THE GALLOWS POLE | CHANGING ENDS | OUR LIVES: MY HUSBAND THE MMA FIGHTER

This article was originally published in The Courier on 27th May 2023.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

The Gallows Pole – Wednesday, BBC Two, 9pm

The great Shane Meadows usually directs social realist dramas set in the present day or fairly recent past. The Gallows Pole marks his first foray into pre-20^th century history. 

A fictionalised account of a true story, it follows 18^th century working-class Yorkshireman David (Michael Socha) as he ignites a revolution. 

As you can imagine, this is not a typical period drama. Etched in shades of folk horror, it’s populated by characters who convince as actual human beings, they’re not carefully curated museum pieces. 

It bears all the usual hallmarks of Meadows’ work: naturalistic performances and semi-improvised dialogue combined with themes of social injustice, fraternal bonds, redemption, revenge and some understated comedy. 

It’s also a perfect showcase for Socha’s gruff, sad-eyed charisma.

Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland – Monday, BBC Two, 9pm

Episode two of this engrossing Troubles documentary unfolds in early 1970s Belfast. It begins with Bloody Friday, an IRA attack during which nine people were killed. That tragedy drew support for the nascent Ulster Defence Association, a loyalist paramilitary group. 

Interviewees include former IRA and UDA members, who candidly reflect upon their younger selves and everything they once stood for. 

“I was in charge of guns when I was seventeen,” says one older man who came of age in a society divided by sectarian hatred and violence. “I have a granddaughter of seventeen, and I could not imagine handing her a gun. I could not imagine handing her anything other than a strawberry f***ing milkshake, to be honest. But anyway…”

A Paedophile in My Family: Surviving Dad – Wednesday, Channel 4, 9pm

Emily was sexually abused by her father for the first eighteen years of her life. In this intimate, powerful and deeply moving documentary, she tries to understand why her abuse remained unnoticed for so long. 

Emily wants to help other survivors. Her incredibly brave yet painful journey involves encounters with a clinical psychologist, the sympathetic police officers who investigated her case, and a restorative justice officer. Emily’s abusive father has recently been released from prison. There’s a part of her that wants to confront him. 

The programme culminates with a difficult, heart-breaking conversation between Emily and her loving mother. It’s marked by guilt, shame, anger and confusion. An important piece of television.

Changing Ends – Thursday, ITVX

There comes a time in every comedian’s life when they must devise a sweet-natured television series about their childhood. Now it’s Alan Carr’s turn. 

His dad was the manager of a fourth division Northampton football team, a vocation entirely at odds with little Alan’s gay and geeky world. He wasn’t ‘normal’ according to the homophobes who impinged upon his otherwise happy life, so he attempted to fit in by faking an interest in so-called manly pursuits. 

Changing Ends is charming. It’s a coming-of-age story set in less inclusive times, but the underlying message is positive. Carr, who occasionally appears as an in-vision narrator, has co-written it with love for his kind and supportive family.

Taskmaster – Thursday, Channel 4, 9pm

This column is a resolutely spoiler-free zone, so I obviously can’t go into any great detail about the latest thrilling Taskmaster grand finale. 

All I’m prepared to say is this: while dressed in the studio like Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the five competitors – Frankie Boyle, Jenny Éclair, Ivo Graham, Kiell Smith-Bynoe and Mae Martin – unveil some bespoke Greg Davies merchandise while wrestling in the Taskmaster field with pint glasses, buckets, hoses, balloons, rubber bands and ice. 

Psychedelic feathered hats off to the deserved winner. But who will that be? I am, as you’ve presumably gathered, trying to create some suspense here. Taskmaster is a delightful distraction, it aims only to please.

Untold: The Secret World of Boy Racers – Thursday, Channel 4, 11:05pm

In this documentary, filmmaker Ben Zand embeds himself within the incredibly dangerous and irresponsible world of Britain’s underground car scene, a subculture in which young men race noisily souped-up cars along motorways in the dead of night. 

At the risk of sounding like Alan Partridge, they’re an absolute bunch of immature idiots with no thought for the consequences of their actions. All they care about is the fleeting futile thrill of it all. 

Zand meets someone who was left paralysed while traveling in a car with his adrenaline junkie driver. Two innocent bystanders died in that collision. “People” he laments, “don’t ever consider the severe impact of it going wrong until it’s too late.”

Our Lives: My Husband the MMA Fighter – Friday, BBC One, 7:30pm

Natalie is married to one of Scotland’s foremost cage fighters, Stevie ‘Braveheart’ Ray. 

This typically sensitive Our Lives documentary follows the Kirkcaldy-based couple and their four young children, one of whom is epileptic, as Stevie prepares for a potentially life-changing world title fight in New York. 

It’s been a tough year. As Natalie admits, she’s basically looked after the kids as a single parent while Stevie has been consumed by his training regime. 

Natalie and Stevie are nice, bright people. They reflect upon the necessary sacrifices they’ve made in the hope of Stevie setting the family up for life with a $1 million jackpot. A real-life Rocky love story, you’ll be rooting for ‘em throughout.

LAST WEEK’S TV

Reel Stories: Pet Shop Boys – Saturday 20th May, BBC Two

In the latest episode of this intermittent series, Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe settled into some plush cinema seats while watching archive clips of themselves. 

The duo’s memories were jogged by an 1980s BBC Breakfast Time report on Smash Hits – “I haven’t seen this since when it was on!” exclaimed former Smash Hits editor Tennant, who sounds uncannily like Steve Pemberton at times – and their very first TV appearance together. The boys were reliably lovely and amusing. 

They wouldn’t thank me for the compliment, but PSB are bona fide national treasures. 

The programme also afforded our preternaturally affable host Dermot O’Leary an opportunity to utter the phrase “Larkian lyrics” for the first, and presumably last, time in his career.

Strike: Inside the Unions – Thursday 25th May, BBC Two

Our dire cost of living crisis has resulted in the biggest wave of strikes this country has witnessed in decades. 

A probing two-part documentary, Strike: Inside the Unions follows national hero Mick Lynch and other prominent trade unionists as they campaign on behalf of our underpaid frontline workers. 

Lynch is a subversive character. Witty, erudite and entirely committed to his cause, he runs rings around politicians and journalists with blunt statements of inarguable fact. And you’re not supposed to do that. 

Episode one began with this caption: “The Government departments and many of the companies featured in this series declined to take part.” Why, it’s almost as if they have something to hide. Up the workers.

ONCE UPON A TIME IN NORTHERN IRELAND | INSIDE NO. 9 | POKER FACE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 20th May 2023.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland – Monday, BBC Two, 9pm

In this outstanding series, the history of The Troubles is relayed via frank testimonies from Catholics and Protestants who were surrounded by violence on a daily basis for almost 30 years. 

It begins with some of the people who lived through those early days of turmoil in the late 1960s and early 1970s. 

They include a man once known as “the best rioter in Derry”, a British soldier who was stationed in Derry, and a woman whose brother was shot and killed by the British Army on Bloody Sunday. These intimate interviews are accompanied by stark archive footage. 

Suffused with anger, grief and remorse, this is an incisive portrait of a political situation rife with painful complexities.

Scotland’s Home of the Year – Monday, BBC Scotland, 8:30pm

This week, genial judges Anna Campbell-Jones, Banjo Beale and Michael Angus visit a Victorian renovation in the village of Oldmeldrum, which is situated just a few miles outside of Aberdeen. They’re knocked out and sideways by this imaginatively stylised cottage. 

The praise continues at a chic modernist build in rural Aberdeenshire, which boasts a spacious yet welcoming interior plus some fabulous open views from its floor-to-ceiling windows, and a cosy self-built property in Orkney that takes full advantage of its stunning surroundings. 

If you follow this charming little show, then you’re aware that our experts are looking for homes packed with character and loving attention to detail. They’ve hit some kind of jackpot here.

Maryland – Monday to Wednesday, STV, 9pm

Suranne Jones and Eve Best star in this drama about estranged sisters struggling to solve the mystery of their late mother’s secret life. She was found dead at a beach on the Isle of Man, a place neither of her daughters have visited before. 

Becca (Jones) is warm and empathetic. Rosaline (Best) is a blunt pragmatist. Their awkward, mismatched yet essentially united dynamic is convincing. Families are complicated. And what does very special guest star Stockard Channing have to do with it all? 

Maryland, which was devised by Jones and writer Anne-Marie O’Connor, delivers several intriguing plot twists, but this is not your typical thriller-adjacent drama. It is, at heart, a ruminative character study. 

Grand Designs: The Streets – Tuesday, Channel 4, 9pm

Graven Hill is the UK’s largest and boldest self-build site. Grand Designs nabob Kevin McCloud has been following its development for quite some time. 

His latest catch-up stars Tim, who is about to move from a small flat in Bicester to his very own HQ in Graven Hill. Tim’s plans involve the construction of a basement in which he can tinker with his beloved motorbike collection. 

It doesn’t run smoothly, of course, ambitious projects never do in Grand Designs land. For one thing, a five-tonne car-lift he’s ordered from China doesn’t fit into the basement’s specially prepared hole. 

McCloud oversees Tim’s ordeal with his usual combination of wry distance and curbed enthusiasm. 

Storyville: Inside Kabul – Tuesday, BBC Four, 10pm

Marwa and Raha are friends who grew up in Kabul after the Taliban were defeated 20 years ago. This haunting animated documentary is based on voice notes they exchanged in the weeks and months following the Taliban’s return to power in 2021. 

Difficult decisions needed to be made. In the end, Raha decided to stay with her family, while Marwa fled the country with her husband. She had to leave her beloved parents and siblings behind. “I wish one day we could meet again,” she sobs, “but I’m not sure.” 

Marwa and her husband are trapped in limbo while awaiting to hear about their refugee application. Back in Kabul, Raha highlights the brutal reality of living under an oppressive regime.

Inside No. 9 – Thursday, BBC Two, 10pm

The final episode of this penultimate series is a gut-puncher. 

Pemberton and Shearsmith play a gay couple celebrating their 9^th anniversary in a tranquil Scottish holiday home. They’re happy, content, deeply in love, but gradually we're made aware of underlying complications. 

And that, as always, is all I can say with regards to the plot. Pemberton and Shearsmith are fully aware that we enjoy second-guessing them, that’s all part of the twisted Inside No. 9 fun, but they’re almost always several steps ahead of our expectations. 

Beautifully written, directed and performed, ‘The Last Weekend’ solidifies Inside No. 9’s rightful reputation as one of the best and most imaginative TV shows of the last ten years. 

Poker Face – Friday, Sky Showcase, 9pm

Created by Rian Johnson of Knives Out and Glass Onion renown, this witty murder mystery is openly indebted to the inverted ‘howcatchem’ Columbo format (it even copies the famous bold yellow title font). 

After witnessing a murder at the start of each episode, we follow a sleuthing protagonist as they join up all the dots. Our recurring hero in this case isn’t a detective, she’s Charlie, a wise, likeable, beer-supping cocktail waitress with a knack for sniffing out horse ordure. 

Charlie is played by the brilliant Natasha Lyonne from Orange is the New Black. Again, a la Columbo, the show boasts some big name guest stars. No sign of Shatner so far, but it’s only a matter of time. 

LAST WEEK’S TV

Ten Pound Poms – Sunday 14th May, BBC One

BBC One’s latest Sunday night period drama began with a PTSD-stricken soldier collapsing in a pool of booze and vomit. This, clearly, will not be a cosy nostalgic exercise. 

It follows said soldier and his family as they emigrate to Australia, a far-off land of unimaginable opportunity, an escape from the drudgery of post-war Britain. They wind up in what is effectively a shanty town. 

Ten Pound Poms isn’t just an interesting piece of social history, it highlights the eternally relevant plight of poor migrants trying to start new lives in nations riddled with overt and casual prejudice. 

Yes, that message is occasionally painted in rather broad strokes, but you can’t argue with its fundamental truth.

I Kissed a Boy – Sunday 14th May, BBC Three

In this upbeat dating show, ten young single gay men meet for the first time in a plush Italian villa. Those five potential couples have been matched up by the producers, who ask only one thing: they must kiss each other before indulging in any getting-to-know-you small talk. Will romance blossom from there? 

During the opening salvo we were introduced to Joseph from Nigeria, where homosexuality is illegal, and Mormon-raised Josh who’d never kissed a boy before. 

Programmes of this nature can often be cruel and exploitative, but I Kissed a Boy is an utterly benign endeavour. The lads are lovely and the overall message is empowering. 

TV Review: McMAFIA + GIRLFRIENDS + DERRY GIRLS

This article was originally published in The Courier on 6th January 2018.

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

McMAFIA: New Year’s Day and Tuesday, BBC One

GIRLFRIENDS: Wednesday, STV

DERRY GIRLS: Thursday, Channel 4

A monumental bore of global proportions, McMAFIA is a turgid crime drama which proves that it’s possible to surf a wave of hype while wearing concrete boots.

Two years ago, the BBC scored a direct hit with the similarly expensive The Night Manager. The only chance McMafia has of emulating that success is if millions of viewers suddenly develop an inexplicable urge to watch one-dimensional gangsters discussing investment funds and business mergers.

The non-fiction book it’s based on claims that organised crime accounts for roughly 15% of the world’s GDP. A potentially ripe source of drama, but McMafia fails to deliver on its promise. There are no characters to care about. It’s utterly soulless, a slowly meandering iceberg.

James Norton, an otherwise versatile actor, looks hopelessly lost in the underwritten central role of a successful British-born investment banker who can’t escape from his Russian family’s mafia connections. Like young Michael Corleone from The Godfather, he wants to stay legit, but they keep pulling him back in. That’s where comparisons with The Godfather end.

Norton wanders through an interminable procession of ham-fisted scenes stolen from countless other gangster dramas. The uninvolving narrative flits between Mumbai, London, Tel Aviv, Moscow - everyone’s talking ‘bout Pop Muzik! – in a doomed attempt to conjure a sense of epic scale. It makes most of Daniel Craig’s Bond films look exciting by comparison.

Slow-burning dramas only work when they’re fuelled by atmosphere, intrigue, tension and emotion, all of which are conspicuously absent from this frozen turkey.

Occasionally, a jolt of violent action will occur. These moments don’t succeed as shocking flashpoints breaking a spell of finely-tuned suspense, they’re just a cattle-prod used to keep us awake. McMafia is an empty bottle of expensive vodka. What a way to bring in the New Year.

Does Kay Mellor ever sleep? She seems to average at least two hit dramas per year. Her most recent series, Love, Lies and Records, ended just before Christmas. Now she’s back with GIRLFRIENDS, in which Phyllis Logan, Miranda Richardson and Zoe Wanamaker star as three life-long pals in their late fifties.

Mellor tackles her driving theme of age discrimination with typical compassion and humour. When Linda (Logan) loses her beloved husband in mysterious circumstances, she finds herself alone for the first time in 30 years. Gail (Wanamaker) is recently divorced, and no longer feels desirable. Sue (Richardson) is the glamorous features editor of a bridal magazine – she’s never been married – who fears growing old and dying alone.

They’ve been forced to feel irrelevant by a society that discards women when they reach a certain age. Older men are allowed the luxury of becoming distinguished. Older women become invisible. Girlfriends is a cry of anger and frustration in the covert guise of a populist drama. It’s far more important than McMafia.

So is DERRY GIRLS, a very funny, smart and charming new sitcom about a misfit gang of Catholic teenagers in the Troubles-torn Northern Ireland of the mid-1990s.

These kids aren’t defined by their bleak backdrop and religious upbringing, it’s just part of their everyday lives. They struggle with the same growing pains as everyone else. Adolescence is universal, regardless of theological or political context.

Written by Lisa McGee, this semi-autobiographical farce fizzes with cheerful profanities and affectionate observations. Her engaging characters are vividly performed by an excellent cast. The unforced period detail is commendably accurate. The tone – darkness swaddled in warmth - is perfectly pitched. Derry Girls is a delight.

TV Review: FLOWERS + THE SECRET

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

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

Flowers: Monday to Friday, Channel 4

The Secret: Friday, STV

Destined to be dimly recalled in years to come as “that rubbish with Olivia Colman and Julian Barratt”, Flowers was a black comedy misfire which somehow managed to be overcooked and under-powered simultaneously.

Channel 4 trailed it as an ambitious piece of event television, hence why they stripped all six episodes throughout the week. But I suspect the real reason for that was to get it out of the way as quickly as possible.

A sort of rural British Addams Family, it followed a dysfunctional brood as they fell apart in a claustrophobic country house. Spending time in their company was immensely trying. Black comedy characters don’t have to be likeable, but they need to be interesting. This lot were miserable bores who it was impossible to care about.

Barratt, who’s very good at looking lost, played the depressed author of a popular range of children’s books. His failed suicide attempt came back to haunt him throughout the series, leading to a comical misunderstanding involving a child and a “secret magic snake” with a punchline so blatantly sign-posted it was visible from space.

Writer/director Will Sharpe tried far too hard to present Flowers as weirdly subversive, but the weirdness felt incredibly forced. It wasn’t funny enough to succeed as comedy, and too alienating to work as a serious study of clinical depression. He did manage to conjure a pleasingly gloomy bucolic atmosphere, but his script was an overbearing, tonally confused mess.

And what on earth was going on with the wacky Japanese houseboy/illustrator? A borderline dubious racial stereotype, his jarring presence was typical of Sharpe’s tendency to overdo things in the wrong direction. Sharpe, who is English/Japanese, actually played this character himself, but despite some laboured attempts to imbue him with pathos, the performance didn’t work. Almost nothing in Flowers did.

Its sole saving grace was a typically superb performance from Dame Olivia Colman. Making full use of her wonderfully expressive face, her beaming mask of sunny desperation was constantly under attack from her cracked inner turmoil and passive-aggressive undertow. Performing on the verge of hysteria is something she excels at, but in this case her brilliance far exceeded her tiresome material.

Fact: you’re only ever five minutes away from yet another brooding drama starring James Nesbitt. His latest salvo of grim intensity is The Secret, a superior thriller set in Troubles-era Northern Ireland in which he (and his fascinating hair transplant) plays a seemingly respectable pillar of his local Baptist Church. But as he embarks on an affair with another married member of the church, his true psychotic character gradually becomes apparent.

Based on a horrifying true story, this righteous attack on religious hypocrisy works because it manages to fuse its underlying ire with a bleakly compelling storyline and morally complex characters. Largely shorn of incidental music, its queasy hand-held quality creates an unforgiving sense of realism.

Without being overdone, the Troubles backdrop exacerbates the sense of a world in which violence and murder are a means to an end.

It’s hard to imagine anyone else playing Nesbitt’s role, as it fully exploits his ability to appear outwardly charming while masking a dark, disturbing core. The great Jason Watkins also stands out as a creepily controlling pastor/cult leader.

The BBC have led the way with drama this year, but The Secret should be a deserved hit for ITV. Despite its bland, forgettable title, it’s an impressive piece of work.