LUCY, THE HUMAN CHIMP + GRETA THUNBERG: A YEAR TO CHANGE THE WORLD + MAKEUP: A GLAMOROUS HISTORY

This article was originally published in The Courier on 17th April 2021. 

NEXT WEEK’S TV

Lucy, the Human Chimp – Monday, Channel 4, 9pm

In 1966, two psychology professors from the University of Oklahoma embarked upon a radical nature vs nurture experiment. They decided to raise Lucy, a female chimpanzee, as if she were human. 

But by the time she was 11, Lucy had grown too large and unpredictable to continue living with her surrogate parents. So they were forced to make a difficult decision: ostensibly for her own good, Lucy was shipped off to an African nature reserve in the company of a young student called Janis Carter. This touching documentary recounts their extraordinary story. 

Via archive material, dramatic reconstructions and a revealing interview with Carter herself, the film makes a resonant statement about the complex relationship between humans and animals.

Ackley Bridge – Monday to Friday, Channel 4, 6pm

Basically Grange Hill aimed at a slightly older audience - or Hollyoaks and Skins with a soul – Ackley Bridge returns in a new early evening slot stripped throughout the week. 

The newest protagonists are two Asian pupils and a member of the travelling community. Connor McIntyre, who played Coronation Street’s greatest ever villain, Pat Phelan, also turns up in a recurring role. Ackley Bridge handles Big Issues and the everlasting teenage themes as a matter of course, but never in an earnest way. 

It’s sharp, sensitive and self-aware. Peppered with characters delivering snappy Russell T. Davies-inspired monologues to camera, I find the whole thing quite sweet and fairly amusing. It’s worth delving into.

Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World – Monday, BBC One, 9pm

During the second leg of her global fact-finding mission, the inspiring climate activist conducts a brief yet moving interview with David Attenborough. “People are listening,” he says. “Self-interest is for the past, common interest is for the future.”

When he compliments her campaign, she has to hold back tears. But the centrepiece of this episode is her appearance at the 50^th World Economic Forum in Davos, where she tried to persuade world leaders to abandon fossil fuels. Thunberg is dismayed by the press coverage, which ignored her message in favour of a pantomime narrative pitting the Swedish teenager against Donald Trump. 

Meanwhile, various leading scientists and experts provide a battery of facts. There are solutions. There is hope.

Makeup: A Glamorous History – Tuesday, BBC Two, 9pm

“Makeup can be seen as a frivolous subject,” says professional makeup artist Lisa Eldridge, “but I think it’s hugely important… a window on the world we’re living in.” She proves her point in this new series, which functions as a novel piece of social history shot through the prism of lipstick, powder and paint. 

Her essay begins with the high society Georgians, whose shameless ostentation and towering ice cream wigs were viewed as a symbol of wealth and status. Eldridge, who has been collecting vintage makeup products for over 30 years, applies her research to a model using authentic period techniques. She’s an engaging expert; her enthusiasm for the non-frivolous subject at hand is palpable.

Scotland’s Home of the Year – Wednesday, BBC Scotland, 8pm

In the latest episode of this rather calming series, we nose around some stunning homes in rural Aberdeenshire, the actual Aberdeen and St Andrews. 

As always, your expert judges are interior designer Anna Campbell-Jones, blogger Kate Spiers and architect/lecturer Michael Angus, who, with his large yet softly-spoken Man in Black image, wouldn’t look out of place in an episode of Deadwood (he’d be a goodie, obviously). 

It’s all presented in such a friendly way, it never invites viewers to feel envious of these dream homes. 

Another point in the programme’s favour is Anne Lundon’s gentle Hebridean narration, which makes a pleasant change from that incessantly wry lifestyle television tone I’m sure you’re also thoroughly sick of. 

Bent Coppers: Crossing the Line of Duty – Wednesday, BBC Two, 9pm

In the early 1970s, Soho was a sordid hotbed of vice ruled by enterprising porn barons and an underground network of corrupt police officers. That murky world of fake raids and suspicious brown envelopes is the setting for episode two of this series, which once again wallows in amazing archive footage steeped in grime and sleaze. 

It also features contemporary contributions from investigative journalists and former cops. Narrated by – who else? – Philip Glenister, it’s a solidly-researched history lesson. My only criticism of this series is the way it suggests that police corruption and harassment are a dark and dusty relic of the Sweeney-fingered past. If only. We’ve all seen the news and that hit documentary Line of Duty.

Second Hand for 50 Grand – Wednesday, Channel 4, 10pm

According to this glitzy celebration of rampant consumerism, so-called second-hand chic is the latest must-have. In recent years, an entire industry has grown around the acquisition of luxury vintage goods and “modern-day bling”. 

The programme follows the staff at Xupes, a Millennial-run business that hopes to corner the market. Their clients include a young millionaire with a walk-in wardrobe full of absurdly expensive handbags, a retired insurance broker who collects watches, sunglasses and old toys, and an elderly man who wants to buy a Cartier watch for his window cleaner son, as a thank you for looking after him. 

Believe it or not, at least two of these stories contain a bit of depth.

LAST WEEK’S TV

I Can See Your Voice – Saturday 10th April, BBC One

Well this is certainly something. It’s a Saturday night singing talent show in which a panel of celebrity judges and Some Contestants have to guess who might be a gifted vocalist either by merely looking at them or assessing their miming skills. 

The joke, such as it is, involves laughing at bad singers while assuaging your conscience with the knowledge that these pitch-starved funsters are in on it. When a singer is revealed to be quite good, that’s supposed to be a jaw-dropping moment – oh wow, that mousy little bespectacled fella can hold a tune! – but this thin format is stretched out over an endless hour. And “let’s hear your voice!” will never gain traction as a popular catchphrase.

GRETA THUNBERG: A YEAR TO CHANGE THE WORLD + TOO CLOSE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 10th April 2021.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

Greta Thunberg: A Year to Change the World – Monday, BBC One, 9pm

The world-renowned environmental activist has galvanised millions in the fight against climate change. Towards the end of 2019, she took a year off school to examine the effects of global warming first-hand. A co-production between the BBC and PBS, this vital series follows Thunberg as she travels around the world – by boat – to meet leading climate experts. 

In Canada, she encounters melting glaciers and evidence of our biodiversity crisis. She also witnesses the devastating after-effects of California’s worst ever wildfire. 

Meanwhile, Thunberg and her supportive father discuss the pressures they’re under, although she’d clearly rather not talk about herself at all: “I don’t want you to listen to me, I want you to listen to the science.”

Too Close – Monday to Wednesday, STV, 9pm

Emily Watson stars in this morbid psychological thriller as Emma, a forensic psychiatrist tasked with assessing a woman branded in the tabloid press as a ‘yummy mummy monster’. Connie (played with considerable intensity by Denise Gough) tried to kill herself, her daughter and a neighbour’s child by driving into a river. She claims to have no memory of the incident.

Connie is arrogant, angry, cynical and manipulative. The scenes between her and Emma inhabit familiar territory: the intelligent patient/prisoner turning the tables on their interrogator. 

I only had access to episode one, but Too Close is quite intriguing and almost admirably bleak. I’m always suspicious of dramas about mental illness, they’re often quite tawdry and insensitive, but we’ll see.

All That Glitters: Britain’s Next Jewellery Star – Tuesday, BBC Two, 8pm

Comedian Katherine Ryan hosts this new “TV competition slash talent search format.” How deliciously ironic. I actually prefer it when derivative TV shows just plough ahead with the job at hand, instead of drawing attention to themselves with a knowing wink. It’s a cheap get-out clause. 

Anyway. This one finds a bunch of up-and-coming jewellers working on bespoke pieces that could last for centuries. You know the drill: they’re set a series of challenges while being judged by soundbite-spouting experts. 

Even if you have no interest whatsoever in jewellery, this is a fairly pleasant way to while away an hour of your life. But it is, like most programmes of its ilk, clearly better suited to a daytime slot.

Stacey Dooley: Back on the Psych Ward – Tuesday, BBC Two, 9pm

Last year, Dooley made a programme about life on an NHS mental health ward. This is her follow-up report. 

With characteristic sensitivity, she spends time with staff and patients to find out how they’ve been coping during the pandemic. Since COVID, the demand for beds has shot up. For so many people with pre-existing mental health issues, the isolation has been impossible to deal with. Young people have been affected more than any other age group. 

I don’t want to go into the specific details of what the various patients that Dooley meets are struggling with, as those details may prove triggering to some readers, but suffice to say it’s a programme made with the utmost care and integrity.

Paul O’Grady: For the Love of Dogs – Wednesday, STV, 8pm

During this week’s visit to Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, O’Grady meets some pooches in desperate need of TLC. Staffie-cross Roxi has far too much nervous energy to burn, so the staff try to calm her down with a gentle regime of stroking and exercise. 

The other star of the show is Dottie, a bulldog with the saddest face. Dottie has been overbred by her former owners; she’s exhausted and scared of pretty much everything. But then she’s paired with another lonely dog in need. 

I tend to get moist-eyed at the most ridiculous things, but For the Love of Dogs really is such a lovely, uplifting show. It makes the world feel like a slightly kinder place.

The Great British Sewing Bee – Wednesday, BBC One, 9pm

It’s back! From their new home on the banks of the Thames underneath London’s last surviving lighthouse, Esme Young from Central Saint Martin’s School of Fashion, Savile Row tailor Patrick Grant and cuddly host Joe Lycett welcome twelve new sewers competing for this year’s prize. 

A likeable bunch, they include a Bowie fan and former dinner lady, and a Frenchman who plays lead trumpet for London’s Gay Symphony Orchestra. 

It’s jolly old business as usual, during which they must design a loose-fitting buffet dress, a collarless 1960s-style blouse and transform a standard t-shirt into an imaginative item of clothing for any age or gender – one of the bold designs sends Grant into a giggling fit.

Bent Coppers: Crossing the Line of Duty – Wednesday, BBC Two, 9pm

With trust in the Metropolitan Police currently at an all-time low, this timely documentary travels back to an era when the public regarded the fuzz as an unassailable paragon of virtue. But as we now know, bent coppers exploited that myth for their own benefit. 

In early 1970s London, a secret network of corrupt CID detectives inhabited a murky world of extortion, fit-ups and racist violence. They preyed on defenceless working-class people and ethnic minorities, as well as tofu-munching political activists such as Caroline Coon. 

Propelled by a funky cop soundtrack and evocative archive footage, the episode also features covert recordings of bent coppers colluding with criminals: “We’ve got more villains in our game than you’ve got in yours.”

LAST WEEK’S TV

Freddie Mercury: A Life in Ten Pictures – Saturday 3rd April, BBC Two

This touching account of Sir Fred’s life featured contributions from some of the non-famous people who knew and loved him. They pored over private and professional photographs of Mercury as a way of providing insight into what he was really like. 

It began with the earliest known image of him, as an infant in Zanzibar, and ended with a photograph taken just a few months before he died. 

Although the story of Mercury’s life is familiar, the programme managed to untangle the private man from the self-made myth. A sensitive soul, he was an introverted extrovert who craved companionship. He was also a gay immigrant who overcame the odds stacked against him. Intimate and honest, the programme did him justice.

Line of Duty – Sunday 4th April, BBC One

Now we’re sucking diesel. This series began with an uninspiring, poorly-paced episode, but it has ramped up considerably since. 

Episode three contained one of those great LoD set-pieces: corrupt copper Ryan, who we first encountered as a terrifying child in series one, attempted to bump off Terry, the framed young suspect with learning difficulties, by staging a car crash in a reservoir. Terry survived, but Ryan drowned the other officer who was in the car. Brutal. 

LoD is essentially a daft yet compelling melodrama made up on the hoof, but I do admire the way it confronts contentious real-life issues such as the murder of Jill Dando and Jimmy Savile’s connections within the highest echelons of power. Why, it’s almost subversive.

 

TV Column: GROWING UP POOR: BRITAIN'S BREADLINE KIDS

This article was originally published in The Courier on 30th November 2019.

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

NEXT WEEK’S TV

GROWING UP POOR: BRITAIN’S BREADLINE KIDS

Monday, Channel 4, 10pm

As we inch ever closer to the most important General Election in years, Channel 4’s Dispatches team present this vital, devastating report on poverty. More than four million British children are growing up hungry. Unforeseen circumstances can send families into tailspin. We meet a mother of two who was forced into emergency accommodation after fleeing from an abusive partner. She’s struggling to support her kids via the catastrophic Universal Credit system. They couldn’t survive without access to one of the many food banks that exist in this great unequal nation of ours. No one should have to live like that. Meanwhile, a depressed teenager who lives with her family in sheltered accommodation struggles with suicidal thoughts. Watch and weep.

HOW TO SAVE £1000 ONLINE

Tuesday, Channel 4, 8pm

Hey, we all love shopping, right? Of course we do! But did you know that online retailers use mendacious techniques to strip you of your hard-earned cash? Don’t worry, though, as here come a pair of breezy experts to tell you how to avoid being ripped off. The immediate beneficiaries of their valuable teachings are two shopaholic families who waste thousands of pounds every year on expensive clothes and holidays. You’ll be forgiven for struggling to care about the overwhelming plight of these poor, beleaguered people. It beggars belief that Channel 4 would show this programme just 24 hours after the transmission of Growing Up Poor: Britain’s Breadline Kids, but I don’t suppose the contrast ever occurred to them.

MY GRANDPARENTS’ WAR

Wednesday, Channel 4, 9pm

As if to apologise for the previous evening’s blundering transgression, Channel 4 get back on track with part two of this compelling WWII history series. This week’s famous guide is anti-war campaigner and one of the world’s greatest living actors, Mark Rylance. His grandfather, Osmond, spent almost four years as a Japanese prisoner of war. A Hong Kong-based banker with no military experience, Osmond bravely joined a volunteer defence force in December 1941. On Christmas Day of that year he was shot and imprisoned. Rylance, who comes across as a lovely, sensitive soul, uncovers the moving story of a man who, like so many men who endured harrowing ordeals during the war, rarely spoke about it afterwards.

COUNTRY MUSIC: A FILM BY KEN BURNS

Friday, BBC Four, 9:30pm

Multi-award-winning documentarian Ken Burns is renowned for his epic accounts of American history. It was only a matter of time before he got around to country music, an ancient stream at the heart of the nation’s divided, complex culture. In episodes five and six he reaches the mid-1960s, a tumultuous era of change and revolt when certain preternaturally rebellious artists from the largely conservative world of country music commented sympathetically on current events. He focuses on Godlike feminist trailblazers Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton, indomitable human rights activist Johnny Cash, Fellini-inspired hippie cowboy Kris Kristofferson and the extraordinary African-American country singer Charley Pride. Country music prides itself on integrity: these guys are the ultimate bastions.

LAST WEEK’S TV

KILL YOUR TV: JIM MOIR’S WEIRD WORLD OF VIDEO ART

Sunday 24th November, BBC Four

If you’ve ever wondered where Jim Moir, aka Vic Reeves, gets his kerrazy ideas from, you only have to watch programmes such as this. Moir is an avant-garde artist who became a comedian by mistake. This documentary, in which he explored the colourful history of artists exploiting video technology for wild, subversive means, was probably the closest we’ll ever get to a mission statement from someone whose work defies logic.

MEAT: A THREAT TO OUR PLANET?

Monday 25th November, BBC One

Humans feast upon 65 billion animals a year. Scientific research has confirmed that meat production is one of the biggest causes of our environmental crisis. In this commendably grave and urgent documentary, animal biologist (and meat-eater) Liz Bonnin became increasingly horrified by her findings. She also provided some hope via rational solutions to the problem. Remember rational solutions? How quaint.

THE MAN WHO SAW TOO MUCH

Wednesday 27th November, BBC One

Say what you like about Alan Yentob (I always do), but fair play to the man: his stark documentary about Boris Pahor, a 106-year-old survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, was riveting. Pahor spent time in Dachau, Bergen-Belsen and Natzweiler. The latter is rarely spoken about, despite being one of the most horrific camps of its kind. A powerful piece of television.