Since retiring from a series of highly-paid jobs as a television executive - including running London Weekend Television and BBC One - Michael Grade has carved out a career as a documentary presenter, focusing mostly on showbiz topics. To date he has presented programs on the London Palladium, musicals and the fight for television ratings.
In THE REAL TOM THUMB he tells a story close to his heart - that of the diminutive American performer from an unprepossessing background who shot to stardom in the mid-nineteenth century, working for P. T. Barnum and subsequently as an independent performer. This classic rags-to-riches story enables Grade to explore the positive and negative sides of show-business: how it can elevate and dethrone individuals in a matter of months; a source of untold riches and crashing poverty; and a world of innate companionship and self- interest. Tom Thumb had both of these character-traits; if he had not possessed them, he wouldn't have become such a superstar.
The subject also provides a pretext for Grade to explore a business he knows a lot about; his uncle was the impresario and television mogul Lew Grade, while his father Leslie Grade worked as an impresario in both the variety and legitimate theaters. What we are witnessing in this documentary is an essay in theatrical autobiography through historical narration.
Structurally speaking, the documentary is perhaps half-an-hour too long; much the same could have been said about Thumb's career in a sixty-minute rather than a ninety-minute slot. Nonetheless it does provide an opportunity for Grade to visit iconic New York locations, and hence emphasize the travelogue element of the enterprise.
In THE REAL TOM THUMB he tells a story close to his heart - that of the diminutive American performer from an unprepossessing background who shot to stardom in the mid-nineteenth century, working for P. T. Barnum and subsequently as an independent performer. This classic rags-to-riches story enables Grade to explore the positive and negative sides of show-business: how it can elevate and dethrone individuals in a matter of months; a source of untold riches and crashing poverty; and a world of innate companionship and self- interest. Tom Thumb had both of these character-traits; if he had not possessed them, he wouldn't have become such a superstar.
The subject also provides a pretext for Grade to explore a business he knows a lot about; his uncle was the impresario and television mogul Lew Grade, while his father Leslie Grade worked as an impresario in both the variety and legitimate theaters. What we are witnessing in this documentary is an essay in theatrical autobiography through historical narration.
Structurally speaking, the documentary is perhaps half-an-hour too long; much the same could have been said about Thumb's career in a sixty-minute rather than a ninety-minute slot. Nonetheless it does provide an opportunity for Grade to visit iconic New York locations, and hence emphasize the travelogue element of the enterprise.