Greatest Cities of the World with Griff Rhys Jones isn't going to win any prizes for wit and brevity in titling. It comes across more like a product relaunch than a television programme. You can imagine the advertising campaign: "Now, the great New York flavours you've always loved – but with added Griff Rhys Jones". And how familiar some of those flavours were. It takes a rare dedication to the obvious to open your New York travelogue with a cityscape and Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, as Woody Allen famously did in Manhattan, and then simply not bother to undercut the second-hand romanticism with any kind of self-deprecating joke. Then again, people will go a long way for a cliché, as virtually every first-time visitor to New York demonstrates, ticking off the must-see boxes one by one. So perhaps a successful TV travelogue has to pay its dues to skyscrapers and Grand Central station and hot-dog stands before branching out a little. Even so, his early promise was worrying. "Over the next 24 hours, I intend to explore this town and try to understand what really makes New York New York." "Twenty-four hours?" you thought. There are people who've lived there all their lives who wouldn't pretend to know. ...
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