TV Review: DAMNED + THE FALL + THE LEVEL

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 1 October 2016.

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

Damned: Tuesday, Channel 4

The Fall: Thursday, BBC Two

The Level: Friday, STV

  

There was once a time, not so long ago, when Jo Brand was negatively pigeonholed as a sardonic comedian who joked about nothing apart from chocolate and how rubbish men are. Yet in the last few years, quietly and assuredly, she’s recast herself as the tragicomic queen of socially conscious sitcom.

Having tackled the thankless lives of NHS nurses and community care assistants in the wonderful Getting On and its recent sequel Going Forward, she now turns her attentions to social workers in Damned. Like Getting On, it’s a sympathetic yet unsentimental comedy inspired by her own experience – a former psychiatric nurse, she’s the daughter of a social worker – in which harassed carers strive to do their best under trying circumstances.

The title comes from the apt observation that social work is an unfairly vilified occupation in which employees are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. It’s set in a Children’s Services department where the lifts, toilets and especially the people who work there, are knackered.

Brand’s character, Rose, is the spiritual twin of Nurse Kim Wilde from Getting On, a caring professional whose jaded surface belies a genuine desire to help.

Her similarly careworn friend and co-worker Al (Alan Davies) is the only other “normal” member of a staff which includes Peep Show’s Isy Suttie as a bafflingly exuberant temp, Himesh Patel as an ex-policeman and humourless stickler for the rules, and the great Kevin Eldon, that always welcome Zelig of British TV comedy, as an endearingly innocent office manager.

It’s a classic workplace sitcom in many ways – long-suffering protagonists surrounded by “wacky” supporting characters – but it’s largely successful in its attempts to fuse traditional gags with unforced pathos. Despite the necessarily stark backdrop of abuse, neglect, illness and desperation, it’s a fundamentally warm, likeable show.  

Co-written with Morwenna Banks and Will Smith of, respectively, Absolutely and The Thick of It renown, Damned confirms Brand’s status as one of the most thoughtful writer/performers in TV comedy.

Back, unbidden, for a third series, exasperating thriller The Fall is a textbook example of a show that doesn’t know when to quit.

It began as a gripping, if questionably violent, cat-and-mouse drama about a detective hunting a serial killer, but gradually devolved into a self-indulgent, risible chore.

Its failings were epitomised by this opening episode, which was preoccupied by an interminable effort to rescue Paul Spector from death’s door. Why should we care if he dies or not? He’s a psychopathic, misogynist murderer, and a boring one to boot.

Whereas once she proved intriguingly aloof, Gillian Anderson now looks truly fatigued as DS Gibson. The Fall should be put out of its misery.  

Philip Glenister scored the easiest pay cheque of his career in The Level, a silly crime drama in which his character was murdered within the first 10 minutes.

He’ll presumably return in flashbacks/dream sequences, but the sound of him laughing all the way to the bank is the only note of joy in this drab account of a compromised detective trapped in a mild nest of intrigue while self-medicating her preposterously lenient gunshot wound with ibuprofen and gauze.

You know you’re watching a redundant thriller when the scenery – Brighton in this case – is more engaging than the story.

And how’s this for dialogue?

“The boss says you used to be school friends.”

“Yeah, when we were kids.”

The ideal age to be school friends, I find.

TV PREVIEW: The Fall, Frankie, The Supicions of Mr Whicher

This article was originally published in The Scotsman on 11th May 2013.

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/tv-and-radio/tv-preview-the-fall-frankie-the-suspicons-of-mr-whicher-1-2925907

THE FALL

Monday, BBC2, 9pm

FRANKIE

Tuesday, BBC1, 9pm

THE SUSPICIONS OF MR WHICHER

Sunday, STV, 8pm

Paul Whitelaw

“Hello. Is that J. Jameson Spotlight, big-shot representative of famed actress Gillian Anderson?”

“Yeah. Whaddya want?”

“I have a part she may be interested in. It's an aloof, icy, enigmatic professional whose emotional distance causes...”

“She'll do it.”

Now: I'm not suggesting that Anderson is a one-note actress. Her ethereal performance as Miss Havisham in the BBC's 2011 adaptation of Great Expectations proved she's more than capable of playing something other than emotionally withdrawn maidens. But it's true that she's frequently typecast as glacial beauties who shrink from matters of the heart.

And so it is in THE FALL, an absorbing five-part thriller in which she casts her inscrutable gaze over the gloomy streets of Belfast, in search of an elusive serial killer. Yet despite initial suspicions that this is Anderson on autopilot, she gradually reveals an enjoyably arch and self-aware approach to the role of DSI Stella Gibson. It's an astute match of performer and part.

Called in to review an ongoing investigation into an unsolved murder, Gibson quickly connects it to the subsequent death of another young professional woman. So far, so-so. But the twist in The Fall is that we know who did it. Like Columbo, it reveals the identity of the killer upfront, thus turning it into a suspenseful “Howcatchem” rather than a traditional “Whodunnit”.

Our villain in this case operates along the Norman Bates principle: a good-looking, outwardly normal young man who happens to be a psychopathic murderer. Married with two young children, Paul Spector (a subdued, intensely creepy performance from Jamie Dornan) is an unsettling creation who feels far more dangerous than the zany lunatics who usually dominate this landscape.

While the director is perhaps slightly overfond of darkly ironic juxtaposition, the switching back and forth between Gibson's investigation and Spector's double-life plays out very effectively. Both desensitised and diligent - “You and I are very much alike, Mr Bond!” - they're a compelling double-act who never share the screen.

Despite some fleetingly silly moments – the serial killer genre practically demands them – this a relatively understated production boasting a ring of authenticity. The minimal use of incidental music is a notable, welcome touch. However, the suffocating scenes of violence against women are arguably gratuitous, and I can't say I feel entirely comfortable with them. That they appear in a largely female-led drama (written by a man) merely compounds the sense of unease.

That caveat aside, its an addictive, twist-ridden study of grief, obsession and identity (or: a grisly thriller that's read a few books). Boosted by uniformly fine performances, it's Anderson's subtly eccentric turn as the outwardly emotionless, alpha-female Gibson which suggests The Fall has the potential to run beyond a mere five episodes.

The female protagonist in FRANKIE is practically Gibson's polar opposite. Indeed, it's possible to glean whole seconds of fun from imagining these two characters awkwardly attempting to relate to each other (Gibson wouldn't bother, Frankie would overcompensate). Played by Torchwood star Eve Myles, she's a winsomely fun-loving district nurse who gets her kicks from singing along loudly to her car radio, and dancing around sassily in the kitchen. She may as well have “I'm mad, me!” stencilled on her forehead.

Like one of those Here Come the Girls Boots ads with added medical trauma, Frankie combines excruciating whimsy with well-intentioned attempts to explore human dilemmas via the dedicated exploits of an overworked NHS professional. And that's partly the problem: would even the busiest district nurse deal with so much dramatic incident over the course of a few days? I'm all for suspending disbelief, but Frankie comes across as a sort of feisty superhero with a heart of gold.

Its main saving grace is the charm of Myles, an appealing, believable actress whose natural warmth tends to compensate for the material she's lumbered with. This, remember, is a woman who survived ghastly episodes of Torchwood written by Chris “Redeemed himself with Broadchurch” Chibnall. But even she can't override supposedly funny yet cringe-inducing lines such as “I laugh at cutbacks! I sneer at them!” At one point a loveable old man with Alzheimer's says her profession is a funny one. “Well, I'm a funny sort of woman,” she winks. True, Frankie, you're bonkers.

In fairness, the Alzheimer's storyline is handled fairly well, and Frankie isn't depicted as entirely perfect. Her saviour complex is shown to have a detrimental effect on her private life, although her boyfriend, played by Dean Lennox Kelly, is such a nuisance, she'd be better off in the arms of her male nurse colleague (Scots actor Derek Riddell, with whom Myles shares an engaging chemistry).

The criminally underexposed Olivia Colman crops up in THE SUSPICIONS OF MR WHICHER, the second candlelit drama based on the real-life exploits of the pioneering Victorian detective. Paddy Considine is on reliable form as the troubled, upstanding Whicher, as he investigates the murder of Colman's runaway niece in Jack the Ripper London. It's a mildly diverting mystery, marred by a ludicrous contrivance in the final act. Also, fans of the Olivia Colman Crying Game are advised to imbibe sensibly.