TV Column: GHOSTS + CHIMERICA

This article was originally published in The Courier on 13th April 2019.

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

THIS WEEK’S TV

GHOSTS

Monday, BBC One, 9:30pm

This promising new sitcom from the talented team behind Horrible Histories follows a surrogate family of ghosts who decide to embrace haunting for the first time in their afterlives. The object of their ire is a young woman (Charlotte Ritchie) who inherits their dilapidated mansion home and decides to turn it into a hotel. Prominent ghouls include a Neanderthal man, a witch trial victim, a romantic poet, a Tory MP who died without his trousers on and, inevitably, a 17^th century gent who carries his severed head around with him. While obviously not suitable for very young children, apart from one rather dark twist it’s not self-consciously adult either. On the contrary, it’s a typically broad, silly, likeable affair. Why it’s being shown at this late hour, I have no idea.

TRUST ME

Tuesday, BBC One, 9pm

Series one of this medical thriller was an implausible load of old toot in which Jodie Whittaker played a nurse masquerading as a doctor in a fictional Edinburgh hospital. She’s since been cast as the Doctor, so it’s back to the drawing board with a completely new cast and premise. They needn’t have bothered as it still fails to convince on any level. When a paralysed soldier with PTSD finds himself trapped in the James Stewart Spinal Unit (a very kind donation from the late Hollywood legend), he begins to suspect that a spate of patient deaths have been caused deliberately. Is he paranoid? It doesn’t matter. Even John Hannah and Ashley Jensen can’t rescue this laughable, clumsily written chore.

EARTH FROM SPACE

Wednesday, BBC One, 9pm

Thousands of satellites are currently orbiting the Earth. Some of them capture images of the planet’s surface in such extraordinary detail, we can now chart the activities of individual animals. Blessed with suitably Godlike narration from actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, this lofty new series depicts “our home as we’ve never seen it before.” The devastating effects of climate change are exposed by following a herd of African elephants struggling through a vicious drought. Meanwhile, satellites uncover previously unknown colonies of penguins and reveal mysterious ice rings that could put seal pups in danger. The programme also makes some surprising discoveries in Earth’s most remote areas. It’s a beautifully made yet sombre study of a planet in severe trouble.

CHIMERICA

Wednesday, Channel 4, 9pm

Based on the Olivier Award-winning play by Lucy Kirkwood, this engrossing drama examines the predominance of China and America in modern geopolitics. A fictional story inspired by real events, it begins with a young American photojournalist covering the violent government response to the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989. He becomes one of the photographers who captured the iconic Tank Man image. 27 years later he’s sent back to Beijing to cover Presidential candidate Donald Trump’s controversial ties with China. While there he gleans tantalising new information about Tank Man, whose identity and subsequent whereabouts have never been proven. After being accused of faking a photograph, he becomes obsessed with finding the legendary unknown protester to restore his credibility.

  

LAST WEEK’S TV

THE WIDOW

Monday 8^th and Tuesday 9^th, STV

A solemnly ambitious thriller based in the Democratic Republic of the Congo? On ITV? Hats off to the House of Cowell for trying something different. Unfortunately, The Widow is a monumentally turgid misfire in which Kate Beckinsale is helplessly cast adrift in a sea of disjointed storytelling. It’s written by Harry and Jack Williams, whose work outside of The Missing and Baptiste never fails to disappoint.

TV Column: TEACHERS TRAINING TO KILL

This article was originally published in The Courier on 2nd February 2019.

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

NEXT WEEK’S TV

TEACHERS TRAINING TO KILL

Monday, Channel 4, 9pm

At a remote summer camp in Ohio, schoolteachers are being trained to use firearms. Blatantly endorsed by Trump, it’s a radical response to the never-ending spate of tragic school shootings. Prepare to despair at this powerful documentary in which an arrogant county sheriff mounts a controversial campaign to fight fire with fire. Naturally, it never occurs to this agenda-pushing fanatic that an unequivocal reformation of the outdated Second Amendment is a simpler solution. Disturbing attack simulations involving students dressed with fake wounds are juxtaposed with intelligent contributions from a teenager who survived a school shooting. As he observes, what if an armed teacher becomes violently, mentally ill? It’s almost as if the pro-gun lobby doesn’t actually care.

HOW THE OTHER KIDS LIVE

Tuesday, Channel 4, 8pm

Imagine a benign version of Wife Swap starring innocent ankle-biters instead of bickering adults, and you’ve basically got the measure of this new social experiment starring children who live just streets apart but who come from different worlds. When they visit each other for playdates that would never otherwise happen, they learn about different cultures and backgrounds. The series begins with Catholic Brendan, Muslim Yasmin and privately educated twins Tom, who has Down’s syndrome, and Billy. The kids are bright and sweet, their parents are lovely, and the whole thing amounts to a touching celebration of open-mindedness. Brendan sums it up: “Houses don’t really matter what they look like, it’s just a house. It’s not [for] you to judge it.”

THE SECRET LIFE OF THE ZOO

Thursday, Channel 4, 8pm

Whether you approve of zoos or not, there’s no denying that the staff at Chester Zoo – the setting for the latest series of this fly-on-the-wall perennial – are dedicated to looking after various endangered species. The focus this week is on the relationships that form between animals during conservation projects. We witness the bittersweet tale of a pair of giant otter pals who, because they’ve never mated, have to be separated to make way for another male, and a domestic dispute between two Andean bears: the clingy teenage daughter doesn’t understand why her antsy mother wants more space to herself. The programme also features some drunk South American butterflies, which isn’t a phrase I ever thought I’d find myself writing.

JEREMY WADE’S MIGHTY RIVERS

Friday, STV, 8pm

In the final episode of his grave ecological travelogue, the snow-haired biologist and extreme angler reveals that even the mighty Zambezi is in trouble. Massive construction projects and overfishing are threatening its health. Wade discovers that parts of the Zambezi delta have dried up due to a lack of flooding caused by a massive Zimbabwean hydro-dam. His canoe-based investigation involves some hairy encounters with a man-eating crocodile and some angry hippos, and a chat with a local fisherman who predicts that soon all the fish will be gone. Fairly interesting stuff, but it’s docked a point for carelessly neglecting to use Marlena Shaw’s recording of the gospel-soul classic Wade in the Water as its theme tune.

LAST WEEK’S TV

IMAGINE… JO BRAND: NO HOLDS BARRED

Monday 28^th, BBC One

When Jo Brand first arrived on the ‘80s alternative comedy scene, her uncompromisingly deadpan stage persona was refreshing and deliberately provocative: a revolutionary pioneer in the then barren field of female stand-up. These days, of course, she’s renowned as one of the nicest people in showbiz, but that doesn’t mean she’s lost her edge. Far from it. This candid profile paid tribute to her prodigious talent. Understandably, she bristled at the ‘national treasure’ tag. Have you seen her autobiographical sitcoms Damned and the shamefully underrated Getting On? They’re angry, compassionate, intelligent products of a subversively politicised, anti-establishment philosophy. History will judge her with the kindness and respect she deserves.

THE STAND UP SKETCH SHOW

Monday 28^th, ITV2

TV producers sometimes cough up concepts so catastrophically ill-conceived, you almost have to marvel at their cluelessness. This series is aimed at an imaginary audience who can’t engage with stand-up comedy routines unless they’re accompanied by sketches spelling out the contents in overliteral detail. Sketches can certainly be used to elaborate upon ideas explored in stand-up routines – e.g. Dave Allen and Stewart Lee – but listening to a comic talk while a sketch unfolds just kills the jokes stone dead. Not that the bland, hacky observational comics employed by the show – Seann ‘love rat’ Walsh included – are funny anyway, but they stand even less of a chance in this context.

PURE

Wednesday 30^th, Channel 4

Marnie is young Scottish woman who, since the age of 14, has been plagued by relentlessly graphic thoughts about sex: “It’s like The Sixth Sense, but I don’t see dead people. I see naked ones.” In episode one of this instantly arresting comedy drama, Marnie fled to London on a desperate voyage of self-discovery after a disastrous speech at her parents’ wedding anniversary, during which she imagined everyone in the room indulging in all sorts of publicly prohibited activities. Based on a true story, Pure is a funny, frank and liberating study of mental illness, and newcomer Charly Clive is hugely likeable as the captivatingly chaotic Marnie. A guaranteed cult hit.

TV Review: REPORTING TRUMP'S FIRST YEAR: THE FOURTH ESTATE + INSIDE THE AMERICAN EMBASSY

This article was originally published in The Courier on 30th June 2018.

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

REPORTING TRUMP’S FIRST YEAR: THE FOURTH ESTATE: Sunday, BBC Two

INSIDE THE AMERICAN EMBASSY: Monday, Channel 4

 Maggie Haberman, White House Correspondent for The New York Times, has been reporting on Donald Trump for 20 years. Imagine being immersed in the world of that petulant, bullying man-baby for so long. No wonder she seemed so jaded during episode one of the riveting documentary REPORTING TRUMP’S FIRST YEAR: THE FOURTH ESTATE.

“Everything is through the lens of himself,” she explained. “He’s obsessed with the Times. Even though he was born rich, he doesn’t see himself that way. He sees himself as this guy who made it big and plopped himself down in the world of Fifth Avenue, but he still wasn’t treated seriously… now he’s in the biggest piece of real estate in the country and he’s still not being treated seriously. He’s always going to care enormously about what the Times writes.”

When that revered newspaper opened its doors to director Liz Garbus, they knew she’d be documenting a unique moment in American history. No one, however, was prepared for the incessant barrage of chaotic drama and theatre that would spew from the White House in the ensuing months.

As Executive Editor Dean Baquet admitted, Trump is a gift for journalists. “What a story. Great stories trump everything else,” he said, so caught up in his muddle of excitement he didn’t seem to notice his play on words. 

Garbus captured the caffeinated buzz and escalating tension of a newsroom dealing with a relentless workload. The staff came across as diligent and unflappable, even in the face of torrential stress. Everything Trump says is either a gross exaggeration or an outright lie, so they faced an almost impossible task in trying to bring truth to power.

As Haberman said, Trump feels threatened by anyone who doesn’t support him unconditionally. In one particularly chilling scene at a pro-Trump rally, we witnessed him coining his infamous “fake news” catchphrase. A “failing New York Times” reporter sat stoically as everyone around him cheered at a deeply insecure and paranoid President declaring that the media was “the enemy of the people”.

 It felt like one of those flashback scenes from The Handmaid’s Tale in which we discover how America became a fascist state.

Thankfully, this stellar series is also a heartening reminder that decency, sanity and democracy still exist in Trump’s America. It reminds us, too, that his administration is populated by risible men with very high, silly voices. Their staff meetings must sound like the aftermath of an explosion at a helium balloon factory.

Yeah, take that Trump.

The shell-shocked commemorations of his first year in office continued with INSIDE THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, a series taking an exclusive behind-the-scenes peek at the everyday dealings of his Britain-based lickspittles.

It began with a profile of Robert Wood “Woody” Johnson IV during his first months as US ambassador.

An invidious septuagenarian billionaire with no previous ambassadorial experience, Johnson is expected to bring his business expertise to the world of international diplomacy. Like his boss, he’s a salesman.

He came across as a chilly corporate drone failing to promote our “special relationship” against a fervent tide of anti-Trump sentiment in the UK. I almost felt sorry for him. Much like the team at The New York Times, Johnson and co have their work cut out for them. It’s like dealing with a spoiled, recalcitrant child.

Viewed in tandem, these documentaries exposed a presidency that almost certainly won’t last its full term. Take some comfort from that.