THE TROUBLE WITH MAGGIE COLE + JIMMY McGOVERN'S MOVING ON

This article was originally published in The Courier on 29th February 2019.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

THE TROUBLE WITH MAGGIE COLE

Wednesday, STV, 9pm

Dawn French stars in this likeable comedy-drama set, like 98% of all ITV dramas ever, in a picturesque English coastal village. She plays a local historian and cheerful chatterbox who inadvertently harms her close-knit community during a tipsy interview with an unscrupulous regional radio journalist. Maggie isn’t a bad person, but her fondness for gossip proves disastrous. Appearing in bittersweet confections such as this appears to be the fate of every major ‘80s alternative comedian, but there are worse ways to spend the autumn of one’s career. The Trouble with Maggie Cole is a watchable piece of fluff buoyed by an engaging performance from French and a solid supporting cast including Mark Heap, Julie Hesmondhalgh and Vicki Pepperdine.

JIMMY McGOVERN’S MOVING ON

Monday to Friday, BBC One, 2:15pm

A series of standalone dramas curated by one of British television’s greatest dramatists, Moving On adds a sprinkling of grit to the lightweight daytime TV schedules. These disparate plays are united by the theme of characters at a turning point in their lives. This time around we meet a recently released ex-con struggling to adapt to life on the outside, a blind woman about to undergo surgery to restore her sight, a young mother dealing with bereavement, a middle-aged woman being threatened with redundancy, and a retired rugby hero who’s hidden his homosexuality from the public for decades (not all at the same time, of course). A valuable breeding ground for emerging writers, Moving On reflects the compassion and humanity that define their mentor’s work.

AGE OF THE IMAGE

Monday, BBC Four, 9pm

This expansive essay from art historian James Fox begins with the dispiriting spectacle of Louvre visitors taking selfies in front of the Mona Lisa. “Why do we feel compelled to do this?” Fox asks. “The answer, I think, lies in a revolution in visual culture that has turned us into a population of image addicts.” This obsession began over one hundred years ago. Fox, in his slightly sinister yet oddly captivating way, examines the history of visual language throughout the ages. He begins with the early 20th century pioneers who captured and manipulated the space-time continuum. The starry cast includes Edison, Dali and Buster Keaton, but Fox also pays enthusiastic tribute to some unsung geniuses. This is what BBC Four is for.

TIGERS: HUNTING THE TRAFFICKERS

Wednesday, BBC Two, 9pm

Tigers are on the verge of extinction. “They’re being hunted because people in China and Vietnam want to consume them,” explains former Royal Marines commando Aldo Kane, who presents this grim frontline/undercover report. Kane trains anti-poaching units in South East Asia, where wine made from tiger bones is a popular libation. It’s a growth industry with dwindling resources, but certain governments, zoos and farms in that part of the world provide support. I’m always wary of righteous westerners barging into foreign cultures and wagging their fingers, but that, thankfully, isn’t what happens here. Kane draws attention to a dedicated South East Asian movement set up in opposition to an appalling animal rights atrocity.

LAST WEEK’S TV

DOCTOR WHO

Sunday 23rd February, BBC One

This year’s two-part finale got off to a decent, if unevenly paced, start with an apocalyptic Cyberman epic. Chibnall’s clunky ‘say what you see’ dialogue is something we just have to begrudgingly accept, but he does know how to throw a superficially entertaining, action-packed yarn together. There’s an awful lot to wrap up in episode 10, though. If he pulls it off, I’ll be flabbergasted.

FLESH AND BLOOD

Monday 24th February to Thursday 27th, STV

This generically titled drama turned out to be a serviceable potboiler about an extended middle-class family dealing with the standard everyday miasma of secrets, lies and murder. Imelda Staunton and Stephen Rea added more class than it deserved.

THE WINDSORS

Tuesday 25th February, Channel 4

The latest series of this agreeably disrespectful sitcom/soap pastiche about the Royal Family has more to deal with than usual. Harry and Meghan’s abdication is a mere amuse bouche compared to the sordid details of Andrew’s private life. Apart from a brief mention of Epstein – presumably a last-minute addition – episode one side-lined the sweat-challenged monarch. The Windsors always tries to remain topical, and they’ve promised to tackle him in future episodes, but God only knows how they’ll handle it. The severity of that scandal won’t mix comfortably with the cartoony, knockabout tone of the show.

INSIDE NO. 9 + ERIC BURDON: ROCK 'N' ROLL ANIMAL

This article was originally published in The Courier on 22nd February 2019.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

INSIDE NO. 9

Monday, BBC Two, 10pm

Reece Shearsmith indulges his passion for magic in this enjoyable episode about an arrogant and highly secretive illusionist whose murky past comes back to haunt him. Every instalment of Inside No. 9 involves a certain amount of ingenious sleight-of-hand – the episode title is Misdirection - so no wonder this milieu provides them with ample opportunity to wrong-foot the audience. Going into any more detail would, of course, spoil the macabre fun, but Misdirection is Shearsmith and Pemberton (who plays an older magician with a mind-melting trick up his sleeve) at their most Tales of the Unexpected-like. It’s a claustrophobic journey into the Magic Circle of Hell.

BACK IN TIME FOR THE CORNER SHOP

Tuesday, BBC Two, 8pm

A breezy piece of social history wedded to a simple, sure-fire formula, Back In Time… will doubtless still be running long after we’ve all become history ourselves. The latest series tasks a British family with running a traditional corner shop over several replicated decades (mother Jo’s great-grandparents ran one for real). It begins in the Victorian era, when this pillar of the community was born. Sara Cox and social historian Polly Russell guide the family through their never-ending daily chores; life for a Victorian shopkeeper involved churning butter, picking strawberries, slaving in the kitchen, making deliveries via horse and cart, and risking a hernia by carrying enormous bollards of cheese. As always, it’s a likeable, mildly diverting lesson.

HOSPITAL

Thursday, BBC Two, 9pm

With the NHS under increasing threat, this candid observational documentary carries a severely urgent weight. It was filmed a few months ago in seven Liverpool hospitals, where staff and patients struggle to cope within an overworked and cash-strapped system. Episode three unfolds in a unit devoted to cardiac disease. The waiting list presents an ethical and logistical nightmare; operations for patients at high risk are being constantly delayed. Everyone has to cope as best they can. There are, thank God, moments of hope amidst the overarching gloom, as we witness dedicated doctors, surgeons and nurses literally saving lives, but it’s hard to banish the dire feeling that Hospital is a document of a vital institution in terminal decline.

ERIC BURDON: ROCK ‘N’ ROLL ANIMAL

Friday, BBC Four, 9:30pm

He was the electrifying, lupine-lunged leader of The Animals, who fought hard and heavy during the British Invasion. He became a leading – if somewhat foolish – light in the flower power movement and scored hits with the multiracial funk band War. And yet Eric Burdon remains somewhat overlooked. This profile gives him his due. An engaging raconteur, Burdon rakes over his eventful life with support from admirers such as Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith and Sting. It’s the story of how a working-class Newcastle kid with a deep love of black American music made it, just about, in a poisonous industry. Burdon doesn’t hold back on his justifiable bitterness, and his once great voice is shot, but he’s no casualty. He survived.

LAST WEEK’S TV

DOCTOR WHO

Sunday 16th February, BBC One

This was, by some considerable margin, the best episode of Chris Chibnall’s Doctor Who to date (he didn’t write it). A witty and atmospheric Gothic horror yarn in which the Doctor and co visited Mary Shelley on the dark and stormy night of her fateful Frankenstein nightmare, it encompassed an authentically disturbing half-formed Cyberman, plus hints towards whatever Chibnall has in store for the season finale. It was trad, dad, and all the better for it.

CONFRONTING HOLOCAUST DENIAL WITH DAVID BADDIEL + INSIDE NO. 9

This article was originally published in The Courier on 15th February 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

CONFRONTING HOLOCAUST DENIAL WITH DAVID BADDIEL

Monday, BBC Two, 9pm

Baddiel begins this documentary with a great old joke, a joke that could only offend one despicable subsection of society: Holocaust deniers. The Holocaust is a highly-documented matter of fact, and yet one in six people around the world believe it’s either been exaggerated or didn’t happen at all. These virulent anti-Semites feed off decades of deep-rooted lies. Their hateful voices refuse to be silenced by overwhelming volumes of contrary evidence. Denied of a mainstream platform, they broadcast their bigotry – insidiously and overtly - via social media and underground networks. Baddiel, whose ancestors were among the six million Jews murdered during World War Two, confronts this dense web of false history with acute self-awareness and soul-searching anger.

INSIDE NO. 9

Monday, BBC Two, 10pm

Mike Leigh has always been a major influence on Pemberton and Shearsmith, but never more explicitly than in this quietly devastating episode. It takes its cues, not from the bleakly comic Leigh of Abigail’s Party or Nuts in May, but from the likes of Secrets and Lies; a sad, intimate domestic drama with an aching human heart. The naturalistic performances and social-realist milieu also owe a strong debt to Ken Loach and Shane Meadows. It takes place over the Christmas period in a working-class family kitchen, their story gradually revealed in non-linear form. Don’t expect many laughs; this is the endlessly flexible Inside No. 9 in serious mode, but it never feels like a self-conscious experiment. It’s genuine, compassionate, one of their best.

PRISON

Monday, Channel 4, 9pm

This observational documentary series unfolds in a progressive British prison where over 300 women are incarcerated. It begins with new inmates arriving at the facility, many of them unused to serving time. They’re greeted by old hands offering friendly advice on how to survive a hectic environment. But Porridge it ain’t. We also meet sanguine prison officers who open up about their responsibilities: “You can be everything from an auntie, a social worker, probation worker to an officer in here. Everything at once.” Prison is sad yet sometimes funny, but it doesn’t tut, sneer, simplify or sentimentalise; it seeks to understand what life is actually like for vulnerable people who find themselves in a claustrophobic situation fraught with daily complications.

CILLA: THE LOST TAPES

Wednesday, STV, 9pm

When ‘Our Cilla’ passed away in 2015, Britain mourned the loss of someone who’d been part of our lives for decades. Two years later, her family unearthed a wealth of home movie footage. This programme dusts it down for public consumption in the company of celebrity chums such as Cliff Richard and Paul O’Grady. Assisted by audio recordings of a reflective Cilla in conversation with her ghost writer, narrator Sheridan Smith (star of ITV’s excellent Cilla) respectfully delves into the life and career of a sometimes difficult yet charismatic entertainer. Highlights include Cilla skiing with George Martin, Cilla hanging out with Ringo (who once proposed to her) and Basil Brush (who didn’t), and Cilla giving a Black Power salute (?!).

LAST WEEK’S TV

DOCTOR WHO

Sunday 9th February, BBC One

Another well-intentioned message – you don’t have to shoulder your depression, anxiety and grief alone – was undermined by some awkward execution in this frustrating episode. It contained some good ideas and a rare opportunity for Yaz to actually do something, but the constituent parts never quite clicked into a satisfying whole. When we eventually look back upon the Chibnall era, the charitable consensus will be this: an occasionally competent hack who meant well. Truly a golden age.

THE PALE HORSE

Sunday 9th February, BBC One

Agatha Christie’s work will inspire adaptations until humanity gasps its last, but Sarah Phelps deserves special mention as one of the Dame’s finest interpreters. This two-part drama is, according to Phelps, the last time she’ll dip her quill into the canon (at least for a while). The Pale Horse is typical in that it's faithful to the source material while adding notes of perceptive social commentary which never feel out of place. Phelps has always managed to preserve the seediness, queasiness and horror at the heart of Christie's best work; she never once succumbed to drawing room cosiness. Christie would’ve surely approved.

FRANKIE BOYLE’S TOUR OF SCOTLAND

Friday 14th February, BBC Two

Boyle is living proof that artists can evolve and mature without becoming boring. I never had any time for his early incarnation as a smugly sneering shock comic, but the real Boyle – an intelligent, politicised, softly-spoken, funny man – is well-served by TV vehicles such as this, in which he satirises the clichés of comedy travelogues while imbuing them with some class-conscious depth. Last week’s leg examined the profound significance of Scottish comedy, literature and colloquial language.

MARY BEARD'S SHOCK OF THE NUDE + INSIDE NO. 9 + DOCTOR WHO

This article was originally published in The Courier on 1st February 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

MARY BEARD’S SHOCK OF THE NUDE

Monday, BBC Two, 9pm

The history of Western art is crammed with naked bodies. Mary Beard casts her shrewd expert eye over this orgiastic obsession in a probing, irreverent and informative two-part series, wherein she grapples with “the problems, the anxieties and the scandals surrounding the image of the naked body ever since the Ancient Greeks.” The art establishment has always tried to defend itself from accusations of objectifying women, but Beard sees right through such mendacity, hypocrisy and gross oversimplification. She analyses problematic expressions of the erotic male gaze – many of them considered masterpieces – and looks at how female artists have responded to this fig-leafed tradition. She also traces the unusual history of idealised naked men in art.

INSIDE NO. 9

Monday, BBC Two, 10pm

All good people agree that Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith’s darkly comic anthology series is one of the best and most consistently inventive television shows of recent years. Series 5 kicks off in a football referee’s changing room before, during and after a fraught match. David Morrissey plays a consummately professional ref on the verge of retirement, with Pemberton, Shearsmith and Ralf Little as his temperamentally mismatched linesmen. Although it’s not one of the strongest episodes – it feels quite slight by Pemberton and Shearsmith’s usual standards – it still displays their impressive ability to weave comedy, drama and rounded characters into a single 30 minute narrative. They’re masters of the form, Rod Serling by way of Victoria Wood and Alan Bennett.

UNIVERSAL CREDIT: INSIDE THE WELFARE STATE

Tuesday, BBC Two, 9pm

Universal Credit is the biggest and most controversial (i.e. catastrophic) overhaul of the welfare state in a generation. The government insists that it was supposed to simplify the benefits system and encourage the unemployed back into work, but instead it has caused chaos and suffering for the millions of people who rely on it to survive. It has driven claimants further into poverty. People are dying as a result. This sobering series gains access to the much-maligned Department of Work and Pensions. We also meet sympathetic jobcentre employees and claimants, including a desperate middle-aged man who’s recently been made homeless, and a single mother of two who struggles with depression and anxiety caused by her dire situation.

BARRYMORE: THE BODY IN THE POOL

Thursday, Channel 4, 9pm

In March 2001, Stuart Lubbock died at a drug-fuelled party held at Michael Barrymore’s home. To this day the case remains unsolved. This research-heavy, 90-minute documentary attempts to examine the full, murky story. Preview copies weren’t available at the time of writing – possibly for sensitive legal reasons – but it sounds potentially fascinating. The Lubbock case is rife with unanswered questions, as no one has ever spoken openly about what happened that night. We do know that Barrymore denies any involvement and that his once successful career has, for obvious reasons, never recovered. The film features contributions from members of the Lubbock family, as well as eyewitnesses, detectives and forensic pathologists. Barrymore himself appears only in archive footage.

LAST WEEK’S TV

DOCTOR WHO

Sunday 26th January, BBC One

Fair play to Chris Chibnall, he managed to keep the grin-inducing return of good old Captain Jack (the effervescent John Barrowman, having a ball as usual) under wraps; a welcome rarity in this spoilerific age. Also, in another fine twist, this enjoyably berserk episode introduced the first person of colour (Jo Martin, pictured) to play the Doctor. Or did it? I don’t trust Chibnall to satisfactorily conclude his intriguing story arc, but I’ll gladly eat humble P if I'm wrong.