Inside John Lewis, BBC Two

There must have been gnashing of teeth and the rending of heavily discounted garments in the marketing departments of Marks & Spencer, House of Fraser et al, when they realised that their commercial rival had been granted a three-hour advertisement on the BBC, but then there has always been something about John Lewis that seems to elevate it above the ruck and maul of the high street. What that something was – and whether or not it was purely mythical – was the subject of Liz Allen’s ultimately interesting documentary foray behind the façade of Middle England’s favourite department store. En route, you have to say, John Lewis got the most almighty plug at the licence fee-payers’ expense. It gave a whole new meaning to the store’s famous slogan, “Never knowingly undersold”.

The greatest difference from its rivals – and indeed from most other businesses in the UK – is that the John Lewis Partnership is a workers’ cooperative, and a thoroughly successful example of that unfashionable beast. The series began in March 2009, on the day the annual staff bonus was announced, but also in the some of the darkest days of the credit crunch. And the subtextual question of Allen’s series is how a cooperative venture such as John Lewis, with its deeply middle-class clientele, is going to weather the recession. So goes John Lewis, so goes the nation? And will the company’s utopian ideals – and indeed its job-for-life culture – be endangered by the downturn?

To begin with, all seemed for the best in the best of all possible worlds, with the staff cheering their better-than-expected bonus, and their Mr Nice Guy MD, Andy Street, going about his business like James Stewart in a Frank Capra movie. We met a cross-section of happy customers, one looking suspiciously like Julie Walters in a badly fitting wig, whose companion gave the filmmakers an invaluable sound-bite about the shop’s seven-day curtain service: “God made the world in seven days, and John Lewis will make your curtains.”

The drama was provided by the opening of a new store in Cardiff, preparations for the vital summer sales, and the Christmas advertising campaign (like most shops, most of John Lewis’s profits are made in the run up to the festive season). And just when the programme was starting to feel like the biggest, fattest promotional video ever, along came the nearest person in these parts to a Jeremiah, and the first hint that not everything in the John Lewis garden was rosy. Gareth Thomas is the director in charge of development, and he has seen the business’s ambitious expansion plans drastically curtailed over the past two years. The way the business is structured sometimes lets its leaders off lightly, opined Thomas, and a conventional PLC would take tougher decisions more speedily. “We don’t operate at the peak of efficiency, and we could produce a greater profit... and if I worry about anything it is that we will become an organisation that is too ready to believe its own propaganda.”

Opinion was divided as to whether the conservative nature of the business was a strength or a weakness, and it’s arguably been a good few years for the risk-averse. The trailer for next week’s episode hinted at trouble in store, as rivals, with shareholders to placate, cut their costs. Meanwhile the Christmas advert was shot (Axl Rose finally consenting to Sweet Child o’ Mine being used over images of cute moppets unwrapping presents), the summer sale was hit by hot weather and Murray-mania at Wimbledon, and MD Andy Street (salary about £500,000 a year, plus bonus, we learned) announced the half-yearly results to the press. Street was thoroughly rehearsed by his own press officer, who provoked the first “Can we cut?” moment, when she asked him whether there would be any redundancies. That was after Street had given a fair impression of a halibut trying to win a hold-your-breath competition.

Oddly enough, next to no mention was made of Waitrose, an increasingly important part of the John Lewis Partnership and whose increase in sales did much to offset John Lewis’s losses. Perhaps that’s for another week. Whether or not Inside John Lewis deserves to be stretched out over two more hours is open to question. After 30 minutes of this opener I would definitely have said not, but by the end, I had discerned a potentially interesting series in the making.

• Watch Inside John Lewis on BBC iPlayer.