LION: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE MARSH PRIDE + FIGHT AT THE FORT + MARRIAGE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 20th August 2022.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

Lion: The Rise and Fall of the Marsh Pride – Tuesday, BBC Two, 9pm

Africa’s Marsh Pride of lions have been closely documented over the last 40 years, most notably by the BBC’s world-renowned Natural History Unit. In this engrossing 90 minute documentary, the team reconvenes with a species facing extinction. 

It’s a tragedy writ large. Over half of Africa’s lions have been wiped out during the last few decades. There are only around 20,000 left in the wild. They’re desperate, depleted, a dying breed. 

The film features contributions from Maasai people who have to protect their livestock from these hungry predators. They have no other options, what else can they do? 

The epic narrative is embellished by footage culled from the BBC’s vast archive. An exceptional piece of work.

The Dark Side of Direct Sales – Tuesday, BBC Three, 8pm

Young people around the UK are being exploited and conned by direct selling firms. They’ve been enticed by entry-level riches, but in reality they’re rewarded with nothing at all. This documentary exposes what it’s really like to work for these disingenuous cowboys. 

The grim details, most of which are revealed by former agents, include a denial of toilet breaks and several other cruel forfeits. 

I take my imaginary hat off to BBC Three, a ‘youth’ channel that was once quite rightly derided for its facile content. Those days are long gone. In recent years, it’s cleaned up its act. Your friends at Three are more or less defined by worthwhile programmes such as this. Actual public service broadcasting.

Fight at the Fort – Tuesday, BBC Scotland, 10pm

Shadab Iftikhar is Britain’s only Asian football manager. He’s in charge of Fort William F.C., a Scottish Highlands team who haven’t won a league game in over two years. 

At the start of the 2022 football season, the Highland League – the fifth tier of Scottish football - introduced a controversial new diktat: from now on, the bottom-placed team will face relegation. Fort William have lurked at the bottom of their league for the past five years. 

This documentary follows Iftikhar as he does everything in his power to reverse their fortunes. He’s a charismatic fella who was born to manage football teams. It’s his calling. You don’t need to be a football fan to enjoy this bittersweet saga.

Rosie Jones’ Trip Hazard – Tuesday, Channel 4, 10pm

Series two of this amiable confection begins with our host, the comedian Rosie Jones, visiting the north-eastern Scottish heartland of Moray. 

The gist of the show can (and will) be summed up thus: Jones embarks upon various adventures each week while accompanied by a famous pal. Her latest companion is TV presenter AJ Odudu. 

Together they climb Cairn Gorm, one of the highest mountains in Britain. They also enter a clay pigeon shooting competition, row across a loch, dabble in pottery, and try to find some inner peace at Moray’s idyllic environmentally-friendly retreat, Findhorn Ecovillage. And after all of that, they inevitably sample some whisky. 

Your narrator is fellow travelogue doyen, Dame Joanna Lumley.

The Accused: National Treasures on Trial – Wednesday, Channel 4, 9pm

Operation Yewtree was set up in the wake of the posthumous revelations about Jimmy Savile, one of Britain’s most prolific sex offenders. Most of the celebrities who received a firm knock on the door were guilty as charged. But some of them weren’t. 

This programme, which wasn’t available for preview, features testimonies from three famous people who were accused but never arrested or convicted: Cliff Richard, Paul Gambaccini and Neil Fox. 

I quote now from the official synopsis: “It asks the difficult but important questions about how we balance the rights and freedoms of the famous with the need to deliver justice to victims of heinous crimes.” We can only hope that the whole thing is handled sensitively.

All That Glitters – Thursday, BBC Two, 9pm

Comedian Katherine Ryan returns for another mildly diverting sojourn into the world of hand-crafted jewellery. All That Glitters is ostensibly a celebration of wildfire creativity, but the format of the show itself is utterly formulaic. 

Our contestants have to prove their everlasting worth in a designated ‘workshop’ overseen by judges. You’ve seen it all before, folks, and you’ll see it all again. 

Nevertheless, the trinkets meticulously crafted by these people are rather fetching and inventive. And that, I suppose, is why we idly settle upon programmes such as this. The participants are talented, they’re nice, bright, interesting artists who manage to rise above their bland surroundings. 

Plus, y’know, who doesn’t like looking at glittery stuff?

Aretha Franklin: A Tribute to the Queen of Soul at the Proms – Friday, BBC Four, 8pm

Aretha Franklin, who passed away in 2018, was one of the greatest singers to ever grace our planet. 

I say that without the merest hint of hyperbole, her extraordinary voice hit you directly in the heart and solar plexus; an emotional and physical response to a human being expressing every last droplet of whatever they happened to be feeling deep down inside at the time. 

That uninhibited soul, the sheer magnitude of her ecstasy and anguish, was a once in a lifetime gift to us all. We were lucky to have her. 

This BBC Proms gala is fronted by the estimable American R&B singer and Quincy Jones protégé Shelea. Several notable special guests are guaranteed. R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

LAST WEEK’S TV

Griff’s Canadian Adventure – Saturday 13th August, Channel 4

Ah, Griff. For people of a certain age, Griff Rhys Jones will forever be associated with Not the Nine O’ Clock News and Alas Smith and Jones. An ‘80s comedy titan. 

If the young people they have now are even vaguely aware of him at all, he’s just that cheerful chap who presents TV travelogues. I’m sure he couldn’t care less about that, he’s enjoying a lucrative semi-retirement while traveling around the world. Good luck to the man, I’d so the same in his shoes. 

Griff’s latest vehicle is wry, genial, eloquent business as usual. Beautiful Canadian scenery, nice Canadian people, a light sprinkling of Canadian facts and fancies – it fulfils its basic brief with aplomb.

Marriage – Sunday 14th August, BBC One

Stefan Golaszewski made his name with the cult sitcoms Him & Her and Mum. The latter is one of the best British TV shows of the last few years: a modest little masterpiece. 

Marriage is Golaszewski’s first foray into drama, although it still retains his penchant for subtle humour. It’s also his first hour-long piece of episodic television, and I must admit that the low-key pacing which worked so well in a half-hour sitcom struggles to sustain this running time. It sometimes drags. 

However, there’s still so much to savour. Sean Bean and Nicola Walker are typically authentic as a married couple with a nagging sadness at their outwardly comfortable core. Flaws and all, Marriage lingers and intrigues. It's quietly devastating.

 

TV Review: THE HALCYON + UNFORGOTTEN

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

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

THE HALCYON: Monday, STV

UNFORGOTTEN: Thursday, STV

If escaping to the past beats facing up to a brutal future, then how better to ignore the birth of 2017 than traveling back to a glamourous five-star London hotel in 1940? Sure, World War II and all that, but weren’t the fashions divine?

Welcome, then, to THE HALCYON, where jitterbugs and doodlebugs collide in a streamlined tumult of soapy wartime melodrama: Downton Abbey with ration books and epaulettes.

A hotel is a classic setting for drama, offering as it does a myriad of stories operating under one convenient roof. In this case we have a Savoy-esque palace populated by various characters divided by class, nationality and politics, most of them portrayed by familiar TV faces.

Chief among them are the perennially watchable Steven Mackintosh as Garland, the ambiguous hotel manager whose outward propriety hides a scheming underbelly – Mackintosh excels at playing seemingly ordinary men with a sinister edge – and his haughty yet melancholy nemesis Lady Hamilton, played by Olivia Williams. She’s The Halcyon’s widowed owner who, for reasons only hinted at, despises Garland and his murky relationship with her late husband.

It’s a shame Lord H bumped himself off in episode one, as he was enjoyably portrayed with philandering ennui by the excellent Alex Jennings. He reminded me of Paul Whitehouse’s caddish 13^th Duke of Wybourne from The Fast Show: “Me, Lord Hamilton, here? In the bathroom of a naked jazz chanteuse? With my reputation?!”

The lifts are also jammed with the likes of Mark Benton plying his usual trade as an affably lugubrious concierge, Charity Wakefield – last seen over Christmas playing a surrogate Lois Lane in Doctor Who – as, well, a glamourous Nazi sympathiser, and Absolutely’s Gordon Kennedy as a caustic Scottish chef – the ghost of Crossroads’ Hughie McPhee looms large.

Of less interest are a simpering receptionist, a gaggle of identikit posh blokes and two big band-style songs from Radio 2 jazz squid Jamie Cullum.

Filmed within an impressive studio set shot and dressed with appropriate opulence, The Halcyon is a blatant attempt by ITV to replicate the success of Downton Abbey and Mr Selfridge. It’s also indebted to practically every Stephen Poliakoff drama ever made, albeit set to a brisker pace (which wouldn’t be hard - the tombs of Ramesses are more animated than most Poliakoff dramas).

Nevertheless, the show set its well-trodden wheels in motion in confident and fairly promising style. Seeing as it clings so unashamedly to ITV’s Posh Soap blueprint – sex, serfs, toffs and fancy furnishings - success for The Halcyon is almost a formality.

Already a deserved hit for ITV, superior crime drama UNFORGOTTEN returned with another byzantine cold case for refreshingly normal and compassionate detectives Cassie and Sunny (Nicola Walker and Sanjeev Bhaskar, whose underplayed chemistry remains a key component).

This time they’re investigating a grisly unsolved murder from 1990. Naturally, the formula that proved so effective last year remains intact: when Cassie and Sunny eventually discover the identity of an unfortunate corpse, they’re plunged into an England-spanning mystery involving several seemingly unconnected characters.

Series Two’s suspects include an NHS nurse, a Muslim schoolteacher and a gay barrister: an apoplectic Daily Mail nightmare writ large. Good.

With all the requisite intrigue in place, the pressure is on for Unforgotten to match the twisting heights of series one.

If it does, then its reputation as one of the best TV dramas of its kind is secured.

TV Review: RIVER and THE RETURNED

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 17 October 2015.

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

River: Tuesday, BBC One

The Returned: Friday, More4

Paul Whitelaw

Just when you thought the hoary old cliché of the troubled detective with an extensive vinyl collection had been pummelled beyond repair, along comes River to show that there's life in the old dog yet.

The effectiveness of this new cop drama from Abi Morgan (The Hour) is enormously surprising, as from the moment I first heard about it I assumed the worst. After all, the very concept of a maverick cop named John River sounds ridiculous. 

It reminded me instinctively of Simon Day as John Actor in The Fast Show's Monkfish sketches (“John Actor is a tough, uncompromising inspector/doctor/vet...”).

However, putting aside the vast unlikelihood of the great Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgard playing a character named John River, this is undoubtedly the most confident attempt yet at transplanting the existential angst of Nordic noir to British climes. Face facts, From Darkness.

The opening ten minutes alone offered some of the most arresting drama I've seen on TV all year. Scored to Tina Charles' disco classic I Love To Love, the sequence immediately established a warm, understated chemistry between the endearingly discomfited River and his more exuberant partner DS Stevenson (the always believable Nicola Walker, who also shines at the moment in ITV's above-par crime drama Unforgotten).

Their affectionate banter was punctured suddenly when River spotted a petty drug dealer. Chasing him on foot, our wheezy, ageing hero unwittingly drove the suspect to his death. The scene that followed seemed standard at first: River's weary chief (the wonderful Lesley Manville of Mike Leigh renown) arrived to chastise him for causing the young man's demise.

As Stevenson offered him support, the camera span around slowly to reveal a gaping wound on the back of her head. She'd been killed in action, and now exists only in grieving River's mind. It's a measure of how well this twist was handled that its invocation of another great comedy sketch – Chuffy, the imaginary sidekick from Armstrong & Miller – didn't make me laugh. It was so unforeseen, I admired its audacity.

It transpired that River is haunted by other ghosts, namely a murdered teenage girl whom he'd failed to rescue, and – there's no way of describing this without it sounding ridiculous – a 19^th century serial killer (Eddie Marsan, another gifted Leigh veteran). They're voices in his head, a manifestation of his troubled psyche. Ghosts who assist him in solving problems. 

If his noggin wasn't already crowded enough, the episode ended with a bedtime visit from the innocent man he "murdered" at the top of the episode. It's quite a party in there.

Judged incorrectly, this swirling cavalcade of psychological eccentricity could easily descend into farce. But so far at least, River gets the tone just right. It's rather subversive and unusual in an intelligent, dry-witted way. Skarsgard inhabits the role of River with sad-eyed charm and intensity. For once, the old cop-with-a-difference cliché seems justified.

Bathed in shades of medicinal green and nocturnal red, it's also directed with a sharp eye for striking composition. Delightfully, this highly promising show confounded all my expectations.

One of my favourite dramas of recent years, The Returned made good on its title last week for a second series of French supernatural mystery. Despite its ambiguous finale, I actually felt quite satisfied with series one as a self-contained piece. Is another series necessary?

Steeped in glacial intrigue, the opening episode suggested that there's more to be gleaned from this everyday saga of a remote French town populated by photogenic zombies.

Granted, thanks to a two year transmission gap between series, it took me about half an hour to fully remember who the hell everyone was. But once the fog had cleared, I was cautiously hooked all over again.

God only knows if it'll ever make complete sense, but that's not really the point. It's a disquietingly atmospheric mood piece, an exercise in odd, beautiful Twin Peaks-esque style. I'm glad it's back, to linger in the memory like one of River's manifests.