Living with Brucie, Channel 4

So was it nice to see him (to see him nice)? Actually nice is probably the wrong word for Bruce Forsyth on the evidence of the opening documentary in a new series of Cutting Edge – tetchy, obsessive in his habits and (as we shall see) sometimes downright unpleasant, may be nearer the mark, as director David Nath gains access to Forsyth’s two palatial homes (both on the edge of golf courses, it almost goes without saying) in Wentworth, Surrey, and Puerto Rico.

Living with Brucie was done a disservice by being advertised as if authored by his wife Wilnelia Merced-Forsyth, a sort of love letter in which this former Miss World explains what she sees in a man 32 years her senior, whereas, in the event, it was more Louis Theroux-like in its stealth. The results were simultaneously tedious and fascinating - tedious because watching the habits of an old man is tedious (I thought I might scream as he talked us through his breakfast routine – the dried fruit arranged just so on top of his porridge), and fascinating for bringing us the off moments of an entertainer who is seemingly forever “on”.

Now there is no such thing as free celebrity access, although it wasn’t entirely clear what the couple hoped to gain from allowing their private life to be exposed thus. There was talk of the still unsigned contract for the next series of Strictly Come Dancing, but if making a Channel 4 documentary was Brucie’s way of somehow forcing the BBC’s arm over the issue, it seemed a strange way of going about it. In fact, Wilnelia appeared to be the moving force behind the film – this beautiful and gracious (everything Brucie is not, you might say) woman apparently having been the one who suggested that her husband guest host on Have I Got News for You, a cannily chosen gig that in 2003 kick-started the third (and, presumably, last) incarnation of his career.

Perhaps this is the start of a new re-invention – a reality TV one – and it should be noted that Forsyth is the subject of next Monday’s Who Do You Think You Are? If Wilnelia is directing her husband’s career, it’s with a barely noticeable, silky smoothness that does her credit. And, by the by, it seems that “Winnie”, as she is known to loved ones, is the celebrity in her homeland, where she runs a reality TV show to find the next Miss Puerto Rico, while the largely unknown "Senor Mundo", as Brucie is known locally, chips and putts with his golfing buddies. Or are they buddies? In a very strange sequence indeed, having introduced us to the perfectly pleasant-seeming American three-ball with whom he is about to play 18 holes, he doubles back to the camera to suggest that they are a pretty dull bunch. A joke? I hope they don’t see the film, Brucie, or it might be just solo rounds from now on.

Anyway, we heard how Bruce and Wilnelia met as co-judges on the 1980 Miss World competition, how he wooed her with his romantic, chivalrous ways, and how his mother-in-law’s wedding gift was a book of daily exercises based on the Tibetan Fountain of Youth (expect a sales surge) that seems to have stood Bruce in good stead. We learned that he loves courtroom thrillers, washes his own golf socks and drinks Complan – the niggling question throughout Nath’s film being what did the beautiful and vivacious Wilnelia see in this fussy old man?

Cut to the exterior of the Wentworth mansion – the nearest Nath came to that moment in The Mrs Merton Show where Caroline Aherne asked Debbie McGee, “But what first, Debbie, attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?” In fact, the only moment when Wilnelia seemed to lose her footing was when Nath asked her what she loved most about Bruce. “I’ll really have to think about that,” she said, before hurriedly cataloguing his kindness, his sense of humour and how “he’s an incredible husband and father”. It was a bit of a Miss World moment, really, only omitting what a wonderful humanitarian he was.

And frankly I doubt that, given the dismissive, over-bearing way he deals with a security guard on the luxury golf resort in Puerto Rico (Ricky Martin is also a resident): the underling had the temerity to stop him from speeding in his golf buggy. But, hey, it’s not easy being old. The question of him retiring, as well as dying, was put to Forsyth. Pushed on the subject of a final curtain call, he conceded that he would like his last resting place to be on a golf course. How depressing is that? And I speak as someone who plays the game.

Perhaps the most revealing, if not entirely surprising, aspect of Living with Brucie was Forsyth’s uneasiness at this loose style of filming – at the lack of direction and control – and also a less expected naivety about this school of post-Theroux celebrity profile, and what gets left in during the editing process. He’s an old pro, who works hard to give the world that chipper, somewhat glazed construct supposedly beloved by millions. I suspect he’ll be very unhappy at having allowed us to watch a side of him that he has spent a very long lifetime leaving behind in the dressing room.

• Watch Living with Brucie on 4oD