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 Review: GOING FORWARD + MUM

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 21st May 2016.

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

Going Forward: Thursday, BBC Four

Mum: Friday, BBC Two

It’s arguably the fault of Carla Lane and her endless glut of joke-shy sitcoms about unhappy middle-class women that the term “gentle comedy” was, for many years, derided as a euphemism for “not funny”. The truth of the matter is that, at its best, understated, low-key comedy – a more helpful description, I think – is often sharper, funnier and more penetrating than broader examples of the form.

A notable case in point was the BAFTA-winning sitcom Getting On, written by and starring Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine. Based in an NHS geriatric ward, it said more about the struggles and faults of that beleaguered institution, and the nuanced flaws of the human condition, than any number of dramas on the same subject. Plus it was funny, piercingly so.

Now Brand is back with a sequel, Going Forward, which follows droll, kindly Kim Wilde in her new job as a community healthcare worker. Although Scanlan and Pepperdine no longer share co-writing duties, it’s just as witty and humane as Getting On. Like that show, it takes a potentially depressing premise – in this case, a middle-aged married couple with mounting financial woes – and finds something curiously life-affirming at its core.

A large part of its charm is the natural chemistry between Brand and Omid Djalili as her struggling chauffeur husband, Dave. They really do feel like a beleaguered yet happy couple who’ve shared a couch for years. Generously, Brand gave Djalili the funniest scenes in episode one, via his exasperated, almost Pete and Dud-esque conversation with a colleague who insisted that chauffeuring in Iraq is where the jackpot lies. 

Despite its warmth, there’s an underlying edge of desperation to Going Forward. Kim and Dave are barely surviving. Kim’s sister is a neurotic mess. Kim’s clients are, of course, lonely, housebound elderly people who rely on her for company. But like all the best comedies of its careworn kind, it finds humour in sadness and vice versa. Without blowing its own trumpet, it’s a sly, compassionate comment on the reality of life for millions of Britons today. There’s nothing gentle about that.

Cut from a similar cloth, Mum is a well-observed new sitcom starring the brilliant Lesley Manville as Cathy, a recently bereaved widow struggling to put her life back together. Once again, it spins a rich seam of comedy from a wholly downbeat premise.

Each episode is set over a few hours inside Cathy’s suburban home, hence why it reminds me of Simon Amstell’s underrated Grandma’s House. Tender and sharp, humane but never sentimental, it revolves around that distinctly British conceit of maintaining politeness in the face of social awkwardness. 

It’s full of small talk, inadvertent insensitivity, condescending pettiness and pained smiles (Manville is so good at smiling through anguish). But like Going Forward, it doesn’t look down on its characters. Even Cathy’s horrifically snobbish sister-in-law is tinged with pathos.

Peter Mullan – an actor often typecast as hard-nuts – is a heart-tugging bundle of unrequited love as an old friend of Cathy’s, while newcomer Lisa McGrillis shines with an endearingly tactless performance as the well-meaning girlfriend of Cathy’s son. She’s that rarity, a “stupid” sitcom character written and performed with warmth. That’s Mum all over, really. It’s a gem.

TV Review: HOUDINI & DOYLE + INSIDE OBAMA'S WHITE HOUSE + JO BRAND'S HELL OF A WALK FOR SPORT RELIEF

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 19th March 2016.

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

Houdini & Doyle: Sunday, STV

Inside Obama’s White House: Tuesday, BBC Two

Jo Brand’s Hell of a Walk for Sport Relief: Thursday, BBC One

  

A slapdash heap of clumsy old bunkum, Houdini & Doyle takes a dubious premise – what if legendary escapologist Harry Houdini and Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had been a crime-busting duo in Edwardian London? – and unravels hopelessly before your very eyes.

ITV obviously have no faith in this woebegone attempt to rip off BBC favourites Sherlock and Jonathan Creek, hence why they bunged episode one out at 10:15pm on a Sunday before relegating the rest of the series to their subscription channel ITV Encore. Even the cast, including a woefully miscast Stephen Mangan as Doyle, look embarrassed.

I detected genuine pain in Mangan’s voice when, after ploughing through 50 minutes of poorly-written drivel, he cried, “What the hell just happened?!” I’ve seen episodes of Scooby-Doo with more depth.

Houdini and Doyle, who share no chemistry whatsoever, are your “classic” odd couple. Houdini is a chirpy rationalist. Doyle believes in the spirit world. Assisted by a bland female police officer with an incongruous modern outlook, they investigate crimes with a supposedly supernatural bent.

The biggest mystery of all, one which even they could never solve, is how a drama which, at a push, could’ve succeeded as an agreeable piece of daft escapism has reached the screen in such a charmless, empty, ill-conceived state.

When even the most powerful man in the world can’t get what he wants, what chance does anyone have? That was the sobering message behind our introductory visit to Inside Obama’s White House, a riveting new series from documentary heavyweights Norma Percy and Brian Lapping.

It’s typical of their work in that it plunges viewers into the rapid torrents of recent political history via frank contributions from the people who were actually involved: history unfolding as insider drama. Although he only appeared via archive footage in episode one, an in-depth interview with Obama himself will feature later on.

By focusing on his first 100 days in office, when the powerful wave of optimism surrounding him was immediately punctured by the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, it showed how, despite his obvious political nous, he never stood much of a chance of delivering on his nation-changing promises. Indeed, it seems nigh on impossible to achieve anything as President if the banks and the Senate are against you. 

And yet somehow, in the middle of this epic marathon of struggle and frustration, Obama seemed to remain impossibly cool and unflappable. That’s a legacy of sorts, I suppose.

He’s the sort of person who could pull off a grueling charity challenge without breaking a sweat, so maybe that’s something he can focus on when he exits the White House. Who wouldn’t support a fancy-dress fun run with Barack Obama?

If Jo Brand’s Hell of a Walk for Sport Relief taught us anything, it’s that the huddled masses are only too happy to come out in force for famous faces raising money for charity, even if that involves standing around and waving in the freezing winter rain.

Over seven days recently, Brand walked 135 miles from the Humber Bridge to Liverpool, partly as a way of encouraging other overweight, older women to keep fit.

But there was a compassionate political subtext to her ordeal, as she trudged across the once thriving industrial north to meet unemployed people from disadvantaged communities, whose straightforward generosity stood in stark contrast to the selfishness and greed of our egregious government overlords. 

A quietly subversive hour of television.

TV PREVIEW: Getting On, Big Science, Hebburn

This article was originally published in The Scotsman on Saturday 13th October 2012.

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/tv-and-radio

GETTING ON

Wednesday, BBC4, 10pm

BIG SCIENCE

BBC4, days and times vary

HEBBURN

Thursday, BBC2, 10pm

Paul Whitelaw

Dismantled by a government possessed of all the selflessness and empathy of a Cyberman attending an annual “Let's Kill the Humans” convention, the NHS currently finds itself in the most parlous position of its lifetime. And while no conceivable trace of good could ever arise from this dismal situation, it does add an extra layer of depth to careworn sitcom GETTING ON. So that's something. I suppose.

Now in its third series, this unvarnished gem – written by and starring Vicki Pepperdine, Joanna Scanlan, and former psychiatric nurse Jo Brand – has always presented a humane and despairing portrait of the beleaguered NHS. But now more than ever it feels like a helpless eulogy for an institution trudging towards its final days.

If that all sounds like unreasonably depressing fodder for a comedy, it should be explained – for those who haven't already succumbed to its charms – that Getting On never goes in search of broad, easy laughs. Instead its subtle humour arises naturally from realistic situations and well-rounded characters. It's funny in a desperate, often painful way.

Set in an understaffed geriatric ward, it lives up to its double-edged title by showing ordinary, flawed human beings muddling through under trying circumstances (i.e. life). Overshadowed by the ever-present spectre of death – laugh it up, folks! - it pays heartfelt yet crucially unsentimental tribute to the thankless lot of NHS nurses.

Jo Brand as knackered nurse Kim is the heart of Getting On. Although shrouded in lingering traces of Brand's cynical comic persona, Kim is kinder and more cognisant of the needs of her elderly patients than any other character in the show. She's that rare thing: someone from a modern British sitcom that you'd actually like to know in real life.

The same can't be said for Pepperdine as effortlessly condescending consultant Dr Moore, who's more concerned with ticking boxes and boosting her profile. Permanently teetering on a frayed tightrope of passive-aggression and stunning obliviousness, she's a weirdly vulnerable monster, and Pepperdine plays her impeccably.

Scanlan, who's already asserted her deft comic touch as Terri in The Thick Of It, also impresses as capable but lazy ward sister Den, who tends to form a shaky united front with Kim. In the latest episode she receives unwelcome news from her ex-partner and male matron, Hilary – a beautifully understated performance from hulking comic Ricky Grover – while struggling with a hypochondriac patient.

I'd describe Getting On as bittersweet, if that word hadn't been hijacked to describe bland ITV comedy-dramas starring Martin Clunes as a lonely divorcee. Instead I'll describe it as a raw, honest study of institutional and mortal decay, but funny.

Directed by, among others, Scanlan's The Thick Of It co-star Peter Capaldi, it's deliberately grey and unflatteringly lit, all the better to underscore its harsh, satirical message. In the unlikely event of Jeremy Hunt sitting down to watch it, I doubt that he'd care about that message at all. This, ultimately, is all you need to know.

Swapping its nurses uniform for a lab coat, BBC4 launches its BIG SCIENCE season this week, featuring a host of classy documentaries devoted to, well, you can probably guess.

It begins with Order and Disorder (Tuesday, 9pm), in which Professor Jim Al-Khalili explains how the human race came to harness and manipulate energy. In The Final Frontier? A Horizon Guide to the Universe (Wednesday, 9pm), Dallas Campbell raids the Horizon archive to chart the scientific breakthroughs that have transformed our understanding of the universe. Meanwhile, in Tails You Win – The Science of Chance (Thursday, 9pm), David Spiegelhalter, the – implausible yet impressive job title alert – Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge University, examines factors of risk and probability to argue that, instead of avoiding chance, we should embrace it.

Finally, HEBBURN is a fairly warm-hearted new sitcom written by stand-up comic Jason Cook. Set in the unremarkable town of Hebburn, South Tyneside, where Cook grew up, it revolves around a close-knit working-class family headed by Vic Reeves (here billed under his real name, Jim Moir) and Gina McKee. He's affable and blokey, she's overbearingly well-meaning in the way that sitcom mums almost always are.

Rounding out the brood are comedian Chris Ramsey – who looks like Stan Laurel moonlighting as a member of One Direction – as the prodigal son awkwardly introducing his girlfriend (Fresh Meat's Kimberley Nixon) to the family for the first time. But unbeknownst to them, the pair secretly got married in Vegas. Oh no! Apparently.

There's also a daffy gran prone to inappropriate outbursts, and a tart-with-a-heart sister. So no, it won't win any awards for originality (if indeed such awards existed). And that's Hebburn's problem: although it's packed with gags, they're mostly rather obvious and unremarkable. Cook – who also appears in a supporting role – can't resist all the usual cheap tracksuits and fake-tan jibes, and even throws a cheesy pub singer in for good measure.

 

Tinged with pathos and black comedy, it's amiable enough, and nicely performed – especially by McKee, reminding us that she's capable of delivering much more than the frosty types she's usually cast as. But it isn't remotely distinctive or original.