EVERYTHING: THE REAL THING STORY + A SUITABLE BOY

This article was originally published in The Courier on 1st August 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

EVERYTHING: THE REAL THING STORY

Friday, BBC Four, 9pm

In 1976, the Real Thing became the first all-black British band to top the charts. You to Me Are Everything, a shimmering bauble of Philly soul perfection, came straight outta Liverpool. They were authentic, handsome, effortless; that charmingly cocky moniker fit them like a pair of snug satin strides. Other hits followed, but the Real Thing, a talented vocal group who also wrote their own socially conscious songs, struggled to escape from their teeny-bop image. This excellent feature-length documentary gives them their due. The group’s problems were compounded by falsetto pin-up Ray Stone’s mental health and drug issues. His bandmates pay tribute to that troubled soul man with palpable warmth, candour and sadness. It’s a deserved, if overdue, profile of a pioneering outfit.

CUBA: CASTRO VS. THE WORLD

Tuesday, BBC Two, 9pm

This absorbing two-part series attempts to explain how, during the Cold War, the tiny island of Cuba successfully challenged sabre-rattling superpowers. Fidel Castro’s relationship with the Soviet Union was at the heart of his mission to spread Marxist revolution across the continents, but the alliance was often strained to breaking point. While the surface narrative in episode one is familiar – the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion followed by the world-threatening Cuban missile crisis – it’s fleshed out by insightful contributions from an array of elderly men who were directly involved in the struggle. A clear-eyed and authoritative essay, it’s yet another feather in the cap for acclaimed documentarian Norma Percy (The Death of Yugoslavia).

SEMI-DETACHED

Thursday, BBC Two, 10:05pm

I’m all for tragicomedy when done well, but this sour new sitcom is utterly depressing. Lee Mack plays against type as a needy, desperate middle-aged man struggling to adjust to fatherhood with a partner twenty years his junior. It plays out in real time, presumably in an attempt to ramp up comic tension. Instead, it merely cultivates an air of queasy housebound claustrophobia which is inimical to farce. Small-scale, real-time domestic sitcoms such as Friday Night Dinner and The Royle Family succeeded because the characters are all essentially likeable. Comedy characters don’t have to be Good People, of course, but this pathetic shower are exhausting. It’s frenetically charmless and squanders the talents of a fine supporting cast.

SQUEAMISH ABOUT…

Thursday, BBC Two, 10:30pm

In this hastily cobbled together new series of comedy shorts, Matt Berry narrates incongruous nonsense over obscure archive footage. He does so in the guise of social historian Michael Squeamish, i.e. the same character Berry always plays. I’m usually quite partial to his absurdly-enunciated whimsy, but this is weak sauce. It’s not enough to just place clips out of context, you have to write some good gags too. Series creator Arthur Mathews (aka the Father Ted co-creator who isn’t a raging transphobe) should know better. Toast of London, the sitcom he co-wrote with Berry, was often very funny, but they’re on autopilot here. Comedians such as Peter Serafinowicz and Rhys Thomas have mined similar territory with far superior results.

LAST WEEK’S TV

A SUITABLE BOY

Sunday 26th July, BBC One

Set in a newly post-independence, post-partition India, this ambitious BBC drama is the first to feature an all-Asian cast. In that sense it's a welcome landmark. It follows a young woman faced with an impending arranged marriage to one of three ‘suitable boys’. A promising premise, but episode one was painfully slow. Adapted by That Man Again Andrew Davies from Vikram Seth’s epic novel, it failed to properly establish an extensive array of characters who were presumably more sharply-defined on the page. A frustrating state of affairs, as a major BBC production examining this tumultuous period in history has potential. Seth has said that he wouldn’t have allowed it to go ahead without Davies at the helm. Fair enough. Davies, however, has somehow managed the impossible: an inert drama rife with activity. Wild idea, I know, but maybe an Asian writer would’ve handled it better?

THE CONFESSIONS OF THOMAS QUICK

Monday 27th July, Channel 4

Sture Bergwall – aka Thomas Quick – was once regarded as the Swedish Hannibal Lecter. After confessing to 39 horrific murders, he was incarcerated for life. Years later, Bergwall was released. His confessions were fabricated. This extraordinary docudrama recounted the tragic, complicated saga of a mentally ill man and some highly dubious psychologists.