SHERWOOD + THE REAL DERRY: JAMIE-LEE O'DONNELL + THE OUTLAWS

This article was originally published in The Courier on 11th June 2022.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

Sherwood – Monday and Tuesday, BBC One, 9pm

This compelling six-part drama is a work of fiction inspired by two murders which took place in the Nottinghamshire mining village where its author, James Graham, grew up. 

It’s an intelligent, thoughtful piece, a carefully constructed whodunit fuelled by the long-lasting effects of Thatcherism and the miner’s strike on working-class communities. 

The outstanding cast includes David Morrissey as a senior police officer who is determined to win back the public’s trust, Alun Armstrong and Lesley Manville as happily married, doting grandparents, and Joanne Froggatt as a local Tory councillor who isn’t exactly in tune with the political outlook of her constituents. The series begins on her wedding day. 

You may find yourselves hooked from the get-go.

Tiny Lives – Monday, BBC One, 8:30pm

A tender document ensconced within the University Hospital Wishaw’s neonatal unit, Tiny Lives returns for more affecting stories about prematurely born babies. 

Alfie is just six hours old. His mum had an emergency caesarean after Alfie showed signs of distress in the womb. He’s in critical condition, a ventilator is keeping him alive. The hospital’s dedicated team are on constant standby, he’s in good hands. 

Alfie was born at the height of the pandemic, when the NHS were stretched to their absolute limits. The series pays tribute to their tireless efforts; decent people doing everything in their power to save lives on a daily basis. One particular nurse devotes her entire 12-hour shift to an infant placed in isolation.

The Savoy – Wednesday, STV, 9pm

The latest series of this observational hoopla reconvenes with London’s luxurious Savoy Hotel as it opens its doors post-pandemic. 

The owners are in dire straits, they have to recoup millions of pounds of lost revenue. So thank God for Gordon Ramsay, who barges in with ambitious plans for his very first seafood restaurant. 

Say what you like about Ramsay by all means, but that will at least create new job opportunities for some deserving chefs. Meanwhile, we’re treated to some heavy-hitter celebrity dining cameos from Christopher Biggins and Shirley Ballas. 

The whole thing is an unquestioning celebration of wealth. This preview was typed through gritted teeth, which is quite a physical feat if nothing else.

The Real Derry: Jamie-Lee O’Donnell – Thursday, Channel 4, 10pm

Timed to coincide with the 50^th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, this documentary follows the Derry Girls actor as she reflects upon life growing up during the last few years of The Troubles. 

O'Donnell is a devoted Derry girl who wants to find out more about the complex history of her community. 

I haven’t seen this programme, preview copies weren’t available, but I reckon I can probably vouch for it in good faith. O’Donnell speaks to young people growing up in Derry today, kids who by and large have no truck with sectarian prejudices. 

According to the press blurb, it will provide viewers with some hope for the future of Northern Ireland.  O’Donnell is a smart person, she’ll do this justice.

Devon and Cornwall – Friday, Channel 4, 8pm

John Nettles’ bombastic narration during this otherwise genteel series is one of the funniest things on television. It’s a delicious chunk of pure uncut ham. Wonderful. This week, Nettles wraps his rich rococo tones around another set of everyday Devon and Cornwall stories. 

We meet woodsman John and his daughter Betsy as they attempt to revive and maintain a lost tradition – sculpting stave baskets from ash. Meanwhile, two friends put their fairly ancient powerboat through its paces ahead of a big race, and a hotelier/fisherman sets out to sea to haul in his lobster pots. 

Devon and Cornwall is a perfectly pleasant programme, and I’m sorry if I’ve ruined it by drawing attention to Nettles’ Matt Berry-esque theatrics.

Brian Cox: Seven Days on Mars – Friday, BBC Two, 9pm

Is there life on Mars? I’m inherently suspicious of questions that even David Bowie couldn’t answer, but you can’t deny the basic pleasure of watching Professor Brian Cox (sort of) fulfilling a childhood dream during this programme. 

He spends an access-all-areas week in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as it continues its exploration of the surface of Mars. 

42 years ago, young master Cox wrote a letter to the JPL asking about their pioneering deep space missions. The reply he received set him on the path to becoming a physicist. 

Cox follows the JPL during one of their most ambitious projects to date: navigating Martian terrain via the first powered aircraft we have ever sent to another planet.

Avoidance – Friday, BBC One, 9:30pm

Romesh Ranganathan co-writes and stars in this likeable comedy drama about Jonathan, a newly separated man struggling to come to terms with his situation. He can’t accept it, hence that title. 

Jonathan is a nice guy, but his glib passivity is exasperating. No wonder his partner finally gave up on him. He’s never depicted as some sort of hapless victim, a romanticised sad-sack hero. This isn’t a simplistic vanity project a la Ricky Gervais’ After Life. It’s drily amusing and warm-hearted. The underlying pathos is kept in check, it never descends into sickly sentimentality. 

Also, Ranganathan, a stand-up by trade, is an entirely natural actor. Avoidance began last week; catch up with episode one on iPlayer.

LAST WEEK’S TV

The Outlaws – Sunday 5th June, BBC One

Series one of Stephen Merchant’s appealing comedy drama about a mismatched gang serving community service in Bristol was a deserved hit. And now it’s back. Episode one wasted no time at all, it jogged our memories and got on with the story. 

Merchant is a talented screenwriter with an obvious love of classic romantic comedies and thrillers. The Outlaws is basically a Scorsese film shot through the prism of Ealing Studios. The characters are sympathetic and rounded, they’re recognisable ‘types’ with flesh on their bones. 

It succeeds on its own sweet terms: a heartfelt character piece disguised as a crime drama. Merchant ensures that we care about the plight of these fictional constructs. It's a fine-tooled piece of entertainment.

Everything I Know About Love – Tuesday 7th June, BBC One

This isn’t a complaint, just an observation: in the last few years, TV execs have commissioned a notable surge of semiautobiographical coming-of-age dramas set in the fairly recent past. The ‘90s up until the early ‘10s to be exact. 

That's an inevitable development. The commissioners, many of them in their late thirties/forties, are drawn to stories which reflect their own formative experiences. So here’s the latest one, set way back in 2012. 

It follows a group of mid-twenties female friends who’ve just moved to hipster Camden. Don’t let that premise put you off, it’s not smug or annoying at all. It’s a sharp, funny, charming and self-aware meditation on youthful friendships and infatuations.

TV Review: DARK ANGEL & HUMANS

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 5 November 2016.

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

Dark Angel: Monday, STV

Humans: Sunday, Channel 4

ITV has dramatised so many real-life crime and murder cases over the years, it’s all but exhausted the 20^th century as a gruesome source of inspiration.

Hence, one presumes, the arrival of two-part death carnival Dark Angel, starring Joanne Froggatt (dutiful housemaid Anna from Downton Abbey) as 19^th century serial murderer Mary Ann Cotton. This is truly horrible history.

From 1865 to 1872, Cotton cut a poisonous swathe through the North East of England, murdering several husbands – and possibly eleven of her 13 children – for their life insurance policies.

In the hands of writer Gwyneth Hughes, she was initially portrayed as a sympathetic figure mired in poverty and struggling to raise a family while her first husband scraped a paltry living at sea.

But our sympathies soon waned when she discovered the swift and painful properties of arsenic.

A fine, intelligent actress, Froggatt pitched her performance astutely. The – to say the least – morally wayward nature of her character was rendered more chilling by her decision to adopt the gentle North East tones of Sarah Millican.

Froggat’s Cotton wasn’t depicted as a leering maniac, but rather as a coldly pragmatic, manipulative killer who wasn’t beyond feeling guilt for her actions. However, those occasional pangs of conscience couldn’t dissuade her from a cruel and perverse mission to climb the social ladder.

No one suspected foul play when her family members coincidentally died in vomit and faeces-stained agony, because Victorian society couldn’t even begin to entertain the notion that a woman would be capable of such crimes.

By the end of episode one, she’d dispatched two hapless husbands, two children and her own mother. No wonder the blue-grey colour palette looked so depressed.

It may not be the most compelling study of a psychopath you’ll ever see, but Dark Angel is a suitably bleak and low-key account of an overlooked chapter in British criminal history. Seldom have the words “Let’s make you a nice cup of tea” been delivered with such an impending sense of doom.

A deserved hit for Channel 4, series one of Humans was one of the most thoughtful and intelligently-realised sci-fi dramas of recent years.

Based in a near-future Britain where lifelike androids – or synths – are employed as unquestioning slaves within the service industries, it managed to combine all the usual philosophical quandaries of A.I. fiction with an overarching conspiracy narrative and an effective domestic setting.

But where to go from there? In attempting to broaden the scope of this world, the first episode of series two was a globe-trotting muddle in which far too many strands competed for our attention.

The relatively small-scale drama of series one has been replaced by an overly busy stew of disjointed ideas. It’ll hopefully settle down and regain focus soon, but this was a textbook example of how not to begin a new series.

Or perhaps it’s because I’m beginning to suspect that I don’t particularly care about the fate of our rag-tag group of sentient synths and their voyage of self-discovery, and preferred Humans when it was the story of a dysfunctional family struggling to cope with the introduction of a synth into their lives. The scenes involving the Hawkins’ were more engaging than anything else in episode one.

I’ll gladly eat those words if Humans 2 matches the quality of its predecessor. Maybe, in its eagerness to grab our attention, it just got off to an awkward, malfunctioning start.