TV Review: THE LAST POST + PORRIDGE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 7th October 2017.

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

THE LAST POST: Sunday, BBC One

PORRIDGE: Friday, BBC One

History is an endless spin-wash of repeated mistakes, never to be learned from. That’s the sobering message at the heart of THE LAST POST. It’s a sound point, but I didn’t enjoy this new drama from Peter Moffat (Silk; Undercover; Criminal Justice) in the slightest.

Caked in sweat, violence and despair, it’s set in a British military police compound in Aden, Yemen, in 1965.

Aden was one of the oldest colonies in the British Empire. By the mid-1960s, it was a moribund anachronism, one of the final, desperate shreds of this shameful chapter in our great nation’s mission to civilise the world with politely armed oppression.

Potentially fascinating subject matter, but The Last Post is just another staidly prestigious production in which the usual stock cast of decent actors go through the motions while a writer hits you over the head with their political point. Yes, I get it, Peter. The torture of prisoners in Yemen really did resemble the treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. Let’s smack ourselves sore on the back for recognising that.

It’s such a boring shimmer of expensive waste. The excellent Jessica Raine does a good, committed drunk-act in a drama that no one will remember in six weeks time. The cinematographer might get a BAFTA. Earnest speeches will be made from the podium. Life marches on.

Last year’s unpromising pilot for a new series of the classic prison sitcom PORRIDGE was greeted with a shrug from most viewers and critics, hence the ensuing bafflement when the BBC announced that it had been picked up for a series.

The pilot wasn’t terrible, but it felt pointless. Although episode one of the new series was an improvement – it felt more comfortable in its own skin - there’s still no way of forgetting that you’re not watching Ronnie Barker and co delivering a masterpiece. It’s difficult to appreciate this Porridge on its own terms.

Of course, everyone involved in the production must be acutely aware of that. It’s written by the estimable Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais, creators of the original, who couldn’t write a bad half hour of comedy if they tried. But I do wonder whether, in their heart of hearts, they’d rather be writing a brand new sitcom, rather than a tribute to one of their previous successes.

They haven’t altered the original formula at all, which works both for and against it.

Fletch’s grandson is a chip off the old recidivist block. That is, he’s exactly the same character, albeit played by someone else (Kevin Bishop). The younger Fletch is a cyber-criminal (how terribly modern) serving five years in a prison which just so happens to employ a tough, no-nonsense Scottish warder with a well-meaningly lenient sidekick. History repeating, once again.

Bishop has clearly studied Barker’s performance and delivers a likeable imitation. I don’t envy him having to step into such enormous shoes, but he doesn’t embarrass himself in the slightest. Clement and La Frenais still know how to write for Fletch. Again, however, that only serves to encourage comparisons with the original.

It’s a prison from which they can never escape.

This new Porridge is occasionally quite funny, but it’s essentially a competent facsimile of a superior work. It doesn’t really need to exist.

TV Review: JERICHO + BEOWULF: RETURN TO THE SHIELDLANDS + TRACEY ULLMAN'S SHOW

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 16th January 2016.

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

Jericho: Thursday, STV

Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands: Sunday, STV

Tracey Ullman's Show: Monday, BBC One

Paul Whitelaw

By virtue of its scant competition, Jericho has the distinction of being the best British western since Carry On Cowboy. I can think of no higher praise.

The setting is an 1870s Yorkshire Dales shanty town full of rough and tumble navvies toiling to construct a viaduct. All the standard frontier archetypes are here – handsome hero, stoic heroine, brothel madam with a heart of gold etc. - but they're written and performed with enough charm to keep tiredness at bay.

Though it sounds ridiculous in theory, series creator Steve Thompson (Sherlock; Doctor Who) has managed to transpose the dusty tropes of Wild West fiction to 19^th century England without making a dang fool of himself. It works because he playfully acknowledges his obvious influences while avoiding outright pastiche. It's a brisk, broad, enjoyable production.

Not that it's perfect. Essentially a sanitised Deadwood by way of Little House on the Prairie, it all looks far too clean. This supposedly rough-hewn town reeks of IKEA-fresh timber. The costumes bear not a speck of grime. Jessica Raine's wig looks like a plastic Lego turban. No one ever swears.

Nevertheless, I can't deny the intriguing, novel promise of a drama in which an enigmatic African-American sheriff (the excellent Clarke Peters from The Wire) presides over a white community of working-class Victorian northerners. Loosely inspired by historical events, Jericho, in its wholly escapist way, is more ambitious than yer average period circus.

By contrast, turgid fantasy drama Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands is a hairy heap of grunting nonsense signifying zilch. A U-rated Game of Thrones, this supposedly child-friendly romp suffers from a flabby narrative and chronically dull, poorly defined characters. The glowering Beowulf himself resembles a dazed Neil Oliver wandering through a poorly policed battle re-enactment.

This charmless non-adventure fills the early evening slot recently vacated by the flawed yet far more likeable Jekyll & Hyde. A more natural home would be a mouldering ditch.

You get the slot you deserve. Despite being hyped as a triumphant return to our shores after 30 years working in America, Tracey Ullman's Show has been buried in a post-watershed graveyard trough. It's as if the BBC, having procured the ex-pat comedienne's services, forgot to provide her with a project worth returning for.

This painfully thin confection of half-baked sketches suffers from a flat, lifeless atmosphere that stifles whatever potential it may have had. Ullman's impersonations of Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith are impeccable, but without strong material to support them they're little more than top-flight party tricks. 

The Dench skits are typical in that they take a very basic premise – Dame Jude exploits her National Treasure status to get away with bad behaviour – without bothering to build on it. A shrugging sense of “Will this do?” hangs over the whole sorry enterprise.

Her depiction of Angela Merkel as a boozy, thin-skinned brawler who's bought into her own beige sex symbol hype was mystifyingly weak. A potentially damning musical number attacking Tory cuts proved utterly toothless. A recurring sketch about a bemused woman returning home after 28 years in a Thai prison worked only as a comment on Ullman's long absence from British TV. It certainly wasn't funny.

She should cut her losses and buy a one-way ticket back to the States. Anything to escape from this misfire.

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. 

TV Review: BABYLON and LINE OF DUTY

This article was originally published in the Courier on 15th February 2014.

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

Babylon: Sunday, Channel 4

Line of Duty: Wednesday, BBC2

Given the current weight of controversy surrounding police misconduct and media chicanery, you'd think an incisive black comedy satirising the whole sorry mess was just begging to be made. Unfortunately, Babylon isn't it.

Billed as a comedy-drama, the pilot failed to make much impact as either. Although clearly not intended as a rib-tickling farce, the stabs at humour were curiously mannered and self-conscious.

A scene in which Metropolitan Police chiefs were confused by incoming reports of a shooting spree was particularly laboured. And James Nesbitt, as a beleaguered police chief, delivering a convoluted description of what would befall him if he erroneously issued a citywide lock-down felt like an awkward barrage of watered-down The Thick of It.

This is hard to forgive, seeing as Babylon was written by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, both of whom worked on Armando Iannucci's exemplary political satire. It was like a weak tribute to their own work. Creators of the excellent Peep Show, they also collaborated with Chris Morris on his thoughtful suicide bomber comedy Four Lions. Their CV speaks for itself.

And yet Babylon took tantalising elements from their previous efforts and squandered their potential. Poorly plotted and characterised, it was a tonally confused, boring mess.

Largely set in the Met's communications department, its tackling of PR, spin and corporate gobbledegook felt awfully rote and familiar. Lines such as “This is so far off the record even I don't know I'm saying it” were the stuff of half-hearted fan fiction.

Director Danny Boyle – yes, that one – did at least succeed in providing a surface sheen of energy to Babylon's hectic world of rolling news, camera phones and Twitter And the overall point about the police struggling to project an image of honesty and transparency in a world increasingly monitored by the media and a tech-savvy public was, while crushingly obvious, adequately delivered.

As a state-of-the-nation address, however, it was limp and underwhelming: a missed opportunity. Its depiction of the police may be fair – like any sprawling institution, it's populated by terrible idiots and well-meaning professionals – but Babylon rang hollow as comedy, character drama and social commentary.

By sheer coincidence, the ethical failings of the police were addressed in another TV highlight this week. But Line of Duty is a far more assured and enjoyable affair.

A satisfyingly self-contained story, series one of this dynamic thriller was hardly begging for a sequel. But on the evidence of episode one, series two promises to be just as compelling.

Once again based around a British police force anti-corruption unit, it introduced Keeley Hawes as an apparently conscientious officer suspected of involvement in the violent death of three colleagues and a mysterious witness.

As before, writer Jed Mercurio established an intriguing guessing game riddled with unexpected twists. The biggest shock of all, and one that left me grinning from its sheer audacity, was the cliffhanger death of Call the Midwife's Jessica Raine, who'd only just been introduced as a major new character.

Although I should've seen it coming – Mercurio pulled off the same trick in series one with Gina McKee's character – it still worked beautifully as a devilish bit of rug-pulling.

That barely controlled yet confident sense of anything-goes mania is what sets Line of Duty apart from the vast majority of UK cop shows. It shows Babylon how it's done.