ITALY'S FRONTLINE: A DOCTOR'S DIARY + THE LUMINARIES

This article was originally published in The Courier on 27th June 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

ITALY’S FRONTLINE: A DOCTOR’S DIARY

Monday, BBC Two, 9pm

This stark documentary was filmed inside an overstretched hospital at the height of the coronavirus crisis in Italy. It follows A&E doctor Francesca Mangiatordi as she struggles to care for an escalating influx of infected patients. A shortage of beds has left staff with no choice but to park patients in corridors, sometimes for days. Mangiatordi is exhausted, candid and eloquent. She repeatedly questions the worth of her role in the face of such overwhelming suffering: “When you remove someone’s dignity, you leave them with nothing.” Gradually, some of her colleagues succumb to the virus. Their experience of treating Covid patients naturally makes them more fearful about their own chances of survival. Meanwhile, Mangiatordi frets about the prospect of a devastating second wave.

THE HIDDEN WILD OF THE MOTORWAY

Tuesday, BBC Four, 9pm

Britain’s busiest road, the M25, is a vast loop of soulless concrete. But look closer and you’ll find that the natural world has adapted to coexist around it. Inspired by J.G. Ballard and Joseph Conrad, naturalist Helen Macdonald takes a thoughtful stroll around the M25’s perimeter in this hauntological documentary. She discovers pretty woodlands and waterways scored to a background roar of traffic; some songbirds have had to alter the pitch of their calls in order to be heard. She also reveals how fungi studies could help to solve the problem of traffic congestion. An enthusiastic, softly-spoken scholar finding hidden wonders in mundane areas we take for granted, this is a quintessential BBC Four joint. We’ll miss it when it’s gone.

THE SECRET MEDITERRANEAN WITH TREVOR McDONALD

Tuesday, STV, 9pm

You could argue that sunny foreign TV travelogues are the last thing we need to see at the moment. They’re a cruel reminder of an increasingly distant time when, finances permitting, we could hop on a plane and relax our blues away on holiday. On the other hand, the sight of genial Sir Trev in sunglasses and an open-necked shirt might provide a fleeting distraction from the misery of life as we currently know it. Which sounds fine in theory, but according to the synopsis – preview copies weren’t available – episode one involves Trev boarding a superyacht once owned by Aristotle Onassis and later witnessing a bout of camel wrestling. That doesn’t sound like fun to me. Tastes may vary.

HUEY MORGAN’S LATIN AMERICAN ADVENTURE

Friday, BBC Four, 9:30pm

In this vibrant new series, the BBC 6 Music DJ drops his usual tiresome wise-guy act to engage sincerely with the turbulent history of Latin American popular music. His perspiring odyssey begins in Brazil, where ecstatic Samba rhythms continue to represent the defiant voice of oppressed working-class people (Brazil is currently governed by ‘the Trump of the Tropics’). This is protest music in its purest most transcendent form; grooving community action. He also covers the bossa nova boom and examines the anti-capitalist politics of the tropicalia movement via interviews with the great Gilberto Gil and, from the magnificently far-out Os Mutantes, Arnaldo Baptista. These musicians challenged the jackboot status quo with some the greatest music ever made.

LAST WEEK’S TV

THE LUMINARIES

Sunday 21st and Monday 22^nd June, BBC One

This turgid adaptation of Eleanor Catton’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel (which I’ve never read and never will) succeeds only as a showcase for some decent production design. It looks good, but the story, the characters, don’t engage at all. It’s set on New Zealand’s South Island in 1866. Various folk converge to pan for gold. It glistens with a hallucinatory sheen of opiated sweat and grime. The performances are fine and the setting is potentially interesting. There’s something to be said here about colonialism, racism, misogyny and greed. The Luminaries somehow manages to crush that potential into mulch with its awkward pacing and structure. An alienating mess.

THE CHOIR: SINGING FOR BRITAIN

Tuesday 23^rd June, BBC Two

Gareth Malone is a smarmy little creep, a tweedy child with an orchard full of apples for teacher. Hats off to every frontline worker involved in this experiment, you’re all brilliant, lovely people, but keep a close eye on Malone. He’s a government-sanctioned Minister of Music in waiting who can barely disguise his contempt for pop music behind that faux-groovy piano teacher facade. He makes Gary Barlow look like Che Guevara.

SITTING IN LIMBO + I MAY DESTROY YOU

This article was originally published in The Courier on 6th June 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

SITTING IN LIMBO

Monday, BBC One, 8:30pm

Inspired by the unforgivable Windrush immigration scandal, this relentlessly angering drama tells the true story of Anthony Bryan. In 2016, four years after David Cameron’s coalition government introduced their hostile environment policy, Anthony decided to visit his ailing elderly mother in Jamaica. He’d never needed a passport since moving to the UK in 1965. After filling in the paperwork he was shocked to discover that there was no record of him as a British citizen. He immediately lost his job and, without any official explanation, was stripped of his rights to use the NHS and claim benefits. Written by Anthony’s brother, Stephen S. Thompson, Sitting in Limbo follows him through the nightmare ordeal of having to prove his residential status. It couldn’t have arrived at a more apposite time. Do not miss.

I MAY DESTROY YOU

Monday and Tuesday, BBC One, 10:45pm

I wouldn’t normally recommend a show involving young metropolitan media types struggling with deadlines, but this new series from actor/writer Michaela Coel of Chewing Gum renown isn’t remotely smug or self-indulgent. This is no carefree celebration of living inside a sexy, solvent London bubble; the occasional moment of dry humour aside, it’s a stark and queasy drama about a woman dealing with severe trauma. Coel plays Arabella, an author with a hit debut novel under her belt. Her life is pretty much perfect. Then, during a night out with friends, she’s drugged and raped. At first, Arabella can’t fully recall the exact details of what happened, but she gradually pieces it together. I May Destroy You cuts deep.

STAGED

Wednesday, BBC One, 10:45pm

Michael Sheen and David Tennant are, like all sensible people at the moment, in lockdown. They were, in this semi-fictionalised version of reality, due to appear in a West End production of Six Characters in Search of an Author, but the Coronavirus pandemic put the kibosh on that. Written and directed by Simon Evans – who also plays himself – Staged consists of Skype conversations between the bored Thesps as they struggle to remain sane while rehearsing for no reason whatsoever A six-part series of 15-minute episodes in which two famous actors bicker and knowingly mock their fragile egos, Staged stirs inevitable echoes of Brydon and Coogan in The Trip. It’s nowhere near as funny or pointed as that show at its best, but Sheen and Tennant have undeniable chemistry.

WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS

Thursday, BBC Two, 10pm

This likeably silly sitcom about cohabiting vampires is unique in that, despite being an American show, its principal cast are British. Matt Berry, Tash Demetriou and Kayvan Novak are very funny people, so their cult ‘Stateside’ success is almost enough to make you feel vaguely patriotic. Sure, Berry can only do one thing – a burgundy-throated caricature of a ripe English ac-tor – but it rarely fails to amuse. In season two (it’s ‘season’ for American shows, ‘series’ for British shows: them’s the official rules, folks), the 21^st century Munsters search for new human slaves. Pedants such as myself will never be able to fully accept quasi-documentary sitcoms which don’t adhere to the rules of actual documentaries, but that’s a crucifix I have to bear.

LAST WEEK’S TV

ALAN CARR’S EPIC GAME SHOW

Saturday 30th May, STV

Whenever he gets overexcited, Alan Carr sounds exactly like John Lydon singing This Is Not A Love Song. That’s the most insightful observation I can muster about this harmless bowl of froth in which Carr revives various classic game show formats. It began with a tribute to Brucie and Play Your Cards Right. Celebrity couples competed for charity. It was overlong, but no distress was caused. Carr is a likeable, nimble-witted pro and this is the comfortably-upholstered vehicle he’s been chasing for years.

COMEDIANS: HOME ALONE + CITIZENS OF BOOMTOWN: THE STORY OF THE BOOMTOWN RATS

A version of this article was originally published in The Courier on 30th May 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

COMEDIANS: HOME ALONE

Monday, BBC Two, 10pm

I wouldn’t blame you for being utterly sick of the sight of well-meaning celebrities broadcasting from their homes during lockdown, but this new series of fifteen-minute programmes is a cheerful distraction. A compendium of self-isolated sketches from various comedians, episode one features Kerry Godliman (who deserves a ticker tape parade for managing to escape from Ricky Gervais’ dire Derek and After Life with her dignity intact) playing a bored mum who’s getting through this by drinking white wine to excess, and Bob Mortimer as ‘Train Guy’, a beautifully observed parody of an obnoxious businessman conducting Facetime conversations with his colleagues: “We need a Zoom womb to incubate initiatives with potential going-forwardness.” Bob also provides some daft names for cats. Nice.

CARDINAL

Wednesday, BBC Two, 9pm

Series four of this frostbitten Canadian crime drama begins with detectives John Cardinal (not, alas, played by a man called John Actor) and Lise Delorme investigating the sudden disappearance of a local politician’s husband. I don’t have much time for sombre police procedurals; it’s a genre sculpted almost entirely from clichés. Cardinal is typical in that it’s well-shot and atmospheric - a show so thickly mired in snow, it makes Fargo look like the Club Tropicana video – and benefits from nicely understated central performances, but we’ve seen it all before. The sonorous score, the sad detectives with boringly complicated private lives, the never-ending trudge from plot point A to plot point Z. You know the snore.

THE OTHER ONE

Friday, BBC One, 9pm

The great Rebecca Front stars in this promising new sitcom about a middle-class widow who gains a bitter lease of life when she discovers that her late husband was a philanderer with a secret working-class family. Co-written by Holly Walsh (check out Dead Boss, an unjustly forgotten sitcom she wrote with Sharon Horgan), The Other One is populated by mildly dysfunctional characters who are gently ribbed but never sneered at. It’s warm, benign, well-observed and contains actual proper jokes. Walsh stirs echoes of Victoria Wood with lines such as this one from Front’s character: “Can you ask Marcus to Sky + Masterchef: The Professionals for me, please?” The banal specificity of that really tickled me. It’s very good, folks. You should watch it.

LAST WEEK’S TV

CITIZENS OF BOOMTOWN: THE STORY OF THE BOOMTOWN RATS

Saturday 23rd May, BBC Two

A mediocre bunch of absolute chancers fronted by an insufferable shabby narcissist, The Boomtown Rats were unique in that they somehow managed to convince The Youth that naff sub-Springsteen pomp had anything whatsoever to do with punk and new wave. This laughably self-regarding documentary was founded on the false premise of Geldof and co being somehow important; a hollow piece of brand management packed with enabling buffoons such as Bono and Sting making absurdly extravagant claims on the band’s behalf. It was undeniably interesting, but only because all pop stories are interesting. Geldof, contrary to his posturing self-image, came across as a charmless opportunist who conveniently organised Live Aid when his moment in the sun was beginning to fade. Still, the piano arrangement on I Don’t Like Mondays is nice, isn’t it? Geldof didn’t write that.

BAKE OFF: THE PROFESSIONALS

Tuesday 26th May, Channel 4

The latest series of this pointless spin-off may as well have launched with a repeat. No one would’ve noticed. The mildly amusing contributions from camp co-host Tom Allen fail to rescue a format which fundamentally misunderstands the Bake Off mothership’s appeal: viewers enjoy watching ordinary people messing about with pastry and cream, it’s no fun at all when everyone involved is tediously skilled.

HORIZON: WHAT'S THE MATTER WITH TONY SLATTERY? + PETER SELLERS: A STATE OF COMIC ECSTASY

This article was originally published in The Courier on 16th May 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

HORIZON: WHAT’S THE MATTER WITH TONY SLATTERY?

Thursday, BBC Two, 9pm

The comedian Tony Slattery was once one of the biggest stars on British television. A handsome sprite with a rare gift for inspired improvisation, he was ubiquitous. And then, suddenly, he disappeared. Last year, an interview with The Guardian in which he talked openly about his mental health and substance abuse issues, returned him to the spotlight. In this raw, candid, moving documentary, Slattery and his wonderful partner Mark go in search of an official diagnosis as well as the harrowing root cause of some of his issues. A terribly sweet, vulnerable man, Slattery is in a bad way. But he hopes that, by choosing to expose the ravages of his illness, he might encourage others to seek help too.

THE CHANGIN’ TIMES OF IKE WHITE

Monday, BBC Four, 10pm

Ike White is a gifted soul musician whose only album, Changin’ Times, was recorded in 1976 under highly unusual circumstances: White was serving a life sentence for murder at the time. This absorbing Arena documentary follows a classic mystery formula: introduce the viewer to a forgotten cult artist, then gradually reveal what happened to them. White has always maintained that, while guilty of robbing a grocery store, he shot and killed the owner by accident. The Changin’ Times project was a chance to turn his life around, yet despite the patronage of Stevie Wonder and a release from prison in 1978, he more or less chose to fade into obscurity. Following a diligent search, Arena tracked him down to find out why.

OUR LIVES: SOUL BOY

Wednesday, BBC One, 7:30pm

Meet Anthony Flavin, a Nottingham teenager who has been in care since he was six. This uplifting half hour documentary follows him as he prepares to branch out on his own for the first time. Anthony has discovered a passionate sense of purpose within the local Northern Soul community. It has boosted his confidence and changed his life completely. The programme is a sweet celebration of the transcendent succour of music and companionship. The Northern Soul scene is quite rightly presented as an utterly positive working class subculture, an egalitarian escape route from the pressures of everyday life. We could all do with a little hope at the moment; you’ll find some here. Come on feet, start movin’.

CLIMBING BLIND

Wednesday, BBC Four, 9pm

This remarkable documentary follows lifelong climber Jesse Dufton, who is almost completely blind, as he attempts to conquer the Old Man of Hoy. No one has ever made a ‘non-sight’ lead of the famous Scottish sea stack before, but Dufton is confident that he can do it. Accompanied by his sight guide and fiancée, Molly, and rock-climbing filmmaker Alastair Lee, he first of all explains his technique: “I’m not really using my eyes, to be honest. They don’t really give me any useful information. All the information will be what I feel through my hands and through my feet as well.” The Old Man of Hoy is a sheer rock face, 449-foot high. In a word: yikes.

LAST WEEK’S TV

PETER SELLERS: A STATE OF COMIC ECSTASY

Saturday 9th May, BBC Two

This occasionally interesting yet rather peculiar and frustrating profile of the late comic genius was, more by accident than design, perfectly in keeping with the man’s inconsistent personality. It struck me as a programme with honest intentions, albeit one that lost its thread in the editing room. 

It borrowed heavily from The Peter Sellers Story, a stellar Arena documentary from 1995. That’s forgivable to an extent, as some of the key contributors have passed away since then, but it still felt like a piecemeal compromise. 

Sellers was, to say the least, a tremendously difficult man with undiagnosed mental health issues. He treated his many wives and children appallingly (Britt Ekland spoke about their relationship for the first time on camera, and came across with dignity). He wasn’t very good at being human. But this programme implied that, as an artist, he peaked with Dr Strangelove and never recovered his mojo until Being There, fifteen years later. Utterly misleading nonsense. 

It was an honest profile insomuch as it didn’t shy away from how utterly awful he could be, but it didn’t have much to say about the state of comic ecstasy he was best known for. The Arena documentary is much better; you can watch it all on YouTube.   

ISOLATION STORIES + VAN DER VALK

A version of this article was originally published in The Courier on 2nd May 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

ISOLATION STORIES

Monday to Thursday, STV, 9pm

These short standalone dramas were still in post-production when I wrote this, but given the talent involved they’ll probably be worth watching. Produced by the estimable Jeff Pope (Philomena; Stan & Ollie), they’re vignettes featuring characters in lockdown. Mel (Sheridan Smith) is heavily pregnant and at home all alone; the father of her child has elected to stay elsewhere with his wife and children. Ron (Robert Glenister) is ill with the virus, which has put added strain on his relationship with one of his sons (played by Glenister’s son, Tom). Anxious Mike (Darren Boyd) insists on an online therapy session with Rochelle (Angela Griffin), and a grandad (David Threlfall) attempts to entertain his family (Eddie Marsan and his actual sons) from afar.

THE A WORD

Tuesday, BBC One, 9pm

Peter Bowker’s sensitive drama about a family coping with a child who has autism is marred by the continuing presence of an embarrassingly miscast Christopher Eccleston. A fine dramatic actor, Eccleston simply cannot handle the demands of playing light comedy. It’s beyond his stern capabilities. That’s a shame, as the rest of the cast, including the entirely natural Max Vento as nine-year-old Joe, is excellent. As series three begins, the family’s situation has become even more complicated. Alison (Morven Christie) and Paul (Lee Ingleby) are divorced, which means that Joe has to cope with living in two places at once. When he angrily discards his beloved headphones, usually a permanent fixture around his neck, you know he’s struggling.

I’LL GET THIS

Tuesday, BBC Two, 10pm

Here’s a bit of harmless fun to while away those hours in lockdown. Now in its second series, each episode involves five celebrities attending a swanky restaurant, placing their credit cards in a bowl in the centre of the table and proceeding to play a series of simple yet revealing games. If they win a game, they get to retrieve their card. If not, they have to pay for the meal at the end of the night (hardly a tragic sacrifice for such well-heeled people, but let's keep it light). The celebs in this week’s episode are the old smoothie’s old smoothie Nigel Havers, Made in Chelsea star and pro-fox hunting young Conservative Georgia Toffolo, Alex Brooker from The Last Leg, comedian Desiree Burch and former Coronation Street star Sally Lindsay.

LAST WEEK’S TV

VAN DER VALK

Sunday 26th April, STV

Let’s get the most important thing out of the way first: the minimalist rearrangement of that once triumphant theme tune is simply unacceptable. Even the John Lewis Christmas publicity team would reject it for being too weak and twee. A travesty. Otherwise, this handsomely produced contemporary take on the adventures of Amsterdam’s most famous detective is serviceably generic cop show fare. The role will forever by associated with the late Barry Foster, but Marc Warren does a pretty good job of slipping into his caustic brogues. It's nothing, though, a Sunday night time-passer. Still, nice canals.

STACEY DOOLEY: COSTA DEL NARCOS

Sunday 26th April, BBC Two

Dooley’s latest investigation revealed how southern Spain has, in recent years, become the main turf-warring gateway for drugs into Europe. She met some heavily disguised dealers and smugglers, as well as some of the police officers tasked with seizing back control of the region. Dooley may not be the world’s greatest investigative journalist, but her reports are always clear-eyed and informative. This was no exception.

ABSOLUTELY INDIA: MANCS IN MUMBAI

Wednesday 29th April, STV

The Thomas brothers, Ryan, Scott and Adam, are familiar to millions for their respective roles in Coronation Street, Emmerdale and Love Island. But did you know they’re of Indian descent? Accompanied by their dad, the singer Dougie James of Soul Train minor fame, they explore their heritage in this lively travelogue which also doubles as a family therapy session. They’re amiable tour guides.

NOSTALGIC LOCKDOWN TV ANTICS

For want of anything better to do during lockdown, I decided to compile a fantasy single day schedule of programmes shown on BBC One during the week I was born. I completed this futile task by referencing the invaluable BBC Genome site.

All of the programme lengths are correct, I didn't cheat. That would really be pointless. Obviously it resembles no BBC One schedule in history, but I did try to make it look vaguely realistic in terms of when these programmes would be shown on this made-up day.

Anyway, it whiled away an hour or so. You might enjoy trying it too.

One Day in October 1974

6am             Election ’74: Where Are We Now?

9:30am        Weather

9:35am        Fingerbobs

9:50am        Trumpton

10:15am      You and Me

10:30am      Tom and Jerry

10:40am      The Sound of Laughter

11:10am      Huckleberry Hound

11:15am      Deputy Dawg

11:20pm      Barnaby

11:35pm      Ragtime

11:50am      Interval

12pm           News

12:25pm      Weather

12:30pm      Star Trek (animated series)

12:55pm      Interval

1pm             Pebble Mill

1:45pm        Bewitched

2:15pm        Chico and the Man

2:40pm        The Forsyte Saga

3:35pm        Interval

3:40pm        The Long Chase

4:05pm        Play School

4:30pm        Blue Peter

5pm             Screen Test

5:20pm        The Wombles

5:25pm        Clangers

5:30pm        News

5:35pm        Weather

5:40pm        The Generation Game

6:30pm        Tom and Jerry (double-bill)

6:50pm        Top of the Pops

7:30pm        Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em

8pm             Film: Carry On Cleo

9:30pm        Porridge

10pm           News

10:20pm     Weather

10:25pm     Kojak 

11:15pm     Parkinson

12:15am      Weather/Closedown

NORMAL PEOPLE + KILLING EVE

A version of this article was originally published in The Courier on 25th April 2020.

NEXT WEEK’S TV

NORMAL PEOPLE

Monday, BBC One, 9pm

This adaptation of Sally Rooney’s critically acclaimed novel is a beautiful, tender drama about adolescent agony and self-discovery. It explores the complex relationship between Marianne and Connell as they navigate their way through high school and college. Marianne is an intelligent rebel who’s regarded by her classmates as a weirdo. Connell is highly intelligent too, but he’s sporty and popular. When they become romantically involved, Connell asks Marianne to keep it between themselves. She agrees, as he’s the only person in school who has ever shown any interest in her. Sensitively written, directed and performed, Normal People aches, quietly, with soulful honesty and insight. It touches a raw nerve. All twelve episodes will be available on iPlayer from Sunday.

PAUL HOLLYWOOD EATS JAPAN

Tuesday, Channel 4, 9pm

Seldom has a title promised so much while delivering so little. I was hoping for a show in which the azure-eyed dough botherer embarks on a Godzilla-style rampage through the streets of Tokyo, but instead it’s just a standard grub-munching travelogue in which he visits Japan for the first time in his life. He wants to find out why food plays such an important role in Japanese culture. His mission involves a crash-course in restaurant etiquette, a visit to a solo dining eatery and eating some bread from a can. Hollywood isn’t a worldly-wise man. He’s never heard of the word ‘sayonara’ before. But he’s keen to learn and his amiable show proves fairly informative.

FIRST DATES HOTEL

Thursday, Channel 4, 9pm

Pretty much every single programme on television right now reminds us of that time, not so long ago, when we could freely go outside and meet people. The arrival of a new series of First Dates Hotel feels especially cruel. Thanks, Channel 4, for reminding all the lonely people of their crushing loveless solitude. Fred Sirieix is a nice fella, but he comes across as a sadistic French taunter in this unfortunate context. Anyway, if you can ignore all of that, it’s sweet-natured business as usual. In a luxury hotel on the beauteous Amalfi Coast we meet a bohemian ‘60s counterculture survivor who’s been single for 35 years, a trumpet-playing Sean Connery lookalike and a lobster-obsessed hippie.

THE SHADOWS AT SIXTY

Friday, BBC Four, 9:30pm

The sultans of twang receive their due in this enjoyable profile. Surviving members Hank Marvin, Bruce Welch and Brian Bennett come across as humble souls who are justifiably proud of their achievements. They led the first wave of legit British rock and rollers. Marvin is a bona fide axe hero with a unique sound. Bennett is a stellar drummer. They’re influential, but they’ve never been cool. As Bennett bemoans: “I wanted to be a musician, and suddenly I’m being pushed through a mangle by Arthur Askey.” That’s not a metaphor. The Beatles appeared in panto too, but they quickly transcended that old-fashioned world of light entertainment. The Shads never did. The programme does a good job of reassessing their legacy.

LAST WEEK’S TV

KILLING EVE

Sunday 19th April, BBC One

A textbook example of a show that only needed to exist for one series, Killing Eve continues to run around in circles. It should’ve been an entertaining one and done deal, as it clearly had nowhere left to go after that. Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh are great, they just about hold the show together with their appealing screen presence, but no amount of stylish direction and OTT cartoon violence can disguise the fact that everything after series one has been utterly superfluous.

LIFE AND BIRTH

Tuesday 21st April, BBC One

This uplifting series has arrived with perfect timing. An observational documentary based in Birmingham Women’s Hospital, it follows several pregnant mothers-to-be as they undergo a life-changing experience. Warm insight into the everyday human condition ensued. As obvious as this may sound given our current situation, we must never ever take our NHS for granted.

ELLA: JUST ONE OF THOSE THINGS

Friday 24th April, BBC Four

Ella Fitzgerald was a jazz genius, a scatting cat par excellence. This elegant documentary traced her story. She rose above racism and poverty in the sense that she was an immensely talented black woman who conquered show business, but those wounds don’t automatically heal just because you’ve headlined the Albert Hall. BBC iPlayer, folks. Absorb and enjoy.