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.

 

HORIZON SPECIAL: THE VACCINE + GREAT BRITISH GARDENS WITH CAROL KLEIN + TIME

A version of this article was originally published in The Courier on 12th June 2021.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

Horizon Special: The Vaccine – Wednesday, BBC Two, 9pm

“We knew it was going to happen, it was just a question of when.” 

So says a leading medical expert at the start of this report on the urgent yet painstaking development of the COVID-19 vaccine. Its humble stars are the pioneering scientists from all around the world who toiled incessantly to combat an unprecedented pandemic. 

The last eighteen months have been awful, devastating; hats off to these backroom geniuses for rolling out a vaccine in record time. At the risk of sounding sentimental, we must never take a single thing for granted. Stay safe.

Great British Photography Challenge – Monday, BBC Four, 9pm

If you’ve not been following this series, the set-up is simple: top photographer Rankin mentors six talented snappers as they’re “pushed to their creative limits”. It’s a standard format, terribly straightforward, but anyone with an interest in photography and/or portraiture will probably enjoy it. 

This week we’ve reached the final. Rankin isn’t a natural host, he’s quite timid and awkward; clearly a man who would rather stay behind the camera. Nevertheless, it’s quite refreshing to see a competitive TV talent show entirely lacking in aggression and spite. Give me Rankin’s mildness over Ramsay’s bullying any day. 

Sure, it skirts with hipster pretension – that goes with the territory – but this is basically a sincere celebration of creativity.

Great British Gardens with Carol Klein – Monday, Channel 5, 9pm

Carol Klein, a Gardeners’ World stalwart, has a highly distinctive presentation style.  She always sounds like she’s on the verge of breaking into fits of uncontrollable giggles, as if she can barely contain her utter glee when it comes to topiary and architecture. More power to her elbow, I say, she’s a charming presence. I’d love to be that happy. 

Her latest series kicks off, ever so gently, with a four seasons visits to Arundel Castle in West Sussex. Its spectacular gardens are rather dreamlike and theatrical; an eccentric work of art. 

It’s all very “Sing Hosannah for this green and pleasant land!”, but not in an egregious way. This is a verdant tuft of comfort viewing.

Between the Covers – Tuesday, BBC Two, 7:30pm

In the final episode – for now – of this cosily quarantined series, host Sara Cox asks another panel of celebrity guests to opine about some books. 

Her prose-guzzlers this week are Good Morning Britain presenter Ranvir Singh, comedians Sophie Willan and Reginald D. Hunter, plus Micky Flanagan, a sweaty man who just says things into a microphone for coins (in all seriousness, I hope he’s okay; during this episode he looks like a haggard and bewildered Donovan after three days trapped in a shipping container). 

Anyway. They review a small heap of tomes as usual. It’s all quite pleasant. I’ll get back to previewing more substantial television once the usual summer drought is over. Thumbs up emoji!

The Hotel Inspector – Thursday, Channel 5, 9pm

Alex Polizzi has been hosting this series for thirteen years. You can tell. Her whole shtick – a ‘cruel to be kind’ expert who revives the fortunes of struggling hoteliers – was always dubious, but it’s even worse now that she’s clearly bored with it all. 

The latest series begins in a traditional Dorset pub owned by Yvonne and James. They come across as nice people, but Polizzi takes issue with their appearance. Yvonne and James are overweight, and apparently that just won’t do. 

I don’t think Polizzi genuinely intends to come across as rude, she’s clearly playing a role, but I’m not a big fan of vulnerable people being belittled by solvent television personalities. Perhaps I’m just old-fashioned that way.

Great Paintings of the World with Andrew Marr – Friday, Channel 5, 9pm

“Art, not politics, is the greatest passion of my life.” Which is fair enough, Andrew Marr, but maybe you should’ve been making programmes like this all along instead of failing to properly challenge Michael Gove (I am aware that Andrew Marr isn’t actually reading this). 

Politics aside, I do quite like Marr. He’s an amusingly emphatic presenter who is clearly in his element when hosting television he actually cares about. The Hay Wain by John Constable is his latest fave-rave subject, and he manages to convey his enthusiasm for that rural masterpiece in a quite contagious way.  It’s a decent little arts programme.

LAST WEEK’S TV

Tina Turner at the BBC – Saturday 5th June, BBC Two

Ideal Saturday night viewing, this tribute to Turner delved into the BBC archives. A blatant piece of cheap filler, but sometimes that’s all you need. 

It cleaved to the standard TOTP2 format: a panoply of clips accompanied by fact-packed streams of scrolling text. Turner, who is now in her eighties, retired from the spotlight over ten years ago, but this compilation served as a valuable reminder of her natural-born charisma: she clearly taught Mick Jagger everything he knows. 

The undoubted highlight was her supremely camp performance of Goldeneye on TOTP, during which she was flanked by a bunch of ridiculous male models in full Bond regalia. Turner was a true star. A fun and funky iconoclast.

Time – Sunday 6th June, BBC One

Jimmy McGovern’s prison drama isn’t an easy watch. It’s not supposed to be. I haven’t been so unnerved and engrossed by a piece of television in quite some time. In typical McGovern style, it’s relentlessly bleak and brutal while being deeply etched in compassionate shades of grey. 

Sean Bean plays Mark, a timid schoolteacher serving his first prison sentence. Mark has committed a terrible crime, but he’s sympathetic - a haunted man trapped in a terrifying environment. Stephen Graham plays a seemingly respectable prison officer struggling with his own personal dilemma. 

The entire cast is faultless, and McGovern has found the perfect setting in which to explore his recurring themes of guilt and forgiveness. Time is wounding. It lingers.

 

 

TV Review: BROKEN + THE HANDMAID'S TALE

A version of this article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 3 June 2017.

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

BROKEN: Tuesday, BBC One

THE HANDMAID’S TALE: Sunday, Channel 4

The mere idea of rugged Sean Bean playing a troubled Catholic priest in a grey northern town sounds like a parody of Jimmy McGovern’s morally righteous social realist oeuvre.

Add Anna Friel – who, like Bean, has worked with McGovern before - as a working-class single mum struggling to support three children, and you’d be forgiven – nay, absolved – for assuming that his latest drama, BROKEN, is a perfunctory self-tribute to the man who brought us the peerless likes of Cracker, Hillsborough and The Street.

Well, you’d be wrong. And yes, I’m aware you’re being corrected for making an assumption I’ve just conjured on your behalf, but no one ever said life was fair. If McGovern has taught us anything, it’s that.

This poetic series is the raw, compassionate, heart-wrenching apotheosis of everything one of our greatest - and angriest - dramatists has been wrestling with on television over the last 30 years.

Bean plays Michael, a tireless Good Samaritan whose private demons and loneliness mirror the solitary anguish of the locals who turn to him in times of dire need. We’re all broken in one way or another, but we rarely have the courage to admit it. Softly-spoken Father Michael is there to listen and advise without judgement.

A damaged hero for our Godforsaken times, Michael acts as an emblem of much-needed kindness in an increasingly selfish, heartless society; he’s basically everything Gervais tried and spectacularly failed to achieve with Derek.

Michael may be a somewhat idealised figure, but he’s rendered utterly convincing by McGovern’s nuanced writing and Bean’s tender, understated performance.

Friel also excels as a woman so desperate for money to feed her family, she makes the terrible mistake of leaving her mother lying dead in bed for three days in order to collect her pension.

McGovern has a seemingly never-ending capacity for wringing tension and pathos from his stock conceit of forcing desperate characters into ill-advised courses of action. They’re tragic victims of circumstance, and always depicted as three-dimensional beings.

The trials of Father Michael and his flock allow the lapsed-Catholic writer to explore his recurring themes of guilt and atonement, but they also provide a vehicle for an attack on the injustice of poverty and the failure of every Tory government to protect the most vulnerable members of society. The real broken Britain.

Though often accused of didacticism – usually by ghouls who lack his humanity - McGovern always anchors his polemic in rich, riveting character drama leavened by dry humour.

On the eve of a pivotal General Election, a politically-charged McGovern psalm espousing decency and tolerance is exactly what we need.

Still, if you think the Dystopian present is frightening, it’s, well, it’s only slightly less nightmarish than our old friend the Dystopian future.

A serialised adaptation of the acclaimed novel by Margaret Atwood, THE HANDMAID’S TALE envisions a near-future in which a totalitarian Christian government rules the United States with a puritanical fist.

Catastrophic environmental contamination has forced the few remaining fertile women into the sexual servitude of the ruling elite (represented here by Joseph Fiennes and his jutting beard).

This bleak premise is given a suitably nervy, suffocating treatment in an intriguing, visually striking drama starring Elisabeth Moss (aka Peggy from Mad Men) as a subjugated handmaid whose inner monologue reveals an undimmed spirit.

It’s a slow-burning, but potentially rewarding, commendably depressing and timely assault on misogyny, fascism and religious fundamentalism.

If you want a vision of the future, imagine Donald Trump sexually harassing a woman forever.