HONOUR + FREDDIE FLINTOFF: LIVING WITH BULIMIA + US

This article was originally published in The Courier on 26th September 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

HONOUR

Monday, STV, 9pm

Keeley Hawes stars in this queasy factual drama about Banaz Mahmod, a young Iraqi Kurdish woman who was murdered by men from her own family. A so-called honour killing. Mahmod had been forced into a marriage with an abusive partner. When she fell in love with a good man, her father sanctioned a death sentence. Mahmod went to the police on five occasions. She received no assistance. She was ignored. Hawes plays the sympathetic, newly appointed senior police officer who did everything in her power to bring these men to justice. At first glance, Honour could be mistaken for a standard ITV crime drama. But there’s more to it than that. The tone is nuanced, angry, sensitive, despairing. It lingers.

FREDDIE FLINTOFF: LIVING WITH BULIMIA

Monday, BBC One, 9pm

Over 1.5 million people in the UK suffer from eating disorders. One in four of them are men. In this welcome report, cricketer Freddie Flintoff talks frankly about his own struggle with bulimia while going in search of more information about the illness. Flintoff struggled with fluctuating weight during his cricketing heyday. The tabloid press published terribly cruel articles about his appearance; that’s when he started to make himself vomit after meals. Outdated social norms discourage men from talking about physical and mental health issues, hence why Flintoff meets the mother of a young man who died as a result of his condition. The doctor didn’t listen. One hopes that things are improving. Programmes such as this can only help.

THE SHIPMAN FILES: A VERY BRITISH CRIME STORY

Monday, BBC Two, 9pm

GP Harold Shipman murdered hundreds of his own patients, most of them elderly women. He is the most prolific serial killer in modern history. In this new series, documentary filmmaker Chris Wilson focuses on some of Shipman’s victims via interviews with their friends and families. What can their deaths tell us about our attitudes towards the elderly? And do those attitudes explain how Shipman got away with it for so long? The series suggests that local police and health authorities were slow to follow up on accusations. Wilson’s approach is commendably sensitive. Shipman’s face doesn’t appear until 20 minutes into the first episode, and barely at all after that. His crimes aren’t sensationalised, that’s not why Wilson is here.

LIFE

Tuesday, BBC One, 9pm

Written by Mike Bartlett of Doctor Foster fame, this promising new drama revolves around a large house in Manchester divided into four flats. The residents are lonely Belle (Victoria Hamilton, reprising her role from Doctor Foster), who reluctantly agrees to look after the daughter of her mentally ill sister; David (Adrian Lester), who meets a young woman while on holiday without his wife (Rachael Stirling); heavily pregnant Hannah, whose relationship with her new boyfriend is complicated by the presence of the man who fathered her child; and most compelling of all, Gail (Alison Steadman), who starts to feel that she’s wasted years of her life married to a passive-aggressive ‘japester’ (Peter Davison). There are twists. There are turns.

LAST WEEK’S TV

JONATHAN ROSS’ COMEDY CLUB

Saturday 19th September, STV

Whatever happened to Jonathan Ross? Sachsgate happened; his own stupid, hubristic fault. And here he is, in the autumn of his once occasionally interesting career, hosting a socially distanced stand-up showcase on ITV. A contractual obligation, a way of paying off the school fees. 

Younger readers may find this difficult to believe, but when the Letterman-influenced Ross first cropped up on Channel 4 in the late 1980s, he was a breath of fresh, flippant air. Subversive, even. Still, at least his Covid emergency Comedy Club allows very funny and inventive comedians such as Bec Hill to inveigle their way into the mainstream. Ross, for all his faults, loves comedy. 

But really, the cutaways to his guffawing face during the performances are so unnecessary. The cameras should be pointed at the acts, this is their moment. His potentate-like presence is a terrible distraction.

US

Sunday 20th September, BBC One

Urgh. This miserable comedy-drama stars Tom Hollander and Saskia Reeves as a frightfully middle-class couple having one last summer together before splitting up. Writer David Nicholls, who adapted Us from his novel of the same name, is clearly labouring under a chronic delusion. He thinks we will care about these boring, charmless characters. Hollander and Reeves are good actors, but there’s nothing they can do to rescue this arid gust of middle-aged ennui. It’s what happens when comfortably sheltered TV executives commission programmes for the huddled masses.