The first episode of Wonders of the Moon with Dara Ó Briain concentrates on what that eternally compelling sphere has meant to human culture, myth and spirituality. The second (of two) focuses on the science of it – the Apollo missions, roaming round the Jodrell Bank Observatory and talking to the people at the European Space Agency who are preparing for the next moon landing. It is obvious which part presenter Ó Briain, a comedian who studied mathematics and theoretical physics at university, feels more comfortable with and enthused by. But there is enough of the romantic about him to ensure the moon’s more ineffable effects on our lives are given a fair hearing first.
He starts amid the mountains of his native County Wicklow – a light-pollution-free zone that makes it perfect for stargazing. The moon is visible before nightfall and the Irish word for Venus, he tells us, translates as “afternoon star” because you can see it so early on. He then heads over to Newgrange, a Neolithic monument in County Meath that seems to have functioned not just as a burial chamber but perhaps also as a solar and – as the carvings of crescents and circles outside it suggest – lunar calendar. In case you, like me, use these documentaries to gather job titles that make you sigh with regret at roads not taken, I should tell you that this information is given to us by Dr Frank Prendergast – an archeoastronomer. I know, I know. It’s too late for me but perhaps you can still realise such a dream.
