This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 10th January 2015.
Bring
Back Borstal: Thursday, STV
Count
Arthur Strong: Tuesday, BBC
One
Paul
Whitelaw
Prison these days is like a holiday
camp. It's a cheer-sodden fantasy land full of widescreen televisions
and games consoles, where inmates enter clicking their heels and exit
teary-eyed having enjoyed the time of their lives.
I'm joking, of course. Consider it
satire. But “prison's too good for 'em” is basically the
straight-faced position one must take in order to accept Bring
Back Borstal as a valuable social experiment. The premise is
simple: 13 young offenders volunteer to be banged up for a month in a
castle-based facsimile of a 1930s borstal. Will they benefit from the
experience and become responsible members of society? Or is this
gruelling system outdated for a reason?
Actually, that last question isn't
addressed at all. The programme more or less accepts that a strict
compulsory diet of chopping, scrubbing, gardening and rugger is a
guaranteed method of reforming a recidivist. In that sense it's an
unquestioning assault of aggressive right wing nostalgia. On the
other hand, I must admit that my hand-wringing scepticism was
challenged by its sympathetic portrayal of the voluntary inmates.
Despite the Daily Mail-esque
trappings, it doesn't portray these fresh-faced crims as a mindless
mass of hopeless cases. Instead they're shown for what they are:
troubled kids who, for various reasons, have problems with authority
and anger management. They're cocky, sure, but that's clearly a
desperate façade.
In their more introspective moments,
most of them betrayed a kind of earnest, unaffected sincerity. Casey
was a prominent example. A sensitive soul with a pregnant girlfriend,
his determination to improve his life was sadly undermined by
deep-rooted insecurities. The scene in which he broke down in the
arms of matron – a reformed offender herself - was particularly
poignant.
But such moments jarred abruptly with
images of an ex-military stafffer turfing boys out of their beds, and
the essentially well-meaning governor insisting that an archaic
borstal system is absolutely fool-proof.
Given that prison reform is hardly a
black and white issue, I suppose you could argue that Bring Back
Borstal's fusion of stern conservative values and broadly liberal
sympathies isn't contradictory at all. And yet still it feels like an
awkwardly compromised attempt to please all viewers at once. Why,
it's almost as if a provocatively titled, gimmicky ITV reality show
isn't the ideal vehicle for such a nuanced, complex debate.
Without a hint of exaggeration, it
was basically Brass Eye's satirical borstal sketch played
absolutely straight. I half expected a “You're reformed!”
catchphrase from the governor. Perplexing stuff.
A broad, bright, multi-camera sitcom,
Count Arthur Strong is an occasionally sparkling curate's egg.
Having peddled this character for years on radio and on stage, Steve
Delaney – who co-writes with Graham Linehan (Father Ted; The IT
Crowd) – delivers a wonderfully assured performance as
the muttering, twitching, malapropism-prone Arthur.
But the latest episode was typical in
that, a few chuckles aside, it failed to deliver on its promise. I
want it to succeed as it's fundamentally likeable and I enjoy the
dynamic between Delaney and co-star Rory Kinnear. Yet despite their
solid work, the show as a whole is frustratingly uneven.
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