MARY BEARD'S SHOCK OF THE NUDE + INSIDE NO. 9 + DOCTOR WHO

This article was originally published in The Courier on 1st February 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

MARY BEARD’S SHOCK OF THE NUDE

Monday, BBC Two, 9pm

The history of Western art is crammed with naked bodies. Mary Beard casts her shrewd expert eye over this orgiastic obsession in a probing, irreverent and informative two-part series, wherein she grapples with “the problems, the anxieties and the scandals surrounding the image of the naked body ever since the Ancient Greeks.” The art establishment has always tried to defend itself from accusations of objectifying women, but Beard sees right through such mendacity, hypocrisy and gross oversimplification. She analyses problematic expressions of the erotic male gaze – many of them considered masterpieces – and looks at how female artists have responded to this fig-leafed tradition. She also traces the unusual history of idealised naked men in art.

INSIDE NO. 9

Monday, BBC Two, 10pm

All good people agree that Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith’s darkly comic anthology series is one of the best and most consistently inventive television shows of recent years. Series 5 kicks off in a football referee’s changing room before, during and after a fraught match. David Morrissey plays a consummately professional ref on the verge of retirement, with Pemberton, Shearsmith and Ralf Little as his temperamentally mismatched linesmen. Although it’s not one of the strongest episodes – it feels quite slight by Pemberton and Shearsmith’s usual standards – it still displays their impressive ability to weave comedy, drama and rounded characters into a single 30 minute narrative. They’re masters of the form, Rod Serling by way of Victoria Wood and Alan Bennett.

UNIVERSAL CREDIT: INSIDE THE WELFARE STATE

Tuesday, BBC Two, 9pm

Universal Credit is the biggest and most controversial (i.e. catastrophic) overhaul of the welfare state in a generation. The government insists that it was supposed to simplify the benefits system and encourage the unemployed back into work, but instead it has caused chaos and suffering for the millions of people who rely on it to survive. It has driven claimants further into poverty. People are dying as a result. This sobering series gains access to the much-maligned Department of Work and Pensions. We also meet sympathetic jobcentre employees and claimants, including a desperate middle-aged man who’s recently been made homeless, and a single mother of two who struggles with depression and anxiety caused by her dire situation.

BARRYMORE: THE BODY IN THE POOL

Thursday, Channel 4, 9pm

In March 2001, Stuart Lubbock died at a drug-fuelled party held at Michael Barrymore’s home. To this day the case remains unsolved. This research-heavy, 90-minute documentary attempts to examine the full, murky story. Preview copies weren’t available at the time of writing – possibly for sensitive legal reasons – but it sounds potentially fascinating. The Lubbock case is rife with unanswered questions, as no one has ever spoken openly about what happened that night. We do know that Barrymore denies any involvement and that his once successful career has, for obvious reasons, never recovered. The film features contributions from members of the Lubbock family, as well as eyewitnesses, detectives and forensic pathologists. Barrymore himself appears only in archive footage.

LAST WEEK’S TV

DOCTOR WHO

Sunday 26th January, BBC One

Fair play to Chris Chibnall, he managed to keep the grin-inducing return of good old Captain Jack (the effervescent John Barrowman, having a ball as usual) under wraps; a welcome rarity in this spoilerific age. Also, in another fine twist, this enjoyably berserk episode introduced the first person of colour (Jo Martin, pictured) to play the Doctor. Or did it? I don’t trust Chibnall to satisfactorily conclude his intriguing story arc, but I’ll gladly eat humble P if I'm wrong.

 

TV Review: FRANCIS BACON: A BRUSH WITH VIOLENCE + TRACEY ULLMAN'S SHOW

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 4 February 2017.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/category/lifestyle/entertainment/tv-film/

FRANCIS BACON: A BRUSH WITH VIOLENCE: Saturday, BBC Two

TRACEY ULLMAN’S SHOW: Friday, BBC One

  

The late artist Francis Bacon has always struck me as the sort of boozy raconteur who’d be entertaining company until one drink over his tolerance level transformed him into the kind of monstrous bore for whom swift exits were built.

That’s raging alcoholics for you, especially those possessed of talent, brains and an infinite capacity for self-loathing.

While the stark documentary FRANCIS BACON: A BRUSH WITH VIOLENCE did little to disabuse me of this view, it did succeed in humanising a man whose riotous legend was at odds with the lost soul who flailed in its shadow.

Although I’m sometimes guilty of it myself, I’m suspicious of our tendency to lionise unhappy geniuses. I’d rather they found peace during their lifetime than suffer the indignity of antiseptic experts pontificating over their tragic legacy. But Bacon wouldn’t have painted his masterpieces without that tortured drive. A chicken, egg and Bacon sandwich.

 As with most introspective artists, it’s impossible to judge their work without examining their private lives. Bacon enjoyed publicity, hence the smattering of archive interviews included here. I would’ve preferred to watch those interviews in full than listen to talking heads pontificate on his behalf.

Bacon’s extraordinary paintings were shocking, spiteful, furious, horrific. They possessed a visceral ugliness which, depending on one’s taste for the morbid, could seem rather beautiful in a certain sensitive light.

I’ve seen Ricky Gervais’ Derek, so I know what it’s like to gaze into the abyss. Bacon’s work is but a light aperitif.

A homosexual whose work screamed against the abusive tyranny of his upbringing and dysfunctional adult relationships, Bacon’s propensity for masochism and black humour was hardly surprising.  

This lonely demon-bohemian with the puffy cherub face and Tony Curtis quiff would, I hope, have chuckled at this grubby canvas of essay-quoting critics and old friends, now greying eccentrics, who somehow survived all that after-hours drinking and existential jousting.

A final joke before closing time.

Tracey Ullman is a talented show-off whose undoubted artistry and intelligence ceases to be entertaining when allowed to roam unfettered.

Her old US sketch show – which famously begat The Simpsons – was proof of her tendency towards overbearing self-indulgence, and the first series of TRACEY ULLMAN’S SHOW, her UK comeback vehicle for the BBC, confirmed it.

A frustrating talent, she’s always seemed tantalisingly capable of creating great work. A handful of sketches in series one did at least suggest a depth of ambition beyond the usual confines of mainstream British comedy, even when they fell short of their potential.

Every spotty sketch show deserves a second chance, especially one starring a comedian capable of uncanny impressions of Judi Dench and Clare Balding, but it’s still nothing more than a generic compendium of, at best, mildly amusing spoofs.

These are the jokes, folks. Dench exploits her status as a beloved national treasure to cause mayhem (quite funny the first time; tiresome when repeated ad nauseam). Balding is manically ubiquitous. Nicola Sturgeon is a Bond-style supervillain. And so on. It’s terribly weak, strained sauce.

I quite liked Angela Merkel’s tearfully melodramatic musical number about being ostracised by her old EU chums, but finding anything to enjoy in this show is like clutching at straws.

TV Review: THE MYSTERY OF VAN GOGH'S EAR + AN HOUR TO SAVE YOUR LIFE

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 13 August 2016.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/category/lifestyle/entertainment/tv-film/

The Mystery of Van Gogh’s Ear: Saturday, BBC Two

An Hour to Save Your Life: Tuesday, BBC Two

  

The story of Vincent Van Gogh severing part of his ear as a perversely romantic gesture is almost as famous as his immortal body of work. According to legend, the emotionally fragile artist turned up at the door of a Provence brothel in 1888, and handed a package containing a bloody slice of his own lobe to one of the working girls. 

It’s a sad, shocking story. But did it actually happen? As revealed in The Mystery of Van Gogh’s Ear, contemporary newspaper reports were suspiciously inconsistent when it came to details. Surely there must be accurate archive medical and police reports pertaining to the most notorious incident in the history of modern art?

Intrigued by this murky mystery, art lover Bernadette Murphy embarked on a seven-year mission to uncover the truth. A nice middle-aged lady with a snazzy line in neckerchiefs, the Provence-based adventures of this tenacious amateur sleuth are a Sunday night detective drama just waiting to happen: Vera meets Lovejoy.

Hosted by that other great tortured artist, Jeremy Paxman, in full-blown quizzical gravitas mode (honestly, you sometimes have to wonder if he’s even heard of Chris Morris), this engaging documentary managed to sustain its central conceit, even though the results of Murphy’s investigation recently hit the headlines. The journey was just as interesting as the final destination.

Murphy uncovered several hitherto unknown facts. “Rachel”, the object of Van Gogh’s affections, wasn’t a prostitute after all. She worked at the brothel as a cleaner. It’s possible that, as the victim of a rabid dog attack, she was one of the “wounded angels” with whom Van Gogh felt such empathy.

After poring through research by the author of the Van Gogh biopic starring Kirk Douglas, Murphy finally unearthed a conclusive medical diagram by the doctor who treated Van Gogh post-injury.

The great man didn’t just cut off his lobe, he severed his entire ear.

Understandably, Murphy was reduced to tears. Not only had she solved a mystery that’s eluded experts for over a century, she’d exposed the harrowing depths of a deeply troubled soul.

The programme also reinforced an inescapable point: uniquely among artists, our appreciation of Van Gogh’s work is intrinsically fused with our knowledge of his tragic personal life. He quite unwittingly forged the dubiously romanticised notion that genius and self-destruction are automatic bedfellows. While I understand the impulse to believe that – I include Brian Wilson and Peter Sellers among my heroes - it makes me feel uncomfortable.

Then again, would Van Gogh have created his masterpieces if he hadn’t been mentally ill? It’s a conundrum that even Jeremy Paxman can’t unravel.

The trauma continued in the latest series of An Hour to Save Your Life, in which cameras follow paramedics and doctors as they make critical decisions on behalf of accident victims.

Like most medical documentaries, it’s essentially a form of rubber-necking voyeurism. Yet despite its manipulative bombast – with its ticking clock graphics and split-screen technique, the production team are blatantly influenced by 24 - it does highlight the unflappable professionalism of people who hold lives in the balance on a daily basis.

All at once, it makes you value your wellbeing, worry about the freak fragility of existence, feel humbled in the presence of those who make a difference, and resent the fact that you’ve done nothing worthwhile with your life. 

Marginally less troubling than The One Show, it’s an existential minefield.