TV Review: MUTINY + HOW'D YOU GET SO RICH?

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 11 March 2017.

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

MUTINY: Monday, Channel 4

HOW’D YOU GET SO RICH?: Monday, Channel 4

If Top Gear has taught us anything – and I hope for all our sakes it hasn’t - it’s that a certain type of man enjoys nothing more than indulging in utterly pointless masculine endeavours. MUTINY, a seasick documentary series in which nine ordinary blokes follow in the oar-strokes of Captain Bligh, is further proof of that.

The mutiny on the HMS Bounty in 1789 is one of the most notorious incidents in British maritime history. Together with a small band of loyal sailors, Bligh was abandoned in a tiny boat in the middle of the Pacific, but miraculously managed to survive a treacherous 4,000 mile voyage to safety.

238 years later, because Channel 4 have some airtime to fill, a group of strangers climbed aboard a purpose-built replica of Bligh’s escape vessel to mimic his epic ordeal.

Their combined skills include carpentry, medicine and dire banter. I’m no historian, but I daresay that when Bligh’s starving crew defecated over the side of his boat, their indignity wasn’t accompanied by hoots of laughter.

Should you wish to join in with this adventure at home, then drink a cup of salt water every time the words “mate”, “lads” and “boys” are uttered. You’ll be dangerously dehydrated and delirious within minutes.

Their leader is bearded Action Man/sober Captain Haddock Ant Middleton, a burly ex-soldier who could eat Bear Grylls for breakfast. Ant never feels more alive than when he’s scaling a volcano for six hours in search of coconuts, while urgently documenting his alpha-maleness down a camera lens.

Programmes such as this would be nothing without conflict, hence the involvement of crewmember Chris, a rebellious Liverpudlian who doesn’t take kindly to orders. He spent the first few days behaving like a petulant, foolhardy child, then complained when his captain and teammates treated him accordingly.

His ultimate ambition is to sail the world solo. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mutiny ends with him stealing the boat and doing just that. 

Chris would be a nightmare to deal with while filming an ostensibly dramatic documentary about the indomitable spirit of human endurance. That’s why I have grudging respect for him. He makes a mockery of the whole thing, which, for all his immaturity, seems entirely reasonable.

I really don’t give two hoots about this futile exercise in false peril and macho camaraderie. Shiver me timbers, it’s dull.

In HOW’D YOU GET SO RICH?, comedian Katherine Ryan gently poked the underbelly of four disparate millionaires.

The nice couple who founded Poundland were disappointingly normal and content – the notion that money actually does buy you happiness is the last thing most of us want to hear – but Ryan’s surface of detached irony couldn’t disguise her conflicted sympathy for one Danny Lambo, a self-described playboy leading a sad, lonely, aimless existence.

The next time you gaze despondently at your bank balance, spare a thought for Lambo – short for Lamborghini - who derives scant pleasure from judging vanity-funded beauty contests and filming inept music videos. When he inevitably makes a film about his life, he’ll probably cast himself. Matt Berry would be a better fit.

Ryan’s Hollywood encounter with a cosmetically-preserved septuagenarian plastic surgeon seemed to suggest that money can buy eternal youth. So why does Donald Trump look like a heaving colostomy bag?

Just one of many questions Ryan failed to address in this glib, if tacitly judgemental, holiday in other people’s immense wealth.

TV Review: THIS IS ENGLAND '90

A version of this article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 19 September 2015.

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

This Is England '90: Sunday, Channel 4

Paul Whitelaw

The biggest shock of the TV week? An archive cameo from Scottish soap Take The High Road. Its cardboard charms cropped up briefly in This Is England '90, the third and presumably final TV sequel to Shane Meadows' BAFTA-winning 2006 coming-of-age classic.

The background presence of STV's stinging riposte to Dallas was sweetly indicative of Meadows' offbeat attention to period detail. As everyone surely knows by now, this is the continuing saga of a group of working-class Midlands pals growing up in 1980s Britain. The latest chapter catches up with Beaky, Choo-Choo, Fliegel and the gang as they stumble into adulthood in the Madchester era.

True to form, it began with a craftily assembled, scene-setting montage of period news footage. The music used on the soundtrack this time was There She Goes by The Las. Why, I ask you, what could possibly be the connection between that song title, the poll tax riots, escalating unemployment, homelessness, drug abuse, mad cow disease and Thatcher's ignominious exit after eleven years in power? As an amusing piece of blunt satire, it worked a treat.

We then lurched into a charmingly lackadaisical episode that touched upon the growing sense of nostalgia one feels in your early twenties – sweetly symbolised here by the Proustian tang of school dinner chips – and the awkward transition into 'settling down' when you've barely grown up yourself.

Lol and Woody (Vicky McClure and Joe Gilgun, whose droll comic timing is second to none) are now living together and raising Lol's daughter. Woody's bizarrely boring yet well-meaning parents are, without being broad caricatures, beamed in from a universe far less grounded than the one inhabited by their son.

Meadows' ability to shift seamlessly from low-key character comedy to drama and pathos in the space of a single scene was encapsulated by these stand-out moments of domestic absurdity. While This Is England '86 was rightly criticised for its jarring leaps from knockabout farce to harrowing scenes of sexual violence, thankfully he hasn't repeated that clumsy error since.

Despite being the original film's protagonist, young Shaun's role in the overarching Woody/Lol narrative remains fairly inessential. Nevertheless, as played by Thomas Turgoose, who these days resembles a forlorn potato, Shaun is TV's most convincing teenager by far: the hurt and confusion on his face speak volumes about the anxieties of wading through that awkward age.

Rarely do you come across such unaffected performances and authentic-sounding, semi-improvised dialogue in British TV drama. Meadows' work harks back to the days when the likes of Alan Clarke and Ken Loach cropped up in the schedules to present powerful slices of social-realism hewn from genuine warmth and compassion. He actually makes us care about these characters as if they were – gosh! - real human beings.

Granted, as enjoyable though it was the episode did contain a few self-conscious “Hey everyone! It's 1990!” howlers. And I wish Meadows' would ditch his unnecessary penchant for slow-motion, sad piano montages. He doesn't need to labour the point, we know how we're supposed to feel in those moments.

Still, at least the inevitable scene of the gang taking drugs and grooving to The Stone Roses was dispensed with early. In any case, the Madchester disco sub-plot was worth it for Woody's throwaway reference to indie dance-floor classic “Idiot's Gold”.

Anyone familiar with Meadows' work knows that it won't be long before these light-hearted japes give way to tragedy. The monstrous ghost of Lol's abusive father, Mick, still haunts this world; it's only a matter of time before his pervasive evil causes another explosion. And what of Combo (Stephen Graham), who's still in prison for making it look as though he, not Lol, murdered Mick? His redemption isn't yet complete.

However it unfolds, I'm cautiously confident that we're in for a satisfying conclusion to one of the best British dramas of recent years. We'll miss it when it's gone.

TV Review: WITNESSES and THE JAVONE PRINCE SHOW

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 25th July 2015.

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

Witnesses: Wednesday, Channel 4

The Javone Prince Show: Sunday, BBC Two

Paul Whitelaw

Shot through an endless drizzle, French thriller Witnesses (Les Temoins) is so irredeemably gloomy it make the average UK cop drama look like a DayGlo bouncy castle pumped with laughing gas.

And that's quite reassuring. So often typecast as sex-fuelled paragons of ineffable cool and glamour, it's good to know that our Gallic cousins are just as miserable as the rest of us.

But is it any better than the average UK cop drama? On the basis of episode one, I'm not entirely sure. By acquiring this six-part series, Channel 4 are obviously hoping to repeat the success of their last French import, The Returned. But that was a stylish and unusual supernatural drama with a compelling central hook. Witnesses is far more generic.

It's certainly atmospheric. The rain-spattered coastal setting is glumly arresting, and the climactic scene involving a suspended trolley car had an unnerving, almost dreamlike quality that one doesn't often see on British television.

Also, despite its clichéd cop show trappings, the mystery at the heart of Witnesses is pleasingly bleak and perverse: three seemingly random corpses are removed from their graves and posed in a show home, like a macabre facsimile of the perfect family. Pourquoi? 

What is their connection with the enigmatic former police chief who – and this is odd behaviour, you must admit – keeps a framed photograph of the car crash that killed his wife? And why does the woolly-hatted female protagonist insist on entering patently threatening crime scenes on her own, armed only with a torch? Has she never seen The Killing?

It all adds up to a mildly intriguing riddle, but whether it will eventually pay off is anyone's guess. The heavy-handed fairytale symbolism of a big bad wolf and a little girl in a red duffel coat suggests, worryingly, that the writers have po-faced pretensions which aren't as clever as they think. It's early days, but already I'm beginning to suspect that, for all its surface sophistication, Witnesses may turn out to be a rather daft affair.

It would be nice, in an ideal world, to report that The Javone Prince Show launched a bright new star into the comedy firmament last week. But the world is far from ideal, hence why it gets the painfully uninspired sketch shows it deserves.

A young black comic and actor, Prince is a fairly charming character whose eagerness to please almost makes up for the weakness of his material. But no amount of charm can rescue this tired ragbag of second-hand observations about “the black experience” in Britain today. 

A series of sketches about the way some white people behave anxiously and patronisingly around black people was never developed beyond the very basic point it was making. But that didn't stop Prince and his writers from hammering it into the ground.

They also seem to believe that the spectacle of a plummy-voiced white chap speaking street slang/jive talk is fundamentally hilarious. Why else would they steal this already limited joke from Armstrong and Miller?

Berating this good-natured and well-intentioned show gives me no pleasure, but there is just no getting around its objective mediocrity. It's a failure on practically every level.

TV Review: HUMANS and PRIZED APART

Humans: Sunday, Channel 4

Prized Apart: Saturday, BBC One

Paul Whitelaw

Set in a parallel present where lifelike synthetic humans are as commonplace as iPads, sci-fi drama Humans takes the bold – some might say foolhardy - step of exploring territory that many great writers have traversed before.

Yet while the questions it poses are familiar – is artificial intelligence capable of feeling? Do we have the right to create it? Are we in danger of being usurped by the technology we're increasingly reliant upon? - it handles them with care and, in terms of world-building, precise attention to detail. 

And while it's too early to say if Humans will add up to much, at least its influences are openly acknowledged in a rather playful way.

It began with a harassed husband and father purchasing an android servant – known colloquially as synths – to help around the home. His wife, Laura, is a busy lawyer beset with mid-life malaise (none of the humans in Humans are happy). She's grown distant from her family, a problem compounded – despite her husband's contrary intentions – by the arrival of Anita, a strikingly beautiful synth whose eerily perfect countenance sets Laura on edge.

A sly wrinkle on the notion of a spouse feeling threatened by a partner's interest in a younger model – a theme echoed by the sub-plot involving a detective and the hunky synth who cares for his sick wife - this dysfunctional domestic setting is a master-stroke. It grounds an essentially fantastical premise in plausible reality. Though we automatically feel sympathy for Anita – after all, she's only following pre-programmed orders – we regard her with suspicion when viewed through Laura's eyes.

Sure enough, Laura has reason to be paranoid. It gradually transpires that Anita belongs to a rogue group of synths who have somehow developed independent thoughts and feelings. She's merely pretending to be subservient. But why?

Meanwhile, her fellow sentient synths are on the run from scientists fearful of their advanced state. This conspiracy thriller element coexists smoothly with the claustrophobic unease of the suburbanite scenes and an intriguing strand involving a widowed scientist (William Hurt) and his malfunctioning synth/surrogate son.

A droll sense of humour also ensures that Humans never feels pompous, even when confronting its hefty moral quandaries head-on. With its chilly aesthetic and dry spurts of satire, it occasionally resembles one of the better Black Mirror episodes. I particularly like the way our world, with no cosmetic alterations at all, is depicted as a bland, cold, chrome and glass wasteland.

But Humans wouldn't work if it was wholly cynical. It succeeds in asking us to sympathise with Laura and invest in Hurt's Geppetto/Pinocchio plight. Plus the horrifying pathos of robots cursed with living souls haunts the show throughout; the scenes depicting a sentient synth sold into prostitution make their point with unsparing yet compassionate intensity.

Regardless of noble intentions, the whole enterprise would capsize completely were it not for an utterly convincing performance from Gemma Chan as Anita. Mercifully free of the body-popping tics which often blight actors playing robots, her subtly precise, blandly benign demeanour is unsettling and – given what we know of her true nature – ineffably sad.

By sheer coincidence, Prized Apart marks the first instance of a quiz show devised and fronted by robots. A conceptually flawed bore, it sends members of the public on a Moroccan quest to win £100,000 via harness-enhanced stunts. Meanwhile, their loved ones back home in the studio provide half-hearted commentary in a sterile hangar commandeered by chief Auton Emma Watson.

None of it makes sense. The location segments don't gel with the stilted studio diversions – they're clearly not happening simultaneously - and there's never any sense of genuine peril, triumph or momentum. Imagine I'm A Celebrity... without the celebrities. Or Bake Off without the baking. Or life without meaning. That still doesn't come close to the echoing pointlessness of Prized Apart.

TV Review: CHASING SHADOWS and EDUCATING THE EAST END

A version of this article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 6th September 2014.

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

Chasing Shadows: Thursday, STV

Educating the East End: Thursday, Channel 4

Paul Whitelaw

I often worry about the fear-caked world of ITV drama, where murderers and sex offenders are only an episodic crime spree away from being apprehended by miserable anti-heroes. Whenever it isn't wallowing in the wake of scaremongering tabloid headlines, it's paying forelock-tugging tribute to the past via Downton Abbey. That can't be healthy.

Its latest carnival of horror is Chasing Shadows, a crime thriller so generic it seems to have taken Charlie Brooker's gloriously silly A Touch of Cloth at face value.

Seriously in danger of being banged up by the cliché squad, it's a woefully derivative bore in which Reece Shearsmith plays our tired old friend, the maverick cop who gets results through unorthodox means. Writer Rob Williams should be awarded some kind of medal for devising a character so utterly lacking in originality.

All the boxes are dutifully ticked: he's eccentric, (literally) buttoned-up, maddeningly antisocial, yet utterly devoted to solving the case with his computer-like genius. It's as if Williams sat down at his desk and thought, “To hell with it, I'll just rip off House and Sherlock. No one will notice or care.”

That staggering lack of imagination courses through Chasing Shadows like a virus. Assigned to a Missing Persons unit, Shearsmith's DS Stone butts heads with his new colleagues – Alex Kingston's mumsy Hattersley and Noel Clarke's bloke in a suit - while racing in pursuit of a serial killer. In case we hadn't quite got to grips with this complex creation, Clarke's character actually described him as someone who “marches to the beat of his own drum.”

It's a sorry state of affairs when the only unexpected wrinkle in this character's make-up is the presence of his supportive, loving partner. Williams clearly thinks he's being exceptionally clever here. "He's not lonely after all! Didn't expect that, did you?!" Well, no. I also don't expect to be killed by a falling piano tomorrow, and nor do I welcome the prospect.

Meanwhile, fans of laboured visual metaphors will have enjoyed the running conceit of the mismatched Stone and Hattersley literally travelling side-by-side in separate vehicles. I'm not entirely convinced that Williams wrote Chasing Shadows in the conventional sense. It feels more like the result of feeding basic information through an automated software package.

It's disappointing, as the justly lauded Shearsmith usually displays more discernment than this. His recent turn in true-life crime drama The Widower suggested that one of our finest comic actors was broadening his palette in an interesting way. And while he does what he can with the role – his darting, uptight little walk is a nice touch – there's little he can do with such lacklustre material.

Financial rewards aside, I can only assume he accepted this hopeless gig by letting his real-life fascination with serial killers cloud his judgement.

London's Frederick Bremer School is the setting for Educating the East End, which has the unenviable task of following the all-conquering Educating Yorkshire. Can it capture our hearts in quite the same way?

Episode one suggested that, with this talented production team in charge, you could place cameras in any secondary school in the UK and find an absorbing mass of drama, humour and pathos.

Its latest star is English teacher Mr Bispham, who struggled to imbue his boisterous pupils with the wonders of Shakespeare while on a stressful two-year placement. Avuncular yet sensitive, his lack of teacher training caused some toe-curling gaffes. It was a textbook example of romantic idealism versus the practical realities of teaching. But in a twist typical of this heart-warming series, he eventually triumphed with the touching support of his pupils.

Granted, like all documentaries of this nature, these real-life narratives are condensed into neat little arcs with convenient happy endings. The lives of some of the pupils at Frederick Bremer are obviously far more complicated than 60 minutes of populist entertainment will allow. But I can forgive the Educating franchise its contrivances.

The welcome antithesis of the cynical point-and-laugh exploitation that blights so much of Channel 4's factual output, it's clear that everyone involved in the project is fundamentally benign in their intentions. With the education system continually under fire, this exemplary series is, quite heroically, a compassionate political statement on its battered behalf.

TV Review: BEAUTY QUEEN OR BUST and MEET THE MORMONS

This article was originally published in The Courier on Saturday 28th June 2014.

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

Beauty Queen or Bust: Thursday, Channel 4

Meet the Mormons: Thursday, Channel 4

Paul Whitelaw

Channel 4 rightly gets a bad rap for the more down-market end of its factual slate – My Big Fat Undateable Dole Cheat etc. - but it's still capable of producing the occasional gem. Last Thursday, in a moment of rare generosity, it aired two worthwhile documentaries about troubled young people from vastly different worlds.

The first, Beauty Queen or Bust, was a surprisingly touching account of three hopefuls vying for the Miss England crown. Most films about beauty pageantry tend to focus on the weirder, chintzier aspects, but this new series is more concerned with the hopes and aspirations of girls from disadvantaged backgrounds. For once, it was a programme which sought to sympathise with benefit claimants, rather than demonise them.

Formerly a blazing hub of industry, the Black Country is now one of the most deprived areas in the UK. For Diamond, Natalie and Sammy-Jo, a chance to compete in the Miss England competition offered a tantalising means of escape. Otherwise, what can a poor girl do?

Beauty Queen contestants are usually derided for their aspirational platitudes, but when the likes of Diamond expressed a need to better herself and give hope to others, she was clearly speaking from the heart. The contrast between her public persona – loud, boozy, aggressive – and her private, sensitive, insecure self was quite striking.

Having been expelled from school without any qualifications, she didn't feel as though she'd ever amount to anything. But the judges at the Miss Black Country heats were impressed by her natural elegance and obvious sincerity. Diamond just wanted to feel proud of herself for once. Happily, she succeeded.

This was a positive portrait of working-class women struggling to make something of themselves in a world where the odds are stacked against them. Their dole-funded plight was contrasted with the relative comfort of Ruby, a pageant veteran with a wardrobe full of expensive frocks. The other girls had to pay for their dresses in instalments.

Ruby has been gainfully employed for years, and believes she'd easily find another job if suddenly made redundant. “A lot of the younger generation do just sit back and wait for something to happen,” she opined. Ruby, it is safe to assume, has never walked a mile in their high-heeled shoes.

With its curious rituals and beliefs, it's easy to snigger at the Mormon faith. Yet despite a few wry nods in the direction of their temptation-cessation underwear, Meet the Mormons didn't come to mock. Rather, it was concerned with the difficult realities of life for young missionaries.

It followed Josh, aka Elder Field, as he trained to become an 'Ambassador of God' in Leeds. Barred from seeing his friends and family for the entirety of his two-year mission, Josh was understandably lonely and upset. Director Lynn Alleway offered to give him a hug, but even that was disallowed.

Despite being given unprecedented access to this notoriously secretive church, Alleway was frustrated by the constant hovering presence of a watchful PR man and Josh's limpet-like missionary partner, who swooped in whenever he risked a moment of candour. It was like living in an amenity-free prison where freedom of expression and privacy are punishable offences.

Out on the streets of Leeds, Josh tried to stay positive while facing door-to-door indifference. I don't begrudge anyone their faith, but this was a rather sad study of fruitless indoctrination.  

Welcome To The View From My Television

This article was originally published in The Courier on 23rd August 2013.

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

WELCOME TO THE VIEW FROM MY TELEVISION

Paul Whitelaw

Whenever I tell people what I do for a living, their usual response is, “That must be fun!” followed quickly by, “But you must have to watch an awful lot of rubbish.” To which the dual-pronged answer is: “Yes. And no, not really.”

Despite what people who don't actually watch TV may tell you, its wealth and variety mean it's very easy to avoid drivel if you keep your eyes peeled.

Granted, one of the most glaring side-effects of our multi-channel age is there are more repeats on TV than ever before. But if this increase allows the dedicated channel-hopper swift access to old episodes of Bob's Full House, Cheers and The Sweeney, then it's hardly the crime of the century. If you love TV, then you'll always find the good stuff.

There's a downside, of course. Channel 4 and its pointless offshoots E4 and More4 – imagine two Andrew Ridgeleys flanking a past-his-prime George Michael – are now a knackered flotilla steered by endless repeats of Come Dine With Me. The tragic decline of C4 is a nagging bugbear of mine. If you also find yourself staring aghast at what it's become over the last decade, then I'm sure we'll get on famously.

I promised myself I'd remain positive during this article, but let's take a moment to clarify why C4, that former bastion of innovative and experimental television, currently represents everything that's wrong with British culture. Its recent glut of nasty, reactionary, benefits-bashing documentaries are little more than sneering government propaganda. In this time of deep recession and life-destroying cuts, they're howlingly irresponsible.

But they're indicative of a general malaise at C4, where leering 'body-shock' documentaries and point-and-laugh shows about travellers are deemed perfectly legitimate. It's only a matter of time before it abandons programming altogether, in favour of rolling 24-hour coverage of benefits claimants and gypsies being pelted with spoons.

And yet despite its otherwise tawdry demeanour, C4 still has one saving grace: drama. Recent highlights such as Complicit, The Mill, Southcliffe and mesmerising French import The Returned are among the best TV of 2013. The latter may have been a blatant attempt by C4 to jump on BBC4's European drama bandwagon, but who cares when the rewards were so gratifying? Wouldn't you rather it devoted more time to programmes of such quality and distinction, rather than yet another dismal Gordon Ramsay vehicle in which he pretends to care about the fortunes of a Dingwall tearoom? I know I would.

Meanwhile, ITV should be cautiously applauded for its efforts to rescue its tarnished reputation. It may still be home to the inexplicable Paddy McGuinness, but at least it's trying to improve its drama slate with the likes of Broadchurch. And regardless of what you thought of them, Vicious and The Job Lot signalled an encouraging new commitment to prime-time sitcom.

But what of the BBC? Although it increasingly resembles a desperate academic struggling to keep control of an endangered department, dear old BBC4 is still a reliable source of pleasure. Aside from showing the acclaimed likes of The Killing and The Bridge, it continues its noble pursuit of producing documentaries on absolutely any subject, no matter how arcane. BBC4 has always been secure in the knowledge that someone, somewhere will be interested in watching programmes about Jacobean armchairs, Lieutenant Pigeon, and Jonathan Meades declaiming adjectives in car parks.

Sadly, this relatively niche channel has been battered by budget cuts. As part of the government-induced Delivering Quality First cost-saving strategy – dwell on that irony all you like - BBC4 recently axed its successful sideline of showbiz biopics, although at least it bowed out with Burton and Taylor, one of its better efforts.

It's also unlikely that BBC4 has enough petty cash to produce more underrated gems such as quietly scathing NHS comedy Getting On. Big mainstream hitters such as Mrs Brown's Boys and Miranda are all very well (I suppose), but I hope the smaller, more distinctive shows don't fall through the the cracks.

As an unabashed comedy nerd, I'll doubtless be peppering these pages with deranged attacks on ubiquitous bête noires such as Jimmy Carr, Noel Fielding, Keith Lemon and practically every failed effort coughed up by BBC3. Please accept my apologies in advance. But I'll also be celebrating the superior likes of Peep Show, Fresh Meat, Outnumbered, Would I Lie To You?, Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle, It's Kevin, The Graham Norton Show, Parks and Recreation, and My Mad Fat Diary.

Attacking a dreadful piece of TV can be cathartic. A perverse pleasure is gained from casting an appalled eye over the likes of bewildering Saturday night game show I Love My Country, which provides a terrifying glimpse of what a totalitarian regime governed by Micky Flanagan might look like. But every Saturday in the Courier I'll always find time to highlight stuff you might enjoy. Life's tough enough without dwelling on the dregs.

Highlights over the next few months include the Doctor Who 50^th anniversary special, in which the outgoing Matt Smith is joined by John Hurt and previous incumbent David Tennant, and also Mark Gatiss' keenly anticipated drama about the origins of the show, An Adventure In Space In Time. Oh, and some Scottish-Italian bloke is taking Smith's place at Christmas, apparently.

Also coming soon are BBC1's Saturday evening family adventure Atlantis, BBC2's European acquisition Generation War, which has been described as a German Band Of Brothers, and, on dear old Channel 4, Shane Meadows' This Is England '90. They may not all succeed, but they'll all deserve scrutiny. TV is an eternally maddening, enriching and fascinating medium. Let's have at it.  

TV Preview: TOP BOY

This article was originally published in The Scotsman on 17th August 2013.

http://www.scotsman.com/what-s-on/tv-radio/tv-preview-top-boy-1-3050106

TOP BOY

Tuesday, Channel 4, 9pm

Paul Whitelaw

Channel 4 is a frustrating beast. With its halcyon days at the vanguard of experimental, alternative, socially inclusive television long gone, it now spends most of its time sneering at the poor and gawping at misshapen testicles: the TV equivalent of a particularly objectionable Daily Mail columnist.

And yet as everything crumbles around it, C4's drama slate continues to impress. With the recent likes of Southcliffe, The Mill and, now, the second series of TOP BOY, it's the last bastion of quality in an otherwise devastated field. But even that has its downside: it makes virtually everything else on the channel look even worse by comparison.

In any case, Top Boy, an unflinching crime drama set on a fictional estate in Hackney, east London, is one of British TV's most distinctive dramas. While series one attracted inevitable comparisons with The Wire – both provide rounded portraits of street-level drug dealers in deprived urban areas – Top Boy deserves to be judged on its own merits.

Written by Hackney resident Ronan Bennett (The Hamburg Cell; Hidden), it's drawn from research into the lives of locals, which lends the characterisation, setting and slang-heavy dialogue a ring of authenticity. Plus, the performances from the predominantly young black cast are entirely free of affectation.

Now, I'm a white arts critic from Fife, so I've obviously no idea if Top Boy actually delivers an accurate portrayal of east London crime culture. But I'm convinced by the wealth of little side details – kids rapping awkwardly on an overpass, banter in the hair salon, the boy who mystifyingly talks with his hand covering his mouth – which feel like observations based on experience.

Ashley Walters stars as Dushane, whose goal of becoming 'Top Boy' – i.e. the drug dealing king of his estate – was grasped at the end of series one. However, his affluent lifestyle is threatened by a police investigation into the murder of a rival. Meanwhile, property developers are forcing local businesses from the area, as Dushane's gang set their sights on a cartel of Albanian criminals.

Charming, bright and quietly charismatic, Dushane's likeability masks an inner ruthlessness: like Tony Soprano, he's a screen 'villain' whose dichotomous personality deliberately wrong-foots the viewer and shakes them from complacency. Bennett makes us care about his plight, but never attempts to excuse his behaviour.

Preoccupied with themes of family loyalty, vulnerable children trapped in a violent environment, and the debilitating effects of greed on both a corporate and street level, Top Boy gets its points across without recourse to heavy-handed moralising. The political dimension is implicit, rather than confronted directly. And despite its brutal surface, it also benefits from a welcome jolt of humour: the banal reality of crime is often more ridiculous than scaremongering media reports would have you believe.

Refreshingly devoid of glamour, Top Boy is a tense, kinetic, utterly engrossing drama, fluidly directed by Jonathan van Tulleken and, as he skilfully weaves together several characters and storylines, impressively realised by Bennett. It's richly human drama.

And that, dear reader, is it. After over six years of watching TV and scribbling shapes for yer Scotsman, I've decided to move on to pastures new. But it's been a hoot and/or optional holler. Please don't talk about me when I'm gone.