BEST INTERESTS | AFRICA RISING WITH AFUA HIRSCH | COUNT ABDULLA

This article was originally published in The Courier on 10th June 2023. 

NEXT WEEK’S TV

Best Interests – Monday and Tuesday, BBC One, 9pm

This gut-punching four-part drama stars Sharon Horgan and Michael Sheen as a happily married couple with two daughters, one of whom has a life-threatening illness. 

Writer Jack Thorne has form for handling difficult material with the utmost care. His estimable credits include the 2021 COVID drama Help and Shane Meadows’ semi-autobiographical The Virtues. 

If you’re familiar with his work, then you won’t be surprised to hear that Best Interests is incredibly moving but never mawkish. It’s honest and authentic, a sensitive meditation on the complex moral quandary surrounding terminally ill patients and their quality of life. 

Thorne sympathises with every single one of his characters. You will too. There are no easy answers.

Sarah Beeny Vs Cancer – Monday, Channel 4, 9pm

Last year, the television personality and property developer Sarah Beeny was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her mother died of the same disease when Beeny was just 10-years-old. 

In this poignant standalone documentary, our host investigates the past, present and hopeful future of breast cancer treatment in the UK. 

While recording an intimate video diary, Beeny – who has four children - reflects upon everything her mother went through in the 1980s. It’s a frank, tender and relatable essay. We’ve all lost loved ones to cancer. 

Beeny meets with various medical experts who provide some insight into how care for cancer patients has changed and improved over the last 40 years.

Africa Rising with Afua Hirsch – Tuesday, BBC Two, 9pm

Journalist and broadcaster Afua Hirsch hosts this fascinating exploration of Africa, a continent which is home to the world’s most culturally diverse population. 

Her eventful journey begins in Morocco, Africa’s leading tourist destination. She meets several young creative people, one of whom is a world-renowned photographer: the Andy Warhol of Africa. His playful post-modern work subverts lazy cultural stereotypes. 

Hirsch also encounters a rapper influenced by traditional Moroccan music, an innovative rug-stitching entrepreneur, and some artists whose work challenges outdated assumptions about sex and gender. 

Hats off to Hirsch and everyone involved with this upbeat and progressive series, it restores a bit of faith in human nature.

Staged – Wednesday, BBC One, 10:40pm

Originally devised during lockdown, Staged is a comedy starring Michael Sheen (that man again) and David Tennant as mildly bickering versions of themselves conversing via Zoom. 

It’s inherently self-indulgent and potentially infuriating, but it more or less works because Sheen and Tennant are likeable and self-aware. Their semi-improvised conversations mock the petty insecurities of successful actors who have nothing much to worry about in the grand scheme of things. 

The latest series begins with a bored Tennant contacting Sheen from a Tokyo airport. 

Hilarity never ensues in Staged, it just ambles along, but spending downtime with Sheen and Tennant is always fairly pleasant. A ringing endorsement, I know.

Count Abdulla – Thursday, ITVX

This likeable new sitcom revolves around an unlikely group of British Muslim vampires. 

Our sweet-natured protagonist is Abdulla (Arian Nik), a nerdy junior doctor and classic horror film fan. He’s not particularly religious, but pays respectful lip service to appease his devout and loving mother (Nina Wadia). 

And then one Halloween party night, while immaculately attired as Christopher Lee’s iteration of Dracula, Abdulla is bitten by an outrageously camp vampire played by Jaime Winstone – imagine, if you will, Fenella Fielding in an even more deranged version of Carry On Screaming!. 

It’s all rather intriguing; a sharp comedy-horror underpinned with a wry message about the subtle nuances of racial identity and faith.

Queen of Oz – Friday, BBC One, 9:30pm

Catherine Tate is a self-evidently talented and versatile actor who’s wallowed in lacklustre material for most of her comedy career. This tiresome sitcom is no exception. 

She plays a disgraced member of the Royal Family who is exiled to Australia. There’s plenty of scope here for some biting satirical commentary on the dysfunction inherent within our monarchy, but Queen of Oz squanders that in favour of Tate playing yet another thoroughly obnoxious person. 

There’s obviously nothing wrong with that in theory, British comedy is festooned with beloved anti-heroes, but Tate’s self-generated characters are actively annoying. 

Oh well, she’ll be back on TV later this year as Donna Noble, one of the greatest ever Doctor Who companions.

They All Came Out to Montreux – Friday, BBC Four, 10:15pm

This absolutely wonderful documentary recounts the rather touching and inspiring story of Claude Nobs, a charismatic music enthusiast who launched the world-renowned Montreux Jazz Festival. 

Nobs had no real knowledge of the music industry back in 1967, he just wanted to invite some of his favourite artists to perform on the banks of Lake Geneva. His maverick pipe dream is currently celebrating its 56^th anniversary. 

Spread over three parts, all of which are shown tonight, the film traces the evolution of a jazz festival which gradually encompassed some astonishing performances from major rock, soul and blues artists. 

God bless Friday music nights on BBC Four, long may they groove into infinity.

LAST WEEK’S TV

Spy in the Ocean – Sunday 4th June, BBC One

Narrated by David Tennant (that man again; there’s a theme developing here), the BBC’s latest oceanic deep-dive introduced us to various creatures gently affixed with non-invasive cameras. Some sperm whales and coconut octopi were the stars of this particular episode.

Whenever one delves into the depths of the ocean, the results are always rather surreal and sweetly comical. Psychedelic whimsy writ large. 

While coasting above the waves, we also met some shore-based monkeys – a great bunch of lads – who’ve worked out how to feast upon oysters. Spy in the Ocean is the very definition of exotic Sunday night comfort viewing.

Gods of Tennis – Sunday 4th June, BBC Two

A companion piece to Gods of Snooker, which was also executively produced by Louis Theroux, this assiduously researched volley of social history focuses on 1970s and early 1980s tennis titans. It’s utterly riveting. 

Television was responsible for creating tennis’ mass appeal. That daily Wimbledon coverage coincided with the emergence of charismatic players such as Arthur Ashe and Billie Jean King, who took centre stage in the opening episode. 

Ashe, who passed away in 1993, was African-American. King, whose fresh contributions to the programme provided a vital through-line, is gay. Their stories are thematically entwined. 

Ashe and King, while not always in agreement, both fought for equality.

HELP + ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL + THE NORTH WATER

This article was originally published in The Courier on 11th September 2021. 

NEXT WEEK’S TV

Help – Thursday, Channel 4, 9pm

Jodie Comer and Stephen Graham star in this devastating drama about a Liverpool care home struggling to cope during the first few months of the pandemic. 

Written by Jack Thorne (This is England; The Virtues) it’s a compassionate paean to the beleaguered fortitude of professional carers and an unflinching indictment of, in Thorne’s choice words, “the indifference and incompetence of our government.” 

It tells the story of a kindly care home nurse (Comer) who befriends a middle-aged man (Graham) with early-onset Alzheimer’s. 

Comer and Graham are both outstanding, while Thorne succeeds in making his vital, angry point: care homes were effectively abandoned during the pandemic, leaving staff to look after their vulnerable residents without adequate funding or resources.

Alma’s Not Normal – Monday, BBC Two, 10pm

A semi-autobiographical sitcom written by and starring comedian Sophie Willan, Alma’s Not Normal is a frank study of mental illness, alienation and addiction. But, you know, with a light-hearted slant. 

Alma is a single, unemployed working-class woman in her thirties who dreams of becoming an actor. So far that prize has eluded her. Alma’s mother (the excellent Siobhan Finneran) is a heroin addict and occasional arsonist; this is not a conventional family, but they get by in their way. 

Alma is a likeable underdog, and Willan deserves plaudits for her willingness to explore difficult issues in a refreshingly matter-of-fact manner. And despite the sombre subject matter, there’s an underlying sweetness to it all.

Spice Girls: How Girl Power Changed Britain – Tuesday, Channel 4, 9pm

Ah, the 1990s. What a time to be alive. This new series promises to tell the story of how a manufactured UK girl group became a global phenomenon. Preview copies weren’t available at the time of writing, but I’m recommending it anyway as it could potentially be an interesting piece of social history shot through the prism of popular culture. Apologies if it isn’t. 

We’re promised some rare archive footage and new interviews, presumably with the Spice Girls themselves. Naturally, it begins with their formation in 1994 and goes on to ask whether their ‘girl power’ stance was more than a mere marketing gimmick: did it actually have some lasting influence on contemporary feminism? Hopefully we’ll find out.

Undisputed: The Life and Times of Ken Buchanan – Tuesday, BBC Scotland, 10pm

The former undisputed lightweight world champion Ken Buchanan is widely regarded as one of the greatest British boxers. Feted for his unremitting left-handed jab, the Edinburgh-born pugilist was a single-minded hurricane of energy, skill and willpower. This vivid profile pays tribute to him. 

Now 76, Buchanan recently developed dementia, but he has no trouble remembering the details of his early life and career – an amazing journey that took him to sweltering Puerto Rico, Franco-era Spain, Madison Square Garden and out on the dancefloor with Princess Anne. 

But like so many top athletes, he struggled to cope with life in retirement. Yet despite the problems he’s faced, the champ remains sanguine. His legacy is assured.

The Man Putin Couldn’t Kill – Wednesday, Channel 4, 10pm

In August of last year, Russia’s charismatic opposition leader Alexei Navalny was rushed to hospital after being poisoned with a Novichok nerve agent. He survived the attack and continues to campaign against his all-powerful political rival Vladmir Putin. A risky endeavour.

This documentary – which was still being edited at the time of writing – sounds intriguing, as it purports to uncover a particularly murky case of international espionage. Not only that, it apparently features one of Navalny’s would-be assassins confessing to his victim. 

The programme also addresses the issue of why Navalny poses such a threat to Putin. Just what does his ongoing struggle mean for the future of Russia and the world at large?

All Creatures Great and Small – Thursday, Channel 5, 9pm

The TV sleeper hit of 2020, this adaptation of the memoirs of Yorkshire vet James Herriot was a source of comfort during lockdown: unchallenging escapism incarnate. 

Which isn’t a back-handed compliment; just like the much-loved BBC adaptation starring Christopher Timothy, the all-new All Creatures Great and Small is an irresistibly charming confection that fulfils its brief with élan. It’s well-written, adroitly performed and looks lovely. 

Series two begins with James returning to Yorkshire after a brief sojourn back home in Glasgow. Will he be able to rekindle his romance with Helen? Fans of the books and original TV series already know the answer, but that doesn’t impede our enjoyment. Its continuing success is assured.

The Cleaner – Friday, BBC One, 9:30pm

The second episode of this enjoyable sitcom about a hapless crime scene cleaner is effectivly a two-hander between Greg Davies, who writes and stars, and special guest turn David Mitchell. He plays a highly-strung author whose grandmother has died in a bizarre fireside accident. 

And that’s really all there is plot-wise: it’s primarily an excuse for Davies and Mitchell to do their respective things to reliably amusing effect. 

It doesn’t build upon the premise established in last week’s opener, although it would appear that Helena Bonham Carter returns in a later episode. The Cleaner isn’t typical Friday night on BBC One sitcom fare, being spiritually more suited to BBC Two, but that’s part of its mildly subversive appeal.

LAST WEEK’S TV

After 9/11: Scotland’s Story – Tuesday 7th September, BBC Scotland

This commendable documentary examined the long-term repercussions of 9/11 on the people of Scotland. It featured testimonies from members of Scotland’s Muslim community, some of whom were physically attacked in the wake of 9/11: a sharp rise in overt displays of racism and Islamophobia is one of the many heinous consequences of that atrocity. 

Other contributors included the organiser of a vast anti-war demonstration in Glasgow - just one of many such events that were ignored by Tony Blair – and the mother of a Scottish soldier who was killed in Iraq. But the programme ended on a cautiously hopeful note, with the Muslim contributors suggesting that attitudes towards race in Scotland have improved in recent years.

The North Water – Friday September 10, BBC Two

Colin Farrell and Stephen Graham (that man again) star in this promising new drama about a 19^th century whaling expedition to the Arctic. 

Farrell plays a violent alcoholic drifter – an imposing greasy bear of a man – while Graham, looking like a squashed Barry Gibb, is the ship’s furtive captain. Also on board is an ex-army surgeon (Graham's This is England co-star Jack O’Connell) with a shady past. 

A co-production between the BBC and American network AMC (home of Breaking Bad and Mad Men), The North Water so far appears to be a satisfyingly grim journey into Hell. Mired in wretched grime and murk, it’s a laudanum-laced nightmare spiked with piquant dialogue and solid performances. Gruesome fun.

 

TV Column: THE ACCIDENT + THE WALL

This article was originally published in The Courier on 19th October 2019.

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

NEXT WEEK’S TV

THE ACCIDENT

Thursday, Channel 4, 9pm

Sarah Lancashire stars in this disquieting new drama about a small Welsh community struggling in the wake of a local tragedy. Scenes of a traumatic nature ensue when a group of teenagers break into a construction site for some recreational drug and spray paint fun. The Accident feels at first like an elaborate ‘80s Public Information Film, but it gradually reveals its wider meaning when writer Jack Thorne (This Is England; National Treasure) starts asking provocative questions about guilt, revenge and corporate accountability. Clearly influenced in part by the Grenfell Tower tragedy, it’s a timely piece. Lancashire, who excels as usual, is ably supported by a cast including Joanna Scanlan (The Thick of It) and Sidse Babbett Knudsen (Borgen).

THE BRITISH TRIBE NEXT DOOR

Tuesday, Channel 4, 9:15pm

This presumably well-intentioned series could easily come across as massively offensive. Preview copies weren’t available, so I can only hope against hope that Scarlett Moffatt and her Gogglebox family living in a replica of their terraced home in the middle of a Namibian tribal village – yes, really - turns out to be a sensitive study of vast cultural differences. Moffatt is an exceedingly likeable person, she’s smart, funny and nobody’s fool. That means, in theory at least, that the results of this gimmicky social experiment will be quite interesting. I’m nothing if not a cockeyed optimist. In episode one she’s forced to confront her body-image insecurities when asked to wear the traditional Himba dress. Meanwhile, dad introduces the locals to metal detecting. Hmm.

BILL TURNBULL: STAYING ALIVE

Thursday, Channel 4, 10pm

In November 2017, former BBC Breakfast presenter Bill Turnbull was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer. It’s an incurable illness, he’s been told he has no more than ten years left to live, but he wants to know if it really has to be a death sentence. So, in this emotional documentary, he explores various potential methods of prolonging his life. Interviewees include a teenage cancer patient who is certain that cannabis oil, which is illegal in the UK, has kept him alive, and an altruistic man who provides free medicinal cannabis to seriously ill people. Turnbull tries some and gets the uncontrollable giggles, which isn’t something I ever thought I’d witness. He also examines the benefits of a meat-free diet.

K-POP IDOLS: INSIDE THE HIT FACTORY

Friday, BBC Four, 9:30pm

The biggest boyband in the world today aren’t, as history has taught us to expect, from Britain or the USA. They’re called BTS and they hail from South Korea. BTS are merely the tip of a slick, machine-tooled phenomenon known as K-Pop, which in recent years has managed the unthinkable and punctured the West’s long-standing dominance of the music industry. To find out how this happened, music journalist James Ballardie travels to South Korea to meet some of K-Pop’s top movers and shakers. Chief among them is Soo-man Lee, a Midas-like mogul who basically invented the genre. Over the last 30 years he’s produced a never-ending line of strictly-controlled, wholesome pop acts.

LAST WEEK’S TV

THE WALL

Saturday 12th October, BBC One

Hang on, what’s this? A Saturday night game show hosted by Danny Dyer? What a time to be alive. It’s a perfectly adequate crumb of nothingy filler dominated by a large pachinko-like pegboard and Dyer’s carefully honed, one-note personality. Contestants answer non-taxing general knowledge questions asked, for no reason I can fathom, by the disembodied voice of Angela Rippon. Balls drop down the board. Cash prizes are won. Dyer runs through his hammed-up glossary of cockney colloquialisms. There is nothing more to it than that, but it serves its modest and instantly forgettable purpose.

HIDDEN LIVES

Thursday 17th October, BBC One

This excellent new series, in which various writers explore overlooked aspects of contemporary Scottish society, began with a lyrical film from the estimable journalist Peter Ross. He visited the small coastal town of Burghead to celebrate an ancient fire festival known as The Clavie. This lively annual event, which involves hardy souls carrying a flaming barrel of tar on their backs, is a potent symbol of proud community heritage. As Ross observed, the tradition isn’t maintained for tourism or the local economy, it’s maintained “because it’s always been done and it must, and shall, always be done.” A delightful piece of television.

TV Review; KIRI + HARD SUN

This article was originally published in The Courier on 13th January 2018.

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

KIRI: Wednesday, Channel 4

HARD SUN: Saturday, BBC One

Miriam is an experienced social worker who one day makes an error of judgement that leads to tragedy.

She arranges an unsupervised visit between foster child Kiri and her birth grandfather. While Miriam is gone, Kiri is apparently abducted by her ex-con father. A few days later, her body is found. The finger of blame points towards Miriam.

This is KIRI, a compelling new drama starring the great Sarah Lancashire. It’s written by Jack Thorne, author of the Yewtree-inspired National Treasure. Kiri is inspired by another explosive issue torn from the headlines, namely the unjust vilification of social workers.

Miriam becomes a convenient scapegoat. The media hounds her. The public turns against her. She’s thrown under the bus by her employers. She drowns herself in booze.

The murdered girl is black. Her adoptive parents are middle-class and white. This complicates matters even further. Within days of Kiri’s disappearance, yer actual John Humphrys is on Radio 4 chairing a debate on the ramifications of children being matched with families from different cultural backgrounds. Right-wing tabloids accuse social services of “ticking their lefty boxes”. It all feels depressingly real.

Thorne is fascinated by the ways in which the media manipulates, exploits and simplifies complex emotional issues. It constructs binary narratives blithely untroubled by shades of grey. It gorges on grief and enflames prejudices it helped to create in the first place.

Though his writing becomes slightly didactic when his passion and sincerity gets the better of him, for the most part he devises plausible scenarios, searching arguments and convincing characters. Miriam, with all her quirks and flaws, is a gift for Lancashire, who’s always at her best when suffering in a pool of anguish and gallows humour.

Thorne succeeds in his goal of humanising social workers. They are, after all, human. They sometimes make mistakes, but they also do a lot of good. You never read about that in the press, of course. Kiri shows what happens when social workers, who devote their professional lives to helping people, end up needing help themselves.

A nuanced polemic and compassionate character study, Kiri is a valuable piece of work.

“Nuance” isn’t in Neil Cross’ vocabulary. The Luther creator deals in heightened pulp fiction powered by graphic violence and a grim world view. He probably wrote Victorian Penny Dreadfuls in a previous life.

His obsessions reached some kind of crazed apogee in HARD SUN, a propulsive sci-fi conspiracy thriller which, like Luther, treads a fine line between entertaining largesse and outright nonsense.  

Blokey Jim Sturgess and the quietly charismatic Agyness Deyn are mismatched London coppers who discover that the Earth will be destroyed by an unspecified solar catastrophe in five years (yes, the Bowie song does appear). The governments of the world want to keep this rotten news under wraps, lest the human race goes bananas.

What’s more, Sturgess appears to be a dodgy copper up to his neck in all sorts of chicanery, while Deyn’s mentally ill son tried to kill her via stabbings and arson. She’s also secretly investigating Sturgess. What a carve up.

In typical Cross fashion, Hard Sun revels in audacious set-pieces and gore. In order to enjoy it you have to set your brain into the appropriate gear. Suspension of disbelief is key.

It is, by its very precarious nature, a show that could go either way, but episode one set things off in agreeably crackerjack style. I’m a sucker for paranoid dramas wreathed in apocalyptic futility, and Hard Sun doesn’t disappoint on that front.