TV Review: HOUDINI & DOYLE + INSIDE OBAMA'S WHITE HOUSE + JO BRAND'S HELL OF A WALK FOR SPORT RELIEF

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 19th March 2016.

http://www.thecourier.co.uk/lifestyle

Houdini & Doyle: Sunday, STV

Inside Obama’s White House: Tuesday, BBC Two

Jo Brand’s Hell of a Walk for Sport Relief: Thursday, BBC One

  

A slapdash heap of clumsy old bunkum, Houdini & Doyle takes a dubious premise – what if legendary escapologist Harry Houdini and Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had been a crime-busting duo in Edwardian London? – and unravels hopelessly before your very eyes.

ITV obviously have no faith in this woebegone attempt to rip off BBC favourites Sherlock and Jonathan Creek, hence why they bunged episode one out at 10:15pm on a Sunday before relegating the rest of the series to their subscription channel ITV Encore. Even the cast, including a woefully miscast Stephen Mangan as Doyle, look embarrassed.

I detected genuine pain in Mangan’s voice when, after ploughing through 50 minutes of poorly-written drivel, he cried, “What the hell just happened?!” I’ve seen episodes of Scooby-Doo with more depth.

Houdini and Doyle, who share no chemistry whatsoever, are your “classic” odd couple. Houdini is a chirpy rationalist. Doyle believes in the spirit world. Assisted by a bland female police officer with an incongruous modern outlook, they investigate crimes with a supposedly supernatural bent.

The biggest mystery of all, one which even they could never solve, is how a drama which, at a push, could’ve succeeded as an agreeable piece of daft escapism has reached the screen in such a charmless, empty, ill-conceived state.

When even the most powerful man in the world can’t get what he wants, what chance does anyone have? That was the sobering message behind our introductory visit to Inside Obama’s White House, a riveting new series from documentary heavyweights Norma Percy and Brian Lapping.

It’s typical of their work in that it plunges viewers into the rapid torrents of recent political history via frank contributions from the people who were actually involved: history unfolding as insider drama. Although he only appeared via archive footage in episode one, an in-depth interview with Obama himself will feature later on.

By focusing on his first 100 days in office, when the powerful wave of optimism surrounding him was immediately punctured by the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, it showed how, despite his obvious political nous, he never stood much of a chance of delivering on his nation-changing promises. Indeed, it seems nigh on impossible to achieve anything as President if the banks and the Senate are against you. 

And yet somehow, in the middle of this epic marathon of struggle and frustration, Obama seemed to remain impossibly cool and unflappable. That’s a legacy of sorts, I suppose.

He’s the sort of person who could pull off a grueling charity challenge without breaking a sweat, so maybe that’s something he can focus on when he exits the White House. Who wouldn’t support a fancy-dress fun run with Barack Obama?

If Jo Brand’s Hell of a Walk for Sport Relief taught us anything, it’s that the huddled masses are only too happy to come out in force for famous faces raising money for charity, even if that involves standing around and waving in the freezing winter rain.

Over seven days recently, Brand walked 135 miles from the Humber Bridge to Liverpool, partly as a way of encouraging other overweight, older women to keep fit.

But there was a compassionate political subtext to her ordeal, as she trudged across the once thriving industrial north to meet unemployed people from disadvantaged communities, whose straightforward generosity stood in stark contrast to the selfishness and greed of our egregious government overlords. 

A quietly subversive hour of television.

TV PREVIEW: Horror Europa with Mark Gatiss, The American Road Trip: Obama's Story, Family Guys? What Sitcoms Say About America Now

This article was originally published in The Scotsman on 27th October 2012.

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/tv-and-radio

HORROR EUROPA WITH MARK GATISS

Tuesday, BBC4, 9pm

THE AMERICAN ROAD TRIP: OBAMA'S STORY

Sunday, Channel 4, 7pm

FAMILY GUYS? WHAT SITCOMS SAY ABOUT AMERICA NOW

Saturday, BBC2, 10pm

Paul Whitelaw

Halloween is almost upon us, which can only mean one thing: Mark Gatiss, on BBC4, looming from the shadows in the manner of a suave undertaker to tell us all about his favourite horror films.

A luxurious 90 minute special devoted to cult cinema classics, HORROR EUROPA WITH MARK GATISS follows in the wake of his well-received series from 2010, A History of Horror, in which he took a potted journey through the broadly familiar landmarks of the American and British branches of the genre. Bathed in clotted streams of crimson blood, his latest essay pays tribute to a “distinctive, diverse horror tradition” which both influenced and absorbed developments in cinema beyond continental Europe.

Encompassing every relevant 'ism' from German expressionism and Belgian surrealism, to sombre post-war realism and nightmare ruminations on fascism, it presents a sort of alternate history of horror cinema, or at least one that will doubtless prove unfamiliar to non-aficionados.

But therein lies the frustrating, albeit probably unavoidable, rub with Gatiss' horror documentaries: partly intended as an introductory overview, they do tend to spoil the twists and denouements of the very films he's encouraging us to seek out. His knowledge and enthusiasm are commendable, but this uneasy compromise between introduction and broad analysis does confuse the issue of who these programmes are aimed at exactly.

Nevertheless, it's still an enjoyable, witty and handsomely shot tribute to flamboyant horror titans such as Mario Bava and Dario Argento, and the expressionist pioneers of early German cinema. One of Gatiss' more interesting points is that the latter group were, in the wake of Germany's catastrophic defeat in World War One, intent on restoring their nation's pride by establishing cinema as a respectable art form. It's perhaps surprising that they chose to do so within a genre so often dismissed – at least by high-falutin' critics – as cheap and disposable.

Gatiss further explores the after-effects of war via the bitter, guilt-ridden pseudo-realism of French classics such as Les Diaboliques, and argues that the many grotesque characters played by the great silent actor Condrad Veidt essentially functioned as allegorical representations of German post-war trauma.

Not that European horror filmmakers were always ignited by such lofty aspirations. Gatiss is in his lip-smacking element when discussing the lurid exploitation flicks that emerged from the Italian horror boom of the '60s. These stylish, quasi-psychedelic fantasias resemble nothing so much as a contemporaneous Hammer chiller shot through the prism of a deranged mind. Your Lovefilm list may be heaving with this stuff by programme's end.

Arch of eyebrow and tailored of suit, Gatiss is an engaging guide to a rich, varied, eye-catching subject of which – lest there be any doubt – he's clearly hugely passionate about. Any programme that devotes time and respect to fantastically titled curios such as Who Can Kill a Child? and The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue is more than deserving of your rapt attention.

Four more years? That's the question at the heart of THE AMERICAN ROAD TRIP: OBAMA'S STORY, in which, ahead of next week's closely fought US election, Channel 4's Washington Correspondent Matt Frei travels through the swing states of the Midwest and the South to canvas the opinions of ordinary voters.

With many Americans feeling that their country is in terminal decline, Obama's chances of winning a second term are hardly set in stone. Frei meets middle-class (or what we would term working-class) people on the edge of destitution, who, despite Obama's promises of sweeping upward change, have come to realise that the American dream is a hopeless myth. “We were sold a line,” sighs one man, “and the line is a noose.”

And yet despite this widespread disappointment, it's fortunate for Obama that his Republican opponent, millionaire Mormon gaffe-trumpet Mitt Romney, currently looks about as electable as a rabid mongoose (he says, fingers crossed). No wonder the nutzoid Tea Party movement, who Frei drops in on, are so terrified and confused.

Unfortunately, despite the potentially interesting subject matter, Frei's report is superficial and unrevealing. He wastes time mocking a Mormon elder for the sacred underpants worn by those of faith, and, in one bizarrely irrelevant sequence, argues with his Sat-Nav while driving through Kentucky. I blame the heat.

Nevertheless, a portrait does emerge of America as a divided, messed up nation. But is that entirely accurate? In FAMILY GUYS? WHAT SITCOMS SAY ABOUT AMERICA NOW, historian Tim Stanley argues that TV comedies provide a more accurate illustration of American society than the ragingly polarised bickering of mainstream political debate.

Using as examples the likes of Modern Family, with its gay fathers and interracial marriage, and The Middle, about a recession-hit middle-class family, he shows how sitcoms throughout the ages have reflected and consolidated shifting attitudes. But even in these supposedly more tolerant times, subjects such as abortion and religion are still considered dangerously divisive.

Featuring insightful contributions from leading writers, directors, executives and critics, it's an interesting programme that proves, if any more proof were needed, that comedy remains one of the world's most valuable, risky and challenging art forms.