TV Column: LEAVING NEVERLAND: MICHAEL JACKSON AND ME + DERRY GIRLS

This article was originally published in The Courier on 9th March 2019.

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

NEXT WEEK’S TV

CHEAT

Monday to Thursday, STV, 9pm

Deep within the bowels of ITV Towers is an airless chamber where contracted writers are forced to churn out pot-boiling thrillers starring familiar faces. Cheat is the latest product of this heinous abuse of human rights. Katherine Kelly (Coronation Street) plays an upmarket university lecturer whose life comes a cropper when a ruthlessly ambitious student (Molly Windsor from Three Girls, who deserves better) mounts a weird campaign against her. Cards on the table, folks, we dedicated members of the press were only given preview access to episode one – Cheat is generously stripped throughout the week - but I think it’s fair to predict that this Richard & Judy Book Club folderol won’t improve after such a risible opening chapter.

                                                                                                     

24 HOURS IN POLICE CUSTODY

Monday, Channel 4, 9pm

The acceptable face of cop-trailing crime documentaries, this sombre hardy perennial works because it swaps the genre’s usual tabloid sensationalism for a more socially responsible and detailed approach. The latest series begins with an extended edition in which police officers search for a dangerous predator who sexually assaulted a woman at knife-point during broad daylight. The rapist was unknown to his victim – statistically, a fairly rare occurrence – and his DNA wasn’t stored on the police’s extensive nationwide database of known sex offenders. As always, the programme follows the investigation from its initial stages to the eventual, claustrophobic interrogation of a chief suspect. It provides some valuable, sensitive insight into how severe cases such as this are handled.

AUSTRALIA: EARTH’S MAGICAL KINGDOM

Friday, BBC Two, 9pm

It may boast all the panoramic and granular pleasures you’ve come to expect from world-beating natural history documentaries, but by far the most satisfying aspect of this new series is its unlikely yet entirely apt choice of narrator. The great Barry Humphries is a much loved and highly respected Australian superstar, but he doesn’t usually lend his dulcet tones to programmes of this nature. It’s rather wonderful listening to him enthuse about colourful species of wildlife about which little is widely known. He begins by revealing how animals have learned to adapt across Australia’s dramatically disparate weather extremes. Star turns include a platypus cousin who can lower its body temperature to endure icy winters, and some remarkably intelligent cockatoos.

SHOWBANDS: HOW IRELAND LEARNT TO PARTY

Friday, BBC Four, 9pm

Ardal O’Hanlon is your warm, witty guide to the history of a uniquely Irish showbiz phenomenon. From the 1950s to the end of the 1970s, hundreds of showbands – “versatile, hardworking mobile jukeboxes in shiny suits” – freely crisscrossed the north and south of Ireland. Many of them became household names. The showbands saw themselves purely as entertainers, but they transformed the lives of young people living in rural backwaters, triggered a kind of social revolution in the dancehalls and broke down religious and political barriers. O’Hanlon finds out what their success said about Ireland during a tumultuous era of cultural isolationism and bitter sectarian violence. As the tragic fate of the Miami Showband illustrates, they weren’t always immune to their surroundings.

LAST WEEK’S TV

JERK

Monday 4^th, BBC One

Tim Renkow is the star and co-creator of this charmless comedy in which he plays an American slacker with cerebral palsy who happily exploits his condition to secure a Visa. The sole joke is that Tim is a chaos-causing prankster who gets away with being endlessly rude to awkwardly well-meaning able-bodied idiots. No one wants to offend him. It’s supposed to be a challenging satirical comment on ridiculous social attitudes surrounding disability, but it’s neither funny nor clever enough to pull that off. Renkow’s character is a smug irritant. That wouldn’t matter if he was an entertaining smug irritant, but Jerk is utterly tiresome and routine.

DERRY GIRLS

Tuesday 5^th, Channel 4

This delightful sitcom about an awkward gang of Northern Irish teenagers growing up in the Troubled 1990s was a big sleeper hit when it debuted last year. Comedy shows can sometimes lose focus and start playing to the gallery when unexpectedly showered with praise, but there was no sign of that curse as series two began. By sending her girls (and boy) on a ‘Friends Across the Barricade’ weekend aimed at bringing Catholic and Protestant kids together, writer Lisa McGee managed to mock the lunacy of religious prejudice without a hint of self-righteousness. It was another gag-packed, acutely-observed episode, beautifully played as always by a faultless cast. 

LEAVING NEVERLAND: MICHAEL JACKSON AND ME

Wednesday 6^th and Thursday 7^th, Channel 4

Jackson evaded justice during his lifetime, but this gut-punching documentary held him to unequivocal account. It focused on Wade Robson and James Safechuck, both of whom allege they were sexually abused by their childhood idol over a period of several years. Their relentlessly graphic and entirely credible testimonies were juxtaposed with recollections from their mothers attempting to explain how they were hoodwinked. As their stories unfolded like a horrifying family scrapbook, a consistent portrait emerged of Jackson as a devious predatory paedophile who exploited his status and innocent man-child image to groom children and their parents. He destroyed lives. Jackson’s legacy won’t recover from this damning expose. It can’t.

TRAVELLING BLIND

Thursday 7^th, BBC Two

Amar Latif has been blind since he was eighteen, but that hasn’t stopped him from travelling the world in search of adventure. All he needs is a sighted person to act as a guide. His assistant during this bright and breezy Turkey travelogue was comedian Sara Pascoe, lest anyone avoid an educational programme informed by disability due to an unacceptable lack of celebrity involvement. To be fair, it did achieve Latif’s goal of illustrating that blindness isn’t a barrier to enjoying a rich and fulfilling life. A decent introduction to the BBC’s new Crossing Divides season, which explores how people can be brought together in this fragmented world of ours.

TV Review: THE SECRET HELPERS + THE FUNERAL MURDERS

This article was originally published in The Courier on 24th March 2018.

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

THE SECRET HELPERS: Wednesday, BBC Two

THE FUNERAL MURDERS: Monday, BBC Two

When gazing in despair upon this hate-strewn boulder of ours, it’s easy to forget that good people still exist. THE SECRET HELPERS is a charitable reminder. Maybe humanity will prevail after all.

The premise behind this quietly heartening new series couldn’t be simpler. Brits dealing with difficult circumstances receive friendly advice from pragmatic strangers around the world. While monitoring them via camera, these earthbound guardian angels beam trouble-shooting words of wisdom into the brains of our protagonists through hidden earpieces.

Their loved ones are obviously aware that a documentary is being filmed, but they have no idea about the secret helpers. That adds an element of mild peril to an otherwise upbeat project; will they get found out while chatting, seemingly to no one, during an advice session?

They’re essentially being asked to live a lie for a week, albeit for benign reasons.

First up was Dan, who’d suffered a massive double stroke. Despite having recovered for the most part, he now experiences anxiety and chronic tiredness. He was on the verge of getting married, and worried that his symptoms would make mincemeat of his duties at the wedding.

Fortunately, his secret helpers got him through it. They included twinkly Sister Una from Ireland, a traditional South African healer, two retired New York cops and a health and lifestyle guru (and former Playboy model) from Norway.

Their simple yet non-patronising advice helped Dan with his speech, stress levels and diet. Watching him overcome his fears via the kindness of strangers was surprisingly touching. Sure, they're presumably getting paid for taking part, but only a dead-inside cynic would doubt their sincerity.

The helpers getting dressed up to watch Dan’s wedding from their corners the world was rather charming. For a few days this disparate group became emotionally invested in the lives of people they’ll probably never meet. That connection extends to the audience too. We’re all entwined by the same fears and empathetic impulses.

Our second Brit-in-need Brett was assisted by Dan's team plus a pair of female Italian chefs. He was worried that he wouldn’t be able to cope with premature new-born twins and a wife recovering from major surgery. Sister Una, a former nurse and midwife, was of particular help. The South African sage taught him a lullaby to send the twins to sleep. It was awfully sweet.

If mishandled, this show could easily come across as cloying and twee, but it’s put together with such a winning lack of cynicism it works a charm.

Let’s not get carried away, though. Human beings are also capable of heinous acts of violence and prejudice. In THE FUNERAL MURDERS, the estimable documentary film-maker Vanessa Engle presented a sobering account of the lethal attacks that took place during two Irish Republican funerals in March 1988.

By speaking to representatives from all sides – IRA, RUC etc. - Engle highlighted the immovable stalemate and conflicting narratives that characterised The Troubles. Republicans and Loyalists are so diametrically opposed, it’s simply staggering in hindsight that the ongoing peace process ever got off the ground at all.

Supported by harrowing archive footage of the attacks, Engle met people whose pain and attitudes haven’t softened in the intervening years. The only difference is that now they don’t live in a divided nation scorched with almost daily acts of political violence. While that progress should never be taken for granted, those deep divisions still prevail.

“Who will be believed?” mused one commentator, when asked about historical legacy. “Whoever shouts the loudest.”

With typical sensitivity and probing open-mindedness, Engle cut to the human heart of this complex, inflammatory issue. It was a sad, blunt, riveting film, steeped in lingering shock and senseless loss.