This article was originally published in The Courier on 28th January.
NEXT WEEK’S TV
Nolly – Thursday, ITVX
A huge star in her day, Noele ‘Nolly’ Gordon ruled Crossroads for almost twenty years. She was affectionately known as Queen of the Midlands.
But in 1981, Nolly was sacked without any warning or rational explanation. She was bereft, Crossroads was her life. A public outcry ensued. Why had she been treated this way? This stellar drama from Russell T. Davies teases that peculiar mystery until the very end.
Told with his characteristic wit, warmth and verve, Nolly is a heartfelt paean to the people who make soaps and the viewers who love them.
Helena Bonham Carter and co deliver pitch-perfect performances in simpatico with Davies’ sparkling material. Clearly a labour of love, the whole thing is delightful.
Putin vs the West – Monday, BBC Two, 9pm
This absorbing three-part series from that estimable documentarian Norma Percy tells the story of Vladmir Putin’s tumultuous march towards war. It begins in 2014 when Putin first attacked Ukraine and seized the Crimean peninsula.
As always, Percy examines a complex political situation with acuity.
She never fails to populate her projects with big name contributors, all of them keen to provide their own insider versions of events. On this occasion we hear from the likes of David Cameron, Francois Hollande, former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and, in later episodes, Boris Johnson.
These world leaders were divided with regards to how to best deal with Putin, who in turn succeeded in exploiting that tension for his own political gain.
Emily Atack: Asking for It? – Tuesday, BBC Two, 9pm
Every day without fail, the actor, presenter and comedian Emily Atack is, like so many women, sexually harassed online. She’s bombarded by men sending her unsolicited explicit images and messages.
In this thoughtful documentary, Atack asks why so little is being done to protect women and girls from such abuse. Why do some men behave in this way? Because they think they’ll get away with it. Most of them do. Their disgusting behaviour leaves women feeling fearful and ashamed.
Atack’s interviewees include psychologists, activists, her own parents, and a group of schoolgirls who confirm that the authorities - and by extension society at large - aren’t doing enough to either understand or confront this issue.
The Magical World of Moss – Wednesday, BBC Four, 9pm
I felt a bittersweet pang of nostalgia when I spotted this programme in the listings. It’s not a repeat, but it harks back to the days when BBC Four showcased esoteric documentaries as a matter of course.
Three years ago, the BBC announced that Four would gradually cease to originate new programmes, becoming instead a repository for archive content. I can only assume that The Magical World of Moss was one of the last new shows to slip through the net.
As you’ve doubtless already gathered, it’s a study of mosses and their many remarkable properties. Various moss-obsessed scientists pop up to explain why this fuzzy green plant is so important to our ecosystem. A charming programme.
Eat the Town – Thursday, BBC Scotland, 8:30pm
Darren ‘Dazza’ Dowling and Natalie Erskine are the affably irreverent hosts of this culinary travelogue, in which they discover what various Scottish towns have to offer food and activity-wise. First stop, Forfar.
They enjoy a healthy café breakfast, a sizeable bridie lunch, and some dinner at a pan-Asian restaurant. They also visit a sheep and alpaca farm, before embarking upon a cocktail-making challenge at a local distillery.
Dowling and Erskine are clearly having fun with this gentle deconstruction of standard TV conventions. Nothing too radical, you understand, but they sometimes acknowledge the crew and the script they’re all working from, a bit like a pair of young, sober Keith Floyds. If you can imagine such a thing.
Bill Gates: Amol Rajan Interviews – Friday, BBC Two, 7:30pm
Famously, the billionaire Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has pledged to donate much of his fortune to urgent global causes. Poverty, disease, gender inequality and climate change being chief among them. BBC journalist Amol Rajan meets up with him in Kenya.
Mild highlights include Gates airing his concerns about social media’s deleterious impact on nuanced discourse, and the ways in which it incubates dangerous conspiracy theories. He’s a diplomatic pro, but he obviously has no time for Trump and Musk.
Rajan also asks Gates about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. “In retrospect I would’ve been much smarter to never even talk to him at all,” he says, clearly discomfited by the subject. “I only met him a few times…”
Hotel Portofino – Friday, STV, 9pm
Set in 1926, it revolves around the owners and guests of a luxury hotel on the Italian Riviera. This fine establishment is run by a thoroughly modern and awfully decent Englishwoman. While taking care of business, she frets over her son, a physically and psychologically scarred World War One veteran. She’s also shackled to a philandering husband.
Hotel
Portofino is an entirely middling affair, it doesn’t make much of an
impression. Pretty hats, pleasant scenery, no substance. It’s one of those
shows you just gaze at idly from afar while thinking about how nice it would be
to go on holiday.
LAST WEEK’S TV
Fight the Power: How Hip Hop Shaped the World – Saturday 21st January, BBC Two
Partly curated by Chuck D, this tremendous series places the origins and impact of Hip Hop in detailed sociohistorical context.
He's joined by an insightful array of talking heads, all of whom emphasise that Hip Hop has always been an explicitly political movement. It emerged as a reaction against systemic social injustice, the vital sound of young working-class African-Americans speaking truth to power.
Chapter one examined its roots in the poverty-stricken neighbourhoods of 1970s New York, whose residents had been callously abandoned by the white ruling classes.
This new art form was an expression of anger and defiant celebration; in Chuck D’s words, “A pot of cultural get-down.”
All four
episodes are available on iPlayer.
Deep Fake Neighbour Wars – Thursday 26th January, ITVX
Whenever I tell people what I do for a living, they sometimes say, “You must have to watch some rubbish!” Well, not really. I tend to avoid obviously awful things, both for my sake and yours. It’s a waste of time.
But this, dear reader, is without doubt one of the worst television programmes I have ever seen, and I feel compelled to stress that. Consider it a public service.
It’s an utterly depressing, mirthless sketch show in which impressionists embody celebs via deep fake technology. It makes the failed Spitting Image revival look like an incendiary satirical triumph. There are no actual jokes, the unsettling gimmick is everything.
Imagine if Idris Elba lived next door to Greta Thunberg! Right,
and then what happens? Nothing. Stella Street must be spinning in its grave.
