THE SISTER + LIFE + HAIR POWER: ME AND MY AFRO

A version of this article was originally published in The Courier on 24th October 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

THE SISTER

Monday to Thursday, STV, 9pm

This spooked pulp thriller is written by Neil Cross of Luther renown/infamy, which should give you some idea of what to expect. It’s knowingly daft and engulfed in histrionic murk. Typical Cross hokum. Russell Tovey stars as a man with a seemingly perfect life who is secretly haunted by his involvement in the death of a young woman several years ago. The only other person who knows what happened that night is Bob, an eccentric paranormal expert played by the shamelessly scene-stealing Bertie Carvel (he has the mien of a creepy, druggy Dickensian weirdo). To say any more would spoil the fun, but Cross does a good job of building tension as he gradually peels away the layers of his mystery. 

LIFE

Tuesday, BBC One, 9pm

In the penultimate episode of this superior drama from Mike Bartlett, Gail (Alison Steadman) returns to her terminally ill husband Henry (Peter Davison) after a much-needed period of freedom. Henry is a self-centred bully, but Gail decides that, after 50 years of marriage, she should be by his side when he passes away. He’s a lucky man. Meanwhile, Belle’s (Victoria Hamilton) continuing struggles with alcohol leads to yet another excruciating scene. Bartlett is obviously more invested in the Gail, Henry and Belle storylines – the others are basically subplots – but he deserves praise for his compassionate excavation of the pain, fear, loneliness and disappointment of everyday life. A barrel of laughs it is not, but that’s Life. Sorry.

HAIR POWER: ME AND MY AFRO

Tuesday, Channel 4, 10:15pm

Now this is great. As part of Black History Month, academic and writer Emma Dabiri explores the vast cultural significance of afro-textured hair through the ages. For people of colour, to embrace the beauty of natural kinks and curls is an empowering form of self-expression. Dabiri meets people who grew up under pressure to conform to a Eurocentric ideal: straight hair equals good hair. Generations of kids felt compelled to attack their scalps with scorching chemical products. That’s yet another form of systematically racist oppression. Dabiri also examines the social significance of barbers and salons within the black community, while highlighting various forms of micro-aggression, unconscious bias and cultural appropriation. It’s a fascinating and rather beautiful essay.

DAMILOLA: THE BOY NEXT DOOR

Wednesday, Channel 4, 9pm

20 years ago, 10-year-old Damilola Taylor was stabbed and killed mere yards from his home. In this moving tribute, Yinka Bokinni, who is now a successful radio DJ, speaks about her late friend and neighbour for the first time. She paints a vivid portrait of a funny, bouncy, carefree kid whose life was tragically cut short. She also challenges the media-led view that her Peckham estate was Hell on Earth. Yes, there was crime and poverty, but it was a tightknit multicultural community. Bokinni makes a hugely important point: when you shovel people into substandard housing, you can’t just wash your hands of them. That’s a convenient way of ignoring the wider issue of cause and effect.

POWERING BRITAIN

Thursday, BBC Two, 7:30pm

Hornsea One, the world’s biggest offshore windfarm, is situated 75 miles off the Yorkshire Coast. In the first episode of this stats-encrusted series about the hardworking pros who answer to Britain’s energy demands, presenter Keeley Donovan meets some of the men and women responsible for running a hugely impressive eco-friendly project. With good reason, she marvels at this aquatic conurbation of massive turbines, each one taller than the Gherkin and wider than the London Eye (Donovan’s breathless claim that they’re wide enough to accommodate an adult elephant is inadvertently and pleasingly Chris Morris-esque). Mild peril warning: if you’re prone to claustrophobia and vertigo, you may be triggered by Donovan’s ascent of one of the turbines.

THE TRUMP SHOW

Thursday, BBC Two, 9pm

As this grimly compelling series concludes, we come right up to date. By January 2019, Trump had sacked everyone in his administration who’d tried to reign him in. His behaviour became even more bizarre and messianic. When his chief of staff admitted that the Ukranian government had been blackmailed into smearing Joe Biden, the Democrats seized their chance to remove Trump from office. The impeachment process failed in large part because Trump managed to intimidate Republican members of the Senate into supporting him. Then came Covid and the murder of George Floyd. Trump’s blind mishandling of these situations has been utterly catastrophic. America, you know what to do next month. This pathological liar, this gangster narcissist, is utterly unfit for office.

MAXXX

Thursday, Channel 4, 10pm

Maxxx is a former boyband superstar who has fallen on hard times. He’s a desperate mess, an insecure buffoon who struggles with various personal issues. He’s also quite likeable, despite his many flaws. This new comedy actually made me chuckle. That, I assure you, is a ringing endorsement of sorts. Writer/director/star O.T. Fagbenle understands that failure is funny, but only when leavened with a bit of pathos. The latter isn’t overdone, it’s naturally ingrained within Maxxx’s character. He’s lonely, heartbroken, lost. All he wants to do is make a comeback and restore his flimsy sense of self-worth. Maxxx is a fairly sharp farce and Fagbenle inhabits his creation with just the right amount of oblivious arrogance.    

LAST WEEK’S TV

ROADKILL

Sunday 18th October, BBC One 

Hats off to the BBC for commissioning a slyly scathing political drama in which the central character is a thinly disguised hybrid of Johnson and Farage. Roadkill makes no bones about how manipulative and dangerous these self-styled ‘LOL legend’ charlatans are. Written by David Hare, this isn’t a cosy centrist satire. It has bite. Hugh Laurie is perfect as a philandering, superficially charming government minister who blithely assumes he can get away with anything. It began with him successfully suing a newspaper for libel, but the journalist who went after him refuses to back down. Hare is clearly enjoying himself as he spins several plates at once. Let’s just hope they don’t all come crashing down. Roadkill is promising. Of course, the BBC is largely responsible for the rise of Johnson, they helped him to cultivate his disingenuous persona, so in that sense Roadkill is too little too late. The damage has been done. But I will accept it as a form of atonement. Big of me, I know.

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

Monday 19th October, BBC One

In this particularly interesting episode, David Walliams discovered that his great grandfather, who served during WWI, suffered from severe PTSD. He spent the rest of his life in a psychiatric hospital, or ‘lunatic asylum’ as they were known in those very different times. His tragic story illustrated just how valuable this show can sometimes be as a sensitive piece of social history. On a much lighter note, Walliams was delighted to learn that his great-great grandfather was a travelling showman who eventually escaped from poverty via the fairground business. Cynical caveat: WDYTYA proves that celebrities with a hitherto weirdly incurious attitude towards their family history will suddenly develop a deep and solemn interest when there’s a fee involved.

 

 

 

 

 

TV Review: AGATHA CHRISTIE'S PARTNERS IN CRIME and LIFE IN SQUARES

This article was originally published in The Courier on Saturday 1st August 2015.

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

Agatha Christie's Partners In Crime: Sunday, BBC One

Life In Squares: Monday, BBC Two

Paul Whitelaw

Though never as popular as Poirot and Marple, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford were fond favourites of their creator Agatha Christie. She first introduced these happily married sleuths in 1922 and returned to them sporadically throughout her career. Their final appearance was in the last novel published before her death in 1973.

The Tommy and Tuppence canon is slim, however, hence why it's rarely been adapted for television. So, seeing as Poirot and Marple have been milked dry, no wonder the BBC have turned to the Beresfords for one more squeeze of the udder.

The first thing you notice about Agatha Christie's Partners In Crime is how expensive it looks. That £6m budget is visible in every vintage car, costume and immaculately dressed location. But these glossy trimmings can't compensate for the second thing you notice: there is zero chemistry between David Walliams and Jessica Raine as Tommy and Tuppence.

Walliams has shown in the past that he's a decent dramatic actor, but he looks painfully ill at ease here. Then again, even the world's greatest Thesp might struggle with such a poorly written role.

By rights, we should regard Tommy as a charming idler who gradually overcomes his natural cowardice by plunging into danger alongside his intrepid wife. But he comes across in this adaptation as such a soggy bore, it's no wonder Tuppence looks so exasperated with him. Their adventures are supposed to be a thrilling escape from their aimless existence, not from their marriage. A few flashes of warmth aside, they don't even seem to like each other very much.

Raine fares better as Tuppence, whose thirst for adventure drives the plot. Ably assisted by a bevy of attractive hats, she plays her with a kind of prim seriousness that occasionally bubbles over into breathless enthusiasm. It's telling that the best scenes involve her investigating the case alone. But she's got no chance of injecting any spark into her scenes with Walliams.

Even moments which should play to his comic strengths – e.g. Tommy being propositioned by prostitutes – are played monotonously straight. It's as if he's deliberately acting against his natural instincts, to prove there's more to him than camp tomfoolery. All he's proved is there's less.

However, despite his flat performance, the show does work in places. It wisely obeys one of the cardinal comic-thriller rules, namely that the villains must be genuinely threatening. Indeed, Partners In Crime is surprisingly violent at times, but that just adds to the zippy sense of peril. If the villains weren't authentically nasty, then we wouldn't buy into the central conceit of two ordinary people being dangerously out of their depth.

It also clatters along in a busy riot of twists and clues, so much so that the plot almost doesn't matter. While that may irk Christie purists, it does at least result in a fairly enjoyable piece of Sunday night escapism. You'll barely remember a thing about it afterwards – Walliams looks lost during it – but it passes time agreeably enough. So that's £6m well spent, then.

A more modest affair, Life In Squares is an intriguing period drama about the Bloomsbury Set, that radical group of intellectuals who cocked a snook – and more besides – at the strictures of Victorian England.

It's an elegantly claustrophobic meditation on sex and art as intensely entwined bedfellows, as Virginia Woolf and her artist sister Vanessa fight to establish independence years ahead of their time. An intelligently written, subtly performed and beautifully photographed slow-burner with occasional flashes of fire.