MANDY + ONCE UPON A TIME IN IRAQ + THE YORKSHIRE JOBCENTRE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 8th August 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

MANDY

Thursday, BBC Two, 9:30pm

Now this, at last, is a proper Diane Morgan vehicle. Hitherto best known as Philomena Cunk from those Charlie Brooker shows and their lacklustre spin-offs, Mandy is written and directed by Morgan. She plays a permanent jobseeker, an insecure working-class oddball with a fishhook grimace, but Mandy is such an exaggerated cartoon of an unemployable person (at one point she attempts to deny her prominent involvement in a series of online gambling adverts), it’s clearly not intended as reactionary social satire. Mandy idly flattening tarantulas on a banana conveyer belt. Mandy getting her skew-whiff bouffant caught in an extractor fan. Mandy and Maxine Peake as estranged Touch the Truck contestants. I laughed. Mandy plays to Morgan’s strengths. She’s a very funny person with an innate gift for silly, deadpan farce.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN IRAQ

Monday, BBC Two, 9pm

And so, this starkly illuminating series reaches its end. But the story remains open-ended. In 2011, the coalition forces finally left Iraq. Victory Day. Within a few months, sectarian tensions resurfaced, tensions stoked by Iraq’s new President. America shook his hand and turned a blind eye. Problem solved, nothing to see here. Enter ISIS. The catastrophic legacy of the Iraq war has, as far as I’m aware, never been essayed on British television in such acutely human detail. It revolves around a diverse array of talking heads, most of them exhausted, traumatised, by the sheer horror of it all. If you haven’t done so already, I urge you to watch the whole thing on iPlayer.

THE YORKSHIRE JOBCENTRE

Monday, Channel 4, 9pm

I have mixed feelings about this series. Filmed in a busy Leeds jobcentre just prior to the Covid crisis, it confronts Britain’s dire unemployment situation (there are 29,000 unemployed in Leeds alone). It follows claimants from various walks of life to illustrate the point that anyone can find themselves in need of benefits, a fact which shouldn’t need restating, but one which blinkered people find difficult to comprehend. It features sympathetic insight from jobcentre employees and vulnerable people living on a pittance. It highlights the chaotic injustice of Universal Credit. But… it also strikes a patronising tone: “Aww, these likeable claimants all get short-term happy endings!” I, Daniel Blake it ain’t. Well-meaning yet uneasily compromised.

GREAT CONTINENTAL RAILWAY JOURNEYS

Wednesday, BBC Two, 8pm

Michael Portillo is living proof that Tory politicians can always reinvent themselves, especially if they affect a sort of ersatz chumminess. If you didn’t know any better, you would assume – if you could even be bothered - that this primary coloured slab of uncooked giblets was a harmless train enthusiast; at worst, a tediously sensible village green Lib-Dem. Nah. He’s a voracious Thatcherite, a nasty piece of work. Do not trust him, don’t ever forget. And here he is again, for his umpteenth series of travelogues funded by the notoriously socialist BBC. This week he’s in Germany, where he waxes solemnly about the rise of fascism. It’s like being lectured on the dangers of smoking by Keith Richards.

LAST WEEK’S TV

PHIL SPENCER’S STATELY HOMES

Wednesday 5 August, Channel 4

Well this was just appalling. Phil Spencer, a blandly humanoid C-3P0 who makes his genuinely unpleasant Location, Location, Location (so bad, they named it thrice) co-star Kirstie Allsopp look like a fluorescent Mrs Claus riding a rocket full of sweets to the moon, presides over an offensive celebration of stupid old toffs and their ridiculous houses. Haven’t we suffered enough of late? Phil Spencer cooing over a gold-upholstered bath which was once soiled by King Ralph of Freedonia is volcanically insulting. I’m all for mindless escapism, I crave silliness and whimsy. Hell’s clanging bells, we don’t have to be angry all the time. Imagine how exhausting that would be. But programmes such as this are indicative of the rot at the heart of British society. Tug your forelock, know your place. We. Are. Doomed.     

TV Review: THREE GIRLS + A TIME TO LIVE + KAT AND ALFIE: REDWATER

This article was originally published in The Courier on 20 May 2017.

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

THREE GIRLS: Tuesday to Thursday, BBC One

A TIME TO LIVE: Wednesday, BBC Two

KAT AND ALFIE: REDWATER: Thursday, BBC One

  

Unflinching, furious, despairing, THREE GIRLS told the horrifying true story of the Rochdale child sex abuse ring. 

Over several years, a group of men, most of them British Pakistanis, groomed and raped vulnerable working-class schoolgirls. The local police failed to thoroughly investigate their crimes, allegedly due to fears of appearing racist.

This outstanding drama, shown over three consecutive nights, was a damning indictment of a systematic failure to protect abused children.

Based on extensive research, interviews and public accounts, it focused on three of the victims – their names changed for obvious reasons – as well as the whistleblowing NHS sexual health worker (Maxine Peake) and the sympathetic senior police officer (Lesley Sharp) who treated them with the respect they deserved.

Their ordeal didn’t end with the abuse; the trauma continued when they struggled to defend themselves in court.

Their abusers exploited the fact that working-class kids with chaotic lives tend to be ignored and mistrusted by the authorities. As Peake’s character angrily observed, these girls were repeatedly “raped, beaten, not believed.”

She embodied the sense of righteous compassion which coursed through writer Nicole Taylor’s sensitive screenplay. Her sterling work was bolstered by a superb cast, including three extraordinary young actresses who never appeared to be acting at all. The raw power of Three Girls was largely drawn from their entirely natural performances.

Peake and Sharp were typically great – their belief in this material was palpable – but special mention must go to Paul Kaye as the father of one of the victims. His quietly devastating performance proved just how far he’s come since his Dennis Pennis days.

Inevitably, this scandal played into the hands of Britain’s thriving bigot community. Taylor tackled that unfortunate side-effect while reminding us that the crown prosecutor who brought the case to trial was a British Pakistani.

The BBC should be applauded for devoting three hours of primetime to such uncomfortable territory. 

It’s a drama to be spoken of in the same vital breath as Cathy Come Home.

How would you cope if you were given a terminal diagnosis? Would you rail against the cruel injustice of it all, or would you choose to make the most of the limited time you had left?

These difficult questions formed the basis of A TIME TO LIVE, the latest film from one of TV’s finest documentarians, Sue Bourne.

 If you’re familiar with Bourne’s work - and you should be – then you’ll appreciate her talent for gently coaxing candid, eloquent testimonies from particularly vulnerable people. No one is ever exploited in a Bourne documentary, she earns their trust without manipulation.

This tender essay was characteristically honest and moving.

Being of sound, if jaded, mind, I assumed that EastEnders spin-off KAT AND ALFIE: REDWATER would be even less appetising than the dreary soap it sprang from.

Well, imagine my vaguely pleasant surprise when it turned out to be a stylish, intriguing drama wreathed in shades of Nordic Noir (the Danish director numbers Borgen among his credits).

We’re definitely not in Albert Square any more.

Written by Matthew Graham of Life on Mars repute (we won't mention Bonekickers), it follows the Moons as they relocate to a conspicuously lyrical Irish coastal village in pursuit of Kat’s long-lost son. A somewhat unsettling, edgy aura dominates; Ballykissangel with a hint of Royston Vasey.

It’s unexpectedly entertaining, and works because familiarity with EastEnders isn’t necessary. Despite the Moon connection, it exists in a different universe.

Jessie Wallace and Shane Richie are such likeable performers, they were always too good for EastEnders. This is the vehicle they deserve.

TV Review: SILK and JONATHAN CREEK

This article was originally published in The Courier on 1st March 2014.

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

Silk: Monday, BBC One

Jonathan Creek: Friday, BBC One

Paul Whitelaw

The problem with idealistic QC Martha Costello is that she's far too human and empathetic for her own good. If only she could somehow dispense with her feelings and carry out her job with the ruthless efficiency of a programmed assassin. Until then, she's doomed to wrestle with ethical dilemmas on a weekly basis at 9pm on BBC One.

That, in a nutshell, is the recurring theme of Silk, the diverting legal drama that returned last week for a third series. As played by Maxine Peake and written by former barrister Peter Moffat, Martha is certainly one of the more convincing lawyers to grace our screens. Her ability to balls things up almost as often as she gets things right makes her infinitely more sympathetic and believable than your standard maverick courtroom hero. I'm no legal expert, but Moffat's work always carries a persuasive ring of authenticity.

Her latest case was typical in that it found her getting emotionally involved to the detriment of her professional acumen. While the problem of a professional getting TOO DAMN CLOSE to a case is a terrible genre cliché, Silk tends to handle it with relative aplomb.

“There's too much mothering and not enough lawyering,” frowned Clive, her Harrow/Oxford-educated paramour and colleague. You could hardly blame Martha for embracing her maternal instincts while defending the son of her own Head of Chambers. A vulnerable teenager with mental health issues, he'd accidentally killed a policeman while taking part in a protest march. What unfolded was a slickly executed rumination on police brutality, corruption and the compromised values of insular institutions.

Peake, who has a knack for delivering dramatic courtroom speeches without ever overselling them, was as solid and affecting as ever, while Neil Stuke, as morally ambiguous chief clerk Billy, handled his terminal cancer sub-plot with admirable restraint.

Although Silk is essentially a case-of-the-week courtroom drama – and therefore fairly forgettable in the grand scheme of things – it's realised with such skill that it rarely fails to engage. Plus this week's episode treated us to the sight of Peake dancing badly to Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart. Beat that, Law & Order: UK.

Despite its layers of black comedy, whimsical mystery drama Jonathan Creek has always struck me as rather too cosy for comfort. I admire David Renwick as a writer, but I've never been taken with this particular creation. At its worst it's little more than Midsomer Murders with a self-aware sense of humour.

To give Renwick his due, the latest episode did feature an enjoyably sly dig at the success of Sherlock, an increasingly tricksy and self-regarding show that's usurped Jonathan Creek in the nation's affections. Creek, competently played as always by Alan Davies, was lumbered with an unwanted sidekick: a young, cocky David Tennant lookalike who constantly rattled off detailed yet entirely incorrect deductions a la Sherlock on a bad day. But it was Creek, of course, who solved the case.

Even so, Renwick's attempts to spice up the formula by showing us, a la Columbo, how the murder happened in the first act felt half-baked. The inherent pleasure of Columbo is in watching the faux-naive detective lure his quarry into a trap. But Creek has none of that character's endearing charm. He's just a dull middle-aged man solving crimes in his spare time.

While the episode hung together more coherently than some of the recent feature-length specials, tonally it didn't quite gel. The story of a mentally ill mother hanging herself after losing her baby and murdering an actress jarred rather harshly against the jokes about Piers Morgan and unsubtle Alien references. With the addition of a superfluous sub-plot involving Paula Wilcox and an urn of ashes, it all felt like something of a hodgepodge. 

I was more entertained by the notion that the moment where Creek was bitten by an angry theatre-goer was a cheeky nod to the real-life incident in which Davies bit a homeless man's ear. Do I deduce correctly?

TV PREVIEW: Doctor Who, The Voice UK, The Village, Life's Too Short

This article was originally published in The Scotsman on Saturday 30th March 2013.

http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/tv-and-radio/tv-preview-doctor-who-the-voice-uk-the-village-life-s-too-short-1-2866239

DOCTOR WHO

Today, BBC1, 6:15pm

THE VOICE UK

Today, BBC1, 7pm

THE VILLAGE

Sunday, BBC1, 9pm

LIFE'S TOO SHORT

Today, BBC2, 10pm

Paul Whitelaw

The problem with previewing new episodes of DOCTOR WHO is that, because it thrives on shock and surprise, you're left with little to say beyond a few gentle hints. To go into any more detail would be like telling a child what it's getting for Christmas. Which I might actually do one day as a social experiment, but that's another story.

So, what I can tell you is that as series seven resumes, the Doctor is brooding over the bizarre ongoing mystery of Clara Oswald, a young woman who, on the two occasions they've met, has died in different periods in history. How can this be? This being Steven Moffat's Doctor Who, the eventual answer will probably be convoluted and disappointing, but I'll gladly be proven wrong.

In any case, the Doctor is now obsessed with tracking down yet another version of Clara, only this time with a view to keeping her alive. And sure enough, as anyone with even a passing interest in Doctor Who already knows, he meets Clara Mark III in Moffat'sThe Bells of Saint John. It's one of those purely entertaining episodes best described as a romp, as the Doctor sets himself up as Clara's galactic guardian while struggling to save humankind from being enslaved by alien Wi-Fi.

This, of course, is a standard Moffat trick: take an everyday facet of existence and invest it with horror. He must spend his days wandering around thinking of ways to make door knobs and carpets scary. Here he takes our real-world concerns about internet identity theft, chucks in one of his other favourite tropes, the creepy child, adds a possible reference to The Exorcist and a fan-pleasing nod to a former companion, and voila! 45 minutes of fun, pacy Moffat Doctor Who.

Matt Smith is a note-perfect delight as usual, although the day he stops being a note-perfect delight as the Doctor is the day he regenerates into the unfortunate thesp who has to follow him. After Clara's introduction in last year's Asylum of the Daleks and the most recent Christmas special, Jenna Louise-Coleman continues to impress with her likeable, charming, understated performance (she's far less annoying than she was in her sass-talking début). She and Smith make for an endearing team.

Also, watch out for a surprise cameo from John Simm's Master and classic series baddies the Zygons.

Dear internet forums and fellow media outlets: please note that this last statement is an outright lie, humorously pertaining to the dilemma established in my opening paragraph. Thanks.

Also returning to BBC1's Saturday night line-up is THE VOICE UK, the torpid X Factor clone that drew flack last year for its repetitive, drawn-out format and excessive overuse of Jessie J doing that thing with her head. But the producers have apparently made some game-changing improvements to the format, despite retaining the same set of judges. So expect another billion weeks of Tom Jones looking like he'd rather be at home having a nap, and will.i.am standing on his chair whenever he feels he's not getting enough attention.

A big week for TV dramatists called Moffat continues with THE VILLAGE, in which Peter Moffat (Criminal Justice; Silk) abandons his usual peregrinations around the legal system for an epic trek across the entire 20^th century. Or at least, that's the plan. Moffat has declared that The Village, which is entirely set within a rural community in the North of England, will unfold over 42 episodes. So that's seven series in as many years.

This ambitious concept automatically confers upon The Village the sort of “event TV” buzz one doesn't normally associate with Sunday night period dramas. It's frustrating, then, that episode one feels like little more than a flat, silly parody.

Leaving no trope unturned, it begins in 1914 by introducing a sadistic farmer (John Simm – genuinely this time – glowering for all his worth) who brutally torments his cowering wife (Maxine Peake) and children, one of whom tops and tails each episode as a centenarian reflecting over his life. There's also a sadistic schoolteacher who is, of course, directly countermanded by a kindly schoolteacher. Meanwhile, up at the Downton-esque big house, the conversation at dinner is preoccupied with the suffragette movement and dark rumblings about war with Germany. It practically writes itself.

Although it's clear that Moffat is trying to do something interesting here, he struggles to settle on the right tone. The unrelenting misery actually becomes funny after a while, a problem hardly alleviated by the persistently mournful brass and harmonium soundtrack. It feels at times like a deranged Hovis advert. However, the more idiosyncratic elements of The Village begin to click into place in part two, with part one feeling in retrospect like a formally self-conscious introduction. So it may be worth sticking with. Over seven years, if need be.

Finally, Gervais & Merchant's dismal sitcom LIFE'S TOO SHORT returns unbidden for a one-off finale. Drab and mean-spirited, it sidelines its nominal star, Warwick Davis, in favour of the supposedly hilarious spectacle of ha-ha-has-beens Keith Chegwin, Shaun Williamson and Les Dennis making fools of themselves. It's truly desperate stuff.