After watching Michael Cockerell’s latest inside Westminster documentary, Dave Cameron’s Incredible Adventure (BBC Two), I had a dream. It wasn’t grand, it didn’t include wind turbines on my roof, hugging hoodies, sudden lurches to the Right or cycling to work with a car carrying my briefcase and shoes just behind . . . But it was sharp and distinctive. In it, a group of women, all young, all impatient and snarling, manoeuvred me from one appointment to the next. They viewed anyone within a 300m radius of me with contempt. It was fabulous. They were my PAs, freedom fighters and bodyguards.

More than Cameron, these scary young women were the most memorable thing in Cockerell’s documentary. The Tory leader was oddly absent: beetling this way and that, hair absolutely lovely, smile fixed; the kind of man who’s so in a rush that people nowhere near him feel his oncoming breeze and get out of the way. All the time the formidable, notebook-carrying apparatchiks cleared his path.

Cockerell is a veteran of intimate political portraits, and his recent documentary about Tony Blair was mischievous and piercing. But for Cameron – and maybe blame this on the ruthless efficiency of those bodyguards – he didn’t get anywhere near close enough. Instead, he had to rely on canvassing others’ opinions. While it’s always bracing to have Simon Heffer or Alastair Campbell in full flow – Cameron, said Heffer scornfully, was a “Redcoat” – it doesn’t make for a revealing hour.

When Cockerell did corner Cameron, the Tory leader, always in breathless, busy transit, served up anodyne quotes about ambition and speech-making, but little else. Some people noted that he wasn’t as nice as he makes out – but then, as Michael Portillo said, that edge was rather reassuring. Leaders have to be ruthless and focused.

Denied access to his subject, Cockerell fell back on archive: lots of it – the time when Cameron called members of his party “delusional”, for example. There were pointless interludes during which a panel made up of Alastair Campbell, Lord Bell (Tory PR chief) and Lord Razzell (LibDem PR chief) sat in a circle and evaluated Cameron’s performance in a number of scenarios. And guess what? Campbell thought he sucked, Lord Bell loved him – and who cares what Lord Razzell thought?

Lord Bell revealed that Blair and his masterful spinning had inspired the Tories in selling Cameron and humanising the Conservatives. Tara Hamilton-Miller, a former young, scary, Tory PR person, said the initial idea was to market Cameron as a Waitrose-going, cycling family man. In the background lurked Cameron’s Svengali, Steve Hilton, who master-minded this makeover. But he wouldn’t speak to Cockerell, and nor would Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor-turned-chief spinner. More archive, then . . .

There was no great revelation here, and no little revelation either; this was rehash with a little comment sprinkled on top – no better, albeit a little classier, than a well-edited film of old TV clips. Even Alan Duncan’s traditionally naughty gleam was dimmed (boo). The only fire came from commentators, especially the former editor of The Sun Kelvin MacKenzie, who noted of one of Cameron’s policy misfires: “You don’t want to hug a hoody, you want to strangle the bastards.” (I want MacKenzie and Piers Morgan, who is equally quoteworthy and blustery, to be given a TV format immediately.)

The last episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (More 4) also struck a bum note when a zinging top C was required. It was a happy ending all round for the dysfunctional crew of the American late-night comedy show. The risqué comic didn’t have to apologise for a sensitive joke. The pill-popping head writer, played by Matthew Perry, was redeemed by finally getting it on with his true love.

TV boss Jordan’s coma suddenly abated so she could be reunited with Perry’s writing partner, played by Bradley Whitford (whose hair had become honey-coloured). The lights on set were extinguished. Perry proclaimed the clock on his office wall, counting down to each show and for 22 weeks his torturer, to be his friend. It was a sweet and good-natured ending, but also lacklustre, portentous and beached in its own navel; a worthy epitaph for Studio 60, axed after just one season, itself.

Out of the box

— Doctor Whodrama . . . “Catherine Tate stitched me up good and proper,” David Tennant has said of rumours of his imminent departure from the hit show which surfaced after an interview Tate gave on Saturday to Radio 2. Tennant says: “I said to her on Monday morning, ‘Did you know you’ve caused a minor diplomatic incident?’” He added there would be four Whospecials in 2009. “Beyond that no one’s asked me to make any decisions and I’m quite happy to be enigmatic for as long as possible.”

— He was last seen at a strange, glamorous party goading his son (and rival in love) Jamie in a telephone call, so how intriguing that Danny Baldwin (played by Bradley Walsh) is set to return to Coronation Street next summer. Will Frankie (Debra Stephenson) be joining him?

tim.teeman@thetimes.co.uk

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