The real tragedy of Clive James being in advanced stages of leukemia was that he could never return home to Australia. He could not withstand a long distance flight.
You get the impression in this program that this was an overdue return of a native son after he found success in Britain. James admits how much Sydney has changed from his youth. A city that has become wealthier and showed its modernity by building skyscrapers, malls and a monorail. James tests Australia wine and goes to see the opera in a boat with the well heeled of Sydney.
James admires the Sydney Opera House and regretted his public criticism he made years earlier. Then again James was not alone in this. The Danish architect Jørn Utzon was sacked before the Sydney Opera House was completed and never visited his creation which has now been declared a World Heritage Site.
Of course James perpetuated the myth that he was an Australian exiled in London. He later admitted he visited Australia often and had extended stays there. He once flew to Sydney just to have a lunch date with someone and came back to Britain.
This show had a conceit of Mozart being Australian, as it was made when the world was celebrating the 200th anniversary of the death of Mozart. That part grew tiresome quickly. More humorous was an out of shape James trying to recapture his youth in one of Sydney's beaches.
You get the impression in this program that this was an overdue return of a native son after he found success in Britain. James admits how much Sydney has changed from his youth. A city that has become wealthier and showed its modernity by building skyscrapers, malls and a monorail. James tests Australia wine and goes to see the opera in a boat with the well heeled of Sydney.
James admires the Sydney Opera House and regretted his public criticism he made years earlier. Then again James was not alone in this. The Danish architect Jørn Utzon was sacked before the Sydney Opera House was completed and never visited his creation which has now been declared a World Heritage Site.
Of course James perpetuated the myth that he was an Australian exiled in London. He later admitted he visited Australia often and had extended stays there. He once flew to Sydney just to have a lunch date with someone and came back to Britain.
This show had a conceit of Mozart being Australian, as it was made when the world was celebrating the 200th anniversary of the death of Mozart. That part grew tiresome quickly. More humorous was an out of shape James trying to recapture his youth in one of Sydney's beaches.
