THE SOUND OF TV WITH NEIL BRAND + SMALL AXE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 28th November 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

The Sound of TV with Neil Brand – Friday, BBC Four, 9pm

The best television theme tunes are indelibly embedded within the national psyche. The ones we grew up in particular with invoke a Proustian rush unlike any other. Neil Brand, that estimable composer and pop culture enthusiast, knows this only too well. His latest series is an embarrassment of riches in which he celebrates the enduring spell of television music. He offers eloquent insight into how and why the best theme tunes work, with highlights including a visit to Portmeirion, where he dissects el maestro Ron Grainer’s dynamic theme from The Prisoner, and a meeting with Dick Mills of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, who analyses the great Delia Derbyshire’s ground-breaking electronic arrangement of Grainer’s Doctor Who theme. It’s all wonderful.

Hospital – Monday, BBC Two, 9pm

Filmed just a couple of months ago, the latest episode of this urgent frontline documentary follows staff at Barnet Hospital in London as they treat elderly patients while dealing with a bed shortage exacerbated by the pandemic. The hospital, which is part of the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust, is situated in a borough with nearly one hundred care homes. The A&E department has been pushed to its limit. Winter, a time when older people are at their most vulnerable, is looming. Covid-19 is on the rise again. The point of this series couldn’t be clearer. No amount of well-meaning public applause and utensil-banging can compensate for the government’s catastrophic mishandling of the pandemic.

Paul O’Grady’s Great British Escape – Wednesday, STV, 8pm

This week, the nationally treasurable O’Grady reads some Chaucer to his pigs as a prologue to a sojourn in Canterbury. While there, he checks up on the major renovation of Canterbury Cathedral (“Good job I had a stent put in,” he quips while scaling its heights), pops into the cosy country pub where Ian Fleming wrote You Only Live Twice, takes a ride on a vintage steam train, and visits an endangered big cat sanctuary (they’re very keen on Calvin Klein-infused catnip, apparently). This is, quite simply, a nice series. It may not add up to much in the grand scheme of things, but God knows we need some fleeting escape from the grand scheme of things sometimes.

New Elizabethans with Andrew Marr – Thursday, BBC Two, 9pm

Marr’s latest essay is a scattershot dud. His stated aim is to illustrate how British society has changed dramatically during Liz II’s lengthy time on the throne – the second Elizabethan age. To that end he’s chosen a handful of notable public figures who reflect that transformation. A sound idea in theory, but Marr spends far too little time on each of his nominations. The result is a superficial overview, a smash and grab advert for his tie-in book. You simply cannot do justice to the fascinating likes of (deep breath) Graham Chapman, Diana Dors, Ruth Ellis, Tracey Emin, Darcus Howe, Roy Jenkins, Alan McGee, Nancy Mitford, Jan Morris and Mary Whitehouse in the space of an hour. It’s pointless.

Grayson’s Art Club: The Exhibition – Friday, Channel 4, 8pm

Earlier this year, Grayson Perry delivered some emergency lockdown cheer via his Channel 4 series in which he encouraged people to express their hopes and fears through the democratic medium of art. In this one-off special, Perry and his equally splendid wife, the psychotherapist Philippa Perry, host a socially distanced Manchester Art Gallery exhibition of the work they curated during that series. Preview copies weren’t available, the show is still being edited as I type these words, but I can pretty much guarantee that it will fleetingly restore your faith in human nature. The Perrys aren’t pretentious, they’re arty egalitarians. C4 have assured us that, once lockdown is lifted, Grayson’s Art Club will make a triumphant return.

Waterhole: Africa’s Animal Oasis – Friday, BBC Two, 9pm

In this enlightening series, Chris Packham and biologist Ella Al-Shamahi examine the life-threatening impact of climate change on the African ecosystem. They’re on a protected wildlife preserve in Tanzania, where the BBC’s Natural History Unit have built a waterhole discreetly rigged with cameras. Their aim is to study the ways in which these vital sources of water manage to support so many competing species. Episode one is liberally stocked with buffalo, warthogs, elephants, leopards, lions and zebras, who eye each other suspiciously like rival gangs in a pub carpark. But peace is maintained by their overriding need to sup from the waterhole whenever the chance arises. Some of the footage, most of it filmed at night, is extraordinary.

LAST WEEK’S TV

Fela Kuti: Father of Afrobeat – Saturday 21st November, BBC Two

The Nigerian musician Fela Kuti was a revolutionary artist, a radical political activist, a countercultural hero. He was also an enigma. By the end of this frustrating documentary, I felt no closer to understanding him than I did at the start. It succeeded in illustrating Kuti’s fearlessness when it came to standing up against a dictatorial regime in the 1970s and 1980s – he risked his life in the name of personal freedom – but it skirted coyly around the subject of his communal compound, which was full of young women at his beck and call. Some of them, it hinted, may have been underage. No one had a bad word to say about him, but an uncomfortable subtext simmered throughout.

Small Axe – Sunday 22nd November, BBC One

The second film in Steve McQueen’s anthology of dramas about London’s West Indian community was an immersive ode to youth in all of its intensity, romance, confusion and defiance. It took place at a house party in 1980, a time when young black people weren’t welcome in predominantly white nightclubs. McQueen’s camera lingered fondly (not creepily) over kids on the verge of adulthood as they sang, danced, smoked, drank and fell for each other. But this was no rose-tinted celebration. A woman was raped. Racism circled the building. The party represented an oasis of escape set against an encroaching backdrop of violence. McQueen, with characteristic eye for vivid detail, captured all the joy and pain. A magnificent piece of work.