This article was originally published in The Courier on 28th July 2018.
THE BLETCHLEY CIRCLE:
SAN FRANCISCO: Wednesday,
STV
WHO DO YOU THINK YOU
ARE?: Wednesday,
BBC One
Its
spin-off, THE BLETCHLEY CIRCLE: SAN
FRANCISCO initially appeared to be a slick pulp hokum mystery that abandons
the more or less historically factual remit of its predecessor. There is,
however, ever so slightly more to it than that.
Former
Bletchley Park experts Jean (Julie Graham) and Millie (Rachael Stirling)
provide a link to the original series, as they travel to San Francisco in 1956
to investigate the unsolved murder of one of their colleagues fourteen years
earlier.
A
dedicated English codebreaker suspicious of US motives, she was brutally slain
by a visiting GI. That established the unsubtle tone. It’s a lurid metaphor for
the strained “special relationship” between Britain and America!
Episode
one had similarly blunt fun with the period setting. It plunged into a hip
underground jazz club where the resident African-American pianist was once a
brilliant US Army cryptologist.
She’s
also, like her British counterparts, chained to a life of paranoid secrecy.
Despite
its pulpy trappings, this series contains nuggets of solemn factual interest. The
Bletchley women were told that they’d have to resign if they ever married. They
may have helped to win the war, but they couldn’t be trusted to contain
official secrets while indulging in idle pillow talk.
It’s
essentially the story of backroom heroes who played an invaluable world-saving
role, before being abandoned by their governments. It has something to say
about war veterans, tinderbox race relations in Eisenhower’s America, and the
plight of the poor versus Brave New World property developers. It’s also the
story of some fictional spies on the trail of a fictional serial killer.
These
seemingly incompatible elements cohabit quite effectively. It’s hardly profound,
but it hits its targets.
You
could argue that reconfiguring the genuine achievements and sacrifices of the
Bletchley women for the purposes of a made-up potboiler crudely undermines
their legacy. I’d argue – and this, bear in mind, is an argument I’m having
with myself in my head – that it doesn’t. Not really.
Even
while placing them in a fictional context, The
Bletchley Circle: San Francisco still treats them with respect. It’s a well-made
piece of entertainment rooted in sincere admiration and compassion.
In
the latest episode of WHO DO YOU THINK
YOU ARE?, Boy George uncovered a tragic litany of abuse, prejudice and
injustice as he traced his Irish roots.
At
the age of six, his maternal grandmother was essentially kidnapped by the cruelly
overzealous N.S.P.C.C. for the crime of looking abandoned. She was basically
sitting on her family doorstep at the time. The more he delved, the more
complex it became.
Who
knew that a Boy George documentary could provide a fairly nuanced guide to the
birth of the IRA?
This
long-running series has become ripe for parody, sometimes for good reason. Occasionally,
however, it delivers episodes that function as revealing socio-political
documents fuelled by anger and despair, like elongated One Show segments hijacked by genuine feeling.
George,
an intelligent, sensitive man, didn’t shed contractual tears during his
‘journey’. Good. He was subtly yet evidently moved, there was no need for
grandstanding.
All
programmes of this nature are contrived and manipulative, but that doesn’t
matter when they’re driven by dissonant chords of truth and sincerity.
Mind
you, the opening titles – during which even the likes of Lee Mack attempt to
look serious and meaningful – are hilarious. Sorry.
