Wednesday, 4 January 2017

TV Review: DOCTOR WHO + THE WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION + TO WALK INVISIBLE

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 31 December 2016.


DOCTOR WHO: Christmas Day, BBC One

THE WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION: Boxing Day/Tuesday, BBC One

TO WALK INVISIBLE: Thursday, BBC One


Superheroes are such a ubiquitous cultural fixture these days, I wouldn’t have blamed you for slumping face down in your leftovers when another one turned up in the DOCTOR WHO Christmas special.

Is nothing safe from their super-strength stranglehold?

Apparently not, and for once I’m glad. The Doctor’s encounter with a New York caped crusader was actually rather charming.

An affectionate tribute to Christopher Reeve’s Superman films, it swapped the tiresomely dark seriousness of so many modern superhero sagas for a nostalgic dip into a more innocent, optimistic age of comic book action and romance.   

Steven Moffat is known - some would say notorious - for his intricate storytelling puzzles, but this was a refreshingly straightforward tale, told with a lightness of touch, in which a geeky young man eventually got his dream girl by abandoning his masked alter ego to reveal – oh yes -  the human hero within.

Corny stuff, but winningly delivered by Moffat with his customary wit and skill. Post-modern yet sincere.

It sagged whenever the perfunctory alien invasion plot took over from the more engaging central storyline, but on the whole it achieved its primary goal – to provide 60 minutes of smart, satisfying, handsome entertainment for Doctor Who apostles and floating viewers alike.

Oh, and Matt Lucas, in the space of just two episodes, has proven himself a more likeable foil for Capaldi than Clara ever was.

Whereas many Agatha Christie adaptations are produced in quaintly ornamental style, the team behind Christmas 2015’s justly-acclaimed And Then There Were None and this year’s THE WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION revel in the depths of her darkest yarns.


These beautifully crafted productions treat Christie seriously, yet never feel strictly deferential. Like all good adaptations, they honour the source material while exploring the subtext (in this case: homosexuality, post-war grief, xenophobia and the abandonment of our brave boys, although not necessarily in that order).

Set in early-1920s London, this particular mystery is forbiddingly urban. Mired in seediness, violence and a grimy nicotine fug – it’s a real pea souper, even indoors – it boast a visual ambition and thematic richness beyond most of its rivals.

Little man du jour Toby Jones starred as a threadbare solicitor who believed, largely for sentimental personal reasons, in the innocence of his client, a young man accused of murdering his wealthy lover.

All the principal characters, including Andrea Riseborough’s Austrian showgirl and Monica Dolan’s vindictively jealous housekeeper, were lost in a cloud of lonely ambiguity.

Despite these solemn trappings, it zipped along in suitably compelling murder mystery style. Exemplary stuff.

Alas, the same can’t be said for TO WALK INVISIBLE, a curiously sluggish drama about the struggles and tragedy of the Bronte sisters from the otherwise brilliant Sally Wainwright of Happy Valley renown.


So what went wrong? A writer/director of Wainwright’s calibre combined with such potentially fascinating material should’ve sparked one of the festive season’s TV highlights, but she somehow failed to get under the skin of this remarkable family.

For 120 interminable minutes, she never made me care about these people, whereas I was utterly invested in her Happy Valley characters. Like the Brontes, her talent lies in examining reality through fiction.

Wainwright knows there’s a timeless story to be told here, about sexism, addiction, sibling loyalty, the pressures of familial expectations and the catharsis of creative expression, but for once her usually reliable instincts were thwarted by dawdling over-indulgence and a lack of focus.

Even the wuthering Yorkshire scenery looked disappointed.

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