THE GALLOWS POLE | CHANGING ENDS | OUR LIVES: MY HUSBAND THE MMA FIGHTER

This article was originally published in The Courier on 27th May 2023.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

The Gallows Pole – Wednesday, BBC Two, 9pm

The great Shane Meadows usually directs social realist dramas set in the present day or fairly recent past. The Gallows Pole marks his first foray into pre-20^th century history. 

A fictionalised account of a true story, it follows 18^th century working-class Yorkshireman David (Michael Socha) as he ignites a revolution. 

As you can imagine, this is not a typical period drama. Etched in shades of folk horror, it’s populated by characters who convince as actual human beings, they’re not carefully curated museum pieces. 

It bears all the usual hallmarks of Meadows’ work: naturalistic performances and semi-improvised dialogue combined with themes of social injustice, fraternal bonds, redemption, revenge and some understated comedy. 

It’s also a perfect showcase for Socha’s gruff, sad-eyed charisma.

Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland – Monday, BBC Two, 9pm

Episode two of this engrossing Troubles documentary unfolds in early 1970s Belfast. It begins with Bloody Friday, an IRA attack during which nine people were killed. That tragedy drew support for the nascent Ulster Defence Association, a loyalist paramilitary group. 

Interviewees include former IRA and UDA members, who candidly reflect upon their younger selves and everything they once stood for. 

“I was in charge of guns when I was seventeen,” says one older man who came of age in a society divided by sectarian hatred and violence. “I have a granddaughter of seventeen, and I could not imagine handing her a gun. I could not imagine handing her anything other than a strawberry f***ing milkshake, to be honest. But anyway…”

A Paedophile in My Family: Surviving Dad – Wednesday, Channel 4, 9pm

Emily was sexually abused by her father for the first eighteen years of her life. In this intimate, powerful and deeply moving documentary, she tries to understand why her abuse remained unnoticed for so long. 

Emily wants to help other survivors. Her incredibly brave yet painful journey involves encounters with a clinical psychologist, the sympathetic police officers who investigated her case, and a restorative justice officer. Emily’s abusive father has recently been released from prison. There’s a part of her that wants to confront him. 

The programme culminates with a difficult, heart-breaking conversation between Emily and her loving mother. It’s marked by guilt, shame, anger and confusion. An important piece of television.

Changing Ends – Thursday, ITVX

There comes a time in every comedian’s life when they must devise a sweet-natured television series about their childhood. Now it’s Alan Carr’s turn. 

His dad was the manager of a fourth division Northampton football team, a vocation entirely at odds with little Alan’s gay and geeky world. He wasn’t ‘normal’ according to the homophobes who impinged upon his otherwise happy life, so he attempted to fit in by faking an interest in so-called manly pursuits. 

Changing Ends is charming. It’s a coming-of-age story set in less inclusive times, but the underlying message is positive. Carr, who occasionally appears as an in-vision narrator, has co-written it with love for his kind and supportive family.

Taskmaster – Thursday, Channel 4, 9pm

This column is a resolutely spoiler-free zone, so I obviously can’t go into any great detail about the latest thrilling Taskmaster grand finale. 

All I’m prepared to say is this: while dressed in the studio like Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the five competitors – Frankie Boyle, Jenny Éclair, Ivo Graham, Kiell Smith-Bynoe and Mae Martin – unveil some bespoke Greg Davies merchandise while wrestling in the Taskmaster field with pint glasses, buckets, hoses, balloons, rubber bands and ice. 

Psychedelic feathered hats off to the deserved winner. But who will that be? I am, as you’ve presumably gathered, trying to create some suspense here. Taskmaster is a delightful distraction, it aims only to please.

Untold: The Secret World of Boy Racers – Thursday, Channel 4, 11:05pm

In this documentary, filmmaker Ben Zand embeds himself within the incredibly dangerous and irresponsible world of Britain’s underground car scene, a subculture in which young men race noisily souped-up cars along motorways in the dead of night. 

At the risk of sounding like Alan Partridge, they’re an absolute bunch of immature idiots with no thought for the consequences of their actions. All they care about is the fleeting futile thrill of it all. 

Zand meets someone who was left paralysed while traveling in a car with his adrenaline junkie driver. Two innocent bystanders died in that collision. “People” he laments, “don’t ever consider the severe impact of it going wrong until it’s too late.”

Our Lives: My Husband the MMA Fighter – Friday, BBC One, 7:30pm

Natalie is married to one of Scotland’s foremost cage fighters, Stevie ‘Braveheart’ Ray. 

This typically sensitive Our Lives documentary follows the Kirkcaldy-based couple and their four young children, one of whom is epileptic, as Stevie prepares for a potentially life-changing world title fight in New York. 

It’s been a tough year. As Natalie admits, she’s basically looked after the kids as a single parent while Stevie has been consumed by his training regime. 

Natalie and Stevie are nice, bright people. They reflect upon the necessary sacrifices they’ve made in the hope of Stevie setting the family up for life with a $1 million jackpot. A real-life Rocky love story, you’ll be rooting for ‘em throughout.

LAST WEEK’S TV

Reel Stories: Pet Shop Boys – Saturday 20th May, BBC Two

In the latest episode of this intermittent series, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe settled into some plush cinema seats while watching archive clips of themselves. 

The duo’s memories were jogged by an 1980s BBC Breakfast Time report on Smash Hits – “I haven’t seen this since when it was on!” exclaimed former Smash Hits editor Tennant, who sounds uncannily like Steve Pemberton at times – and their very first TV appearance together. The boys were reliably lovely and amusing. 

They wouldn’t thank me for the compliment, but PSB are bona fide national treasures. 

The programme also afforded our preternaturally affable host Dermot O’Leary an opportunity to utter the phrase “Larkian lyrics” for the first, and presumably last, time in his career.

Strike: Inside the Unions – Thursday 25th May, BBC Two

Our dire cost of living crisis has resulted in the biggest wave of strikes this country has witnessed in decades. 

A probing two-part documentary, Strike: Inside the Unions follows national hero Mick Lynch and other prominent trade unionists as they campaign on behalf of our underpaid frontline workers. 

Lynch is a subversive character. Witty, erudite and entirely committed to his cause, he runs rings around politicians and journalists with blunt statements of inarguable fact. And you’re not supposed to do that. 

Episode one began with this caption: “The Government departments and many of the companies featured in this series declined to take part.” Why, it’s almost as if they have something to hide. Up the workers.

THE WITCHFINDER + KATIE PRICE: WHAT HARVEY DID NEXT + OUR HOUSE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 5th March 2022.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

The Witchfinder – Tuesday, BBC Two, 10pm

This promising new sitcom is written and directed by Neil and Rob Gibbons, a sibling duo who, since 2010, have been responsible for some of the greatest ever Alan Partridge material. 

Set in mid-17^th century England against a tumultuous backdrop of civil war, plague and deranged religious zealotry, it stars Tim Key (aka Sidekick Simon) as a hapless witchfinder, Jessica Hynes as his long-suffering assistant, and Daisy May Cooper from This Country as a sardonic woman accused of witchery. 

Python and Blackadder are the obvious touchstones, and there’s no denying that Key’s character – a pompous fool who desperately craves recognition – is in the Partridge mould. But The Witchfinder is still funny on its own farcical terms.

Katie Price: What Harvey Did Next – Monday, BBC One, 9pm

Last year, as you may recall, Katie Price and her teenage son Harvey participated in a tender documentary about their personal circumstances. This is the follow-up. 

Harvey has a complex variety of rare medical and behavioural conditions, which can make life difficult for him. The programme follows Harvey as he embarks upon a major rite of passage: leaving home for college, where he’ll stay for the next three years. Katie and Harvey are understandably anxious, but the brilliant support staff – a credit to their profession – ensure that this transition runs as smoothly as possible. 

It’s a touching portrait of a young man with learning difficulties gradually gaining independence, while a doting mother deals with her own mental health.

Our House – Monday to Thursday, STV, 9pm

Martin Compston and Tuppence Middleton star in this psychological thriller about a divorced couple who make a fragile living arrangement for the sake of their children. And then, of course, it all goes horribly wrong. 

Based on a critically acclaimed bestseller by Louise Candlish, Our House is blighted by stilted dialogue and a faulty narrative structure. The flashbacks are supposed to invite intrigue, but the overall effect is enervating. I only had access to episode one, so for all I know it might reveal tremendous hidden depths by the end. But I doubt it. 

It’s just another instalment in ITV’s never-ending cavalcade of generic kitchen island thrillers. Compston and Middleton do their best, but the material is beyond salvation

Stacey Dooley: Inside the Convent – Monday, BBC One, 10:35pm

Dooley isn’t religious, but for the purposes of her latest investigative report she’s decided to reconsider her belief system while spending ten days in a small convent with some delightful Anglican nuns. 

They observe three key vows: poverty, obedience and celibacy. It’s a strictly-scheduled and repetitive existence, but they all seem happy enough. And it’s not as if they aren’t aware of the sacrifice they’ve made. Some of them admit to having wavered at times, but their faith in God is unstinting. 

Dooley, as always, strikes up a natural rapport with her interviewees. She returns, gently and without judgement, to a central question: how can you have devout faith in a world so beleaguered with cruelty and injustice?

Interior Design Masters with Alan Carr – Wednesday, BBC One, 9pm

A textbook piece of competitive lifestyle television, this returning series pits ten aspiring interior designers against each other. Each week they have to magically transform various commercial spaces while impressing a formidable panel of design gurus including Michelle Ogundehin and Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen. 

The grand prize is a locked-contract with a luxury Cornwall hotel. Meanwhile, host Alan Carr picks up an easy paycheque. 

“I would class myself as a creative genius” boasts a designer who looks like Alan Rickman auditioning for a spaniel-only remake of Easy Rider. The contestants all say things like that, but we know how TV works in this post-Big Brother/Apprentice age. The producers cajole them into sounding as silly as possible.

Michael Mosley: Who Made Britain Fat? – Wednesday, Channel 4, 9pm

As you’ve no doubt surmised from the baldly descriptive title, Britain’s obesity problem is the subject of this new two-part series hosted by genial medical expert Michael Mosley. 

I haven’t seen the programme, previews weren’t available, but it sounds like a rather searching critique of successive governmental failures to effectively tackle the issue, no matter how many supposedly helpful policies they launch. 

Mosley, an unassuming man with a quietly authoritative grasp of well-researched facts, puts forward his own theories with regards to how the crisis can be solved without adding further harm to an already sorely tested NHS. He’s always worth listening to.  In episode one, Mosley’s interviewees include celebrity chef and patently sincere child health campaigner Jamie Oliver.

Grantchester – Friday, STV, 9pm

This ecclesiastical detective drama obviously hasn’t been the same since original star James Norton (TV critic cliché alert) hung up his dog collar, but it’s still a fairly enjoyable clue-sniffing distraction. It whiles away an hour in an entirely inoffensive way. Last of the Summer Crime, if you will. All Murders Great and Small. 

The latest series begins with the discovery of a corpse in the grounds of a struggling ancestral estate. But never mind that, it looks like our intrepid vicar hero could be smitten with a mysterious woman he meets in one of those new-fangled late 1950s jazz clubs. Meanwhile, Geordie (the ever-reliable Robson Green) tries to get back together with his estranged wife.

LAST WEEK’S TV

Peaky Blinders – Sunday 27th February, BBC One

And so, the end is near. As the final series of this stylised Shakespearean gangster tragedy got underway, the untimely passing of the great Helen McCrory was tastefully handled within the first ten minutes. Writer Stephen Knight killed her character off, the dreadful deed unseen for obvious reasons, but she’s not forgotten. Her vital role in this saga endures. 

The huge mainstream success of Peaky Blinders has been rather heartening. It is, after all, a fairly offbeat piece of work. But its unique qualities – that combination of hallucinatory psychodrama, vivid characters, a compelling storyline and a thickly clotted bloodstream of mordant wit – struck a clanging chord with viewers. It will be missed. But for now let’s enjoy its last hurrah.

Stanley Tucci: Searching for Italy – Sunday February 27, BBC Two

The actor Stanely Tucci is elegant charm personified. A dry-witted fellow with a passion for life. So no wonder this new series is an enjoyable confection. What’s not to like about a culinary travelogue in which a charismatic guide celebrates the sights, sounds, tastes and smells of various Italian cities? Superior comfort viewing. 

In episode one, Tucci visited Naples and the Amalfi Coast. It wasn’t an entirely cosy endeavour – Tucci explored the often troubled history of these regions – but his M.O. is basically this: Italy is a wonderful country, it has contributed so much to our cultural palette, and wouldn’t you just love to eat a slice of pizza while admiring some art? Well yes, Stanley, I would. 

IT'S A SIN + JOANNA LUMLEY'S HOME SWEET HOME: TRAVELS IN MY OWN LAND

This article was originally published in The Courier on 30th January 2021.

NEXT WEEK'S TV

It’s a Sin – Friday, Channel 4, 9pm

We’ve known from the start that at least one of the characters in Russell T. Davies’ outstanding drama would eventually die from AIDS. But no matter how much you may have steeled yourself for that tragic development, this episode is utterly devastating. 

Davies doesn’t flinch, as that would fatally undermine his modus operandi. He wants us to confront the terrifying cruelty of this disease and the appalling stigma that surrounded it in the 1980s. He’s made us care about these characters, we’re fully invested in them. Now it’s time to cry and get angry. 

And yet, as always, Davies balances the horror with humour. He’s a remarkable writer: this profoundly compassionate political statement could be the best thing he’s ever done.

Craftivism: Making a Difference – Monday, BBC Four, 10pm

Comedian Jenny Éclair has been on her fair share of protest marches over the years. In this revealing programme, she examines the direct crossover between grass-roots activism and creativity, specifically with regards to knitting, cross-stitching, banners and Fuzzy Felt graffiti. 

That may sound rather twee and whimsical, but Éclair makes a strong case for the effectiveness of craftivism. It grabs people’s attention, it makes them stop and think: humour, art and politics combined. It can also be a source of mental wellbeing. 

Éclair meets various nimble-figured campaigners, all of them devoted to raising awareness of various important causes via non-aggressive means. They’re doing what they can in a benign yet sometimes provocative way.

Interior Design Masters with Alan Carr – Tuesday, BBC Two, 8pm

Deep in the bowels of Broadcasting House, there stands a large semi-sentient computer tasked with churning out formulaic competitive lifestyle formats. Its latest computation is this, a slickly upholstered vehicle featuring ten creative contestants hoping to break into the professional world of interior design. The grand prize is a contract with a luxury hotel in The Lake District. 

Each week they’re instructed to transform a bland commercial space using the spellbinding power of their imaginations. Host Alan Carr does what’s required of him (very little), while design guru Michelle Ogundehin scrutinises their efforts. 

It is staggeringly dull, the very definition of barely moving wallpaper. No drama, no tension, no fun. We don’t need this right now. Or ever.

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

La Lumley rises above that unwieldy title to present this undemanding series in which she travels around Britain. You know the drill: nice scenery and a smattering of history, all wrapped up in Lumley’s soothing caramel tones. There’s no theme, no focus, just a random patchwork of vignettes. 

On the banks of Lake Windermere she visits the picturesque home of Beatrix Potter. In Whitby, the coastal town that inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula, she hangs out with some goths. Meanwhile, in Manchester, she visits Coronation Street HQ to wax nostalgically with William Roache (she once played Ken Barlow’s girlfriend for four weeks in 1973). 

Lumley is undeniably good at this sort of thing, she’s naturally charming, friendly and inquisitive.

Your Garden Made Perfect – Thursday, BBC Two, 8pm

Here we go again, yet another ‘aspirational’ series designed to make us feel like failures. You don’t have a massive garden and a mound of disposable income? Well that’s your fault. 

In episode one we meet two couples with a combined budget of £40,000. They want to transform their back gardens into magical wonderlands, so they enlist a team of design experts. Detailed computer-generated simulations afford them the luxury of choosing the results. This conceit is presented as a mind-blowing hook. 

The only affluent lifestyle show I can stomach is Grand Designs, because that tacitly mocks the participants. Pure schadenfreude. This is a smug celebration of oblivious middle-class orthodoxy. I’m a million laughs in real life, honestly.

The Chasers Road Trip: Trains, Brains and Automobiles – Thursday, STV, 9pm

In the final episode of this knowledge-hungry travelogue, Anne, Mark and Shaun from TV’s The Chase arrive in Japan, which has one of the highest robot to human ratios in the world. 

Their journey into the world of Artificial Intelligence is ostensibly light-hearted, but the programme carries a sinister undertow. Advanced facial recognition technology could pose a serious threat to our civil liberties, and do we really want to live in a world populated by realistic androids? We’ve all seen Humans and The Terminator. 

Shaun is particularly worried about this dystopian sci-fi nightmare, whereas pragmatic Anne believes that the human brainbox will always be the dominant force on Earth. Bradley Walsh was unavailable for comment.

LAST WEEK’S TV

Incredible Journeys with Simon Reeve –  24th January, BBC Two

Last year, seasoned BBC travellers Michael Palin and Louis Theroux hosted emergency lockdown compilations of highlights from their previous adventures. Now it’s Simon Reeve’s turn. 

An affable explorer with a dedicated social conscience, Reeve is a people person. He’s not one to merely bask in the foreign climes he encounters, he’s more interested in making a meaningful street-level connection with different cultures. 

This wasn’t the best way to appreciate his work: Best Of’s never are. But it was a touching reminder of how, in his unassuming way, he exposes injustice. War, poverty, inequality, prejudice, these are the abiding themes of his programmes. His anger bubbles just below the surface. His compassion is palpable. A decent human being.

Hip Hop: Songs That Shook America – 29th January, BBC Four

Each episode in this new series focuses on a game-changing hip hop track. It began with Kanye West’s Jesus Walks from 2004. A powerful redemption song, this innovative fusion of social commentary, self-aggrandisement and gospel put Kanye on the map. 

Which is all well and good, but the story behind the making of Jesus Walks isn’t particularly interesting. Yes, the programme placed the song in its socio-political context while tracing the evolution of Kanye’s life and career up until that point, but it all felt rather perfunctory. 

To make up for Kanye’s absence, series producers Questlove and Black Thought from The Roots spoke to some of his collaborators. The rest of the series will hopefully be more substantial.

 

SITTING IN LIMBO + I MAY DESTROY YOU

This article was originally published in The Courier on 6th June 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

SITTING IN LIMBO

Monday, BBC One, 8:30pm

Inspired by the unforgivable Windrush immigration scandal, this relentlessly angering drama tells the true story of Anthony Bryan. In 2016, four years after David Cameron’s coalition government introduced their hostile environment policy, Anthony decided to visit his ailing elderly mother in Jamaica. He’d never needed a passport since moving to the UK in 1965. After filling in the paperwork he was shocked to discover that there was no record of him as a British citizen. He immediately lost his job and, without any official explanation, was stripped of his rights to use the NHS and claim benefits. Written by Anthony’s brother, Stephen S. Thompson, Sitting in Limbo follows him through the nightmare ordeal of having to prove his residential status. It couldn’t have arrived at a more apposite time. Do not miss.

I MAY DESTROY YOU

Monday and Tuesday, BBC One, 10:45pm

I wouldn’t normally recommend a show involving young metropolitan media types struggling with deadlines, but this new series from actor/writer Michaela Coel of Chewing Gum renown isn’t remotely smug or self-indulgent. This is no carefree celebration of living inside a sexy, solvent London bubble; the occasional moment of dry humour aside, it’s a stark and queasy drama about a woman dealing with severe trauma. Coel plays Arabella, an author with a hit debut novel under her belt. Her life is pretty much perfect. Then, during a night out with friends, she’s drugged and raped. At first, Arabella can’t fully recall the exact details of what happened, but she gradually pieces it together. I May Destroy You cuts deep.

STAGED

Wednesday, BBC One, 10:45pm

Michael Sheen and David Tennant are, like all sensible people at the moment, in lockdown. They were, in this semi-fictionalised version of reality, due to appear in a West End production of Six Characters in Search of an Author, but the Coronavirus pandemic put the kibosh on that. Written and directed by Simon Evans – who also plays himself – Staged consists of Skype conversations between the bored Thesps as they struggle to remain sane while rehearsing for no reason whatsoever A six-part series of 15-minute episodes in which two famous actors bicker and knowingly mock their fragile egos, Staged stirs inevitable echoes of Brydon and Coogan in The Trip. It’s nowhere near as funny or pointed as that show at its best, but Sheen and Tennant have undeniable chemistry.

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS

Thursday, BBC Two, 10pm

This likeably silly sitcom about cohabiting vampires is unique in that, despite being an American show, its principal cast are British. Matt Berry, Tash Demetriou and Kayvan Novak are very funny people, so their cult ‘Stateside’ success is almost enough to make you feel vaguely patriotic. Sure, Berry can only do one thing – a burgundy-throated caricature of a ripe English ac-tor – but it rarely fails to amuse. In season two (it’s ‘season’ for American shows, ‘series’ for British shows: them’s the official rules, folks), the 21^st century Munsters search for new human slaves. Pedants such as myself will never be able to fully accept quasi-documentary sitcoms which don’t adhere to the rules of actual documentaries, but that’s a crucifix I have to bear.

LAST WEEK’S TV

ALAN CARR’S EPIC GAME SHOW

Saturday 30th May, STV

Whenever he gets overexcited, Alan Carr sounds exactly like John Lydon singing This Is Not A Love Song. That’s the most insightful observation I can muster about this harmless bowl of froth in which Carr revives various classic game show formats. It began with a tribute to Brucie and Play Your Cards Right. Celebrity couples competed for charity. It was overlong, but no distress was caused. Carr is a likeable, nimble-witted pro and this is the comfortably-upholstered vehicle he’s been chasing for years.