This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 30th January 2016
The
Real Marigold Hotel: Tuesday,
BBC Two
Children
Saved from the Nazis: The Story of Sir Nicholas Winton: Wednesday,
BBC One
The
Day Hitler Died: Sunday, STV
Paul
Whitelaw
A
comfortably middle-class take on I'm A Celebrity, The Real
Marigold Hotel is an easygoing travelogue in which a group of
well-known senior citizens arrive in India to test its reputation as
an ideal retirement destination.
There
is no competitive element and everyone, from Sylvester McCoy to
Miriam Margoyles, Wayne Sleep and Jan Leeming, gets on. On television
in this day and age? How novel.
It's
inspired by – but not officially based on, as an amusingly
defensive caption was legally obliged to state – the dreary
Brit-flick starring Maggie Smith, Judi Dench et al. It therefore
conjures uncomfortable echoes of Empire by depicting India as a
colourful playground for rich white westerners. But it also, in its
polite British way, confronts the injustice of India's caste system
and its rank extremes of wealth and poverty.
This
was particularly evident when our cuddly grey-hairs met – in
McCoy's unimpressed words - “some Maharajah”. His regal wife
tried to justify the disparity between her riches and the suffering
outside as part of the Karmic cycle of life. You keep telling
yourself that, your Maj. Whatever helps you sleep at night.
Despite
their anger – and I'm sure they feel just as righteous about
Britain's own shameful equality gap - the team had nothing but praise
for the warmth and generosity of their Indian hosts. Mrs Maharajah
aside, no one came out of this badly.
Disgusting
cynic that I am, I was looking forward to making merry fun of Wayne
Sleep for his woolly spiritual quest, until he revealed that he'd
been musing on mortality after recently recovering from prostate
cancer. His desire to reconnect with his latent religiosity was
entirely sincere.
Meanwhile,
Margoyles proved reliably eccentric as she vented her obsession with
base bodily functions, spoke of her total lack of interest in house
work, and struggled with her “scorn for the upper classes”.
Inevitably, she was favoured in the edit above everyone else (the
likes of Roy “Catchphrase” Walker and singer Patti Boulaye
barely featured at all).
However,
my favourite moment had nothing to do with social injustice,
spiritual awakenings or flatulent actresses. It was when McCoy's
avuncular mask slipped briefly after a local innocently asked what
Doctor Who was. “It's a television programme that's been
running for 50 years,” he mumbled pointedly. Simmer down, Sylv, the
Doctor clearly hasn't conquered Jaipur yet. The locals have more
pressing things to think about.
A
moving tribute to an unsung British hero, Children Saved from the
Nazis: The Story of Sir Nicholas Winton showed how an unassuming
London stockbroker took it upon himself to rescue over 600
Czechoslovakian children on the eve of WWII. The definition of
humility, Winton's selfless act would've remained secret had his wife
not stumbled across the truth 50 years later while rummaging through
their attic. It was a reminder that life-affirming triumphs can often
flourish in the tide of abject horror.
Der
Führer's death aside, there wasn't a trace of light amid the
darkness in The Day Hitler Died. Although the dismal details
of his final days in a bunker beneath war-torn Berlin are widely
known, this rigorous documentary had a fascinating ace up its sleeve:
previously unseen archive footage, filmed for the Nuremberg Trials,
of Hitler's bunker-dwelling cohorts confirming his death.
The
most morbidly compelling contribution came from the soldier tasked
with standing guard over Hitler's funeral pyre as Russian bombardment
raged overhead. When this personification of evil was finally reduced
to ash, the young man gave a Nazi salute and retreated. A miasma of
insanity, right to the end.
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