This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 5 September 2015.
Cradle
To Grave: Thursday, BBC Two
Danny
and The Human Zoo: Monday,
BBC One
Paul
Whitelaw
Innit
typical? You wait ages for an autobiographical account of a popular
entertainer growing up in 1970s Britain, then two come along at once.
Barrelling
out in front, Cradle To Grave is a serial adaptation of Danny
Baker's hilarious memoir Going To Sea In A Sieve. One of our
greatest radio broadcasters, for years he's regaled fans with
picaresque anecdotes from his whiz-bang youth, many of them revolving
around his father, Fred.
Better
known as Spud, this atom-powered character was a docker by trade
Regardless of size, quantity and dubious provenance, everything that
passed through Millwall Docks was fair game as far as Spud and his
workmates were concerned. An incorrigible wheeler-dealer, he made Del
Boy look like a rank amateur.
Spud,
played with an uncertain South London accent by Peter Kay, is the
star of the show. Danny and the rest of the Baker brood barely
registered in episode one, as we plunged pell-mell into Spud's
chaotic world of scams and fiddles.
Funny,
charming stuff, but its energy was slightly exhausting. Kinetically
edited like a cockney Goodfellas, it was overloaded with
dizzying incident. It's as if Baker and co-writer Jeff Pope (Cilla;
Philomena) were afraid of pausing for breath. They needn't have
worried; these wonderful stories don't require the hard sell.
Thankfully, it settles down next week to allow more room for nuance.
A
genuinely warm, cheering comedy, this Polaroid-tinted labour of love
is suffused with all the wit, warmth and attention to detail you'd
expect from Baker.
By
curious coincidence, Lenny Henry named his barely disguised alter ego
Danny in self-penned biopic Danny and The Human Zoo. That
wasn't the only curious thing about this uneven story of a
working-class boy from a first generation Jamaican family breaking
into the predominately white showbiz world of the 1970s.
Lenny
has described it as “a fantasy memoir” due to certain
fictionalised elements. So, while the details of his family situation
were essentially true – as a teenager, he really did discover that
the man who raised him wasn't his biological father – this version
of his early forays into comedy felt like retroactive wish
fulfilment.
To
his eternal regret, Lenny appeared on The Black & White
Minstrel Show after winning New Faces in 1975. However, unlike
Danny he didn't rebel against its offensive outdatedness by
appearing on stage naked daubed in tribal markings. I understand why
he felt compelled to rewrite history; it must've been cathartic. But
the honest truth – that he was young, naïve and eager to please –
is less heroic, more complex, and therefore more interesting.
The
film was more assured when dealing with Danny's relationship with his
parents (touchingly played by Cecilia Noble and Lenny himself), his
search for an authentic identity, and the racism he encountered
almost daily. It didn't ignore the painful fact that he had to make
self-mocking jokes to win audiences over. “You may have seen some
of these impressions before, but not in colour!” ran his
catchphrase, pointedly repeated throughout the film with needling
discomfort.
Despite
its awkward mix of fact and fiction, plus newcomer Kascion Franklin's
inability to convincingly impersonate Lenny impersonating Frank
Spencer et al, it did succeed as a unflinching record of the bigoted
attitudes that once festered on the surface of British society.
Things
are different these days, of course. Now they fester more subtly.
Plus ca change, Len.
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