TV Column: THE LOOMING TOWER + BACK TO LIFE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 20th April 2019.

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

NEXT WEEK’S TV

THE LOOMING TOWER

Friday, BBC Two, 9:30pm

Inspired by actual events, this taut US drama is set in the years just prior to the September 11^th attacks. The CIA and the FBI were supposed to be working together to combat the rising threat of Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. The Looming Tower contends that an absurd rivalry between their counterterrorism divisions resulted in vital information being withheld, information which could’ve prevented the largest ever terrorist attack on American soil. It begins with them struggling to cooperate while predicting Bin Laden’s next move. In the background, the American media remains preoccupied with the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal. A sense of impending doom pervades. The solid ensemble cast is led by Jeff Daniels as the FBI’s irascible counterterrorism chief.

MARK KERMODE’S SECRETS OF CINEMA

Monday, BBC Four, 9pm

It comes as no surprise to learn that the young Kermode watched The Towering Inferno three times in the same week in 1975. He’s been preparing for this typically persuasive essay, in which he examines the disaster movie genre, for most of his life. Although they reached their heyday in the 1970s, disaster movies have been around in various forms since the 1920s. Always at the cutting edge of effects technology, these spectaculars usually involve all-star casts facing off against fires, floods and earthquakes. Why do we love them? Kermode: “Disaster movies, like horror films, often work as modern morality tales, reminding us of the natural order of things by terrifying us with visions of chaos and apocalypse.”

YOUR HOME MADE PERFECT

Tuesday, BBC Two, 8pm

Kevin McCloud from Grand Designs would doubtless raise a wry eyebrow (a wrybrow) at this rather brash and flashy home improvement series in which moneyed young couples are given the luxury of choosing from computer-generated virtual interior designs. Call me old-fashioned, but I much prefer McCloud’s drily mocking, seen it all before approach over the smart-aleck hipster bravado of the YHMP team. The whole enterprise is far too pleased with itself. In this episode, James and Vicky enter the architect’s studio with a major problem on their hands: they can’t agree on how their spacious detached property should look. James fancies a modern open kitchen, but Vicky prefers a more traditional approach. My heart, it bleeds for them.

THE BLETCHLEY CIRCLE: SAN FRANCISCO

Friday, STV, 9pm

As this pulpy period espionage drama continues, a bloodied and battered young man collapses on the doorstep of Jean (Julie Graham) and Millie (Rachael Stirling). He’s looking for one of their English government associates, but why? And off goes the plot, its arteries thickening with every fizzy twist and turn. It involves heroin smuggled inside one of those new-fangled reefer cigarettes, Nietzsche-quoting beatniks, violently oppressed homosexuals and ancient Greek cipher techniques. The Bletchley Circle: San Francisco will never be mistaken for a prestigious drama – its dialogue and plotting are so amusingly ham-fisted, it makes Murder She Wrote look like Edge of Darkness – but it’s quite good fun if you’re willing to disengage your taste buds. Glossy drivel.

LAST WEEK’S TV

NINJA WARRIOR UK

Saturday 13^th, STV

I can’t watch arena-based rumbles of Saturday night folderol such as this without thinking of Peter Cook as Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling. The only television show the crumbling patrician ever watched was Gladiators as it gave him an idea “of what was going on out there.” Its only selling point is co-host Chris Kamara, a man both bewildered and thrilled by the mere idea of existing.

BACK TO LIFE

Monday 15^th, BBC One

Over the last ten years, the excellent Daisy Haggard has become a familiar supporting fixture in several British TV comedies, but this droll black comedy, which she also created, is her first starring vehicle. She plays a middle-class woman struggling to rebuild her life after spending 18 years in prison on a murder charge. She seems normal, so what happened? It’s an intriguing show, low-key and quite unusual.

THE COMEDY YEARS

Friday 19^th, ITV3

We’ve witnessed countless versions of this superficial yet harmless series before, but any clip show featuring segments on Cannon and Ball, Yootha Joyce, Only When I Laugh and the obscure Rowan Atkinson showcase Canned Laughter is always going to sit well with me. It began in 1979, the year Thatcher seized power, and served as a reminder that alternative comedy didn’t demolish the old guard overnight.

TV Review: THE SPLIT + THE WOMAN IN WHITE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 28th April 2018.

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

THE SPLIT: Tuesday, BBC One

THE WOMAN IN WHITE: Sunday, BBC One

Written by Abi Morgan, creator of The Hour, THE SPLIT appeared at first glance to be a glossy legal drama. That turned out to be window dressing, an access point for Morgan to explore the fragile intricacies of family relationships and marriage.

It stars the reliably excellent Nicola Walker as Hannah, a conscientious, empathetic divorce lawyer who works for a prestigious London firm specialising in cases involving the stinking rich and famous.

Hannah’s job places her in emotionally charged situations steeped in heartbreak and rancour, an area she’s more than qualified to tackle as, inevitably, she’s also dealing with her own personal issues.

She recently joined this company after leaving her family law firm behind. Naturally enough, this is a cause of friction, as she’s now in direct competition with her mother and younger sister, Nina.

This tricky situation was compounded when their estranged father, played by Anthony Head, suddenly returned after an absence of 30 years. It gradually became clear that divorce and abandonment have played an unhealthily prominent role in their lives, but at least it’s bought them nice big houses. Swings/roundabouts.

On the client side, Mathew Baynton from Horrible Histories plays a heartbroken stand-up comedian who’s written a brutally frank and litigious show about his ex-wife, while Stephen Tompkinson and Meera Syal play the Mackenzies, a multimillionaire couple going through a divorce.

This came as a shock to Mrs Mackenzie, as she didn’t even know why they were meeting with Hannah in the first place. Didn’t she think to ask her husband beforehand? Presenting her as implausibly incurious was obviously just a lazy excuse for Morgan to contrive an anguished scene. I’ve always considered her a good writer who’s occasionally guilty of clunky engineering.

When Hannah takes a dim view of Mr Mackenzie’s cowardly behaviour, he, with some sneaky assistance from Nina, decides to hire the family firm instead. Further complications ensue.

Morgan packed a lot into episode one, but the various subplots mingled smoothly. Legal environments have always been popular in TV drama, as they comfortably support a range of stories and themes. Morgan exploits this hardy perennial quite successfully. That aforementioned Mackenzie niggle aside, the dialogue and action are convincing, and Walker is typically authentic.

Etched in mature shades of grey, The Split is a thoughtful rumination on the incessant complexities of being human. It has heart.

One of the first lines spoken in THE WOMAN IN WHITE was “How is it men crush women time and time again but go unpunished?”

You don't often get the chance to describe the umpteenth adaptation of a 19^th century novel as timely, but this latest take on Wilkie Collins’ hugely influential murder mystery is particularly resonant in the current climate. It proves that a classic text can be subtly re-moulded without sacrificing its original essence.

Suitably shrouded in a haze of windswept romanticism and early Hammer-esque atmospherics, it follows a sensitive artist haunted by a nocturnal roadside encounter with a troubled young woman.

His new job as an art tutor connects him with a pair of charismatic, cerebral sisters happily out of step with Victorian propriety. What’s their mysterious connection with the wandering woman in white?

It was a comfortably subdued introduction to a story that will, I assure you, veer off into entertaining lunacy soon. It also features Charles Dance looking for all the world like a consumptive Jon Pertwee. What more do you want?