Perspectives: Jonathan Ross on Alfred Hitchcock

Film fan and fellow Leytonstone lad Jonathan Ross makes for a knowledgeable, amiable guide through director Alfred Hitchcock’s early British career in a documentary that will give the novice cinéaste just about enough to be going on with, but offers little to anyone already even passably familiar with his work (aka ‘The ITV Way’).

Film historian Matthew Sweet and assorted British Film Institute mouthpieces are on hand to help with the heavy lifting, while actor-director-Hitch nut Richard Ayoade waxes lyrical on his appreciation of both the Big Alf's mastery of film grammar and his long-standing hatred of the police. Actress Jean Marsh pops up near the end with a few wan anecdotes about filming 1972’s ‘Frenzy’ in Covent Garden, but by then the whole thing is starting to fray at the edges. It’ll be nudging 11pm by now, and all but the most hardened connoisseur of British cinema will be struggling with the lure of either hitting the hay or flicking over to ‘Family Guy’.