TV Review: TUTANKHAMUN + HIM

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 22 October 2016.

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

Tutankhamun: Sunday, STV

HIM: Wednesday, STV

Paul Whitelaw

It’s not often you see a blustering character actor sporting both pince-nez and fez these days. That, I believe, is where society has gone wrong. 

So tasselled hats off to Tutankhamun, a four-part epic of the old-school based on the 1922 discovery of the legendary Egyptian tomb by British archaeologist Howard Carter.

As our story began, various brandy-sipping gold-diggers grumbled that Egypt’s Valley of the Kings was all “dug out”. Having been mined for years, it was thought to be a barren wasteland as far as ancient treasures go. 

But Carter - a socially awkward yet fiercely driven maverick with a headstrong moustache - thought otherwise. He just knew there was something else, something incredible, waiting down there.

Carter is mentored by Sam Neill manfully resisting the temptation to ham it up as one-legged Lord Carnarvon, a colonial cove who decided to mount an archaeological expedition to stave off boredom. His friendship with Carter provides something approaching an emotional core.

There’s no suspense whatsoever, of course. We know how this story pans out. That wouldn’t matter if the characters weren’t so papyrus-thin (Carter’s American love interest exists solely to drive the plot by giving him insights into his own feelings).

The dialogue leaves nothing to the imagination, it’s almost entirely expository. You want historical context? Then try this for size: “Some idiot kid just shot the Archduke of Austria and his wife!” Thanks for that.

Normally, writing of this nature would drive me mad, but I’ll let Tutankhamun off as it takes place in a land of hokum, where subtlety has no place. It has no pretensions towards high-minded drama, it’s just a good old-fashioned piece of mindless escapism.

Yes, it could be objectively better – a dash of wit wouldn’t go amiss – but it looks suitably panoramic and at least the pace never drags.

An enjoyable load of old Tut.

By contrast, HIM is a drama that takes itself very seriously indeed, and ends up looking utterly foolish as a result.

It’s a risible supernatural saga about a troubled, angry, sensitive teenager with a nasty case of telekinesis. The son of divorced parents, his powers flare up whenever he’s emotionally upset, which is 90% of the time. It’s Stephen King’s Carrie meets Kevin the Teenager.

His supposedly disturbing displays of mind-magic are inadvertently funny, especially when he almost murdered his antagonistic stepdad with the floating contents of a tool bag. I’ve seen scarier things in Rentaghost (seriously, I have).

He/Him (we never learn his name) also seeks advice from a saintly old white-haired grandma in a care home, who’s the only person who understands him. When she urges him to use his gifts for good, he helpfully changes the TV channel from afar for the old dears in the communal living room. It’s hilarious.

The sight of a pregnant woman being drowned by a burst water tank shouldn’t be funny, but HIM somehow turns even that into a piece of comedy gold.

Whereas the lack of subtlety in silly old Tutankhamun is more or less acceptable, it’s wince-inducing in this supposedly serious drama.

Written by long-serving TV dramatist Paula Milne, whose heavy-handed work I’ve never rated, HIM is clearly intended as a novel way of studying family dysfunction and the traumatic effects of loss and divorce on children.

But all it proves is that Milne doesn’t have much self-awareness, otherwise she’d realise how ridiculous the whole thing is.

TV Review: THE LIVING & THE DEAD + LIFE INSIDE JAIL: HELL ON EARTH

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 2nd July 2016.

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

The Living and The Dead: Tuesday, BBC One

Life Inside Jail: Hell on Earth: Tuesday, STV

The gas-lit brainchild of Life on Mars creators Ashley Pharoah and Matthew Graham, The Living and The Dead is a supernatural period drama which doesn’t scrimp on effective bumps and scares.

Part of that uniquely British sub-genre known as folk horror – a cult gathering epitomised by such classic films as The Wicker Man and Blood on Satan’s Claw  – it unfolds in the innately disquieting setting of late 19^th century Somerset.

Inevitably, this rural locale boasts creeping traces of ancient pre-Christian religion, psychosexual weirdness and demonic possession. 

Our photogenic guides are a bright, modern young couple played by Colin Morgan (Merlin; Humans) and Charlotte Spencer. Intensely sensitive Nathan is a pioneering psychologist – a useful vocation in this increasingly unhinged environment - while jolly Charlotte is a leading photographer. It’s only a matter of time before her monochrome snaps capture something horrifically inexplicable.

You knew things were about to go drastically awry when, after returning to Nathan’s ailing farming community, Charlotte breezed, “A few weeks in the country are just what we need!”

Little did she realise that the local vicar’s teenage daughter had been possessed by a guttural maniac. What’s more, dangerous supernatural forces appear to be targeting her husband. But at least the industrial revolution has come along to rescue the area’s agricultural fortunes. Hasn’t it?

Bathed in a pleasingly spooky, insidious atmosphere, this promising yarn benefits greatly from elegant direction by Alice Troughton (Doctor Who), although I wish she’d resisted the temptation to include those hoary old horror props, the creepy Victorian doll and rocking horse. And I’m not yet convinced by the incorporation of a time travel element, which so far threatens to gild the lily. However, I can’t fault its ambition.

Inventive adult ghost stories are all too rare on TV these days, so I’m willing to give it the benefit of my niggling doubts. So far it has the potential to become a haunted gem.

The horror continued in Life Inside Jail: Hell on Earth, a two-part documentary filmed in one of New York’s largest, toughest jails.

Despite being familiar territory – American jailbirds must spend at least 25% of their cell time speaking to British documentary crews – it was, as such programmes always are, a sombrely voyeuristic account of a society gone awry.

Home to a thousand male and female inmates, the prison finds petty criminals rubbing shoulders with people accused of murder. Inevitably, we witnessed lives destroyed by drugs. One desperate young addict, who’d never been in trouble with the police before, was accused of murdering a woman to feed his habit. Trapped in a waking nightmare, he looked utterly dazed by what he’d done.

To stress the point that drug addiction can sink its fangs into anyone, the programme also included saddening scenes of a tearful mother, incarcerated for drug crimes, being visited by her daughters and grandchild. If that weren’t miserable enough, one of her daughters was later imprisoned in the same jail for heroin possession. History repeats itself without remorse.

As for the armed prison guards, they were typically willing to talk about their work on camera. It must be a welcome break from the ever-present threat of violence.

One guard admitted that he often thinks he’s crazy for choosing such a dangerous and depressing job. “It’s hopeless for society, man,” he sighed, as all around him an endless cycle of tragedy ensued.

Another guard was reduced to mordant giggles as she talked about some of the insane behaviour she encounters on a daily basis. Sometimes, all you can do is laugh to stop from crying.

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.