TV Review: CAPITAL and ARENA: NIGHT AND DAY

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 28 November 2015.

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

Capital: Tuesday, BBC One

Arena: Night and Day: Sunday, BBC Four

Paul Whitelaw

Like a sinister live-action Pigeon Street, Capital unfolds on a single London street populated by residents from various economic and ethnic backgrounds. Modern Britain in microcosm.

One morning they each receive a mysterious postcard through their letterboxes, bearing the stark legend: “We Want What You Have.” The sender of this subtly threatening missive had yet to be revealed by the end of episode one of this intriguing new drama, but whoever they are it's probably safe to assume that they're making a vigilante stand against rocketing property prices in the area.

Adapted by leading TV dramatist Peter Bowker from the best-selling novel by John Lanchester, Capital makes no bones about its satirical intent. Yes, it's occasionally heavy-handed – the closing montage of our miserable protagonists scored to Hark! The Herald Angels Sing! was straight out of an EastEnders Christmas special – but that's surely intentional.

Credulity may have been stretched by the closing shot of “We Want What You Have” daubed in enormous letters along the length of the street, but only if we approach Capital as an earnest piece of social realism. It's not. It's a tragicomic polemic.

That layer of discomfiting humour is typified by Detectorists co-stars Toby Jones and Rachael Stirling as an investment banker and his spendthrift wife. Owners of a multimillion pound property that would've once been home to lower middle-class families, their unhappy, sterile existence is a nightmare vision of success. Their children are just another accessory, an achievement on a par with their house extension.

Upon being informed that he'd received less than half of his promised £1m bonus, a furious Jones delivered the key, soul-shrivelling line: “What use is £30,000 to anybody?!”

Neighbours include Gemma Jones as an elderly widow with a terminal illness who's witnessed decades of change first-hand, a Zimbabwean refugee living under a false identity, a Polish builder tasked with building dream homes for his employers, and a Muslim family with two adult sons, one righteously devout, the other more measured in his beliefs.

However it pans out, it's refreshing to see a primetime TV drama tackling immigration, greed and social inequality in a witty, thoughtful, timely manner. Despite being set in a city where, unlike anywhere else in recession-hobbled Britain, property prices continue to soar, its themes strike a chord nationwide.

A harbinger of quality, that bobbing neon Arena bottle scored to Eno's Another Green Day is the most weirdly moving ident in British television history. Arena: Night and Day paid suitably esoteric tribute to its record-breaking 40-year reign as our greatest arts strand.

Introduced by John Lloyd as “an evocation” of its irreverent, witty spirit, this new film was a beautifully edited, dawn-to-dusk archive mosaic starring such diverse luminaries as Orson Welles, Poly Sytrene, Francis Bacon, Tony Hancock, Kendo Nagasaki, Gerald Scarfe, Yoko Ono, Mel Brooks, Sister Wendy and Elvis Presley's personal cook.

Its diversity was illustrated via highlights such as a massed ukulele recital at a George Formby convention in Blackpool, Andy Warhol and William Burroughs schmoozing at the infamous Chelsea Hotel, a politely baffled Mick Jagger being introduced to every single member of a Moroccan drumming troupe, and Jeffrey Bernard avoiding deadlines while boozing with Tom Baker in Soho.

A mere best-of compilation wouldn't have done justice to Arena's unconventional vision. This charming celebration was the perfect birthday gift.

TV Review: FROM THERE TO HERE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 24th May 2014.

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

From There to Here: Thursday, BBC One

Paul Whitelaw

If he has any sense, then Philip Glenister has no doubt long since accepted his professional destiny of playing taciturn, dry-witted men from Manchester. But typecasting isn’t necessarily a curse: never out of work, Glenister is the go-to guy for roles which require a certain amount of gruff, vinegary charm.

He delivered yet another variation on his usual shtick in From There to Here, in which he plays Daniel, a happily married businessman whose life is sent into tailspin following the IRA’s attack on central Manchester in 1996. Using a real-life event such as this to trigger fictional drama could easily come across as insensitive, but writer Peter Bowker obviously has a great deal of affection for the city.

It’s a tale of transformation, both physically and emotionally. Manchester underwent major redevelopment following the bombing: the notion of a city and nation being on the cusp of seismic change is one of Bowker’s underlying themes. Not that he explored it with much subtlety. Daniel’s father and son are depicted as capitalist caricatures, whose money-grabbing avarice are emblematic of the Thatcher/Major era that, in theory at least, is about to be undermined by the initial optimism of the New Labour years.

Set against the galvanising backdrop of Euro ’96, From There to Here is full of characters in search of meaning and stability. When the bomb went off, Daniel was trying in vain to reconcile his domineering father and black sheep brother. Following the blast, he had a chance encounter with Joanne, a female cleaner (Glenister’s Life on Mars co-star Liz White) who lives in the working-class area in which he spent the first few years of his life.

It transpired that Daniel was adopted when he was five, which has left him with the nagging feeling that he doesn’t truly belong anywhere. When he drove Joanne home, he impetuously decided to pose as a single man in need of companionship. Could this be the life he was destined to live all along?

Despite the fact that Daniel was effectively trying to start an extramarital affair, he still came across as fairly sympathetic. Glenister always tends to play outwardly confident characters with an underlying layer of vulnerability.

There was scope here for some thoughtful ruminations on the nature of identity, but Bowker undermined its promise with blatantly on-the-nose dialogue. Was it really necessary to have characters spelling out their inner thoughts and motivations with such clarity? Bowker is usually a safe pair of hands, but here he displayed an unfortunate disinclination to let the audience work things out for themselves.

We know he wants to make a point about how lives can change in an instant, and how a brush with death will put things in perspective, because Daniel and co kept reminding us. 

Furthermore, the attempts at creating tension in the last few minutes just didn’t work at all. Even a football novice such as myself knows that England were knocked out following their penalty shoot-out against Germany, and there’s just no way that Daniel was killed in the bomb blast at his brother’s club. Or is that really the last we’ve seen of the star of TV’s latest Philip Glenister vehicle? I’m all for suspending disbelief, but you can’t mount a cliff-hanger on such an unlikely proposition.

In any case, what the hell was he doing with the bomb in his lap? Had he suddenly developed a death wish? It made not a jot of sense. 

Laboured and unconvincing, From There to Here is a hefty disappointment.