TV: Being famous? It's just a job

By TIM WATKIN

David Beckham's celebrity life has read like a children's chapter book: David wears a sarong, David gets a haircut, David kicks an Argentinian, David marries a pop star ...

Tonight's documentary replays the highlights - like Match of the Day - from the viewpoint of the Beckham living room. But don't get the wrong idea - this isn't a story about sport. Nor is it a tale of childhood or a critique of talent. It's about David being famous.

The glimpse of Becks and Spice Girl wife Victoria Adams in the kitchen, on the sofa, or in the car, is vaguely intriguing in a voyeuristic kind of way, but it's hardly illuminating.

Becks and Posh, already one of the world's most photographed couples, obviously allowed a film crew to shoot them hanging round home and cooking (what spices does she use? Ginger?) only so that they could put their side of all the stories that have surrounded his career. No, Beckham really wears the trousers in their house. No, he's not really stupid.

The result is a sympathetic documentary that is little more than a series of Woman's Weekly stories.

As far as it goes, it puts some over-hyped dramas in perspective. (Why did David miss that Manchester United training session and get dropped? Look, his baby was sick. He was worried. That's all there is to it.).

Others, such as his petulant lashing out in the World Cup game against Argentina, which saw him vilified throughout England, are batted aside. A soccer brain or two say he was unlucky to be sent off and Becks says he's learned from it. End of story.

Still, even though Adams never appears in less than full make-up, there are odd moments when something real seems to sneak through. Beckham and the crew are driving to an autograph signing session and Adams passes them in another car. "There's Victoria," he says with genuine joy in his eyes.

Or driving to an interview with Michael Parkinson, when Adams warns: "You know he'll try to catch you out."

"Yeah, but everyone tries to catch me out," replies Beckham. "And usually I get caught out."



What we learn beyond doubt is that this is a couple comfortable with fame. It's what they do for a living, what they always wanted to do, what they fear not doing. Beckham in particular accepts fame's Faustian bargain.

"If you enjoy the good stuff that's written about you, you've got to take the bad stuff," he says.

The man doesn't come across as stupid, just shallow - and so different from the focused genius he is with a ball at his feet. He seems to be almost sleep-walking through his off-pitch lifestyle, following some talent-defined destiny which is all somehow beyond his control.

Maybe it's the staged-to-look-spontaneous interviews, but for all their success, this appears to be a couple who would be approaching life the same way even if they were living as they might have lived - he as a drainlayer and she a receptionist.

Of course, their life is nothing like that - they have all the privilege and pressure that wealth can buy. But there's nothing especially extraordinary about them. They are a lucky couple enjoying their luck. They just happen to have been born with the looks and skills most admired in this era - imagine the life Beckham might have had as an equally skilled but ugly lacrosse player - and are the living mannequins for it.

* David Beckham - The Real Story TV2, 8.30 pm