As you’re probably aware, we like Dawn Porter on TV Scoop. As TV goes, she’s pretty insightful and manages to balance the investigative stuff with some cheer. It’s a rare thing indeed! Last night, Porter continued her look at love from the fringes, in Dawn Porter: Geisha Girl (Channel 4, Tuesday, 7 October, 10pm) which saw Dawn travelling to Japan to meet those mysterious and beautiful Geisha… but is there something sinister pulling the strings?

Geisha’s are big business in Japan and, briefly, they were big news over here after just about everyone I knew was reading that book, Memoirs of a Geisha. Presumably they’d watched the film of it too. Of course, me being the kind of sulking mooface that I am, I completely ignored it as I thought it would be all boring and in essence, a Japanese equivalent to a British period drama.

Would Dawn Porter be able to stir up enough interest to keep me entertain for an hour, and show me enough so I can come away feeling sated? To a degree, yes. In the show, Dawn admitted that she initially thought that Geisha were just high-end prostitutes for wealthy Japanese businessmen, when it turns out that the opposite is quite true.

Instead of getting all sexy with the men, the Geisha basically get them drunk and play party games… like the kind pre-schoolers play. Instead of finding a steamy world of humping, she found a rather staid equivalent to a finishing school. There was no carnal pleasure involved, just certain ways of kneeling, certain ways of pouring tea, certain ways of doing just about everything. It was all rather boring really (if you take away those stunning clothes, hair and make-up that is).

Sadly, I felt a bit bored by the subject… and it seemed that Porter did too. Instead of being able to get her teeth into the subject, Porter was left to do as she was told and generally be in all kinds of pain from the aforementioned clothes, hair and make-up. Well. Maybe not the make-up. The most interesting element was that the life of a Geisha is almost the opposite of wanting a man, as they shun relationships and love, living almost like party-trick nuns (there must be a joke in that somewhere).

Maybe the world is too closed for Dawn to find out the real truth? Maybe, and most likely I reckon, the truth just wasn’t interesting enough. Sure, it was mildly entertaining, but it’s clear that Dawn is at her best when all concerned are a bit less conservative and more willing to open up.