FATHERHOOD SEASON Disappearing Dad

BBC Four

Novelist Andrew Martin takes a wry look at the way fathers are represented in fiction and film. He discovers that they have had rather a raw deal, tending to be depicted as marginal, a bit loopy or entirely absent. He thinks this reflects the declining status of fathers in society.

Andrew begins his exploration in the early 19th century when the stern paterfamilias was virtually the embodiment of God to his family, and wielded absolute power. Any father falling short of this ideal was worthy of condemnation – or satire, as in the case of the lackadaisical Mr Bennett in Pride And Prejudice.

Martin invites viewers to examine Charles Dickens's relationship with his own inadequate father as played out in the characters of William Dorrit and Mr Micawber. He also notes how fathers in children's stories are usually despatched to foreign countries, incapacitated by illness or – better still – killed off in chapter one!

The modern-day father in contemporary fiction fares little better. In the works of Nick Hornby and Tony Parsons, the dad is a character aspiring to be a "mate" to his children. He is a beleaguered, guilt-ridden figure, his authority fatally undermined by the fact that he has progressed beyond youth, and therefore is unlikely to possess the supreme modern virtue: that of being cool.

All adolescents have experienced the feeling of finding dad an embarrassment. With novelists, Andrew Martin concludes, the feeling persists for life.

This programme is part of BBC Four's Fatherhood Season, a range of programmes which explore the role of fathers from an historical, scientific and literary perspective. The season also features Lennon Naked, a drama starring Christopher Eccleston, which explores John Lennon's role as a father and the impact of the brief and unhappy reappearance of his own absent father into his life.