MAX CLIFFORD: THE FALL OF A TABLOID KING + WHY IS COVID KILLING PEOPLE OF COLOUR?

This article was originally published in The Courier on 26th February 2021. 

THIS WEEK'S TV

Max Clifford: The Fall of a Tabloid King – Monday, Channel 4, 9pm

This excoriating documentary delves into the sordid cesspit of Clifford’s life. The now dead publicist was a vile human being: an amoral hypocrite, bully and narcissist; a psychopath; a pervert; a paedophile. Much like Savile, he hid in plain sight. 

Clifford revelled in power and the fear he wrought. A self-styled arch-manipulator, this arrogant media gangster thought he was untouchable. So no wonder we all enjoyed some schadenfreude when he was eventually exposed and incarcerated. 

But, via testaments from some of his identity-protected victims, the programme paints a bigger and far more important picture of an evil man who was kept afloat for years by our complicit media. It’s the antithesis of Clifford’s philosophy. It prints the truth.

Why is Covid Killing People of Colour? – Tuesday, BBC One, 9pm

“As a 55-year-old black man,” says actor David Harewood, “I am three times more likely to die from Covid-19 than a white man of my age.” To find out more about the reasons behind this stark statistic, he talks to various doctors and scientists, as well as people of colour who have lost loved ones during the pandemic. 

It’s an angering expose of health inequality in Britain. 

“Race is a biological fiction,” says one doctor of Indian origin. Instead, this is a systemic sociological issue rooted in decades of economic and racial discrimination. People of colour are more likely to work in lower-paying frontline roles, where protective conditions are often woefully inadequate. A national scandal.

DNA Family Secrets – Tuesday, BBC Two, 9pm

This touching series is basically ITV’s Long Lost Families in newly upholstered trousers. But that’s fine, it works. In recent years, the growing popularity of genetic testing has given us unprecedented access to our ancestry. 

In episode one, host Stacey Dooley meets Bill, a mixed-race man who has never met his African-American father, and Richard, who recently discovered that he’s not biologically related to the man who raised him. He also learns that he may have a half-brother. Bill and Richard gain some comfort from their findings, but some of the surprises are overwhelming. 

Dooley also meets Charlie, a young wife and mother with a 50% chance of inheriting her father’s Huntingdon’s Disease. It’s an emotionally-charged hour of television.

The Terror – Wednesday, BBC Two, 9pm

Medals will be awarded to anyone who manages to endure episode one of this frost-bitten period drama for more than ten minutes. I had to watch the whole thing, because that’s what they pay me for. 

In 1845, two Royal Navy ships embarked upon a pioneering mission to navigate through the Arctic. They never returned. There’s a potentially interesting story here, but it’s (sigh) tragically capsized by a mannered, arid screenplay. There is no heart, no soul. Zero momentum, nothing to cling on to. It’s just an indistinct procession of liveried characters whispering at each other in gloomy gas-lit cabins. 

The only highlight is a scurvy-ridden crewmember suffering a sub-Lynchian hallucination. A tedious voyage of the damned.

The Pandemic at No. 47 – Wednesday, Channel 4, 10pm

Director Paddy Wivvel usually makes documentaries set in prisons and psychiatric hospitals. This time he focuses on his own privileged London neighbourhood during the first national lockdown. 

Despite its friendly outward appearance, this isn’t a cosy close-knit community at all. Most of Wivvel’s neighbours have never met each other before. As the programme unfolds, he talks to frightened people who have lost loved ones to Covid. He also pays lip service to the debilitating psychological effects of loneliness and isolation. 

But halfway through I began to suspect that it was a sly piece of social satire: a parody of upper middle-class foolishness. It is not. Honestly, some of the people Wivvel meets are like ridiculous characters from a sketch show penned by Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse.

LAST WEEK'S TV

Bloodlands – Sunday 21st February, BBC One

This ham-fisted thriller stars James Nesbitt in none-more-glowering mode as a policeman whose wife was murdered by a serial killer during The Troubles. Everyone he meets never tires of reminding him about this. He’s a haunted man. A. Haunted. Man. Got that? Good. 

The subject matter is deadly serious, I’m not making light of that at all, but Bloodlines makes a mockery of whatever its fundamental intentions were. Cliché is piled upon cliché: a deadpan Leslie Nielsen comedy without the jokes. 

I like Nesbitt. Give him a good script and he’ll deliver, but this is a turgid mess. Jed Mercurio of Line of Duty fame is one of the executive producers. It’s aiming for that sense of kinetic gravitas. It misses. It’s drivel.

Chris Packham’s Animal Einsteins – Sunday 21st February, BBC Two

Who are nature’s cleverest creatures? For too long dolphins have dominated the natural world’s mastermind rankings: now, via this lively fact-packed series, it’s time to celebrate their unsung rivals. 

Each week, using innovative scientific techniques, that nice Chris Packham and a dedicated team of researchers carry out a variety of intelligence tests. 

The undoubted highlight of episode one was the carefully controlled experiment which revealed that bees have enough brainpower to count from zero to five, a basic skill they use to their advantage in the wild. What’s more, their intelligence levels are flexible enough to understand the rudiments of football (sort of). 

Packham, a naturally engaging teacher, is in his educational element here.

 

 

 

 

 

BLITZ SPIRIT WITH LUCY WORSLEY + UNFORGOTTEN + CAN'T GET YOU OUT OF MY HEAD

This article was originally published in The Courier on 20th February 2021.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

Blitz Spirit with Lucy Worsley – Tuesday, BBC One, 8:30pm

Between 7^th September 1940 and 11^th May 1941, Hitler’s Luftwaffe carried out a relentless bombing campaign on British cities. You are aware of this, I know. What came to be known as ‘Blitz Spirit’ has been cited ever since, particularly by mendacious politicians and media outlets, as a benchmark of British resilience in the face of a national crisis: keep calm and carry on. 

In this commendable 90-minute documentary, historian Lucy Worsley separates grisly truth from romantic myth. “This chapter of our history has never been more worthy of a closer look,” she says. Through the experiences of six real people, she shows what life was actually like during that horrific onslaught, and by extension what ‘Blitz Spirit’ really means. Let it never be misappropriated again. A - dare I say it - important essay.

Jamie: Keep Cooking Family Favourites – Monday, Channel 4, 8:30pm

Lockdown has encouraged Jamie Oliver to reflect upon “the ingredients we buy week in, week out.” So here he is, in his massive kitchen, cooking some supposedly affordable meals. It’s something we can all relate to: a millionaire making do. The episode ends with his family enjoying a succulent roast dinner in their sunlit garden. Over a million people in Britain are reliant on food banks. 

May I draw your attention instead to Can’t Get You Out of My Head, the latest mesmerising collage from the incomparable socio-political documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis. A typically expansive work of art, it dissects decades of corrupt power structures and ever-repeating patterns of parochialism, prejudice and paranoia. All six episodes are available now on BBC iPlayer. Enjoy.

DIY SOS: The Big Build – Monday, BBC One, 9pm

Mandy from Bangor has a rare genetic condition, the effects of which leave her bedbound for over 80% of the time. Her two children have inherited the same condition, which causes them to struggle with their own mobility issues. Dad, Davey, basically has to care for them all. 

It’s a sad situation; they’re missing out on the joys of family life. “I just want to be a mum and a wife again,” says Mandy. 

To bring them closer together, their house requires a major renovation. Enter big-hearted, hard-hatted Nick Knowles and his DIY SOS team, who together with a local designer and hundreds of volunteers, set about transforming the lives of this family in just nine days. Emotional scenes ensue.

Unforgotten – Monday, STV, 9pm

I’m not the world’s biggest fan of dour ITV police procedurals (that honour goes to an ex-pat called Terry from Rio de Janeiro), but Unforgotten is a reliable cut above your standard cop show fare. 

Generally speaking, the dialogue, plotting and characterisation don’t rely on the usual genre clichés. It’s compassionate and intelligent, its analogous stories devoted to finding justice for people who have fallen through the cracks in society. It also benefits from the natural chemistry between Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar as a pair of refreshingly ordinary, relatable sleuths. 

Their latest case begins with the discovery of a dismembered corpse in a scrapyard (I’m aware of how gruesome that sounds, but my point still stands). As always, we’re then introduced to characters who were connected to the deceased in some way.

Million Pound Pawn – Tuesday, STV, 8pm

During the current pandemic-induced economic crisis, Britain’s high-end pawnbrokers have continued to make a tidy living from cash-poor customers. The makers of this almost hilariously insensitive series don’t appear to have a problem with that: the money-guzzling pawnbrokers we meet are depicted as canny capitalists doing an honest day’s work. 

I urge you to watch it, if only to marvel at the utter wrong-headedness of blasting something like this into our faces in 2021. 

I’ll admit to feeling a vague pang of sympathy during the scene in which Dene from ‘80s pop has-beens Black Lace struggles to get a good evaluation on his Rolex, but that doesn’t excuse how misjudged the rest of it is.

Stand Up & Deliver – Thursday, Channel 4, 9pm

The art of stand-up isn’t something you can easily learn in a matter of weeks, but that hasn’t stopped Channel 4 and Stand Up to Cancer from hosting this show in which five professional comedians train five novice celebrities. At a climactic charity concert, the celebs must perform a five-minute act they’ve created themselves. 

The mirth-making mentors are David Baddiel, Nick Helm, Judi Love, Zoe Lyons and Jason Manford. Their quivering guinea pigs are Shaun Ryder, Reverend Richard Coles, Corrie actor Katie McGlynn, dancer Curtis Pritchard and Baroness Warsi. 

Helm can barely disguise his contempt for everything Warsi stands for, but his coaching methods are worryingly effective. The whole thing is excruciating, that’s the point. That and the good cause, obviously.

LAST WEEK’S TV

Trump Takes on the World – Wednesday 17th February, BBC Two

I know, I know, we’re all utterly sick of this pathetic mewling husk of a man, but we’ll just have to accept that the horror of his quasi-fascist presidency will haunt us forever. And who better to make some sense of it than the exceptional documentarian Norma Percy? 

Over the years, with award-winning documentaries such as The Death of Yugoslavia, she’s displayed a remarkable knack for procuring candid contributions from heavyweight political insiders. This bleakly compelling series is no different. 

In episode two, she exposed the ego-driven chaos of Trump’s Middle Eastern foreign policy. He’s a terrible businessman, a tactless diplomat, a pig-headed narcissist who refuses to listen to experts. A despicable human being. And he’ll never be held to account.

Raiders of the Lost Past with Janina Ramirez – Friday 19th February, BBC Two

In this new series, the intrepid art and cultural historian follows in the footsteps of three controversial men who traversed the globe in search of lost treasure. 

She began her journey in Crete, on the ancient site of the so-called Minotaur’s Palace. It was here, in 1900, that the hugely affluent English architect Arthur Evans authored, in Ramirez’s words, “one of the most contentious discovery stories of all time.” 

Evans, like so many classically-educated products of his time, believed that Britain was the natural successor to Ancient Greece. A fascinating man, but a textbook colonialist and blinkered self-publicist. 

Ramirez is an engaging teacher. Like any historian worth their salt, she exposes uncomfortable truths with scalpel-tooled precision.

 

 

IT'S A SIN + AN ENDLESS PROCESSION OF CELEBRITIES WANDERING AROUND BRITAIN

This article was originally published in The Courier on 13th February 2021.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

It’s a Sin – Friday, Channel 4, 9pm

Over the last five weeks, I’ve taken the unprecedented and quite frankly maverick step of choosing the same show as my highlight of the week. That’s because nothing has come close to It’s a Sin, the Russell T. Davies-penned drama about a group of friends dealing with the AIDS crisis. 

And now it comes to an end. 

Ritchie (Olly Alexander) is seriously ill at home on the Isle of Wight. His formidable mother (a strikingly nuanced turn from Keeley Hawes) struggles to cope with her pain, anger and confusion. A near-continuous shot through the corridors and wards of a hospital where patients are dying of AIDS is breath-taking. It’s a Sin will linger for a very long time.

Jay and Dom’s Home Fix – Monday, BBC One, 3:45pm

During the pandemic, I’ve become mildly obsessed with the increasingly obvious ways in which TV has been forced to operate. This new series is a case in point. 

It stars the genial Jay Blades and Dom Chinea from The Repair Shop, as they beaver away in their socially distanced workshop. Their M.O: provide some practical money-saving DIY advice, which is apparently easy to follow for viewers who aren’t, like me, incompetent Frank Spencer types. 

But their segments are padded out with a compendium of emergency archive clips from gently hands-on lifestyle shows such as Flog It!, Gardener’s World and Monty Don’s Big Dreams, Small Spaces. Yet despite its blatantly cobbled-together nature, it’s a perfectly pleasant distraction.

Joanna Lumley’s Home Sweet Home: Travels in My Own Land – Tuesday, STV, 8pm

This week’s travel-heavy schedules feel like a sadistic joke orchestrated by a phalanx of ostensibly inoffensive celebrities hell-bent on reminding us of the wonderful world outside our hermetic lockdown bubbles. 

During the final leg of her entirely random sojourn around Britain, Lumley and her spectacular array of scarves, snoods and sou’westers visit a Victorian slate-mining settlement in the misty mountains of Snowdonia. She also meets the GoCompare opera singer. 

While travelling through Devon and Cornwall (more of which below), she observes some Dartmoor druids performing an incantation, before ending where she began with another member of the Windrush Generation. A 95-year-old former musician, he’s glad to have lived to see numerous positive changes in this country.

Grand Tours of Scotland’s Lochs – Wednesday, BBC One, 7:30pm

In which the permanently be-hatted, neckerchief-swaddled, backpack-laden and always engaging Paul Murton returns for another informative Loch-side ramble. 

He begins his latest series on the beauteous Isle of Skye, with ancient myths and legends coursing through his mind. He sows a neatly sprawling tapestry of plundering Vikings, ancient Highland bagpipe traditions, gruesome feuds and battles, and a beatific visitation from Donovan, who once owned three of the surrounding islands during his high Arcadian ‘60s heyday. 

Murton also touches upon the horrific story of the Hebridean slaves, that most extreme example of 18^th century Scots being forced to leave their homes while under the governance of despicable land barons. I’m looking at you, Norman MacLeod.

Cornwall and Devon Walks with Julia Bradbury – Wednesday, STV, 8pm

And those feet just keep on walking. This week, Bradbury’s never-ending hike takes her to a vineyard in Totness and a massive house in Dartmouth that once belonged to Agatha Christie. 

Yomping travelogues such as this have been parodied so often over the years - by Alan Partridge in particular – you would think they’d be dead in the water. But no, they march on undaunted, impervious to satire. 

What with this, Lumley’s programme and John Nettles’ preposterously narrated Channel 4 series, there can’t be a single square inch of Devon and Cornwall that hasn’t been explored on television by now. Enough already. 

The logical next step: Gregg Wallace floating alone in the infinite depths of space.

Extraordinary Escapes with Sandi Toksvig – Wednesday, Channel 4, 9pm

I wish I was making this up for hilariously satirical effect, but here’s yet another cosy jaunt around the British Isles. 

If you happened to read last week’s column, then you may dimly recall the drill: each week, Toksvig and a famous female pal visit remote British locations and stay in unusual lodgings. Toksvig provides a few pertinent historical titbits. Sometimes they drink cocktails. There is literally nothing more to it than that. 

Her minibreak companion this time around is Jessica Hynes. An affable duo, they luxuriate in a lovingly restored 19^th century windmill, an 18^th century farmhouse located in the middle of a nature reserve, and a stylish glass-fronted beach house. So that’s nice, isn’t it?

LAST WEEK’S TV

Forensics: The Real CSI – Tuesday 9th February, BBC Two

“Hello. I’ve just murdered my wife.” 

So began the latest series of this sombre study of crime scene investigators. It followed forensic specialists from Birmingham as they carefully pieced together an accurate report on a brutal domestic murder. The husband may have confessed during his initial call to emergency services, but they couldn’t guarantee that he would stick to his story. There were no witnesses. Inevitably, they got him in the end. 

I’m always in two minds about shows of this nature. They’re technically well-made and relatively sensitive. They provide compelling insight into how the police and forensic investigators operate. But they also feed off terrible tragedies, and I feel guilty for getting drawn in.

Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby – Thursday February 11, BBC Two

We really don’t need another series of this jet-setting trash in which MasterChef judge Monica Galetti and the vile journalist Giles Coren – a man in his fifties who still hasn’t learned how to eat with his trap shut – visit various five-star hotels. 

There’s no wry commentary a la Alan Whicker or Louis Theroux, no suggestion that this luxury is repugnant and deranged: it’s an uncritical celebration of how the 1% live. 

Oh, it pays lip service to issues such as the environment and the local economy, and the hosts briefly muck in behind-the-scenes, but their efforts are perfunctory and patronising: these factotums work jolly hard, don’t they? Now, let’s have a glass of morning champagne! 

Horrible, horrible television.

 

 

IT'S A SIN + A PERFECT PLANET + 54 DAYS: AMERICA AND THE PANDEMIC

This article was originally published in The Courier on 6th February 2021.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

It’s a Sin – Friday, Channel 4, 9pm

Once again, Russell T. Davies flits with ease between comedy and tragedy in this impeccable drama about the AIDS crisis. It’s 1988, and Ritchie decides that it’s time to come out to his parents. His visit to their home on the Isle of Wight is heartbreaking: I guarantee that you will struggle to hold back tears. 

Meanwhile, Ash and Jill join a peaceful protest against Clause 28, and Roscoe hopes that his secret affair with a Tory MP (Stephen Fry) will whisk him into the high life. Fans of a certain sci-fi show (it’s RTD, so you can probably guess) will be delighted by one particular scene, but in typical Davies style it ends with a gut-punch.

Undercover Police: Hunting Paedophiles – Monday, Channel 4, 9pm

The National Crime Agency estimates that there are now 300,000 people in the UK who pose a sexual threat to children. This new series gains exclusive access to a covert unit of police officers tasked with bringing child sex offenders to justice. Preview copies weren’t available, but I think it’s fair to assume that this will be a tough, disturbing watch. 

In episode one we follow an undercover officer as he poses online as someone looking for other men to commit more heinous crimes with him. The series promises to explore the difficult questions surrounding the causes of paedophilia, as well as the psychological repercussions experienced by professionals who submerge themselves in this horrifying world on the public’s behalf. 

South Africa with Gregg Wallace – Tuesday, STV, 7:30pm

As the egg man’s journey comes to an end, he takes a helicopter ride to the remote and verdant heart of South Africa’s Zulu Kingdom. With assistance from a storyteller dressed in traditional Zulu garb, he delivers a mini history lesson about the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, when a small group of British soldiers (who had no business being there in the first place) fought around 4,000 Zulu warriors. 

Wallace is an amateur history buff and a big fan of the - as he acknowledges - divisive film Zulu, so he’s in his element. After that, it’s time for a spot of hearty home-cooked lunch in a traditional Zulu village. 

Wallace is known for being alarmingly ebullient, but he’s fairly restrained here. Respectful and engaged, he does a decent job.

First Dates: Valentine’s Day Special – Tuesday, Channel 4, 10pm

A special? It’s no different than any other episode of this cheerfully contrived dating show, but I have no beef with that. This week we meet Alexandra, the self-described “Bridget Jones of Northampton”, who works as a wedding planner. Her blind date is Tom, who’s in the high-end marquee hire business. What are the chances of that? 

On another table, retired Labour MP Roger admits that he’d “struggle if I went on a date with a Tory.” Fortunately, Jean, a retired French teacher, doesn’t disappoint. And then there’s the discomfiting pathos of Adam, a heavily tattooed extrovert who doesn’t understand why women can’t take him seriously. 

From a certain angle, this heart-warming show doubles up as a sensitive study of loneliness.

Imagine… We’ll Be Back? – Tuesday, BBC One, 10:45pm

The UK’s performing arts industry has been severely waylaid by the pandemic. In this well-meaning programme, Alan Yentob meets some of the people who are struggling to keep it alive while we wait to return to some semblance of normality. 

The contributors are sympathetic, of course they are, but Yentob is such a risible figure he fatally undermines the entire endeavour. His elitist pomposity and lack of self-awareness is a constant source of dismal mirth. Despite what he clearly thinks, he’s the last person who should be presenting a programme like this. Art is for the masses, but Yentob is a snob. 

It’s such a shame, as we really do need to support our local theatres and arts venues.

Extraordinary Escapes with Sandi Toksvig – Wednesday, Channel 4, 9pm

If you’ve ever fancied going on a luxury mini-break with Sandi Toksvig, then now’s your vicarious chance. In this new series, she visits some of Britain’s most tranquil spots while staying in various striking properties. Her first destination is the Deben Peninsula on the coast of Suffolk. 

Each week she’s accompanied by a famous female pal: her guest in episode one is the great Alison Steadman. Toksvig informally interviews Steadman about her life and likes (she’s a big fan of fungi and clouds), as they luxuriate in a converted 19^th century defence tower, a 17^th century thatched cottage, and the gatehouse of an 11^th century priory. 

It’s just two nice women shooting the sea breeze: passive comfort viewing.

Stonehenge: The Lost Circle Revealed – Friday, BBC Two, 9pm

The provenance and purpose of Stonehenge is one of history’s great mysteries. As Spinal Tap once mused of the prehistoric Britons who built it: “No one knew who they were, or what they were doing.” In recent years, however, a team of experts have plugged a 400-year gap in our knowledge of where the monument’s original stones came from. 

In this engrossing documentary, Professor Alice Roberts gains exclusive access to a series of extraordinary archaeological digs in Pembrokeshire. She explains how this dedicated squad of archaeologists, geologists and student volunteers have managed to unearth the remains of another vast stone circle, which was dismantled just before Stonehenge was created. Their painstaking detective work has rewritten history.

LAST WEEK’S TV

A Perfect Planet – Sunday 31st January, BBC One

In the final episode of Attenborough’s latest natural history lesson, the great narrator delivered a gloomy prognosis alongside three prominent scientists. Humans are destabilising the planet’s life support systems at a rapid and calamitous rate. We now release 100 times more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than all of Earth’s volcanos combined. 

To illustrate the dire effects of this human-made crisis, Attenborough presented upsetting scenes of hypothermic turtles and orphaned baby elephants suffering from dehydration. The programme’s key point was this: only by looking at the global cataclysms of the past can we prevent another one happening in future. 

Attenborough and co did provide some glimmers of hope, but it’s hard to avoid feeling helpless sometimes. Nice job, humans.

54 Days: America and the Pandemic – Tuesday 2nd February, BBC Two

This sobering documentary focused on some of the high-ranking American medical experts who did everything within their power during the early stages of the pandemic. It began on 31st January 2020, when there were only seven confirmed cases in the USA, and ended on 24th March, when there were 54,453 confirmed cases and 780 fatalities. 

The experts shared their intense frustrations and almost darkly comic sense of disbelief at pig-headed Trump’s politically motivated refusal to accept reality. Thousands of people have died as a direct result of his blatant misinformation. A rampant, dangerous egomaniac.

New York’s former Health Commissioner Oxiris Barbot broke down in tears as she described her overwhelming sense of responsibility. These people are not to blame, their hands were tied by a despotic regime.