TV Review: THE CHILD IN TIME + BAD MOVE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 30 September 2017.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/category/lifestyle/entertainment/tv-film/

THE CHILD IN TIME: Sunday, BBC One

BAD MOVE: Wednesday, STV

It’s every parent’s nightmare. You’re in a busy public area with your young child. You turn your back on them for just a moment, but when you return they’ve vanished, never to be seen again.

That harrowing, plausible scenario was, of course, the spur for series one of The Missing, in which James Nesbitt played an obsessive father desperately searching for his abducted child. It’s also the premise of the relentlessly depressing 2004 film Keane, in which Damian Lewis plays an obsessive father desperately searching for his abducted child.

This emotive territory was raked over once again in THE CHILD IN TIME, a standalone drama in which Benedict Cumberbatch played, well, you get the idea. An adaptation of a 1987 novel by Ian McEwan, it technically predates both The Missing and Keane.

It also featured a strangely undercooked supernatural/metaphysical element which felt at odds with the otherwise realistic treatment of this subject matter. I’ve never read McEwan’s novel, but I’m assuming that the time travel subtext was treated with more depth and significance than it was in this condensed, compromised adaptation.

Likewise, the subplot involving Cumberbatch’s best friend (Stephen Campbell Moore) descending into a tragic childlike state presumably didn’t jar in the novel quite as much as it did here. It came across as a hysterically unsubtle illustration of one of the drama’s principle themes: the importance of allowing children to express themselves, and the dangers of denying them their innocence.

Despite these clunky drawbacks, the film still succeeded as a terribly sad rumination on the trauma of losing a child. It worked best when focusing on the overarching storyline of Cumberbatch and Kelly Macdonald struggling to move on with their lives. Its power emerged from its restraint.

The pregnant pauses and hesitant interplay between these excellent actors managed to evoke a tangible sense of anguish. Mere words could never hope to express such unbearable loss. When these grieving parents were given a happy ending of sorts, the sentiment felt earned.

A curate’s egg, undoubtedly, but The Child in Time packed a hefty emotional punch.

A suburban middle-aged couple moving to the countryside and enduring endless hapless fish-out-of-water misadventures is a terribly hackneyed sitcom premise, but BAD MOVE somehow manages to imbue it with charm and wit.

The key to its modest appeal is a droll script co-written by its star, the lugubrious Jack Dee playing – as always – the lugubrious Jack Dee, and the warm, understated chemistry he shares with his screen wife Kerry Godliman.

An appealing comic actor, Godliman was one of the very few performers to escape from Ricky Gervais’ abominable Derek with their dignity intact. That’s how good she is.

Despite being a pre-watershed ITV sitcom – usually a barren no-mans-land when it comes to quality comedy – Bad Move is underpinned with a layer of depressive, caustic melancholy which elevates it beyond its blander competitors. The characters feel real. The jokes aren’t cosy or obvious.

It captures the inherently bleak, frustrating, insular, unsettling reality of living in a rural community – I speak here from experience – without ever delving into self-consciously dark territory. It may involve whacked-out rock stars, escaped panthers and Josef Fritzl references, but it’s still good old-fashioned family fun.

Plus, it’s funny. It makes me chuckle. Yes, folks, actual chuckles.

I’m not making any great claims for Bad Move as a classic sitcom, but it's a nicely traditional piece of comedy, deftly written and performed. 

TV Review: SHERLOCK and BIRDS OF A FEATHER

A version of this article was originally published in The Courier on 4th January 2013.

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/lifestyle

Sherlock: New Year's Day, BBC1

Birds of a Feather: Thursday, STV

Paul Whitelaw

Take a cursory glance at this year's festive schedules and you'd be forgiven for thinking that British television is ruled by just two writer/producers: Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. Following the inescapable dominance of Doctor Who's 50^th anniversary celebrations and Gatiss' supernatural visitations on BBC2 on Christmas Day, the duo continued their monopoly with the eagerly awaited return of Sherlock.

Tasked with providing a satisfying explanation for the sociopathic sleuth's faked suicide at the end of series two, they cheekily confounded expectations by conjuring more than one outcome. Galloping out of the trap, the giddy pre-credits sequence declared that Sherlock survived his fall using a bungee rope, a latex mask, Moriarty's corpse and none other than obfuscating mind man Derren Brown.

Colour me complacent, but this struck me as a perfectly acceptable and amusing explanation. It was a silly, fun, audacious illusion. Job done.

Except it wasn't. Sherlock, after all, isn't so much a drama as a theatrical confidence trick, where things are rarely as they seem. A playful piece of misdirection, this absurd version of events was quickly revealed as a harmless gag at the audience's expense, later superseded by a more “plausible” flashback involving air bags, a doppelganger corpse from the hospital morgue, a colluding network of homeless assistants, and the fiendish trick of placing a squash ball under Sherlock's armpit to briefly stop his pulse.

But even that was undermined by one more hint of ambiguity. Gatiss, who wrote the episode, clearly had no intention of supplying a definitive explanation, which wouldn't matter so much had the entire episode not been devoted to teasing out the riddle.

Bloated with self-referential gags about the colourful fan theories surrounding the suicide stunt, this wasn't another exciting 21^st century adventure for Sherlock Holmes, but a heavily meta-textual commentary on the hit TV show Sherlock itself. It was as if Moffat and Gatiss were more interested in causing a stir on Twitter than writing a coherent piece of entertainment.

Resembling a self-indulgent, overextended Comic Relief sketch, it allowed scant room for any other business. The barely sketched sub-plot involving a terrorist cell operating from the London Underground was little more than flimsy groundwork for the remainder of the series.

But at least the odd couple double-act of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman continue to shine as Holmes and Watson. Cumberbatch's comic flair tumbled forth during a farcical scene in which he reintroduced himself to Watson in the guise of a French waiter. Watson's understandable reaction – a stunned conflagration of confusion, relief, sadness and fury – was impressively realised in Freeman's typically grounded, believable style.

Almost entirely by virtue of his thoughtful performance, he's the sole point of emotional depth in Sherlock's otherwise glib and heightened universe.

The engaging chemistry of its stars aside, I've never been convinced by the often disproportionate praise this series receives. Clever and entertaining though it often is, it's far too throwaway to ever be considered a classic. Blighted by one-dimensional characters – does anybody really care about the bland Molly's unrequited love for Sherlock? – and an alienating swagger of undeserved self-satisfaction, its audacity, while fitfully admirable, often comes across as mere superficial flash: a talented show-off with a desperate need to impress.

I admire Sherlock in many ways, but I could never love it.

Possibly the least anticipated comeback in sitcom history, the inexplicable return of Birds of a Feather was even bleaker than I'd anticipated.

Groaning under the weight of laboured, tired, embarrassing dialogue – yes, the computer game console Wii does sound a bit like a colloquialism for urine, doesn't it? - it's like watching a pathetic gaggle of ghosts going through the motions of haunting a long-abandoned manor. Pauline Quirke deserves better. So do we.

The reason for its sorry revival is a mystery that would leave even Sherlock dumbfounded.

TV PREVIEW: Downton Abbey, Parade's End, Strictly Come Dancing

This article was originally published in The Scotsman on 15 September 2012.

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/tv-and-radio

DOWNTON ABBEY

Sunday, STV, 9pm

PARADE'S END

Friday, BBC2, 9pm

STRICTLY COME DANCING

Today, BBC1, 6:30pm

Paul Whitelaw

A lavish harlequinade of withering gazes, arched eyebrows and stoic suffering: yes, DOWNTON ABBEY is back, and thankfully it seems to have calmed down following last year's hyperactive series, which at times felt more like a series of disjointed trailers for an upcoming episode interspersed with blaring commercial breaks every five minutes. The latter are still an unwelcome intrusion, but it's good to have it back on form.

In case you'd forgotten where we were, the first few scenes are helpfully devoted to nothing but clunky exposition, leading up to the return of Lady Sybil and her fierce republican husband (cue awkward discussions of “the Irish problem” over dinner), the much publicised arrival of Shirley Maclaine as Lady Grantham's mother (cue laboured bouts of American modernism vs English traditionalism), and the wedding of Lady Mary and Matthew (cue the expected drama on the eve of their nuptials). And most dramatically of all, Lord Grantham is shocked to learn that he may run the risk of losing dear old Downton altogether.

Despite the fact that you can always hear the gears shifting in Julian Fellowes' writing, I can't deny that, at his best, he's a fine purveyor of world-class soap opera. It's corn on a grand scale, but it's expertly tuned and entertaining corn at that.

The cerebral yin to Downton's full-bosomed yang, PARADE'S END, which concludes this week, is almost stubbornly anti-populist in its appeal. Indeed, this handsome Edwardian period drama mirrors precisely the compelling, frustrating, enigmatic allure of its central character, Christopher Tietjans, who for the past five weeks has made an esoteric virtue of keeping his entire world at arm's length.

Immaculately portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch – his oval jaw set in stone, although increasingly prone to wobbles as the story progressed – Christopher's damned loyalty to his strict, self-flagellating moral code takes a further battering in the final episode, which mostly finds him mired in the insanity of the Western Front trenches.

Created by Ford Madox Ford for a series of highly-regarded early 20^th century novels, “the last decent man in England” is certainly more complex than any character found in Downton, and highlights, not only the fundamental difference between the two programmes, but also the inherent, possibly deliberate flaw of Tom Stoppard's otherwise impressive adaptation: Downton Abbey wants to loved, and will jab all your buttons to ensure that it is, whereas Parade's End has no interest in giving you an easy, comfortable, emotional ride.

And that's why, although I enjoyed it, I never felt particularly moved by this sprawling epic. I admired its stellar performances, its dry, eccentric wit and Susanna White's assured direction, but I never really got under the skin of the central love triangle between Christopher, his entertainingly maddening wife Sylvia (Rebecca Hall, a haughty swan, superb throughout) and moist-eyed, lovestruck plot device Valentine (Adelaide Clemens, doing her best with an underwritten role).

I suspect that Stoppard was more interested in the material for its reams of layered character study and socio-politcal satire, than as an unconventional romantic drama. It's certainly obvious that Madox Ford's novels, which many deemed unfilmable, don't lend themselves easily to adaptation, and Stoppard should be commended for transforming them into five hours of captivating, if at times inscrutable, TV drama.

And I'm glad that the BBC has taken a leaf from co-producers HBO's book and produced something that demands concentration and actively repels the casual viewer. It's encouraging that we have a landscape where populist period fare such as Downton can comfortably coexist with the relatively challenging and idiosyncratic likes of Parade's End. And while it wasn't an unqualified success – the stasis of Christopher and Sylvia's relationship, for instance, led to repetitive reinstatements of their central dynamic every week – it was undeniably smart, startling and ambitious. And we need more of that, always.

Also, special mention should go to Stephen Graham, who, despite being lumbered with a ridiculous stick-on beard that made him look like a Blackadder Dickens, pulled off a faultless Edinburgh accent while proving himself yet again as one of TV's most versatile actors. And speaking of Blackadder, the penultimate episode, with the great Roger Allam coming to the fore to essentially portray a blimpish General Melchett substitute, was one of the most effective and darkly humorous “war is hell” statements I've seen on TV in quite some time.

Finally, STRICTLY COME DANCING returns tonight for another ratings-grabbing series of flotsam and fluff.

Personally, I've never been a fan. It's not something I object to – it's utterly harmless – but it's just one of those cultural happenings that unfolds every year in my peripheral vision, like football and chart music and the latest globule of scandalous idiocy that habitually dribbles from the mouth of some celebrity I couldn't care less about. Not even the once-in-a-lifetime spectacle of Russell Grant being fired from a cannon could rouse my interest last year, which means that I'm either suffering from a clinical case of ennui, or that the mere idea of the roly-poly astrologer hurtling through the air in a shower of glitter is entertainment enough for me. Either way, it's back, and there if you want it.