RED PENGUINS: MURDER, MONEY AND ICE HOCKEY + THE VICAR OF DIBLEY IN LOCKDOWN + SMALL AXE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 5th December 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

Red Penguins: Murder, Money and Ice Hockey – Monday, BBC Four, 10pm

When the Soviet Union fell in the early 1990s, Russia struggled to deal with the sudden reality of becoming a free market economy. A playful Storyville documentary with a sinister underbelly, Red Penguins presents the bizarre saga of a short-lived American investment in Russia’s national ice hockey team as a symbol of rampant capitalism at its ugliest and most chaotic. The star of the show is one Steven Warshaw, a charismatic oddball who was tasked with marketing the team to a brave new world. His ideas included hiring strippers as cheerleaders and enlisting actual bears to serve free beer to fans. And then Disney got involved. The Russian Mafia moved in. There were fights, death threats, bedlam all around.

The Vicar of Dibley in Lockdown – Monday, BBC One, 8:50pm

I never had any time for The Vicar of Dibley. I’m all for Dawn French and I will defend, if pushed, some of Richard Curtis’ solo work, but Dibley was always white noise; the bland comedy equivalent of a Mail on Sunday advert for commemorative Diana tea towels. And now it’s back via three interminable ten-minute shorts in which Reverend Geraldine delivers awkward online sermons to the people of Dibley during the first national lockdown. In episode one she conducts a Zoom chat with some annoying children and entertains a pointless cameo from Hugo (James Fleet). None of the jokes land, it’s embarrassing, like a hastily cobbled-together DVD extra (remember them?) with ideas above its station.

Nadiya’s American Adventures – Thursday, BBC One, 8pm

Nadiya Hussein has always been fascinated by America, which is home to more immigrants than anywhere else on Earth. In episode one of this heartening culinary travelogue, she arrives in Louisiana to immerse herself in a banquet of sizzling soul food. A combination of African, Caribbean and European cuisine, soul food is a potent symbol of cultural identity and diversity. In New Orleans, Hussein – a charming, funny, empathetic guide - meets an optimistic Lower Ninth Ward grocery store owner who provides succour to his Katrina-scarred community, and a Mardi Gras bandleader devoted to helping local kids. She also dabbles in Cajun cooking. Hussein doesn’t ignore the hardship, the rank injustice, but this is ultimately a celebration of tradition and endurance.

Snackmasters – Thursday, Channel 4, 8pm

I’m ever so slightly fond of this knowingly trivial series in which Fred Sirieix presides over a bunch of Michelin-starred chefs tasked with cracking the sacred ingredient codes of cheap, popular everyday snacks. In this episode, they have to manufacture some Quavers: “the snack equivalent of Brigitte Bardot” according to Fred, who has presumably never munched upon a Quaver in his life. The central gag, obviously, is that classy French Fred looks down on our unhealthy British obsession with salty potato snacks, while the ludicrously competitive chefs are overqualified and out of their depth. But it never feels sneering, the whole thing is delivered with a cheery wink. It’s a deep-fried bucket of nothing, it means no harm.

New Elizabethans with Andrew Marr – Thursday, BBC Two, 9pm

Chapter two of Marr’s social history essay is slightly more coherent than his rambling opening salvo. He continues to highlight some of the notable public figures who have, for better or ill, helped to shape British society since the Queen ascended the throne in 1952. This week’s heroes and villains include David Attenborough, Tony Benn, Bob Geldof, Colin ‘Mad Mitch’ Mitchell, Louis Mountbatten and Eric Clapton’s idol Enoch Powell, but the most diverting segments are devoted to the lesser known likes of Mediterranean cuisine proselytizer Elizabeth David, the game-changing strike leader Jayaben Desai, and the heroically dedicated Greenham Common protestor Helen John. Power to (some of) the people. Marr, as always, presents with his usual mix of gravitas and impishness.

The Sound of TV with Neil Brand – Friday, BBC Four, 9pm

As this delightful series continues, Brand examines some of television’s most memorable jingles, idents, beds and stings. He meets Roger Greenaway, co-author of I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing, that pseudo-hippie anthem designed to shift gallons of Coke (and which will now be forever associated with Mad Men). He also talks to Linda November, who has sang over 2,000 jingles during her highly successful yet more or less invisible career. Brand’s overarching point is that this music, no matter how banal it may seem, isn’t just thrown together without any thought. Deceptive simplicity is key to its psychological effect on viewers/consumers. That 1980s Shake n’ Vac ad may be rather daft, but you remember it fondly don’t you?

LAST WEEK’S TV

Michael McIntyre’s The Wheel – Saturday 28th November, BBC One 

Is BBC One trying to start a Saturday night gameshow turf war? If so, I’m backing Danny Dyer’s weirdly mesmerising The Wall over this lacklustre confection. Dyer’s permanently hungover disinterest is so much more appealing than McIntyre’s hyperactive jollity. The premise: seven celebrities are seated on the outer rim of an oversized roulette wheel guaranteed to trigger motion sickness. They claim to be experts in a particular field, but the contestants seated in the centre of the wheel are at the mercy of its randomness. Joey Essex, for example, won’t be much help in answering a question about World War II. The best gameshows are often the simplest, but The Wheel is far too repetitive. Round and round it spins into oblivion. 

Small Axe – Sunday 29th November, BBC One

Steve McQueen’s latest film told the true story of Leroy Logan (John Boyega), a young black man who joined the police in the 1980s, believing that he could challenge institutionally racist attitudes from within. Logan eventually became the first chair of the National Black Police Association, but McQueen focused on his horrific early days in the force. It highlighted how terribly alone he felt. Logan endured racist abuse from white colleagues and suspicion from within his own community. Yet despite his anger and frustration, he never gave up hope. Featuring excellent performances from Boyega and Steve Touissant as Logan’s proud, conflicted father, this episode confirmed what I’ve said from the beginning: show Small Axe in schools, embed it within the curriculum.

 

THE SOUND OF TV WITH NEIL BRAND + SMALL AXE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 28th November 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

The Sound of TV with Neil Brand – Friday, BBC Four, 9pm

The best television theme tunes are indelibly embedded within the national psyche. The ones we grew up in particular with invoke a Proustian rush unlike any other. Neil Brand, that estimable composer and pop culture enthusiast, knows this only too well. His latest series is an embarrassment of riches in which he celebrates the enduring spell of television music. He offers eloquent insight into how and why the best theme tunes work, with highlights including a visit to Portmeirion, where he dissects el maestro Ron Grainer’s dynamic theme from The Prisoner, and a meeting with Dick Mills of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, who analyses the great Delia Derbyshire’s ground-breaking electronic arrangement of Grainer’s Doctor Who theme. It’s all wonderful.

Hospital – Monday, BBC Two, 9pm

Filmed just a couple of months ago, the latest episode of this urgent frontline documentary follows staff at Barnet Hospital in London as they treat elderly patients while dealing with a bed shortage exacerbated by the pandemic. The hospital, which is part of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, is situated in a borough with nearly one hundred care homes. The A&E department has been pushed to its limit. Winter, a time when older people are at their most vulnerable, is looming. Covid-19 is on the rise again. The point of this series couldn’t be clearer. No amount of well-meaning public applause and utensil-banging can compensate for the government’s catastrophic mishandling of the pandemic.

Paul O’Grady’s Great British Escape – Wednesday, STV, 8pm

This week, the nationally treasurable O’Grady reads some Chaucer to his pigs as a prologue to a sojourn in Canterbury. While there, he checks up on the major renovation of Canterbury Cathedral (“Good job I had a stent put in,” he quips while scaling its heights), pops into the cosy country pub where Ian Fleming wrote You Only Live Twice, takes a ride on a vintage steam train, and visits an endangered big cat sanctuary (they’re very keen on Calvin Klein-infused catnip, apparently). This is, quite simply, a nice series. It may not add up to much in the grand scheme of things, but God knows we need some fleeting escape from the grand scheme of things sometimes.

New Elizabethans with Andrew Marr – Thursday, BBC Two, 9pm

Marr’s latest essay is a scattershot dud. His stated aim is to illustrate how British society has changed dramatically during Liz II’s lengthy time on the throne – the second Elizabethan age. To that end he’s chosen a handful of notable public figures who reflect that transformation. A sound idea in theory, but Marr spends far too little time on each of his nominations. The result is a superficial overview, a smash and grab advert for his tie-in book. You simply cannot do justice to the fascinating likes of (deep breath) Graham Chapman, Diana Dors, Ruth Ellis, Tracey Emin, Darcus Howe, Roy Jenkins, Alan McGee, Nancy Mitford, Jan Morris and Mary Whitehouse in the space of an hour. It’s pointless.

Grayson’s Art Club: The Exhibition – Friday, Channel 4, 8pm

Earlier this year, Grayson Perry delivered some emergency lockdown cheer via his Channel 4 series in which he encouraged people to express their hopes and fears through the democratic medium of art. In this one-off special, Perry and his equally splendid wife, the psychotherapist Philippa Perry, host a socially distanced Manchester Art Gallery exhibition of the work they curated during that series. Preview copies weren’t available, the show is still being edited as I type these words, but I can pretty much guarantee that it will fleetingly restore your faith in human nature. The Perrys aren’t pretentious, they’re arty egalitarians. C4 have assured us that, once lockdown is lifted, Grayson’s Art Club will make a triumphant return.

Waterhole: Africa’s Animal Oasis – Friday, BBC Two, 9pm

In this enlightening series, Chris Packham and biologist Ella Al-Shamahi examine the life-threatening impact of climate change on the African ecosystem. They’re on a protected wildlife preserve in Tanzania, where the BBC’s Natural History Unit have built a waterhole discreetly rigged with cameras. Their aim is to study the ways in which these vital sources of water manage to support so many competing species. Episode one is liberally stocked with buffalo, warthogs, elephants, leopards, lions and zebras, who eye each other suspiciously like rival gangs in a pub carpark. But peace is maintained by their overriding need to sup from the waterhole whenever the chance arises. Some of the footage, most of it filmed at night, is extraordinary.

LAST WEEK’S TV

Fela Kuti: Father of Afrobeat – Saturday 21st November, BBC Two

The Nigerian musician Fela Kuti was a revolutionary artist, a radical political activist, a countercultural hero. He was also an enigma. By the end of this frustrating documentary, I felt no closer to understanding him than I did at the start. It succeeded in illustrating Kuti’s fearlessness when it came to standing up against a dictatorial regime in the 1970s and 1980s – he risked his life in the name of personal freedom – but it skirted coyly around the subject of his communal compound, which was full of young women at his beck and call. Some of them, it hinted, may have been underage. No one had a bad word to say about him, but an uncomfortable subtext simmered throughout.

Small Axe – Sunday 22nd November, BBC One

The second film in Steve McQueen’s anthology of dramas about London’s West Indian community was an immersive ode to youth in all of its intensity, romance, confusion and defiance. It took place at a house party in 1980, a time when young black people weren’t welcome in predominantly white nightclubs. McQueen’s camera lingered fondly (not creepily) over kids on the verge of adulthood as they sang, danced, smoked, drank and fell for each other. But this was no rose-tinted celebration. A woman was raped. Racism circled the building. The party represented an oasis of escape set against an encroaching backdrop of violence. McQueen, with characteristic eye for vivid detail, captured all the joy and pain. A magnificent piece of work.

 

SMALL AXE + A SPECIAL SCHOOL + THE HIJACKER WHO VANISHED: THE MYSTERY OF D.B. COOPER

This article was originally published in The Courier on 21st November 2020. 

NEXT WEEK’S TV

The Hijacker Who Vanished: The Mystery of D.B. Cooper – Monday, BBC Four, 9pm

In November 1971, a man who came to be known as D.B. Cooper hijacked a commercial flight, demanded a $200,000 ransom, then made a daring escape via parachute. No trace of him was ever found. It is the only unsolved case of air piracy in aviation history. This absorbing Storyville documentary is inevitably inconclusive, we will probably never know who Cooper was and what became of him, but that doesn’t really matter. The mystery surrounding him is so strange, it sustains dramatic interest. We meet a woman who claims that her husband confessed to being Cooper on his deathbed, a couple who insist he was transgender, and a retired FBI agent who is convinced that Cooper was a decorated Vietnam veteran. Or was he all of the above? Answer: no. But it's quite a saga.

Hospital – Monday, BBC Two, 9pm

As this exemplary series continues, Royal Free London’s staff are gradually recovering from the first Covid wave while preparing for the second. Under normal circumstances, their transplant unit deals with 12 cases a month. At the moment, due to massive delays caused by the pandemic, they’re dealing with 20. If the unit is forced to close down again, the effects could be catastrophic. The programme spotlights seriously ill patients in urgent need of treatment, as doctors, nurses and consultants struggle to surmount the restrictions placed upon them. The reciprocal healthcare system has saved millions of lives, but Brexit legislation is threatening the influx of vital organs and medication from Europe. Still, at least we won’t have to worry about any more misshapen bananas.

Return from ISIS: A Family’s Story – Monday, BBC One, 10:45pm

A few years ago, Samantha Sally, her husband Moussa and their two young children left a comfortable life in America to join ISIS in Syria. Samantha, who is now in prison, has always claimed Moussa tricked her into believing they were moving to Morocco. In this troubling Panorama report, Sally initially comes across as an innocent victim. But the deeper it digs, the murkier it becomes. Sally and her children eventually escaped, but Matthew, now 13, is in therapy to help him deal with the trauma. Brainwashed by his father and seemingly encouraged by his mother, Matthew was used as a propaganda tool. The stark video footage of him assembling a suicide belt – “my new toy” – will haunt you. 

Sofia Coppola: A Life Cinematic – Wednesday, BBC Four, 10pm

This intermittent series of specials in which filmmakers discuss their biggest influences continues with the arthouse writer/director best known for Lost in Translation and The Virgin Suicides. The interlocutor is Edith Bowman, who comes across as more passionate and insightful than her subject. Coppola seems perfectly pleasant, but she doesn’t have much to say about the films she’s chosen. Her work is often accused of being all style and no substance; it’s quite telling that sound design and art direction are the aspects of filmmaking she’s most comfortable with during this semi-informal interview. Excellent choices, though. Films under mild review include Brief Encounter, Do the Right Thing, Fish Tank and In the Mood for Love.

Saving Britain’s Pubs with Tom Kerridge – Thursday, BBC Two, 8pm

During the final stage of his nationwide mission, Kerridge tackles the disastrous effects of the pandemic on an already ailing industry. During lockdown, he stays in touch with the various landlords he’s been assisting since last November. In order to stay afloat, most of them have set up takeaway services for local residents in need. Kerridge has always argued that pubs provide a vital community service, and it’s hard to disagree. As always, he’s full of sound, friendly advice. When the pubs eventually reopen, he assures their owners that social distancing measures needn’t destroy the convivial atmosphere that customers have come to except. With regards to his own pub, he says, “We practice physical distancing, but we’re socially close.”

A Special School – Friday, BBC Two, 7pm

In the final episode of this touching series about Britain’s biggest school for children with additional learning needs, motorbikin’ head teacher Chris Britten – an abundantly lovely man – gets ready for Christmas. We meet the school hairdresser, the home economics teacher and a team of nurses, all of whom exemplify the school’s humbling philosophy. This is an environment defined by unconditional love and acceptance, where children are encouraged to discover their self-esteem and a sense of independence. The rock school programme, a free creative outlet, is a perfect example. “It makes me happy,” says Rhiannon, who sings in the band. “I just love to let my voice out. It has helped my anxiety, I feel more myself when I’m singing.”

LAST WEEK’S TV

Small Axe – Sunday 15th November, BBC One

This excoriating drama from Oscar-winning filmmaker Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave) told the hitherto shamefully underexposed true story of Frank Crichlow, a West Indian man whose Notting Hill restaurant was repeatedly raided by police in the late 1960s and 1970s.

When Crichlow and his friends, including the activist Darcus Howe, mounted a peaceful protest against this racial discrimination, they were met with more police brutality and thrown in jail. The ensuing trial, a black power triumph, exposed the systematic racism coursing through British society. But their victory, while significant, was fleeting.

McQueen’s point was clear and powerfully conveyed: racism may be less blatant in this supposedly enlightened age, but it still exists in a more insidious form. It is everywhere. This vital, relevant film should be shown in schools as part of the curriculum.

God knows I find it difficult to defend the BBC sometimes, but hats off to them for showing such an important and uncompromising piece in a primetime slot usually reserved for period dramas about privileged white people. There are four more films to follow in the series.

Ronnie’s: Ronnie Scott and His World Famous Jazz Club – Sunday 15th November, BBC Two

Part celebration, part requiem, this beautiful feature-length documentary about the legendary London jazzman struck several potent chords. Throughout his colourful life, Scott was known to the public as the genial co-owner of Britain’s hippest jazz club. He was a self-effacing clown who, for over 30 years, told deliberately bad jokes while playing host to the cream of international jazz talent. In private he suffered from depression, and lamented the fact that he was, generally speaking, better known as a comedy emcee than as a talented musician in his own right. And yet he never lost his passion for music. No wonder. The film was packed with electrifying live performances, all of them facilitated by the great man himself.