The Quest for Bannockburn: TV review

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/jun/30/quest-for-bannockburn-tv-review

Version 0 of 1.

Take that, JK Rowling. Plus Gordon Brown, David Tennant, Susan Boyle, Bobby Gillespie from Primal Scream, Wee Jimmy from the Krankies, and all the rest of ye nay-voters.

You can speak out all you like in favour of the union, make the economic case, the cultural one, good arguments, less good ones ("Alex Salmond can sod off"), donate your millions to Better Together. Ha though, because in return I give you … BANNOCKBURN! There's nothing quite like Robert the Bruce's famous and unlikely victory in battle 700 years ago this year, the pivotal moment in Scotland's first war of independence, that says perhaps we should never have been together in the first place. I say I give you Bannockburn; actually it's provided by the BBC, whose own future north of an international border would be uncertain. Specifically they give us The Quest for Bannockburn (BBC2, Sunday).

Neil Oliver – you know, scratches around in the earth a lot, Coast, long hair, Scottish, says "world" with two syllables and a rolled R in the middle, "werrrrrrold" – has teamed up with his old mucker Tony Pollard, another archaeologist and specialist in warfare. They're trying to pinpoint the exact location of the battle. They know roughly where it happened: not far from Stirling castle, which was besieged but still held by the English and towards which Edward II was marching. Roughly is not good enough for an archaeologist though; they want to hear the sweet clink of excavating trowel on medieval spearhead.

Neil and Tony have tried to find the battlefield before, on TV, when they did a show called Two Men In a Trench, way back in 2002. Tried and failed. This time it's a bigger special-anniversary deal though. They've got two episodes, into which the story of the two-day battle neatly fits. They've also got help from the University of Glasgow, the National Trust for Scotland, Historic Scotland and Stirling Council, most probably some secret funding from the yes campaign as well. And, along with their spades and their trowels and their ancient accounts, they've got the very latest technology – laser mapping, CGI, all of that – to help them peer into the past. Plus a helicopter, too, to look down on the land from above, and to make it all a bit like Treasure Hunt with Anneka Rice or a Barratt Homes TV advert with Patrick Allen (if you're old enough to remember either).

I guess we'll learn whether they find it for sure in the second part next weekend. To be honest, probably because I'm not a dirt-scraper myself, I'm not actually so fussed about the exact grid reference of the battle – whether it was on this hill here or if Balquhidderock wood was over there or whatever – though I can see why it matters to them. I am interested in Bannockburn's significance, though, then and now. I'm thoroughly enjoying the forensic tactical analysis of the battle (not unlike some of the punditry coming out of Brazil at the moment). Of how the plucky Scots (very much the Costa Rica of the 14th century) could vanquish a bigger, better-equipped, higher-ranked enemy. And all the amazing kit, and how they used it, and the brilliant beardy battle re-enactors who are on hand to demonstrate: middle-aged postman (possibly) in the week; trebuchet (a kind of giant catapult) operator or pike-wielding freedom fighter from the middle ages of a weekend.

That's what they should do in September. Instead of boring TV debates and a vote, get everyone down to the Bannockburn again, it doesn't matter if they haven't found exactly the right spot. So the Better Together lot – under Alistair Darling and including JK, Gordon, SuBo, Wee Jimmy and, go on then, David Bowie because there should be some English in there apart from JK – can come up from the south, with their horses and their big trebuchet slingy tower …

And the yessers – Irvine Welsh, AL Kennedy, the Proclaimers and the rest – can dig their nasty, spikey horse pits. Then, using their long pikes they can form into one of these lethal "schiltrons" – human hedgehogs – to repel Darling's forces and make giant shish kebabs out of their warhorses. If they flag, because of the enemy's numerical advantage, then their own inspirational and charismatic leader, Alex the Salmond, will raise his sword in the air and shout: "Freedom!"

Yeah, OK, so maybe I am getting my Scottish heroes a bit muddled, but you get the idea. And a lot more jolly than a referendum, no?