This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 11 March 2017.
MUTINY: Monday, Channel 4
HOW’D YOU GET SO
RICH?: Monday,
Channel 4
If
Top Gear has taught us anything – and
I hope for all our sakes it hasn’t - it’s that a certain type of man enjoys
nothing more than indulging in utterly pointless masculine endeavours. MUTINY, a seasick documentary series in
which nine ordinary blokes follow in the oar-strokes of Captain Bligh, is
further proof of that.
The
mutiny on the HMS Bounty in 1789 is one of the most notorious incidents in
British maritime history. Together with a small band of loyal sailors, Bligh
was abandoned in a tiny boat in the middle of the Pacific, but miraculously
managed to survive a treacherous 4,000 mile voyage to safety.
238
years later, because Channel 4 have some airtime to fill, a group of strangers
climbed aboard a purpose-built replica of Bligh’s escape vessel to mimic his epic
ordeal.
Their
combined skills include carpentry, medicine and dire banter. I’m no historian,
but I daresay that when Bligh’s starving crew defecated over the side of his
boat, their indignity wasn’t accompanied by hoots of laughter.
Should
you wish to join in with this adventure at home, then drink a cup of salt water
every time the words “mate”, “lads” and “boys” are uttered. You’ll be
dangerously dehydrated and delirious within minutes.
Their
leader is bearded Action Man/sober Captain Haddock Ant Middleton, a burly
ex-soldier who could eat Bear Grylls for breakfast. Ant never feels more alive
than when he’s scaling a volcano for six hours in search of coconuts, while
urgently documenting his alpha-maleness down a camera lens.
Programmes
such as this would be nothing without conflict, hence the involvement of
crewmember Chris, a rebellious Liverpudlian who doesn’t take kindly to orders.
He spent the first few days behaving like a petulant, foolhardy child, then
complained when his captain and teammates treated him accordingly.
His
ultimate ambition is to sail the world solo. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mutiny ends with him stealing the boat
and doing just that.
Chris
would be a nightmare to deal with while filming an ostensibly dramatic documentary
about the indomitable spirit of human endurance. That’s why I have grudging
respect for him. He makes a mockery of the whole thing, which, for all his
immaturity, seems entirely reasonable.
I
really don’t give two hoots about this futile exercise in false peril and macho
camaraderie. Shiver me timbers, it’s dull.
In
HOW’D YOU GET SO RICH?, comedian
Katherine Ryan gently poked the underbelly of four disparate millionaires.
The
nice couple who founded Poundland were disappointingly normal and content – the
notion that money actually does buy you happiness is the last thing most of us
want to hear – but Ryan’s surface of detached irony couldn’t disguise her
conflicted sympathy for one Danny Lambo, a self-described playboy leading a
sad, lonely, aimless existence.
The
next time you gaze despondently at your bank balance, spare a thought for Lambo
– short for Lamborghini - who derives scant pleasure from judging vanity-funded
beauty contests and filming inept music videos. When he inevitably makes a film
about his life, he’ll probably cast himself. Matt Berry would be a better fit.
Ryan’s
Hollywood encounter with a cosmetically-preserved septuagenarian plastic
surgeon seemed to suggest that money can buy eternal youth. So why does Donald
Trump look like a heaving colostomy bag?
Just
one of many questions Ryan failed to address in this glib, if tacitly
judgemental, holiday in other people’s immense wealth.
Brilliant again, you are my litmus
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