This article was originally published in The Courier on 27th June 2020.
NEXT WEEK’S TV
ITALY’S FRONTLINE: A
DOCTOR’S DIARY
Monday,
BBC Two, 9pm
This
stark documentary was filmed inside an overstretched hospital at the height of
the coronavirus crisis in Italy. It follows A&E doctor Francesca
Mangiatordi as she struggles to care for an escalating influx of infected
patients. A shortage of beds has left staff with no choice but to park patients
in corridors, sometimes for days. Mangiatordi is exhausted, candid and
eloquent. She repeatedly questions the worth of her role in the face of such
overwhelming suffering: “When you remove someone’s dignity, you leave them with
nothing.” Gradually, some of her colleagues succumb to the virus. Their
experience of treating Covid patients naturally makes them more fearful about
their own chances of survival. Meanwhile, Mangiatordi frets about the prospect of
a devastating second wave.
THE HIDDEN WILD OF THE
MOTORWAY
Tuesday,
BBC Four, 9pm
Britain’s
busiest road, the M25, is a vast loop of soulless concrete. But look closer and
you’ll find that the natural world has adapted to coexist around it. Inspired
by J.G. Ballard and Joseph Conrad, naturalist Helen Macdonald takes a
thoughtful stroll around the M25’s perimeter in this hauntological documentary.
She discovers pretty woodlands and waterways scored to a background roar of
traffic; some songbirds have had to alter the pitch of their calls in order to
be heard. She also reveals how fungi studies could help to solve the problem of
traffic congestion. An enthusiastic, softly-spoken scholar finding hidden wonders
in mundane areas we take for granted, this is a quintessential BBC Four joint.
We’ll miss it when it’s gone.
THE SECRET
MEDITERRANEAN WITH TREVOR McDONALD
Tuesday,
STV, 9pm
You
could argue that sunny foreign TV travelogues are the last thing we need to see
at the moment. They’re a cruel reminder of an increasingly distant time when,
finances permitting, we could hop on a plane and relax our blues away on
holiday. On the other hand, the sight of genial Sir Trev in sunglasses and an
open-necked shirt might provide a fleeting distraction from the misery of life
as we currently know it. Which sounds fine in theory, but according to the
synopsis – preview copies weren’t available – episode one involves Trev
boarding a superyacht once owned by Aristotle Onassis and later witnessing a
bout of camel wrestling. That doesn’t sound like fun to me. Tastes may vary.
HUEY MORGAN’S LATIN
AMERICAN ADVENTURE
Friday,
BBC Four, 9:30pm
In
this vibrant new series, the BBC 6 Music DJ drops his usual tiresome wise-guy
act to engage sincerely with the turbulent history of Latin American popular
music. His perspiring odyssey begins in Brazil, where ecstatic Samba rhythms
continue to represent the defiant voice of oppressed working-class people
(Brazil is currently governed by ‘the Trump of the Tropics’). This is protest
music in its purest most transcendent form; grooving community action. He also
covers the bossa nova boom and examines the anti-capitalist politics of the tropicalia
movement via interviews with the great Gilberto Gil and, from the magnificently
far-out Os Mutantes, Arnaldo Baptista. These musicians challenged the jackboot
status quo with some the greatest music ever made.
LAST WEEK’S TV
THE LUMINARIES
Sunday
21st and Monday 22nd June, BBC One
This
turgid adaptation of Eleanor Catton’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel (which
I’ve never read and never will) succeeds only as a showcase for some decent
production design. It looks good, but the story, the characters, don’t engage
at all. It’s set on New Zealand’s South Island in 1866. Various folk converge
to pan for gold. It glistens with a hallucinatory sheen of opiated sweat and
grime. The performances are fine and the setting is potentially interesting.
There’s something to be said here about colonialism, racism, misogyny and
greed. The Luminaries somehow manages
to crush that potential into mulch with its awkward pacing and structure. An
alienating mess.
THE CHOIR: SINGING FOR
BRITAIN
Tuesday
23rd June, BBC Two
Gareth
Malone is a smarmy little creep, a tweedy child with an orchard full of apples
for teacher. Hats off to every frontline worker involved in this experiment,
you’re all brilliant, lovely people, but keep a close eye on Malone. He’s a government-sanctioned
Minister of Music in waiting who can barely disguise his contempt for pop music
behind that faux-groovy piano teacher facade. He makes Gary Barlow look like
Che Guevara.
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