needs the vampires mix with the mortal community but they are shrouded in mystery, suspicion and prejudice.

My immediate thought is that this is a parable for black and white relations in the deep south of America. The vampires are similar but different; some characters treat them well, some with utter disdain.

Compelling, clever and shocking. This is must watch TV.