TV Column: GROWING UP POOR: BRITAIN'S BREADLINE KIDS

This article was originally published in The Courier on 30th November 2019.

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

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GROWING UP POOR: BRITAIN’S BREADLINE KIDS

Monday, Channel 4, 10pm

As we inch ever closer to the most important General Election in years, Channel 4’s Dispatches team present this vital, devastating report on poverty. More than four million British children are growing up hungry. Unforeseen circumstances can send families into tailspin. We meet a mother of two who was forced into emergency accommodation after fleeing from an abusive partner. She’s struggling to support her kids via the catastrophic Universal Credit system. They couldn’t survive without access to one of the many food banks that exist in this great unequal nation of ours. No one should have to live like that. Meanwhile, a depressed teenager who lives with her family in sheltered accommodation struggles with suicidal thoughts. Watch and weep.

HOW TO SAVE £1000 ONLINE

Tuesday, Channel 4, 8pm

Hey, we all love shopping, right? Of course we do! But did you know that online retailers use mendacious techniques to strip you of your hard-earned cash? Don’t worry, though, as here come a pair of breezy experts to tell you how to avoid being ripped off. The immediate beneficiaries of their valuable teachings are two shopaholic families who waste thousands of pounds every year on expensive clothes and holidays. You’ll be forgiven for struggling to care about the overwhelming plight of these poor, beleaguered people. It beggars belief that Channel 4 would show this programme just 24 hours after the transmission of Growing Up Poor: Britain’s Breadline Kids, but I don’t suppose the contrast ever occurred to them.

MY GRANDPARENTS’ WAR

Wednesday, Channel 4, 9pm

As if to apologise for the previous evening’s blundering transgression, Channel 4 get back on track with part two of this compelling WWII history series. This week’s famous guide is anti-war campaigner and one of the world’s greatest living actors, Mark Rylance. His grandfather, Osmond, spent almost four years as a Japanese prisoner of war. A Hong Kong-based banker with no military experience, Osmond bravely joined a volunteer defence force in December 1941. On Christmas Day of that year he was shot and imprisoned. Rylance, who comes across as a lovely, sensitive soul, uncovers the moving story of a man who, like so many men who endured harrowing ordeals during the war, rarely spoke about it afterwards.

COUNTRY MUSIC: A FILM BY KEN BURNS

Friday, BBC Four, 9:30pm

Multi-award-winning documentarian Ken Burns is renowned for his epic accounts of American history. It was only a matter of time before he got around to country music, an ancient stream at the heart of the nation’s divided, complex culture. In episodes five and six he reaches the mid-1960s, a tumultuous era of change and revolt when certain preternaturally rebellious artists from the largely conservative world of country music commented sympathetically on current events. He focuses on Godlike feminist trailblazers Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton, indomitable human rights activist Johnny Cash, Fellini-inspired hippie cowboy Kris Kristofferson and the extraordinary African-American country singer Charley Pride. Country music prides itself on integrity: these guys are the ultimate bastions.

LAST WEEK’S TV

KILL YOUR TV: JIM MOIR’S WEIRD WORLD OF VIDEO ART

Sunday 24th November, BBC Four

If you’ve ever wondered where Jim Moir, aka Vic Reeves, gets his kerrazy ideas from, you only have to watch programmes such as this. Moir is an avant-garde artist who became a comedian by mistake. This documentary, in which he explored the colourful history of artists exploiting video technology for wild, subversive means, was probably the closest we’ll ever get to a mission statement from someone whose work defies logic.

MEAT: A THREAT TO OUR PLANET?

Monday 25th November, BBC One

Humans feast upon 65 billion animals a year. Scientific research has confirmed that meat production is one of the biggest causes of our environmental crisis. In this commendably grave and urgent documentary, animal biologist (and meat-eater) Liz Bonnin became increasingly horrified by her findings. She also provided some hope via rational solutions to the problem. Remember rational solutions? How quaint.

THE MAN WHO SAW TOO MUCH

Wednesday 27th November, BBC One

Say what you like about Alan Yentob (I always do), but fair play to the man: his stark documentary about Boris Pahor, a 106-year-old survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, was riveting. Pahor spent time in Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and Natzweiler. The latter is rarely spoken about, despite being one of the most horrific camps of its kind. A powerful piece of television.

Television: HOME FREE + ANT & DEC'S DNA JOURNEY

This article was originally published in The Courier on 16th November 2019.

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

NEXT WEEK’S TV

HOME FREE

Monday, Channel 4, 10pm

In this tender new series, a group of young people with learning disabilities are given the opportunity to live independently for the first time. They’re sharing a purpose-built apartment block as part of a progressive scheme funded by local health authorities. Participants include Anna and Joe, who have Down’s syndrome. They’re about to share a bed after being in a relationship for several years. The programme also features candid contributions from proud, supportive yet tearfully concerned parents, all of whom realise that, despite their fears, their children deserve to experience this rite of passage. As one of the young residents observes, they’re able people who just need a bit of extra support to take control of their own futures.

24 HOURS IN A&E

Monday, Channel 4, 9pm

I know, of course, that this long-running series can at first glance be easily dismissed as a rubbernecking voyeur’s delight, but anyone who’s taken time to actually watch it knows it’s a sensitive, responsible and quietly profound piece of beautifully made television. A nurse sums it up in the intro: “You see people from every thread of life, and it makes you realise that our common humanity far outweighs any differences.” The latest series commences with a broken-legged Bulgarian teenager and his adoring mother, a wrist-sprained bra-fitter, and a severely dehydrated pregnant woman. 24 Hours in A&E is a celebration of humanity, a compassionate character study. Life is precious. Look after each other, please, and may your God bless the NHS. 

BOOM, BUST & BANKERS

Tuesday, Channel 4, 9pm

I urge you to watch this chilling documentary about the government-backed redevelopment of Broadgate. That vast, oppressive banking complex, that toxic monument to rampant capitalism, was once the thrusting epicentre of Thatcher’s free market revolution. Vive le banks! You know what happened next. Broadgate is still a financial hub, but in order to keep it afloat it needs to branch out. Enter a new generation of champagne-quaffing toffs who just can’t wait to transform it into an elite leisure hub for the very worst people in the world. They’re contrasted with the security staff, engineers and minimum-wage migrant cleaners working 14-hour shifts to keep this repulsive symbol of inequality alive. An eloquent blast of utter disgust.   

WHAT MAKES A MURDERER

Thursday, Channel 4, 9pm

John Massey is Britain’s longest serving convicted murderer. In 1975, he shot and killed a bouncer. A cold-blooded premediated attack, declared the judge. Massey, who was released on parole last year, disagrees. He’s the first guinea pig in a series based on the findings of scientists who believe that certain biological traits make some people more likely to kill. Criminal experts place him under a battery of tests to determine whether neural and environmental abnormalities caused him to commit his crime. “I’m as curious as you are to find out,” says Massey, a bitter, angry, damaged man who attempted to escape from prison on three occasions. My expert conclusion: a broiling psychological stew of risibly self-evident analysis masquerading as mind-blowing insight.

WOULD I LIE TO YOU?

Friday, BBC One, 9:30pm

Let joy be unconfined: Bob Mortimer, the world’s funniest living human, has returned to the only comedy panel show worth watching. I detest most TV panel shows, they’re cheap, lazy vessels of weakly satirical/whimsical pointlessness (please put Mock The Week, Q.I. and the unforgivably Boris Johnson-enabling Have I Got News For You? out of their moribund misery), but Would I Lie To You? is an often hilarious source of spontaneously silly comfort. It exists only to entertain, especially when Bob is on board. This week he tries to convince the panel that he once commanded a daring heist on a campsite tuckshop. As always, you never can tell with Bob. He’s a liar you can rely on.

LAST WEEK’S TV

ANT & DEC’S DNA JOURNEY

Sunday 10 to Monday 11 November, STV

I like Ant and Dec. I don’t watch Saturday Night Takeaway, obviously, it’s an unbearably shrill light entertainment version of Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, but I’m rather fond of its presenters. Two bright, funny friends, effortlessly comfortable in each other’s company, the apotheosis of their simple craft can be found in the semi-adlibbed links which brighten uneventful episodes of I’m A Celebrity.

This adequately pleasant Who Do You Think You Are-style forage – delayed by two years due to Ant’s personal problems – reintroduced their seemingly unstoppable brand, just in time for the latest series of jungle mayhem.

Important caveat: at the time of writing this, dear reader, the press were only granted preview access to episode one, during which Ant/Dec spent most of their time eating biscuits in extended family kitchens. If, in episode two, Ant/Dec discovered that they were distant yet direct bloodline relatives of, not only each other, but Isambard Kingdom Brunel, then you will forgive the lack of excitement on my part.

TV Column: GOLD DIGGER + HIS DARK MATERIALS

A version of this article was originally published in The Courier on 9th November 2019.

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

NEXT WEEK’S TV

GOLD DIGGER

Tuesday, BBC One, 9pm

When Julia (Julia Ormond), a lonely divorcee and mother of three, turns 60, she books herself into a swanky London hotel. While pottering around an art gallery, she bumps into a handsome young man. Sparks fly and before you know it, she’s introducing this mysterious stranger to her understandably sceptical children (Julia is beautiful, but she’s also rich). Are they right to doubt him? Julia’s eldest son, Patrick, suffers from childhood flashbacks which suggest that history may be repeating itself in some sinister way. Gold Digger is an enjoyably melodramatic potboiler buoyed by a sensitive performance from Ormond and a standout turn from Sebastian Armesto as Patrick, who comes across as a knife-edge hybrid of Michael Shannon and Reece Shearsmith.

GARY LINEKER: MY GRANDDAD’S WAR

Monday, BBC One, 9pm

Gary Winston Lineker’s granddad, who is no longer with us, served in the British army during World War Two. He was part of a platoon informally known, with the utmost disrespect and unfairness, as ‘D-Day Dodgers’. In this Who Do You Think You Are?-esque programme, football’s numero uno left-wing groovy nice guy announces, “They haven’t had the credit they deserve, and if I can make a slight difference to that, that will make me feel proud.” Stanley Abbs served as a member of the Royal Army Medical Corps during the vital WW2 Italian campaign. Gary, with Stanley’s detailed war diary in hand, mounts a powerful case in favour of the contribution they made to the war effort.

THE YOUNG OFFENDERS

Monday, BBC One, 11:35pm

Gawd, please, spare us from these try-hard, frantically-edited edge-coms about loveable recidivists. Trainspotting erupted 23 years ago, we should’ve got over it by now. Young Offenders follows two teenagers from Cork as they attempt, for a potentially lucrative bet, to stay on the straight and narrow. Their greasy, shaved mushroom haircuts are supposedly a joke in themselves, a lazy stab at instant iconography. The people behind this utterly charmless, witless rubbish presumably won a barely applied-for competition. I’m only recommending it as an example of how not to write a sitcom. We all deserve better than this.

CLIMATEGATE: SCIENCE OF A SCANDAL

Thursday, BBC Four, 9pm

The cataclysmic effects of global warming are an actual fact, as all rational people agree. Ten years ago, however, a cabal of climate change deniers hacked into the emails of several leading scientists with the express purpose of distorting and misrepresenting their views: an insidious campaign of damaging misinformation. Donald Trump fully got behind those spurious findings. Of course he did. Fake news only suits Trump when it plumps up his cushions of malodorous self-interest. This grave, intense, jaw-dropping documentary gathers together many of the scientists who were supposedly exposed during that concerted barrage of lies. These people actually received death threats. Good luck, humanity. Tune in, grit your teeth and weep.

LAST WEEK’S TV

HIS DARK MATERIALS

Sunday 3rd November, BBC One

This adaptation of Philip Pullman’s richly acclaimed fantasy novels (which I haven’t read) began with a patience-testing volley of clunky exposition. Writer Jack Thorne had a lot to get through in terms of world-building, but he appeared to be overwhelmed by the task at hand.

Thorne failed to establish any reason to invest in the relationship between Lyra, the 12-year-old protagonist, and her maverick uncle (James McAvoy), a relationship which must surely be crucial to the saga’s appeal.

Lyra, though capably performed by Dafne Keen, came across as Just Another Kid in an expensively oak-panelled fantasia haunted by familiar British character actors.

Fairly impressive production design and seamlessly integrated CGI animals are all very well, but episode one was little more than a poorly paced, fatally muddled compendium of portentous proclamations. Thin gruel on an epic scale.

INSIDE THE SUPERMARKET

Thursday 7th November, BBC Two

Meanwhile, back in the real world, this series wandered the aisles of Sainsbury’s during a challenging year in which it celebrated its 150^th birthday. We met busy shop floor staffers and cappuccino-quaffing execs as they struggled to overcome increasing competition from their rivals. The black cloud of Brexit loomed large: panicky, cash-strapped consumers fled to M&S and Waitrose instead. 

One day, in the far-distant future, an alien race may discover an ash-covered tape of this programme, the last remaining trace of our existence, and wonder what the point of it all was.

TV Preview: RICH HALL'S RED MENACE + THE END OF THE F***ING WORLD

This article was originally published in The Courier on 2nd November 2019.

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

NEXT WEEK’S TV

RICH HALL’S RED MENACE

Tuesday, BBC Four, 9pm

It’s always a treat whenever the lugubrious Hall pops up to present another one of his feature-length history lessons shot through the prism of popular culture. This one, which is part of a series of programmes commemorating the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (see below), recounts the bizarre, sinister saga of the Cold War. Steeped in archive footage and assiduous research, it’s a typically droll, myth-busting essay in which Hall explores decades of anti-Communist hysteria and nuclear panic. While cowering from the insanity of Mutually Assured Destruction, the vast majority of ordinary Americans learned about the Red Menace via films, television and comic books. Meanwhile, ordinary Soviets endured a drab life of toil. As Hall observes, they were too exhausted to even think about invading America.

A BRITISH GUIDE TO THE END OF THE WORLD

Monday, BBC Four, 9pm

This chilling Arena documentary examines the extent of Britain’s nuclear ambitions and preparations for attack during the Cold War. It eschews conventional narration in favour of horrifically vivid testimonies from some of the people directly affected by these plans, including soldiers involved in Britain’s first major nuclear weapons test. As one man recalls, “It actually turned out there were birds on fire… hundreds of them burning. A lot of them were still alive, and blind.” Many soldiers got cancer as a direct result of the tests: “They sent us to that island to suffer the effects.” We also hear from civil servants who were responsible for making emergency plans in the seemingly inevitable event of nuclear war. Essential viewing.

THE FALL OF THE BERLIN WALL WITH JOHN SIMPSON

Thursday, BBC Four, 9pm

In this ruminative programme, senior BBC News journalist John Simpson exhumes his frontline reports on what he describes as “one of the great days of modern human existence”. With typical journalistic rigour, he wants to analyse the accuracy of his reporting of history. After all, things didn’t work out quite as he expected them to. Like all of us who lived through that terrifying epoch, Simpson assumed that the world could end at any moment. So no wonder the demolition of the Iron Curtain was a cause for celebration. Today, however, Russia and the West are still at loggerheads. It’s an insightful unravelling of a complex saga, overseen by a man who’s actually encountered the likes of Gorbachev and Putin.

THE END OF THE F***ING WORLD

Monday to Thursday, Channel 4, 10pm

Despite its title, this rather brilliant series has nothing to do with the above spate of Cold War documentaries. It’s a deadpan, David Lynch and Wes Anderson-influenced black comedy-drama about a pair of severely dysfunctional yet oddly likeable teenagers on a British Badlands-esque odyssey. As series two commences, we’re introduced to a troubled and vengeful young woman with connections to one of their (deserved) victims. Series one, which I loved, felt like a perfectly self-contained piece, a standalone blast of curious subversion, but writer Charlie Covell has hit upon an effective way of continuing the saga. As before, it somehow manages to combine hip post-modernism with a tender yet unsentimental depth of feeling. Quite an achievement.

LAST WEEK’S TV

WESTWOOD: PUNK. ICON. ACTIVIST

Saturday October 26, BBC Two

Artful and unorthodox, this hugely enjoyable profile of fashion legend Vivienne Westwood struck precisely the right note. A lifelong rebel, distrustful of received wisdom, she came across as a reluctant interviewee. Bored of talking about her life and legacy, at one point she sighed, “But you need this, so I’ll tell you.” Her refusal to play nicely was part of the film’s charm. She was grumpy, funny, generous, unpretentious and eccentric all at once. A rounded human being, no less.