This article was originally published in The Courier on 7th August 2021.
NEXT WEEK’S TV
The Riots 2011: One
Week in August – Monday, BBC Two, 9pm
Ten years ago, the UK experienced its largest wave of civil unrest since the 1980s. This searching documentary gets to the root of why those riots occurred.
When Mark Duggan, a young black man from a North London estate, was shot and killed by the police, a broiling pressure cooker finally exploded. Disaffected working-class people gave full vent to their anger.
The film examines that chaos from the perspectives of rioters, police officers, an Asian man whose son was killed, and Tottenham Community Activist Stafford Scott. His astute closing remarks: “The political classes learned nothing, because they didn’t ask any questions. They just came down with a purely punitive response. There were no changes to social or public policy.”
Ghosts – Monday, BBC One, 8:30pm
As this likeable family sitcom from the Horrible Histories gang returns, the Button House residents are excited by the arrival of a TV crew making a Lucy Worsley-style history programme.
It’s also time to learn more about Sir Humphrey, the Tudor nobleman who carries his severed head around in classic spectral fashion. And the great Geoffrey McGivern returns as pompous local landowner Barclay, who inevitably elbows his way into the documentary. But he appears to be in ill-health, which triggers a desperate plot to get him off the premises before he dies and joins the ghosts in their contented domestic afterlife.
It’s not one of the strongest episodes, but spending time in this realm is always a pleasure.
In Search of Sir Walter Scott – Tuesday, BBC Scotland, 10pm
To mark the 250th anniversary of Sir Walter Scott’s birth, author and journalist Damian Barr presents this engaging essay. A pioneer of historical fiction, Scott changed Scotland’s perception of itself while almost single-handedly creating its tourist industry.
A hugely popular figure in his day, the great author and poet easily outsold contemporaries such as Jane Austen and Lord Byron. However, Barr believes that Scott may have fallen off the cultural radar, perhaps largely due to a widespread view that his work represents a ‘shortbread tin’ view of Scotland. Is that fair?
Barr digs into the man’s life in order to gain a greater understanding of his legacy and influence. Various misconceptions are challenged along the way.
Craig & Bruno’s Great British Road Trips – Wednesday, STV, 8pm
In the penultimate episode of this breezy distraction, Messrs Revel Horwood and Tonioli travel to the Lake District. They indulge in some wild swimming, drive around England’s steepest road, barrel into Cockermouth (the banter writes itself) and meet some Cumberland wrestlers (ditto). Craig also braves a high-wire walkway with a 1,000ft drop. Nervous Bruno cheers him on from the side-lines.
I’m a big fan of Strictly, and I daresay you are too. But you wouldn’t want to spend time with explosive Bruno and caustic Craig if they were actually like that all the time. It would be exhausting. Their ‘real selves’, of course, are charmingly self-aware. This show is a simple pleasure, no guilt required.
Ambulance – Thursday, BBC One, 9pm
“Ambulance service, is the patient breathing?” Winner of the 2018 TV BAFTA for Best Factual Series, Ambulance is right up there in the pantheon of frontline medical documentaries. Like the similarly stellar 24 Hours in A&E, it’s both a tribute to the stalwart professionalism of NHS workers and an affecting meditation on the fragility of life.
Filmed last year during lockdown, when over 11 million people dialled 999 for an ambulance, the latest series follows paramedics from the North West Ambulance Service as they deal with an unprecedented situation.
As always, we are embedded within a delicately tailored patchwork of human stories: there is humour, hope, compassion and tragedy. Christopher Eccleston is your suitably sensitive and unobtrusive narrator.
Undercover Big Boss – Thursday, STV, 9pm
You may recall this series when it originally aired on Channel 4 between 2009 and 2014. And now it’s back, on ITV. The format couldn’t be more straightforward: to find out what life is really like for their shop floor employees, multi-millionaire chief executives don disguises and get their pampered hands dirty (theoretically speaking).
In this episode, Robert Forrester, the CEO of leading car dealership group Bristol Street Motors, pretends to be a history lecturer presenting a documentary about people changing their careers during the pandemic.
A Walter White lookalike who has never sold a car in his life, Forrester learns some hopefully lasting lessons about the pressures of living hand to mouth with no job security.
Deceit – Friday, Channel 4, 9pm
On the morning of 15th July 1992, Rachel Nickell was brutally murdered while walking on Wimbledon Common with her two-year-old son. A horrifying case, it attracted widespread media attention. The police were inundated with calls from the public. They needed to find the murderer as quickly as possible.
This uncomfortable four-part drama examines the controversy surrounding their investigation, which involved an undercover policewoman gaining the trust, or even love, of a chief suspect. A miscarriage of justice ensued.
Niamh Algar
delivers an excellent, finely nuanced performance as the conflicted ‘honey-trapper’,
but this story – which is worth telling in theory – is undermined by heavy-handed
writing and direction, plus an absurdly mannered performance from Eddie Marsan as a creepy criminal profiler. Deceit leaves a nasty taste in the mouth.
LAST WEEK’S TV
Blind Ambition – Saturday 31st July, BBC Two
Television director Jamie O’Leary has very bad eyesight. His glasses prescription is -32. The average short-sighted person has a prescription of -2.5. In this affirmative programme, he met various blind artists to find out how they’ve coped with losing their sight.
The self-deprecating host – who has a background in both comedy and documentaries about disability - was accompanied by blind comedian Jamie MacDonald, a cheerfully cynical deadpan wit who was entirely in tune with O’Leary’s approach. They struck a good balance between taking the subject seriously while finding some of the humour within it.
Their encounters with a photographer, a rapper and an opera singer – to name but three of their interviewees – were funny and enlightening.
Harry Birrell Presents Films of Scotland – Tuesday 3rd August, BBC Scotland
In the final episode of this charming series, we delved further into the archives of the late Harry Birrell. A talented amateur filmmaker who compiled an evocative document of life in post-war 20th century Scotland, Birrell was incredibly prolific; I like to think that he knew his hobby – his benign obsession - was of everlasting social value.
Among the highlights were people water-skiing on Highland lochs and footage of the last days of Glasgow’s tramway system. But the most poignant snapshots were Birrell’s wedding day and the birth of his children (who paid tribute throughout the episode). Here were lives preserved on camera, in living cine colour.
Both episodes are available for your enrichment on iPlayer.
No comments:
Post a Comment