TV Review: SECRET LIFE OF THE HUMAN PUPS + LOVE, NINA

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 28th May 2016.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/lifestyle/entertainment/tv-film/178411/tv-reviews-secret-life-human-pups-surprisingly-sympathetic/

Secret Life of the Human Pups: Wednesday, Channel 4

Love, Nina: Friday, BBC One

We all want to be seen as different in some way, as unique individuals set apart from the masses. Some choose to express their iconoclasm by wearing humorous socks or pretending to enjoy experimental jazz. Others make a stand against conformity by dressing up in tight-fighting rubber dog costumes. Whatever works.

Despite its voyeuristic premise, Secret Life of the Human Pups took a sympathetic look at a growing subculture of men who live unusual double lives. Although it sprang from the underground fetish scene, it seems that for most human pups in the UK – current membership, around 10,000 – it’s not about sexual gratification.

Many of them are bored. They enjoy adopting a canine alter ego as a way of escaping from the dreary pressures of life. Whereas some people take the edge off with drugs and booze, these chaps take the healthier option of having their bellies rubbed by designated handlers. Others suffer from social anxiety. Theoretically, escaping into another identity and meeting likeminded, non-judgemental believers should improve their self-esteem. Just another form of cosplay, it all seems fairly harmless.

Of course, any practice deemed outside the accepted parameters of society will always come at a price for some. Tom, who sleeps in a cage – despite evidence to the contrary, he insists it’s perfectly comfortable – was last year honoured as the first ever Mr Puppy UK.

But Tom’s doggy desires destroyed his romantic relationship with Rachel, to whom he was once engaged. She’s still his best friend, but her sadness was palpable. “It would be a nice thing to have him back,” she sighed, as Tom prepared to compete for Mr Puppy Europe.

Back in Britain, it was telling that when a handler arranged for a group of them to take their first walk in public, only two of the 50 applicants turned up. While it was brave of these men to expose themselves on camera, their reticence to risk public wrath is understandable.

Personally, I suspect that most people don’t really care if grown men want to dress up as dogs for kicks. They’re not harming anyone, after all. What is normal anyway?

Thankfully, that was the position the programme took. While it didn’t ignore the innate humour of their fetish – it’s not as if human pups take themselves entirely seriously either – it didn’t poke fun at them. To each dog their own.

Adapted by Nick Hornby from Nina Stibbe’s autobiographical book about her time spent as a nanny for a well-heeled London family in 1982, Love, Nina is a comedy-drama which just about stays afloat on a waft of gentle charm.

A no-nonsense lass from Leicester – The Generic North, in other words – Nina looks after the precocious/annoying young sons of an elegantly lonely single mum (Helena Bonham Carter) while fending off snobbish putdowns from the gossipy Scottish poet next door (Jason Watkins, playing a character loosely based on Alan Bennett).

Despite being the living definition of a comedy designed to provoke, at best, wry smiles instead of laughs – it’s all very Radio 4; a so-so Brit flick in episodic form – it ambles along inoffensively.

But current BBC comedies such as Going Forward and Mum are far more effective in wringing subtle humour from character detail and social observations. Love, Nina, by comparison, is too whimsical, too insubstantial, to make much of an impression.  

TV Review: GOING FORWARD + MUM

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 21st May 2016.

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

Going Forward: Thursday, BBC Four

Mum: Friday, BBC Two

It’s arguably the fault of Carla Lane and her endless glut of joke-shy sitcoms about unhappy middle-class women that the term “gentle comedy” was, for many years, derided as a euphemism for “not funny”. The truth of the matter is that, at its best, understated, low-key comedy – a more helpful description, I think – is often sharper, funnier and more penetrating than broader examples of the form.

A notable case in point was the BAFTA-winning sitcom Getting On, written by and starring Jo Brand, Joanna Scanlan and Vicki Pepperdine. Based in an NHS geriatric ward, it said more about the struggles and faults of that beleaguered institution, and the nuanced flaws of the human condition, than any number of dramas on the same subject. Plus it was funny, piercingly so.

Now Brand is back with a sequel, Going Forward, which follows droll, kindly Kim Wilde in her new job as a community healthcare worker. Although Scanlan and Pepperdine no longer share co-writing duties, it’s just as witty and humane as Getting On. Like that show, it takes a potentially depressing premise – in this case, a middle-aged married couple with mounting financial woes – and finds something curiously life-affirming at its core.

A large part of its charm is the natural chemistry between Brand and Omid Djalili as her struggling chauffeur husband, Dave. They really do feel like a beleaguered yet happy couple who’ve shared a couch for years. Generously, Brand gave Djalili the funniest scenes in episode one, via his exasperated, almost Pete and Dud-esque conversation with a colleague who insisted that chauffeuring in Iraq is where the jackpot lies. 

Despite its warmth, there’s an underlying edge of desperation to Going Forward. Kim and Dave are barely surviving. Kim’s sister is a neurotic mess. Kim’s clients are, of course, lonely, housebound elderly people who rely on her for company. But like all the best comedies of its careworn kind, it finds humour in sadness and vice versa. Without blowing its own trumpet, it’s a sly, compassionate comment on the reality of life for millions of Britons today. There’s nothing gentle about that.

Cut from a similar cloth, Mum is a well-observed new sitcom starring the brilliant Lesley Manville as Cathy, a recently bereaved widow struggling to put her life back together. Once again, it spins a rich seam of comedy from a wholly downbeat premise.

Each episode is set over a few hours inside Cathy’s suburban home, hence why it reminds me of Simon Amstell’s underrated Grandma’s House. Tender and sharp, humane but never sentimental, it revolves around that distinctly British conceit of maintaining politeness in the face of social awkwardness. 

It’s full of small talk, inadvertent insensitivity, condescending pettiness and pained smiles (Manville is so good at smiling through anguish). But like Going Forward, it doesn’t look down on its characters. Even Cathy’s horrifically snobbish sister-in-law is tinged with pathos.

Peter Mullan – an actor often typecast as hard-nuts – is a heart-tugging bundle of unrequited love as an old friend of Cathy’s, while newcomer Lisa McGrillis shines with an endearingly tactless performance as the well-meaning girlfriend of Cathy’s son. She’s that rarity, a “stupid” sitcom character written and performed with warmth. That’s Mum all over, really. It’s a gem.

TV Review: ATTENBOROUGH AT 90 + UPSTART CROW

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 14th May 2016.

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

Attenborough at 90: Sunday, BBC One

Upstart Crow: Monday, BBC Two

Paul Whitelaw

This year marks the 90^th birthday of a truly beloved British monarch, whose regal humility and tireless dedication have enriched millions of lives around the world. I am of course talking about Sir David Attenborough, the reigning king of Natural History television.

It’s impossible to avoid gushing praise when discussing Attenborough, because quite simply he deserves it. How many people can claim to have fundamentally changed the way we see the world? How many broadcasters are synonymous with the evolution of television itself? A serene emblem of the BBC at its world-beating best, his natural ability to communicate and inform is second to none. He’s one of the greatest broadcasters in the history of the medium, and we’ll almost certainly never see his like again.

So no wonder the BBC has gone all out in celebrating his 90^th summer on Earth, a planet he’s taught us more about than anyone else in his field. The centrepiece of their ongoing season of archival treats was Attenborough at 90, an affable, touching, studio-based salute hosted by another consummate broadcaster, Kirsty Young.

Sprawled on a couch like a slightly crumpled yet still-spry deity, Attenborough was in delightful raconteur mode as he regaled the audience with a welter of anecdotes.

While all the usual clips were present and correct – let’s face it, we’ll never tire of those gorillas – the programme also served as a reminder that Attenborough was a pioneer, not only in the field of conservationism awareness and – in tandem with his peerless backroom boffins - technological advancements in Natural History filmmaking, but also across every genre of television via his progressive stewardship of BBC Two in the ‘60s.

Initially hired by the BBC as a producer, he basically fell into presenting by accident. Had he not decided to focus his energies on hosting documentaries, he would’ve probably ended up as Director General at one point. Executive management’s loss was a grateful nation’s gain.

Though he shows no sign of slowing down as such, Attenborough’s skill as a presenter is, alas, a dying discipline. Always devoted to his subject first and foremost, his programmes are never about him. He’s an informed guide, a benign teacher, a beacon of integrity and passion. The man owns a dinosaur egg, for heaven’s sake. Need I say more? Happy birthday, your Lordship.

Following the catastrophic disaster of The Wright Way – a sitcom so hackneyed it felt like a parody – it seemed that Ben Elton had finally lost it for good. A prolific talent in his ‘80s pomp, the man who co-wrote classics such as The Young Ones and Blackadder had since become a byword for selling out and treading water; a sad shadow of his former self.

So, you could’ve knocked me down with a pig’s bladder when I found myself laughing – actually laughing! – at Upstart Crow, his breezy new sitcom starring David Mitchell as a hapless William Shakespeare.

Swathed in welcome traces of Blackadder, it plays to his strengths via ridiculously wordy, witty dialogue, knowingly farcical contrivances, winningly broad performances and even – via genuinely pointed swipes at the Oxbridge mafia – a little bit of politics (yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen).

It’s funny, intelligent, self-aware and clearly the work of a re-energised writer who, for obvious reasons, feels he has something to prove again. It’s as if the real Ben Elton has suddenly woken up after 25 years in a nightmarish trance. A remarkable comeback. 

TV Review: THE WINDSORS + GRAYSON PERRY: ALL MAN

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 7th May 2016.

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

The Windsors: Friday, Channel 4

Grayson Perry: All Man: Thursday, Channel 4

Made by the team behind scattershot celebrity satire Star Stories, The Windsors boasts a similar blend of heightened silliness and healthy disrespect. It’s a brash sitcom in which our beloved Royal Family are depicted as a workshy bunch of freeloaders and functioning alcoholics. Happy birthday, your majesty!

Though framed as a Dallas-style soap parody, that’s really just an excuse for a hit and miss barrage of nonsense. Yes, it ticks off all the usual Royal gags – Harry and William are nice but dim etc. – but it attacks them with relish. It’s not an excoriating or particularly clever satire, but it’s full of crude, amusing energy.

It also subverts the tired comedy notion that Charles is a harmless duffer. Instead it portrays him as a dictatorial bully with a savage sense of entitlement. That alone makes it more interesting than your average Royal spoof.

His fellow antagonists are Camilla, an embittered, power-hungry schemer, and Pippa Middleton, a duplicitous sex-pot. Prince Edward also crops up as a desperate failure. It’s all good fun, although the absence of the Queen and Prince Philip is curious. Aren’t they ripe for parody too?

The writers presumably felt that someone among this motley shower of buffoons had to be vaguely sympathetic, if only so they can fall victim to the cruelty and stupidity of the others.

That honour goes to William and Kate, who are depicted as essentially well-meaning. Kate is ineffably bland, so her character doesn’t work, but full marks to Hugh Skinner (Will, the bumbling intern from W1A) for seizing the role of William – a hapless hero who’d rather fly helicopters than be King – with such dense enthusiasm. It’s the sort of role that Hugh Laurie would’ve nailed in his youth, but Skinner does a fine job.

Harry Enfield is also good value as Charles; his absurd line-readings are a particular highlight. And I’m always pleased to see Morgana Robinson, a comic actress whose devotion to grotesque clowning is admirable. Her own starring vehicles have never matched her talents, but she always adds a peculiar energy in supporting roles.

While no classic, The Windsors does at least milk some barbed comedy mileage from a deserving target.

Be honest, you’d watch a series about Britain’s hardest men hosted by Grayson Perry. Placing the cross-dressing artist in aggressively male environments sounds like a recipe for fish-out-of-water fun. But there’s far more to Grayson Perry: All Man than that.

It’s a thoughtful study of masculinity in which our charismatic host – “a lifelong cissy” – tries to find out why some men feel compelled to be macho. He began his investigation in the violent world of cage fighting, where his own prejudices were challenged by meeting dedicated, articulate athletes with an undercurrent of emotional vulnerability.

His natural ability to relate to anyone he meets triggered the poignant spectacle of one fighter breaking down while discussing his brother’s suicide. As well as providing a surrogate family and sense of self-worth, cage fighting for him was a form of therapy. Perry went on to reveal that 80% of people who kill themselves in the north-east, where the programme was based, are male.

He also illustrated how deprived backgrounds inspired many of these men to channel aggression into something positive. Perry handled this raw subject without a hint of condescension. On the contrary, it was a sensitive, moving, open-minded essay on working-class community pride and the tragic price of male stoicism.

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.

TV Review: I WANT MY WIFE BACK + MICHAEL McINTYRE'S BIG SHOW

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 23 April 2016.

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

I Want My Wife Back: Monday, BBC One

Michael McIntyre’s Big Show: Saturday, BBC One

Only in the boating pond of gentle British farce do the following vessels collide: meddling in-laws, slovenly best friends, philandering workmates, flirtatious secretaries, easily avoidable misunderstandings and, drowning in the middle, our old friend the harassed, suburban middle-aged man shrugging haplessly.

There’s nothing wrong with these stock devices in and of themselves, it’s just that I Want My Wife Back sticks to them with rigid orthodoxy.

Part of BBC One’s new Monday night comedy power hour – the other half being a curious Peter Kay compilation largely comprised of work he did for Channel 4 – it’s a traditional sitcom starring Ben Miller as Murray, a well-meaning business drone who is dismayed when his wife decides to leave him on her 40^th birthday.

Murray is a workaholic, an absent partner, so she’s had enough. The spark has gone. But Murray still loves her (it’s suggested that she still has glimmers of affection for him), so he does everything in his limited power to woo her back.

It’s a half-decent premise, predictably executed. Miller, a competent comic actor, does what he can with his beleaguered nice guy act. But his hunched-up jumble of jittery faux pas can’t disguise the fact that Murray is a bland protagonist. It’s amiable enough, but we’ve seen it all before.

Inevitably, the first episode climaxed (gently, of course) with a surprise 40^th birthday party during which everything went wrong. Thanks to the estranged wife’s parents, she and Murray were shipped off to a romantic foreign holiday. Oh the calamity!

The first episode of any sitcom has to work hard to get viewers onside. We need time to get to know the characters and for the situation to bed in, so it’s perhaps unfair to dismiss I Want My Wife Back completely at this point. But there was nothing in this lazy opener to suggest that it will offer any surprises in future.

Joining it squarely in the middle of the road is Michael McIntyre’s Big Show. It’s a shamelessly derivative yet tolerable heap of Saturday night variety flotsam in which the tirelessly mainstream comic unleashes a slick barrage of Beadle-esque disguises, Edmonds-style pranks and Barrymore-shaped japes with the Great British Public.

I’m not a McIntyre fan, although I appreciate his appeal and the skill with which he plies his trade. Delivering trite observations in a consummately professional, excitable simian fashion, he’s the benign king of cuddly comfort comedy. He’s good at what he does, but what he does is of no lasting interest. Nevertheless, it would be silly (albeit funny, a la Stewart Lee) to pretend that he’s detestable in any way.

A seemingly improvised segment with an audience member showed how quick he can be, and the item in which he surprises members of the public is quite sweet. Last week it was a Welsh hairdresser who dreams of becoming a professional singer. Big-hearted McIntyre rewarded her with a Michael Ball duet. Surely every girl’s fantasy?

There was music for the kids from Tinie Tempah, old-fashioned novelty from some acrobats, and a mildly amusing skit involving Geri Halliwell (she’s apparently a Horner now) during which McIntyre harmlessly bothered people in her mobile phone address book.

All in all, a passable rival for Ant & Dec on t’other side.

And if we must have MOR comedians, then I’d rather McIntyre over John Bishop. McIntyre has some presence at least. Bishop is just a man who says things.

TV Review: SCOTT & BAILEY + BBC: THE SECRET FILES

This article was originally published in The Dundee Courier on 16th April 2016.

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

Scott & Bailey: Wednesday, STV

BBC: The Secret Files: Thursday, BBC Four

  

Thanks to the magnificent Happy Valley, writer/director Sally Wainwright is now rightfully recognised as one of Britain’s finest TV dramatists. As if to emphasise that point – and she’s earned the right – she returned last week with another series of her previous creation, Scott & Bailey, starring Lesley Sharp and Suranne as a pair of humane coppers.

Granted, she didn’t actually write this new mini-series – that honour went to Lee Warburton – but Scott & Bailey is distinctively hers; a female-fronted, northern cop show mired in plausible reality and unforced character detail.

From a distance it resembles a bog-standard police procedural – plods investigating nasty cases in dour weather – but on closer inspection it reveals itself as one of the genre’s leading lights.

Unlike most TV cops, the protagonists aren’t dysfunctional or quirky. They’re likeable, compassionate professionals with a dry sense of humour (some of Scott’s quips draw scripted attention to themselves, but I’ll magnanimously let that pass) and a warm, understated chemistry.

It also focuses on the interesting nuts and bolts of dogged police work, an aspect informed by the advisory involvement of former Detective Inspector Diane Taylor.

Bubbling under the surface of this latest case, in which they struggled to apprehend a serial killer who posts footage of his crimes on the darkest corners of the internet, was the story of two close friends who haven’t seen each other for a year. As always, the everyday trials of their private lives were as important as the case itself. This time we discovered that Bailey is pregnant. Meanwhile, Scott’s teenage daughter became embroiled in an underage sex investigation because of illicit selfies sent by her boyfriend.

It managed to explore these real-life issues without feeling too contrived or overcooked, so it’s a shame that the otherwise semi-naturalistic tone is completely at odds with an overbearing, needlessly dramatic incidental score. It’s not a documentary, it needs to meet the demands of an episodic hour of dynamic crime drama, but there’s no need to slather it in the soundtrack from a Yakuza-based B-movie.

That frustrating misgiving aside, this was a solid return from one of TV’s very best cop shows. Also, hats off to Warbuton for including jokey allusions to the original Pink Panther films and Hanna-Barbera’s animated Godzilla series from the 1970s. Yes, really.

Seeing as it must cost peanuts to produce, it’s hardly surprising that BBC Four opted to roll out a sequel to last year’s eye-opening traipse through the BBC’s vast archive of internal letters and memos between agents, executives and artists.

Once again presented by Penelope Keith, who I like to imagine living down there surrounded by cabinets and memorabilia, BBC: The Secret Files included some fascinating correspondence between the BBC’s notoriously dour founding father, Lord Reith, and his rival, Winston Churchill, plus an amused look at how the fusty old BBC dealt with the rise of rock and roll. This segment was worth it for the unique pleasure of hearing Keith say “1960s counterculture” in her cut-glass tones.

It also revealed that Morecambe & Wise’s producer initially felt that Eric would be better off without Ern, and that the redoubtable Barbara Wodehouse basically talked her way into a BBC contract following years of no-nonsense correspondence.

But my favourite moment was the revelation that a jazz song titled Where Is My Sunday Potato was once deemed “politically unsuitable” and banned. One can only wonder about its incendiary contents.