TV Review: SS-GB + INSIDE NO. 9

A version of this article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 25 February 2017.

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

SS-GB: Sunday, BBC One

INSIDE NO. 9: Tuesday, BBC Two

In the twisted annals of alternative history, one theoretical question dominates: what if the Nazis had won World War II?

This nightmare scenario has inspired such notable works of counterfactual fiction as Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle, Kevin Brownlow’s It Happened Here and that episode of Star Trek with Joan Collins.

It also forms the basis of SS-GB, a 1978 novel by Len Deighton. Set in a parallel 1941, after Germany won the Battle of Britain, it depicts occupied London as a forbidding maze of summary executions and a growing Resistance movement. Scotland Yard still exists, albeit as an adjunct to the SS.

So far, so intriguing. Unfortunately, SS-GB squanders the potential of its ‘what-if?’ scenario by focusing on a conventional murder mystery. Alternative history thrives on plausibly imaginative details, but aside from the impressive spectacle of a bomb-torn Buckingham Palace, episode one didn’t depict this world in a particularly rich or compelling way.

While strong on smoky atmosphere, the narrative burned far too slowly.

Deighton’s novel has been dragged to the screen by Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, the writers behind every Bond film starring Daniel Craig. If, like me, you regard those films as moderately entertaining at best, then your expectations for SS-GB will have been lowered accordingly. Even so, I expected more.

The only truly interesting facet so far is our intriguingly compromised hero, DS Douglas Archer (Sam Riley), a lawman who’s earned the trust of his Nazi overlords while secretly praying for their eventual destruction.

Despite Riley’s youthful appearance, he seems older than his years, thanks largely to his raspy channelling of the late John Hurt (possibly as a nod to Hurt’s performance in 1984). 

Affecting the distinctive brogue of another actor could’ve backfired embarrassingly, but Riley’s charismatic, committed performance transcends mere plagiarism. He makes the most of his ambiguous role.

Authors have always returned to the concept of an Axis victory because it could so easily have happened. It’s a frighteningly plausible piece of skewed reality. Fascism remains a threat to this day – just look at the White House. By rights, SS-GB should tap into those fears in a powerful, queasy way.

Instead, it merely dresses them up in lugubriously stylised noir-ish threads: Peaky Blinders meets ‘Allo ‘Allo with a riding crop up its rectum.

It didn’t stir into action until the third-act arrival of a clichéd yet arrestingly unpleasant SS officer with whom Archer must form an uneasy alliance. But even the threat of a bomb at Archer’s son’s school couldn’t quicken the pulse of this thin, murky, wasted opportunity. 

Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith packed more tension into 30 minutes of INSIDE NO. 9 than SS-GB managed in an hour.

When four men arguing over a restaurant bill feels more high-stakes than a Nazi occupation of Britain, you know you’re in the presence of ingenious writers.

Every episode of their justly celebrated anthology series is different, but the latest was typical in the way it continually subverted expectations, even when you thought the final twist had already been revealed.

However, on this occasion I wish they actually had settled on the cunning revelation that the whole argument was an elaborate scam at the expense of wealthy businessman Philip Glenister. The final twist – having rumbled their plot, Glenister becomes their accomplice – was too sudden and felt unnecessary.  

Still, this otherwise entertaining episode proved once again that Pemberton and Shearsmith operate within the highest echelons of television writing. 

No one else manages to combine character-driven black comedy and tightly-woven drama with as much finesse; I hope they’re given carte blanche to create this magnificent series for as long as their fiendish brains will allow.

TV Review: THE REAL MARIGOLD HOTEL + CHILDREN SAVED FROM THE NAZIS + THE DAY HITLER DIED

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 30th January 2016

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

The Real Marigold Hotel: Tuesday, BBC Two

Children Saved from the Nazis: The Story of Sir Nicholas Winton: Wednesday, BBC One

The Day Hitler Died: Sunday, STV

Paul Whitelaw

A comfortably middle-class take on I'm A Celebrity, The Real Marigold Hotel is an easygoing travelogue in which a group of well-known senior citizens arrive in India to test its reputation as an ideal retirement destination.

There is no competitive element and everyone, from Sylvester McCoy to Miriam Margoyles, Wayne Sleep and Jan Leeming, gets on. On television in this day and age? How novel.

It's inspired by – but not officially based on, as an amusingly defensive caption was legally obliged to state – the dreary Brit-flick starring Maggie Smith, Judi Dench et al. It therefore conjures uncomfortable echoes of Empire by depicting India as a colourful playground for rich white westerners. But it also, in its polite British way, confronts the injustice of India's caste system and its rank extremes of wealth and poverty.

This was particularly evident when our cuddly grey-hairs met – in McCoy's unimpressed words - “some Maharajah”. His regal wife tried to justify the disparity between her riches and the suffering outside as part of the Karmic cycle of life. You keep telling yourself that, your Maj. Whatever helps you sleep at night.

Despite their anger – and I'm sure they feel just as righteous about Britain's own shameful equality gap - the team had nothing but praise for the warmth and generosity of their Indian hosts. Mrs Maharajah aside, no one came out of this badly.

Disgusting cynic that I am, I was looking forward to making merry fun of Wayne Sleep for his woolly spiritual quest, until he revealed that he'd been musing on mortality after recently recovering from prostate cancer. His desire to reconnect with his latent religiosity was entirely sincere.

Meanwhile, Margoyles proved reliably eccentric as she vented her obsession with base bodily functions, spoke of her total lack of interest in house work, and struggled with her “scorn for the upper classes”. Inevitably, she was favoured in the edit above everyone else (the likes of Roy “Catchphrase” Walker and singer Patti Boulaye barely featured at all).

However, my favourite moment had nothing to do with social injustice, spiritual awakenings or flatulent actresses. It was when McCoy's avuncular mask slipped briefly after a local innocently asked what Doctor Who was. “It's a television programme that's been running for 50 years,” he mumbled pointedly. Simmer down, Sylv, the Doctor clearly hasn't conquered Jaipur yet. The locals have more pressing things to think about.

A moving tribute to an unsung British hero, Children Saved from the Nazis: The Story of Sir Nicholas Winton showed how an unassuming London stockbroker took it upon himself to rescue over 600 Czechoslovakian children on the eve of WWII. The definition of humility, Winton's selfless act would've remained secret had his wife not stumbled across the truth 50 years later while rummaging through their attic. It was a reminder that life-affirming triumphs can often flourish in the tide of abject horror.

Der Führer's death aside, there wasn't a trace of light amid the darkness in The Day Hitler Died. Although the dismal details of his final days in a bunker beneath war-torn Berlin are widely known, this rigorous documentary had a fascinating ace up its sleeve: previously unseen archive footage, filmed for the Nuremberg Trials, of Hitler's bunker-dwelling cohorts confirming his death.

The most morbidly compelling contribution came from the soldier tasked with standing guard over Hitler's funeral pyre as Russian bombardment raged overhead. When this personification of evil was finally reduced to ash, the young man gave a Nazi salute and retreated. A miasma of insanity, right to the end.