TV Review: MY MAD FAT DIARY and EDGE OF HEAVEN

This article was originally published in The Courier on 22nd February 2014.

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

My Mad Fat Diary: Monday, E4

Edge of Heaven: Friday, STV

Paul Whitelaw

As the old saying goes, if you remember the 1990s that's because they only ended 14 years ago. It barely feels like the past at all. Also, I personally find it difficult to wax nostalgically about the decade of my teens and twenties, if only because doing so makes me feel horrifyingly old.

But that's one of the reasons why I enjoy the charming teen comedy-drama My Mad Fat Diary: despite being set during the Britpop era, it never wallows in cheap nostalgia. The soundtrack may be rammed full of hits by the likes of Black Grape and Oasis, but its evocation of those years is anything but mindless and celebratory. The unfussily realised period setting is all but incidental.

The focus rests instead on the growing pains of Rae, an overweight teenage girl suffering from severe depression and anxiety. Yet despite the sombre subject matter, it manages to find welcome jabs of lightness and humour amid the gloom. It's a delicate balancing act, skilfully exercised.

Based on the diaries of author Rae Earl, it's clearly dredged from a laudable well of sincerity. It also benefits from a sensitive, likeable, vanity-free performance from Scottish actress Sharon Rooney as Rae. A realistically flawed character, she may be sweet and sympathetic but she's hardly an idealised pathos machine. Her moments of surliness, usually directed towards her well-meaning mother, are an effective way of staving off sentimentality.

Like the short-lived yet much-loved teen drama My So Called Life, starring Clare Danes and produced in the actual 1990s, My Mad Fat Diary isn't interested in depicting a bowdlerised version of teenage life. It's laudably warts and all.

As series two commenced, Rae was seemingly happy at last. Head over heels in love with her boyfriend, her only pressing concern was losing her virginity before starting college. However, in a poignant twist typical of the show, it was eventually revealed that Rae was living in denial. The narrative device of an optimistic letter to her best friend, Tix, was, it transpired, a red herring. It was a manifestation of grief. Tix, who also suffered from mental health problems, had died, presumably by suicide. Still in a trough of despair, Rae nevertheless took the important step of realising she still has a long way to go in therapy.

Few shows of my recollection have handled mental illness in such a sensitive and believable way. That it's produced by the otherwise tactless Channel 4 makes it all the more remarkable.

If I was ever tasked with making a parody of a generic, awful British sitcom, chances are I'd come up with something along the lines of Edge of Heaven. Joyless hack-work, this bland, predictable, primary-coloured comedy dutifully encompasses every miserable sitcom cliché. The daffy granny! The sex-mad mum! The fiery foreigner! The wacky gay couple! The chirpy ukulele soundtrack! It's pitiful.

And what's the point of setting it in an '80s-themed bed and breakfast? Aside from a brief snippet of Madonna's Holiday (to signify that someone was going on holiday), it didn't even feature any '80s music. Are we supposed to find the sight of a Wham 'Choose Life' t-shirt inherently amusing?

And a quick note to the production team: far from being an inspired visual gag, the conical bra-shaped keys to the hotel's Madonna suite merely illustrated your ineptitude, as Madge didn't actually adopt that look until 1990. You fools.   

TV Review: BABYLON and LINE OF DUTY

This article was originally published in the Courier on 15th February 2014.

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

Babylon: Sunday, Channel 4

Line of Duty: Wednesday, BBC2

Given the current weight of controversy surrounding police misconduct and media chicanery, you'd think an incisive black comedy satirising the whole sorry mess was just begging to be made. Unfortunately, Babylon isn't it.

Billed as a comedy-drama, the pilot failed to make much impact as either. Although clearly not intended as a rib-tickling farce, the stabs at humour were curiously mannered and self-conscious.

A scene in which Metropolitan Police chiefs were confused by incoming reports of a shooting spree was particularly laboured. And James Nesbitt, as a beleaguered police chief, delivering a convoluted description of what would befall him if he erroneously issued a citywide lock-down felt like an awkward barrage of watered-down The Thick of It.

This is hard to forgive, seeing as Babylon was written by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, both of whom worked on Armando Iannucci's exemplary political satire. It was like a weak tribute to their own work. Creators of the excellent Peep Show, they also collaborated with Chris Morris on his thoughtful suicide bomber comedy Four Lions. Their CV speaks for itself.

And yet Babylon took tantalising elements from their previous efforts and squandered their potential. Poorly plotted and characterised, it was a tonally confused, boring mess.

Largely set in the Met's communications department, its tackling of PR, spin and corporate gobbledegook felt awfully rote and familiar. Lines such as “This is so far off the record even I don't know I'm saying it” were the stuff of half-hearted fan fiction.

Director Danny Boyle – yes, that one – did at least succeed in providing a surface sheen of energy to Babylon's hectic world of rolling news, camera phones and Twitter And the overall point about the police struggling to project an image of honesty and transparency in a world increasingly monitored by the media and a tech-savvy public was, while crushingly obvious, adequately delivered.

As a state-of-the-nation address, however, it was limp and underwhelming: a missed opportunity. Its depiction of the police may be fair – like any sprawling institution, it's populated by terrible idiots and well-meaning professionals – but Babylon rang hollow as comedy, character drama and social commentary.

By sheer coincidence, the ethical failings of the police were addressed in another TV highlight this week. But Line of Duty is a far more assured and enjoyable affair.

A satisfyingly self-contained story, series one of this dynamic thriller was hardly begging for a sequel. But on the evidence of episode one, series two promises to be just as compelling.

Once again based around a British police force anti-corruption unit, it introduced Keeley Hawes as an apparently conscientious officer suspected of involvement in the violent death of three colleagues and a mysterious witness.

As before, writer Jed Mercurio established an intriguing guessing game riddled with unexpected twists. The biggest shock of all, and one that left me grinning from its sheer audacity, was the cliffhanger death of Call the Midwife's Jessica Raine, who'd only just been introduced as a major new character.

Although I should've seen it coming – Mercurio pulled off the same trick in series one with Gina McKee's character – it still worked beautifully as a devilish bit of rug-pulling.

That barely controlled yet confident sense of anything-goes mania is what sets Line of Duty apart from the vast majority of UK cop shows. It shows Babylon how it's done.

TV Column: BIG BALLET and JA'MIE: PRIVATE SCHOOL GIRL

This article was originally published in the Courier on 8th February 2014.

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

Big Ballet: Thursday, Channel 4

Ja'mie: Private School Girl: Thursday, BBC3

Paul Whitelaw

On the face of it, Big Ballet is just another against-all-odds documentary in which a group of unlikely protagonists must overcome obstacles and defy prejudice to achieve a life-affirming goal. Choirmaster Gareth Malone has based his entire TV career peddling variations on this theme. We've been here countless times before.

And yet it gradually dawned on me while watching episode one that this wasn't really a show about a likeable troupe of overweight women who'd dreamed their whole lives of becoming professional ballet dancers. Either by accident or design, it is in fact a slyly subversive critique of the shallowness, bitchiness and body fascism which runs rampant throughout modern society. And all of it encapsulated within the pirouetting shape of just one man: Wayne Sleep.

Ostensibly hired as the show's standard-issue celebrity mentor figure, Sleep boldly flaunts convention by refusing to display even the merest whiff of sincerity or inspirational vigour. On the contrary, he seemed to find the very concept of overweight dancers hilarious. But then he obviously finds everything hilarious. He's just high on the joy of being Wayne Sleep.

With his dapper grey suit and close-cropped white hair, he's like a cackling gangland businessman toying with his lackeys. His powers of snide condescension are devastating. During the audition process, where over 200 ordinary men and women performed for his approval, he sniffed, “They're having a go, which is the main thing.” As empowering slogans go, that takes some beating.

Theoretically at least, the diminutive Sleep empathises with the women because he too was repeatedly told he'd never make it in ballet due to his physical shortcomings. But after watching this it was obviously because no one could stand being near him.

His bluntly unsentimental sidekick, prima ballerina Monica Loughman, was just as bad. Liqourice-thin and permanently scowling, she's an animated Disney villain come to wretched life. They were like a pair of sniggering children as the men – none of whom got through to the final 18 – auditioned in unflattering leotards. “They all look like they could do with not having beer for a year,” sneered Loughman. “I bet they'll have a drink after this!” quipped Sleep. The card.

Their nastiness aside, the programme itself is broadly sympathetic towards the plus-size dancers. Of course, this being Channel 4, it let itself down at times. The chortling use of Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy on the soundtrack felt like a needless dig in the ribs, as did the pointed references to the north, where the women – and by extension, the fat people – come from. Hiring that nice Olivia Colman as narrator may have been an attempt to soften the blow, but even she couldn't smooth out references to the dancers' “ginormous performance”.

Sleep and Loughman would doubtless regard the wanton unpleasantness of Australian comedian Chris Lilley's Ja'mie: Private School Girl as wholly admirable.

A frustrating artist, Lilley is a gifted actor who repeatedly undermines his talent with lazy, clumsy material. Basing a whole mock-doc series around Ja'mie, the insufferable rich bitch teenager he played previously in We Could Be Heroes and Summer Heights High, feels like an act of creative desperation.

Unlike some of his more rounded characters, Ja'mie is little more than a one-dimensional monster. Acutely well-observed, yes, but what's the point if she isn't actually funny? 

Like Ricky Gervais, his British counterpart in “ironic” offensiveness, Lilley is a one-trick pony in dire need of new ideas.    

TV Column: BRITAIN'S GREAT WAR and OUTNUMBERED

This article was originally published in The Courier on 1st February 2014.

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

Britain's Great War: Monday, BBC1

Outnumbered: Wednesday, BBC1

Paul Whitelaw

The problem with Jeremy Paxman, especially when removed from his natural Newsnight habitat, is that his fundamental settings - wry incredulity crossed with a unique shade of weary bombast - tend to overshadow and infect his every utterance.

Take Britain's Great War, a major new series in which he traces the vast impact of World War One on ordinary British citizens. Paxman's intentions are undoubtedly sincere, but his grave subject matter is frequently undermined by his absurd affectations.

It's impossible to take him seriously when, in full Chris Morris mode, he solemnly declares that "the clock was ticking to catastrophe" in the hours leading up to the declaration of war. His bellowed repetition of the word "doom" in time with the chimes of Big Ben is already one of the comedy highlights of the year. It also doesn't help that he obviously gains unseemly enjoyment from saying "war" with erotically charged zeal. He's a ridiculous figure.

His lack of self-awareness is frustrating, as he's capable of spinning an engaging historical yarn. While tactfully avoiding outright flippancy, his eye for colourful detail illuminated the programme throughout. 

Memorable images included appalled cabinet ministers bursting into tears at the prospect of a cataclysmic war, and, grimly, a distraught woman refusing to let go of her husband's hand as a train carried him off to war. She was dragged underneath it and killed. He also recounted the little-known tale of self-serving MP Horatio Bottomley, a theatrical opportunist who became rich and famous by staging rabble-rousing recruitment rallies in music halls throughout Britain. Fat, tweedy and grey, he resembled a capitalist villain from a Frank Capra fantasia.

While refuting the generally accepted, and rather patronising, assumption that Britain marched into war with Germany on a crashing wave of naive optimism, Paxman showed how Lord Kitchener's infamous and hugely effective recruitment campaign ("Your Country Needs YOU") cunningly manipulated men into signing their own death warrants. Triggered by a sense of patriotic duty, over 33,000 new recruits signed up on one fateful day alone. But that optimism, however falsely manufactured, eventually vanished once the nightmare horrors of modern warfare became unavoidable. One particularly poignant aside was the revelation that many postmen gave up their jobs during the war, as they could no longer stand the trauma of bearing such incessant bad news.

Notwithstanding our host's underlying absurdity - his inability to relate to actual human beings is hilarious - this dynamic essay was mercifully free of distracting gimmickry. One of the benefits of Paxman's no-nonsense approach is that he'd rather die than clown around in period garb a la Andrew Marr (adopting a comedy German accent while reading a satirical piece about the Kaiser was, admittedly, an unfortunate aberration). 

Blessed with evocative archive footage and photographs, Britain's Great War - the expensive tie-in book will doubtless be available soon - is, almost despite itself, an effective and enlightening history lesson.

It won't be as funny when the kids grow up! If you're an Outnumbered fan, then you'll doubtless recognise this oft-repeated prediction. Hell, I've repeated it myself. But I was happily proved wrong by the opening episode of its fifth and final series. While it makes sense to end it now, this gag-packed and sharply well-observed family sitcom has lost none of its endearing sparkle.

The kids may have matured almost beyond recognition - with his lumbering girth and booming baritone, Ben has completed his transformation into Tom Baker - but their defining idiosyncrasies remain. In any case, Hugh Dennis and Claire Skinner have always been more than capable of anchoring proceedings with their deft comic timing. Spending a few more weeks in their company will be a pleasure. 

TV Column: THE MUSKETEERS and THE NAKED RAMBLER

This article was originally published in The Courier on 25th January 2014.

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

The Musketeers: Sunday, BBC1

The Naked Rambler: Tuesday, BBC1

Paul Whitelaw

One of the most frequently adapted adventure yarns in all of popular fiction, Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers is an indelible cultural fixture, familiar to millions. Even if you've never read the original series of novels, you'll have enjoyed the swashbuckling escapades of these dashing, flashing blades via memorable film versions from the likes of Beatles director Richard Lester, or even the fondly-recalled '80s French cartoon, Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds (that jaunty theme song still haunts me to this day).

So do we really need another adaptation? Seasoned screenwriter Adrian Hodges (Primeval; Survivors) certainly thinks so. Brimming with brio and an infectious sense of fun, episode one of 10-part saga The Musketeers suggested he may be onto something. 

Though all the familiar elements are in place – galloping horses, deftly staged duels, lashings of hearty laughter and poisonous plotting – they're leavened with welcome hints of darkness and depth. An unabashedly loose adaptation of Dumas' source material – Hodges has grafted his own storyline to the original characters and 17^th century setting – it may be witty, handsome, sharp and breathless, but it never strays into outright camp or knowing self-parody. 

Peter Capaldi wisely resists the temptation to ham it up as arch villain Cardinal Richelieu, delivering instead a quietly watchful and weary performance as a man whose merciless thirst for power has seemingly eroded his soul. Granted, the sulphuric spectre of Malcolm Tucker was unavoidable during any scene involving Richelieu's duplicitous political machinations; his smooth haranguing of the foppish King Louis briefly conjured the pleasing notion of Richelieu as one of Tucker's Blackadder-esque ancestors. But Capaldi can't help being associated with such an overpowering role; in any case, the association merely adds to the enjoyment.

Our nominal hero, D'Artagnan, played here by some pouting indie rock star hunk, is overshadowed, not only by Richelieu, but by brooding Musketeer Athos, who in the charismatic hands of Tom Burke is a far more interesting presence. Boasting the saturnine countenance of a troubled '70s illusionist, Burke's Athos is a demon-wrestling hero locked in private mourning for his lost lady love. Far from dead, her identity was eventually revealed as Milady de Winter, Richelieu's raven-haired, scheming sidekick. I suspect this intriguing, jagged triangle, rather than the cow-eyed travails of D'Artagnan, will drive the drama in weeks to come.  

Despite its 9pm, Sunday night slot, The Musketeers is a Saturday evening family show in all but name. Save for a few heaving bosoms, phallic pistols and fleeting references to prostitution, there's nothing here to frighten the foals. Hodges knows his audience, and skewers it with aplomb. Delivered with just the right amount of seriousness and levity, his kinetic adaptation feels neither self-important nor annoyingly glib. There's potential here, a palpable promise. 

Is Stephen Gough, otherwise known as The Naked Rambler, a harmless eccentric or a tragic nuisance? The answer, according to this vexed documentary, lies somewhere in between. The hapless definition of a rebel without a cause/clue,  Gough can't explain why he's effectively ruined his life by stalking the nation unclothed. "There's a bigger thing at stake," he mumbled. "I'm not sure what that is."

Having spent the last seven years in prison due to his stubborn, confused, self-defeating principles, Gough trekked over 400 miles to visit his family, including the teenage children who've grown up in his absence. They could've visited him in jail if his insistence on remaining naked hadn't restricted his visiting rights. I wanted to shake him, but only if he'd put some clothes on. A severely lost soul searching for some sort of meaning, Gough, it transpires, comes from a family of seekers. His flummoxed old mum, a shrunken sigh in human form, said she didn't know why they'd turned out that way. "It seems a useless way of living your life."

I'm all for sticking it to The Man, but Gough came across as a rather sad and laughable character. A tackle-flashing attention-seeker, his search for truth has turned him into a novelty, a footnote, a pointless joke. I can only wish him well.

TV Review: HOSTAGES and HOUSE OF FOOLS

This article was originally published in The Courier on 18th January 2014.

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

Hostages: Saturday, Channel 4

House of Fools: Tuesday, BBC2

Paul Whitelaw

Readers, I'm stunned. And not a little impressed. Channel 4's latest US import, Hostages, established itself as a steaming pile of horse manure within its first five minutes. That must be some kind of record.

Instantly notable for its dreadful quotidian dialogue – everyone speaks entirely in clunky exposition – this nonsensical thriller began with a mind-blowingly stupid sequence in which a stubble-jawed FBI agent declared his maverick credentials by taking control of a siege situation and shooting a hostage.

Huh? But wait! Our man, our brilliant, brilliant man, had in fact correctly surmised that a cunning armed robber had swapped clothes with a bank employee in a bid to escape. How could he be sure? The ersatz hostage's boots didn't match his business suit. It was one helluva risk, but he's just that kinda guy.

Resembling a constipated David Schwimmer, this wayward genius confirmed his unorthodox approach to law enforcement by invading the home of the President's personal physician (Toni Collette, a fine actress cast adrift) and ordering her to kill him during an imminent bout of surgery. Failure to comply will result in the assassination of her charmless family. So far, so high concept.

It's not necessarily a bad central conceit – 24 managed to wangle eight seasons from such enjoyable daftness – but Hostages squanders its potential by being so catastrophically laughable.

I particularly enjoyed the highly conspicuous albino operative who's supposedly a master of disguise, and the rogue FBI agents creeping stealthily through Collette's garden. Cue stirrings from the family pooch. “I got the dog,” whispered Agent # 1 solemnly, like Jack Bauer staking out a pet shop. Mercifully, the dog was spared. These guys aren't all bad.

“This can't be happening,” sobbed Collette, with understandable conviction. By the time she revealed, during a supposedly high-stakes sequence, that her security password was “Ringo Starr”, I was convinced the sense-addled writers had orchestrated the whole thing as some sort of desperate cry for help.

Like Michael Haneke's Funny Games hijacked by the Chuckle Brothers, Hostages heaves with all the idiocy and emptiness we've come to expect from its executive producer, Hollywood schlockmeister Jerry Bruckheimer.

What's behind the kidnapper's plan? Who cares? Will they end up forming an unexpected bond with Colette's family? Inevitably! And so it goes on. “Sometimes you have to do a bad thing for a good reason,” explained Agent Schwimmer, helpfully. Inadvertent hilarity aside, what's Hostages' excuse?

Channel 4 are obviously banking on this being an addictive replacement for the ailing Homeland. Fat chance. When the novelty value of its awfulness subsides, viewers will abandon this trussed-up turkey in droves.

By cheerful contrast, Vic and Bob's delightfully daft sitcom House of Fools deserves to be a hit. Continuing proof that, when given the opportunity, they're capable of devising relatively accessible mainstream entertainment while compromising none of their unique comic voice, it's delivered with all the infectiously self-indulgent gusto for which they're so beloved.

Finally free from the over-egged constraints of Shooting Stars, the pair seem energised by the chance to throw everything they've got – absurd characters, winningly contrived groaners, crude silliness, wordplay, sight gags, puppetry, songs and slapstick - at the traditional sitcom format (everything, from the saucy 1970s theme tune to the beige living room set, suggests Reg Varney and Yootha Joyce in a cracked hall of mirrors).

An admittedly mixed barrage of gags wisely tethered to the sketchiest of plots – Bob's thwarted mission to watch Conan the Barbarian on TV with his new girlfriend – episode one was a knockabout, charming pleasure. Never mind Mrs Brown's Boys, this is how I like my old-fashioned entertainment.

It's heartening to note that, even after all this time, these peerless clowns still take such delight in making people laugh by entertaining themselves.

TV Review: THE 7:39 and SECRETS OF THE LIVING DOLLS.

This article was originally published in The Courier on 11th January 2013.

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

The 7:39: Monday and Tuesday, BBC1

Secrets of the Living Dolls: Monday, Channel 4

Paul Whitelaw

A Ray Davies song in waiting, David Morrissey's Carl was your typical commuter: an unremarkable middle-aged businessman sleepwalking through his drably unchanging routine. Grey of suit and beard – even his facial hair looked tired – he had the unassuming demeanour of a melancholy bear, a gentle soul both lost and harmless. 

Which was just as well, as his behaviour in romantic drama The 7.39 could easily have come across as sad and creepy: a stalker in sheep's clothing.

Instead he emerged as a likeable, if foolish, character whose whirlwind affair with Sally, a younger woman and fellow unsatisfied commuter played by Sheridan Smith, tore at the heart of this affecting little two-part saga.

Despite raking over very familiar territory – the concept of thwarted drifters gaining a new lease of life from a fleeting romance has informed everything from Brief Encounter to Lost in Translation – it was saved by mature, sensitive writing from David Nicholls and sweetly underplayed performances from Morrissey, Smith and, in her stock role of unfairly maltreated spouse, Olivia Colman.

Nicholls toyed with our allegiances by sketching each of his principal characters in a sympathetic light. Even Sally's fiancée, an overbearing fitness buffoon played by a suitably dense-looking Sean Maguire, was essentially well-meaning. This triggered an interesting subversion of the usual demands of romantic fiction, where we root for the starry-eyed lovebirds and hope they stay together at the end. Instead I found myself hoping their flirting would lead nowhere, and that Carl would see sense and return to the bosom of his lovely wife and kids.

It's testament to the quiet depth and pull of Nicholls' writing that I was actually angling for two hours of drama during which nothing remotely dramatic or untoward happened. It was like a Bizarro EastEnders: I didn't want anything bad to happen to these nice, ordinary people. She may be renowned for her extreme sobbing skills, but I doubt even the most sadistic viewer actually yearned to witness the inevitable tear-sodden scene of Colman discovering her husband's infidelity.

While it never added up to anything more meaningful than “the grass isn't always greener”, The 7.39 engaged with its themes in an entirely believable and unpretentious way. Buoyed by Nicholls' ear for natural-sounding dialogue and the informal strength of his cast, it was a touching study of human frailty and the runaway madness of the heart.

Despite being produced by the geniuses responsible for such dire point-and-gawp travesties such as the Big Fat Gypsy franchise and The Man With the 10-Stone Testicles, Secrets of the Living Dolls was a surprisingly inoffensive documentary about yet another subculture that most of us have never heard of.

The subjects in this case were a selection of men who enjoy transforming themselves into women via skin-tight rubber masks and flesh suits. Why? The only vague reasons given ranged from mere escapism to the need to feel young, attractive and special. Whether they gained any sexual satisfaction from their largely secret pursuit remained curiously unclear. 

Despite fleeting references to the anatomical accuracy of the suits, it was if the director, stricken by an unforeseen rash of prudishness, had little interest in exploring this phenomenon beyond its most superficial layer.

Instead we were simply presented with a group of harmless hobbyists whose only demand was for society to judge them kindly. And that was that. It was as bland and impassive as the sex-doll masks worn by the men, and while one could arguably applaud the programme's essentially neutral, non-judgemental approach – I never got the impression that anyone was being mocked – it isn't merely enough to present an unusual subset of society without any kind of deeper insight.

“Cuh, what do you think of that then?” is hardly the most profound authorial comment.