TV Column: THE ALL NEW MONTY + 24 HOURS IN A&E + GHOSTS

This article was originally published in The Courier on 4th May 2019.

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

NEXT WEEK’S TV

THE ALL NEW MONTY

Monday and Tuesday, STV, 9pm

It’s time once again to raise awareness of the importance of health checks to prevent prostate, testicular and breast cancer, as another group of celebrities whip out their bits under the expert gaze of dance coach Ashley Banjo. The responsible fun begins on Monday with Who Bares Wins, in which the likes of Joe Pasquale and snooker legend Willie Thorne, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2015, get to grips with a complex strip routine to be performed in front of a packed theatre. In Ladies’ Night, it’s time for Martina Navratilova and various soap and reality stars to do the same. Most of the participants have personal reasons for getting involved with the promotion of this vital cause.

24 HOURS IN A&E

Tuesday, Channel 4, 9pm

This impeccable series is an admirable celebration of the NHS. It’s also a guaranteed anxiety inducer. If we’ve learned anything from watching years of what essentially boils down to a relentless hokey cokey of terribly upsetting drama, it’s that accidents and sudden failures of health occur every day. You could be the next unwitting victim. Fortunately, dedicated medical professionals will be on hand to rescue you from the brink. If you’re lucky. The latest series begins with a moving meditation on elderly people trying to come to terms with the possibility of losing their partners. Meanwhile, the marriage of Harry and Meghan unfolds in the background. Humane and tacitly political, it towers above every other show in this genre.

THE SINGER STORY: MADE IN CLYDEBANK

Wednesday, BBC One, 9pm

In the late 19^th century, a vast modern factory transformed a village on the Clyde into an industrial powerhouse. Its finely crafted product, the Singer sewing machine, went one giant step further: it changed the world. As the years roll by, the historical importance of Clydebank is in danger of being forgotten. This fascinating documentary should restore its reputation. There was a time when one in five households in the world had a Singer sewing machine, most of them made in Clydebank. Via vivid contributions from former employees, a portrait emerges of a town characterised by civic pride and humour. The site where the factory once stood is now a bland business park. Progress ain’t what it used to be.

WHEN I GROW UP

Thursday, Channel 4, 8pm

Spontaneously inspired by recent social mobility research, three generous businesses have invited some seven-year-olds from all walks of life to briefly join their ranks. Fortunately, a television crew was on hand to capture the results. Will giving them jobs they’ve never dreamed of change their ambitions? This week they don customised uniforms to manage an artisan chocolate business. I don’t doubt for a single whiff of a second that the producers had the very best of intentions – they’re not cruelly inviting us to sneer at a sadly precocious rich kid who fences and plays golf, of course they aren’t - but it comes across as an unnerving fusion of The Apprentice and Channel 4’s notorious ‘80s misfire, Minipops.

LAST WEEK’S TV

GHOSTS

Monday 29^th, BBC One

This supernatural sitcom from the Horrible Histories team continues to plough a fairly amusing yet inessential furrow. It’s a likeable show populated by excellent comic actors, but the characters and storyline aren’t exactly riveting. We’re three episodes in, and I don’t really care about any of these people, either undead or alive. It gets by on a thin cushion of happy-to-please charm.

PLANET CHILD

Wednesday 1^st, STV

What can protective British parents learn from examples set by foreign cultures? In episode one of this revealing new series, twin doctors Chris and Xan van Tulleken attempted to find out by conducting carefully controlled child development experiments. We met Japanese and African kids with far more independence than their cossetted UK counterparts, who gradually managed to navigate central London while unaccompanied by mum and dad.

EASYJET: INSIDE THE COCKPIT

Thursday 2^nd, STV

Whimsically narrated by undiscriminating workhorse Stephen Fry, this series provides fly on the fuel gauge access to pilots from Britain’s biggest airline. They were, of course, depicted as cheerful, unflappable professionals tirelessly serving the needs of their customers. I daresay that’s true, but it was like watching a high-end promotional video. Still, nice scenery, and when was the last time you saw Inverness Airport on television?

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 Review: REQUIEM + ALL TOGETHER NOW

This article was first published in The Courier on 3rd February 2018.

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

REQUIEM: Friday, BBC One

ALL TOGETHER NOW: Saturday, BBC One

A fairly enjoyable slice of hokum, six-part drama REQUIEM blends psychological horror with a dose of the supernatural.

Or does it? The ghostly trappings are possibly a red herring. Either way, it’s quite intriguing and boasts a patina of self-awareness that nudges it beyond bog-standard haunted house territory.

Lydia Wilson stars as Matilda, a young woman who falls down a rabbit hole of secrets when her mother inexplicably kills herself. On the day of her death, Matilda’s mother (Hello, Floyd fans!) was apparently visited by a hoarse spectre. Did this scrofulous wraith encourage her to slit her throat in front of Matilda?

24 hours earlier, an old country squire from a Welsh village also received an unearthly visitation. His response was to smash every mirror in his mansion and jump off the roof.

These startling events were connected, of course. Matilda visited her late mother’s house and discovered a box containing press cuttings relating to the 1995 disappearance of a young girl named Carys from that same Welsh village.

Why was she so interested in this case? Mildly intrigued, Matilda and her mate – who provides an adequately droll running commentary during their amateur Scooby-Doo investigation – travelled to Wales to find out more.

There they met some standard issue suspicious locals and a bland Australian who by sheer coincidence – or was it supernatural guidance? – was moving into the mansion he’d inherited from his recently deceased uncle/that aforementioned gravel-bound squire. Naturally, Matilda and her pal moved in too.

This spooky pile of bricks plays host to that hardy perennial, a mysteriously locked room that the protagonist is instantly drawn to. What’s more, the door is affixed with a number 9, which must surely be a nod to Pemberton and Shearsmith’s wonderful anthology series (I’ll ignore the fact that private residences don’t tend to contain numbered rooms).

The possibly inadvertent meta references continued when Matilda discovered an actual black mirror – Wilson appeared in the very first episode of Charlie Brooker’s techno-fearing Twilight Zone. Gazing into this matte disc suddenly brought her nagging sense of déjà vu into dizzying focus. Not only had she been here before, she thinks she actually is Carys.

That might explain why Matilda is such a blank character. She’s suffering an identity crisis. Yes, that must be it. How else to explain her almost breezy demeanour following a harrowing event that would traumatise most people?

This mechanical maze could easily descend into outright nonsense without a firm guiding hand. It’s already balancing precariously on that knife’s edge, but episode one did manage to establish the central mystery quite effectively.

It’s stuffed to the shivering gills with affectionate references to the likes of Rosemary’s Baby, The Haunting, The Exorcist and – with its gurgling, guttural, pipes-banging audio effects – the classic ‘70s BBC production of Nigel Kneale’s The Stone Tape and notorious early ‘90s cause celebre Ghostwatch. Chiefly for those reasons, I’m cautiously on its side.

It’s a question we’ve all asked ourselves: what would happen if you mixed Celebrity Squares and The Voice into one great shrieking casserole of Saturday night folderol?

The answer at last is ALL TOGETHER NOW, a pointless talent show in which a bunch of singing hopefuls perform in front of 100 judges seated in a large Connect Four/Guess Who? grid. If they enjoy the performance then they stand up and sing along. The bigger the chorus of support, the closer the contestants get to the grand £50,000 prize.

It really is that simple.

Despite the presence of a studio audience, this aching headlock of forced gaiety has a curiously airless atmosphere. Whatever energy it may have possessed has been heavily edited and neutered. There’s no tension or sparkle. It’s a shiny blast of nothing.

Chirpy comic Rob Beckett does a passable job of hosting, but Geri Halliwell is lumbered with a redundant supporting role. No good will come of this.