TV Review: MICHAEL PALIN IN NORTH KOREA + MANSON: THE LOST TAPES

This article was originally published in The Courier on 29th September 2018.

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

MICHAEL PALIN IN NORTH KOREA: Thursday, Five

MANSON: THE LOST TAPES: Thursday, STV

Any Western journalist attempting to fully document the ‘real’ North Korea is on a hiding to nothing. Nevertheless, MICHAEL PALIN IN NORTH KOREA delivered some fascinating  insight into this highly secretive Communist nation.

As far as Kim Jong-un’s regime is concerned, this series is a public relations exercise organised with the intent of improving modern NK’s international image. They’re fully aware of their reputation as a trigger-happy, crackpot liability and an oppressive cult-of-personality dictatorship in which brainwashed citizens endure a terrible quality of life. This is their attempt to show the wider world that – hey! – we’re actually alright. That’s understandable.

They presumably did their research when it came to vetting the ideal host. That nice Michael Palin is an unthreatening presence, he’s not going to make things difficult for them (I do like the idea of Kim Jong-un nodding his approval while watching Around the World in 80 Days).

However, Palin’s politesse, humour and humanity worked in the programme’s favour. His open-minded friendliness encouraged understandably guarded people to converse as naturally as possible. He’s no lightweight, he’s a stellar travel journalist. In episode one, he depicted ordinary NK citizens as what they are: human beings getting on with their lives as opposed to faceless symbols of autocratic rule.

Inevitably, his investigation is heavily stage-managed – shadowed by friendly minders, Palin and his crew are under constant surveillance – but he still succeeded in quietly peeling back the layers of NK’s stereotyped image.

In the concluding episode, he visited the demilitarised zone on the North/South Korean border, where he endured an awkward encounter with a lieutenant who parroted the official line about the Korean War (NK won, apparently). He did, however, agree with our winningly diplomatic host that world peace is a good idea.

Palin also visited a beach town that could potentially play a key role in revitalising NK‘s economy. Though his citizens are only allowed 15 days off work per year, Kim Jong-un wants to turn this luxury resort/airport into an international holiday destination. Opening itself up to Western influence seems almost inevitable. Palin noted that he was glad to have experienced this country before it looks just like everywhere else.

Despite Kim’s dreams, will anyone of sound conscience want to visit a nation notorious for poverty and human rights violations? Satire alert: Britain and America seem to be doing okay.

Palin’s visit to a rural farm highlighted its debilitating food shortages. Aid agencies have estimated that more than a million people starved to death during a devastating '90s drought. When Palin asked a farmer if things had improved, she replied in the affirmative through gritted teeth.

The most revealing moment arrived during a conversation between Palin and his female minder. When he asked why NK citizens never criticise their leaders, she nervously replied that they represent the nation: “Criticising our leaders is like criticising ourselves too.”

This remarkable series delivered as rounded a portrait of NK as possible under the circumstances. It offered thoughtful and conflicted insight by examining telling surface details while hinting between the lines at issues it couldn’t tackle head-on.

In episode one of MANSON: THE LOST TAPES, rare footage of the notorious cult leader’s gun-toting acolytes was made public for the first time. Filmed mere days after Manson and three of his followers were charged with the brutal slaying of actress Sharon Tate and friends, the matter-of-fact interviews proved utterly chilling.

How did Manson brainwash these young hippies towards wanton acts of carnage? We’ll never understand for sure – how could we? – but this grim excavation did at least illustrate the horrific results of fragile human psyches being sabotaged by insane, charismatic manipulators.

KILLING EVE + MONKMAN AND SEAGULL'S GENIUS GUIDE TO BRITAIN

This article was originally published in The Courier on 22nd September 2018.

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

KILLING EVE: Saturday, BBC One

MONKMAN AND SEAGULL’S GENIUS GUIDE TO BRITAIN: Monday, BBC Two

One of the best new TV shows of 2018, KILLING EVE is an addictive eight-part comedy-drama that subverts typical spy thriller tropes with offbeat panache. It debuted on BBC America earlier this year, and was instantly met with a barrage of glowing reviews and an eventual brace of award nominations. I’m not surprised.

It’s based on a series of novellas by Luke Jennings and adapted by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, author and star of the justly acclaimed BBC sitcom Fleabag. Similar to Waller-Bridge’s previous work in that it switches effortlessly on a dime between dry, caustic comedy and visceral drama, Killing Eve is witty, knowing and stylish, but never feels pleased with itself.

Eve Polastri (a tremendously likeable performance from Asian-Canadian actor Sandra Oh) is a bored, deskbound MI5 security officer who becomes obsessed with tracking down a female assassin at large in Europe. Unfortunately, that’s not part of her job. She’s basically a pen-pusher.

However, in episode one, her perceptive handling of a technically illegal investigation managed to impress a female senior officer. Eve, a woman in her late forties, is on the verge of fulfilling her dream of becoming a bona fide secret agent.

She isn’t a kick-ass action hero, she’s a normal, relatable human being. She’s happily married and gets on with her boss (the great David Haig on droll form). A quietly subversive creation, Eve is a refreshing antidote to all those tiresomely troubled male crime-busters who usually populate our screens.

The expert assassin, Villanelle, is also unusual. Perfectly played by Jodie Comer as a sort of casually spoiled student on a murderous gap year, she’s a darkly amusing parody of psychopathic villainy. Whenever this beautiful young Russian isn’t gleefully murdering Mafia bosses by stabbing them through the eye with a customised hairpin, she’s tipping ice cream over sweet little girls and refusing to help old ladies with their heavy bags. She may be a homicidal maniac, but Villanelle is a fun character to be around.

The plot is triggered when she assassinates a Russian diplomat in Vienna. Eve is tasked with looking after the sole witness, a drug-addled Polish woman whose incoherent babble may hold the key to the killer’s identity. Eve asks her genial Polish husband to translate these ramblings (a convenient coincidence, but I’ll let it pass). An obscure Polish slang word for “flat-chested” confirms Eve’s suspicions that the killer is a woman. And the game is on.

Despite featuring several recognisable staples of the spy genre – e.g. various glamorous European locations – Killing Eve feels fresh. Oh and Comer make for an arresting pair of antagonists; you somehow find yourself wanting both of them to prevail. A controlled explosion of pulp hokum, it’s a genuinely funny and surprising affair.

From the sublime to, well, two popular University Challenge contestants driving around the UK. In MONKMAN AND SEAGULL’S GENIUS GUIDE TO BRITAIN, best friends Eric Monkman and Bobby Seagull hit the road in search of various examples of British ingenuity.

Richly narrated by Simon Callow, it’s a harmlessly generic travelogue in which our big-brained hosts engage in amusingly esoteric conversation while visiting destinations such as Jodrell Bank, a ginormous broadcasting mast, and a lawnmower museum (where they were delighted to discover a mower that once belonged to Brian May). Naturally, they provide interesting nuggets of learned information along the way.

They’re a likeable pair, but Monkman in particular is a TV natural. A nerdy Canadian with a Cheshire Cat grin and a head seemingly crammed with all knowledge, he’s possibly on his way to becoming an eccentric national treasure. 

BLACK EARTH RISING + TRUST

This article was originally published in The Courier on 15th September 2018.

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

BLACK EARTH RISING: Monday, BBC Two

TRUST: Wednesday, BBC Two

There’s a lot going on in BLACK EARTH RISING, a globe-trotting political thriller from esteemed auteur Hugo Blick. Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite hang together.

Blick, who authored impressive dramas such as The Honourable Woman and modern classic The Shadow Line, basically has complete creative control over his projects. That hasn’t been a problem in the past, but episode one of this long-winded and rather starchy drama suggested that he’s finally succumbed to self-indulgence.

It’s frustrating, as Black Earth Rising is a potentially interesting, torn-from-the-headlines meditation on morality and forgiveness.

Eve Ashby (Harriet Walter) is one of the world’s leading prosecutors in international criminal law. During the Rwandan genocide, she rescued and adopted a young Tutsi girl (Michaela Coel). She named her Kate. Now grown up, Kate suffers from survivor’s guilt and works alongside her mother as a legal investigator.

Their close, loving relationship is, to say the least, put under strain when Eve agrees to prosecute a Tutsi general accused of war crimes. His retaliating army brought an end to the bloodshed in Rwanda, but he’s since carved a career as a mercenary in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Kate argues that this man, who was once considered a hero, shouldn’t be punished for crimes that pale in comparison to those perpetrated by the genocidal warlords who still roam at large. Eve, however, feels that she’s doing the right thing.

Does this honourable woman deserve to be accused of “self-righteous western paternalism”? Is she seeking solutions to problems that would never have occurred if the first world hadn’t intruded upon Africa in the first place? And why do the African characters converse in English after a cursory exchange of subtitled lines? So many questions.

It’s a solid premise and an intriguing set of themes, but Blick failed to set the scene with much finesse. Episode one was awash with info-dumping exposition. So far, Black Earth Rising feels well-intentioned yet heavy-handed.

I hope it improves. Blick deserves the benefit of the doubt. However, at this early stage its only truly arresting aspect is the luminous Michaela Coel’s powerful, witty, intelligent and vulnerable performance.

Created by Simon Beaufoy, author of The Full Monty and Slumdog Millionaire, and directed by Danny Boyle, TRUST is an enjoyably slick and acerbic factual drama about the outrageously affluent Getty dynasty.

Set in 1973, it focuses on the notorious kidnapping of heir-to-the-fortune John Paul Getty III. His weird, priapic grandfather is played, formidably, by the great Donald Sutherland. ‘Owner’ of a harem of lovers, the elderly oil baron’s eccentricities infected his dysfunctional brood. If Beaufoy’s account is to be – yes – trusted, then they were a deeply unhappy bunch of idle billionaires.

Sutherland’s Getty is a bored, icy capitalist ogre whose sole source of pleasure is loveless sex and acquiring more money. He barely communicates with his extended family, they disappoint him, but he sparks into life when the bright, young, long-haired JP III returns to the fold. Unfortunately for him, the kid is a drug addict in hock to the Mafia.

This engrossing 10-part series is a frankly despairing exploration of the corrosive effects of wealth and power. It’s hell-bent on leaving a sour taste in the mouth.

Lurid tabloid television? Well, I suppose, but when it’s executed with such wit and panache, you can excuse the prurience. I find myself helplessly swept up in the sheer madness of it all.

TV Review: PRESS + WANDERLUST

This article was originally published in The Courier on 8th September 2018.

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

PRESS: Thursday, BBC One

WANDERLUST: Tuesday, BBC One

The new six-part drama, PRESS, will anger The Daily Mail. The mere existence of the BBC angers The Daily Mail, of course, but this is a BBC drama in which, broadly speaking, a fictional right-wing newspaper, The Post, is depicted as an unethical, mendacious, barrel-scraping bully.

Meanwhile, its left-leaning rival, The Herald, is shown to be essentially virtuous and principled. It’s as if the writer, Mike Bartlett of Doctor Foster fame, is deliberately trolling Mail editor Paul Dacre. You have to laugh.

It will inevitably lend fuel to those who believe that the BBC has a blatant left-wing agenda (it doesn’t: have you ever witnessed a Laura Kuenssberg news report?), but you can’t reason with people like that.

Is Press biased in favour of its Guardian surrogate? Of course it is. Good. In spite of what anti-BBC types stubbornly maintain, it’s actually very rare to find a BBC drama that openly challenges right-wing dogma. It’s generally too scared to rock the boat. On this occasion, it should be applauded for having the guts to oppose its most vociferous critics.

Bartlett’s propulsive drama is a timely and engrossing meditation on journalistic ethics. It examines the power of the press, for good or ill. It feels necessary.

What’s more, Dacre and the Mail should actually be quite pleased that the scene-stealing star of the show is Ben Chaplin as the Post’s antihero editor. He’s a sharp, slick, crass manipulator who values a good story above all else, but he’s also horribly charming and clearly very good at his (dubious) job. Sure, he’s a tragicomic villain, but Bartlett and Chaplin still make sure that he comes across as a nuanced human being. Press depicts journalists as people, not some abstract ‘other’.

Stories under review in part one included the suicide of a gay footballer and the release of thirty-year-old incriminating photographs of a female cabinet minister. Bartlett has presumably done his research, as the handling of these strands felt authentic. Press is a political thriller that’s grounded in reality.

I obviously have a vested interest in this programme, as it examines the industry I work in, but you don’t have to be a journalist to appreciate it. After all, the mainstream media affects us all. It shapes our society. Bartlett is urging us to think about the news we consume, and whether we can trust it. That’s why the right-wing press will hate it. The last thing they want is a society that questions what it’s told to believe (man).

At first glance, WANDERLUST appears to be yet another comedy-drama about a middle-class white family with an enormous kitchen. However, depending on your tolerance for first world people kvetching about their emotional problems, it’s actually a wryly amusing and faintly depressing (in a good way) study of middle-aged frustration, stagnation and despair.

Toni Collette and Steven Mackintosh, both excellent as always, play a married couple whose sex life has become extinct. They still love each other, but the thrill has gone. When they admit to having brief extramarital flings, they hit upon an unorthodox plan to save their marriage: why don’t they continue to sleep with other people?

Packed with ‘scenes of an adult nature’, Wanderlust is a provocative drama that’s bound to prove divisive. The Daily Mail almost certainly won’t approve.

Yes, it sometimes feels a bit too pleased with itself. It wears its provocation on its sleeve, but it's also quite smart, funny and thoughtful. I could never truly dislike a drama in which a character says: “I find it unfathomable that you’ve never heard of Warren G.”