A British Guide to World Peace is Toby Mitchell's third in a trilogy of 'British Guide' shows that started with 'French Pop' in 2005 and then 'World Religion' last year. Unfortunately 'World Peace' doesn't quite live up to the promise of its predecessors.
Mitchell is a likeable fellow, and presents his material in a casual manner as though he was having a chat in his lounge with a few friends. Indeed, parts of the show encouraged two-way conversations to a point where some of the audience members where talking to each other.
The show uses the Top 10 of peace songs as an initial hook, with Mitchell playing clips of deliberately obscure versions of tracks to add an interesting twist. Marlene Dietrich singing Blowin' in the Wind, for example.
Where this all starts to go off track is when Mitchell describes his relationship with a girl called Helena, who (for reasons far to complex to go into here) has some involvement with the Delphic Sisterhood in Greece. I was struggling to make the direct connection with World Peace, and Helena's plot to bump off Tony Blair using hemlock seemed an excuse to make some overtly political points. As far as doing what it said on the tin, this didn't deliver for me, although Mitchell is an easy person to listen to.
