TV Column: DRACULA + DOCTOR WHO

This article was originally published in The Courier on 28th December 2019.

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

NEXT WEEK’S TV

DRACULA

New Year’s Day to Friday, BBC One, 9pm

If, like me, you eventually grew tired of Steven Moffat and Mark Gattis’ unbearably self-indulgent Sherlock, you might be pleasantly surprised by their muscular take on Dracula. A 19^th century period piece, it borrows heavily from Bram Stoker’s novel while going its own freewheeling way (e.g. traumatised solicitor Jonathan Harker recounts his terrible tale to a drolly straight-talking, Godless nun). Despite containing flashes of slyly affectionate meta-commentary on established vampire lore, this Dracula isn’t a send-up. It’s witty, yes, but it’s also grimly atmospheric and unabashedly horrific. It may be one of the goriest dramas ever made by the BBC. Main selling point: a commanding performance from saturnine Danish actor Claes Bang as an utterly ruthless, cocksure Count.

DAME EDNA RULES THE WAVES

Hogmanay, BBC One, 9:05pm

The great Dame emerges from semi-retirement to host this one-off special from her enormous luxury yacht (it’s three times the size of Wales). Her celebrity shipmates include Sharon Osbourne, Judge Rinder, Emily Atack and Anita Rani, all of them eager to be insulted in inimitable passive-aggressive Edna fashion. Now aged 85, Edna’s material isn’t quite what it was. Her opening monologue falls flat, sadly, although it does contain this touching tribute to her late sidekick Madge Allsop: “She went peacefully… she died in my sleep.” All is not lost, however: once the guests come out, traces of her sharp improvisatory wit can still be detected. She can’t help being naturally funny, that gift never disappears completely.

DOCTOR WHO

New Year’s Day, BBC One, 6:55pm

The Doctor returns with a skittish two-part Bond pastiche called Spyfall (like Skyfall; such wit), featuring guest-stars Stephen Fry as a Q-style MI6 official and Lenny Henry (more of whom below) as a villainous billionaire businessman. I’m no fan of tin-eared showrunner Chris Chibnall; he is, at best, a competent hack. Spyfall is Chibnall at his best. It’s a fairly enjoyable run-around in which a mysterious race of aliens launch an attack on international intelligence agents. Chibnall pulls off a couple of decent set-pieces, Ryan and Yaz actually get to do something for once, and Jodie Whittaker makes her mark whenever the script allows her to. Things can only get better?

IMAGINE… LENNY HENRY: YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK

Thursday, BBC One, 12am

This thoughtful profile of Sir Lenworth has, for some mystifying reason, been buried at midnight. So what if you can watch it whenever on iPlayer? He deserves better. It’s a poignant companion piece to his recently published autobiography, in which he focuses, not on his years of fame and fortune, but on his early struggle to make a name for himself on the ‘70s working men’s club and television circuit: a seemingly insurmountable task for a black teenager in a predominantly white - and covertly racist - environment. He reflects upon the importance of delivering race-based jokes before the audience got there first. It was a defence mechanism, he had no choice. Today he’s a figurehead for the diversity movement.

LAST WEEK’S TV

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

22^nd December to Christmas Eve, BBC One

The zillionth adaptation of Dickens’ festive classic starred Guy Pearce as Scrooge and Stephen Graham as Marley. It was written by Steven ‘Peaky Blinders’ Knight, hence the knowingly mannered, sooty charcoal aesthetic and salty language. Knight was obviously more interested in exploring Scrooge’s eloquent nihilism than his eventual redemption, but it was the resolutely dark Christmas Carol we deserved this year. An enjoyably nasty addition to the canon.

MARTIN’S CLOSE

Christmas Eve, BBC Four

Mark Gatiss – that man again – wrote and directed this boring adaptation of an M.R. James ghost story about a 17^th century nobleman accused of murdering a young woman with learning difficulties. I admire Gatiss’ commitment to reviving the BBC’s Christmas tradition of supernatural yarns, but his efforts tend to be little more than fanboy homages. They lack the haunting impact of the adaptations he adores. RIP Jonathan Miller.

GAVIN & STACEY CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

Christmas Day, BBC One

There are few things worse than a reunion with people you didn’t much care for in the first place. This unnecessary comeback confirmed the wisdom of that stone-clad sitcom edict: don’t bother. Have Corden and Jones learned nothing from Only Fools and Horses and David Brent: Life On The Road? It’s a nice enough show, fairly well-observed, but leave it where it belongs: somewhat fondly remembered in the third tier.

TV Review: BROADMOOR and FRANKENSTEIN AND THE VAMPYRE: A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT

A version of this article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 8th November 2014.

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

Broadmoor: Wednesday, STV

Frankenstein and The Vampyre: A Dark and Stormy Night: Saturday, BBC Two

Paul Whitelaw

Given what we now know about Jimmy Savile, ITV's claim that Broadmoor has “unprecedented access” to the high security psychiatric hospital feels like an unfortunate boast.

Nevertheless, it's true that, for the first time in its 150 year history, this secretive institution has allowed a documentary crew to film within its walls. Home to notorious serial murderers such as Peter Sutcliffe and Kenneth Erskine – neither of whom chose to participate, much to the surprise of no one – Broadmoor tends to be viewed in the popular imagination as a terrifying cauldron of criminal violence.

While this sobering two-part series doesn't quite seek to reverse that reputation, it succeeds in presenting a more balanced, responsible and humane view of Broadmoor's patients. The abiding theme of episode one was encapsulated by Clinical Director Dr Amlan Basu, who observed that, despite their horrendous crimes, these men are also victims.

“It's very easy to see somebody as either the perpetrator or the victim. It's much more difficult to understand that somebody might be both.” That the programme set out to do just that is hugely commendable.

We were introduced to patients, their identities concealed for obvious reasons, whose severe mental health disorders were the tragic by-product of childhoods scarred by repeated psychological and sexual abuse. One psychiatrist claimed, almost with a rueful smile, that he could easily identify future patients if he'd met them as children.

Eventually greenlit following five years of careful negotiation, Broadmoor is necessarily compromised at times. While the vigilant staff were candid to a point – for want of a quiet life, they rarely tell people where they work – certain subjects were firmly off limits. Forbidden from filming a restraint procedure on a patient who refused to return to his room, the crew were also banned from showing a reluctant patient being forcibly injected with anti-psychotic medication.

But rather than harm the programme's integrity, these enforced omissions actually heightened its carefully handled tone of detached compassion. Images of self-inflicted scars on a suicidal patient's arms were all we needed to see. Anything more would've been gratuitous. Wisely, the ever-present threat of violence against staff was implicit.

Graced with sensitive narration from actor Eddie Marsan, Broadmoor is neither prurient nor exploitative. Uncomfortable, sad and challenging, it offers no easy answers. It's intelligent enough to realise that life is too brutal, too complicated, for that.

Part of a BBC season devoted to all things Gothic, Frankenstein and The Vampyre: A Dark and Stormy Night was a suitably melodramatic documentary recounting the unusual circumstances which led to Mary Shelley creating her horror masterpiece.

Literally the stuff of nightmares, Frankenstein came to her one evening during a sensual lakeside holiday in Geneva with her bohemian husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, randy old Lord Byron, and an aspiring yet hapless writer named Polidori.

High on wine and ether, as freak storms raged outside, this tempestuous group challenged each other to write a ghost story. The twist in the tale was that the little known Polidori, belittled as a joke by Byron in particular, eventually wrote the first published modern vampire story. His fiendish inspiration? None other than that aristocratic rake, Lord Byron himself. It was revenge of sorts.

With articulate contributions from talking heads such as Neil Gaiman and Margaret Atwood, this handsome reconstruction of a weird, dazzling summit was a late Halloween treat.