TV Review: MORTIMER AND WHITEHOUSE: GONE FISHING + EMMELINE PANKHURST: THE MAKING OF A MILITANT

This article was originally published in The Courier on 23rd June 2018.

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

MORTIMER AND WHITEHOUSE: GONE FISHING: Wednesday, BBC Two

EMMELINE PANKHURST: THE MAKING OF A MILITANT: Monday, BBC Four

Comedians Bob Mortimer and Paul Whitehouse have been friends and occasional colleagues for nearly 30 years. During that time they’ve made an enormous impact on British comedy. Their legend is secured.

They also both suffer from heart problems. Paul has had three stents fitted. In 2015, Bob underwent triple bypass surgery. This frightening experience affected him deeply.

Devised by Paul as a form of relaxation therapy for his on-the-mend chum, the six-part series MORTIMER AND WHITEHOUSE: GONE FISHING also works as a soothing tonic for the rest of us.

The premise couldn’t be simpler. Paul, an experienced angler, and Bob, a total novice, go fishing in some magnificent English lakes. They chat about this and that, make each other laugh, and occasionally catch some fish (don’t worry, they throw them back in).

This could easily come across as dull and self-indulgent if it weren’t for the fact that Bob and Paul are exceedingly genial and amusing. Spending time in their company is delightful.

Bob in particular is one of planet Earth’s most naturally funny and loveable humans. A world without him doesn’t bear thinking about. My favourite moment in episode one was when he performed a jaunty little stroll towards his yurt (Bob takes care of the accommodation). I can’t think of any other living comedian who could turn such a throwaway bit of business into a thing of joy and beauty. He’s such a benign vessel of pure silliness.

However, we get to see another, more contemplative side of him in Gone Fishing. Though primarily light-hearted, there are moments when the rambling conversation takes a tentative detour into more serious territory. Bob discussing his life-threatening illness was particularly poignant.

You don’t have to be interested in fishing to enjoy this serene series. It’s not really about that.

As episode one unfolded, a subtext gradually emerged. There’s more to Gone Fishing than two balding comedians talking nonsense against a backdrop of glorious scenery. It’s about friendship and ageing and the way men interact. Whenever their more reflective ruminations are interrupted by a potential catch, their focus shifts immediately. They’ve suddenly got more important things to think about than mortality. Men – not all men – are like that.

Watching these two old friends, these gifted comics who’ve given us such joy over the years, in sedentary action is a bittersweet, quietly life-affirming treat.

One of many programmes shown to commemorate the 100^th anniversary of British women winning the right to vote, EMMELINE PANKHURST: THE MAKING OF A MILITANT was a brisk yet respectable overview of how a working mother from Manchester changed the course of history.

Presented by former Coronation Street actor and fellow proud Mancunian Sally Lindsay, it put the legendary Suffragette leader’s achievements in perspective by examining her private life. What made her the woman she was?

Born into a liberal activist family, she was aware from an early age that women were treated as second-class citizens. Her intelligence, compassion, righteous anger, social conscience and tireless political tenacity were a potent combination.

An inspirational leader who understood the positive power of negative publicity, her sometimes violent protests ensured that the issue of female emancipation became a headline-grabbing, national talking point. The rest, as they say…

This wasn’t the most in-depth study of one of our greatest national heroes – a hero who’s only just been commemorated with a statue in Manchester - but it nevertheless succeeded as a useful introduction to her extraordinary story.

GRENFELL + BEFORE GRENFELL: A HIDDEN HISTORY

This article was originally published in The Courier on 16th June 2018.

GRENFELL: Monday, BBC One

BEFORE GRENFELL: A HIDDEN HISTORY: Monday, BBC Two

If the definitive account of the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy is written one day, if power is held to account and justice is finally served, then Ben Anthony’s extraordinary 90-minute documentary, GRENFELL, will be one of its key sources.

It should, by rights, have a socio-political impact on a par with Ken Loach’s Cathy Come Home.

Anthony is an acclaimed film-maker who specialises in detailed, compassionate studies of everyday human existence; the ideal director for a film in which survivors, and the relatives of some of those who lost their lives, were allowed to speak openly and movingly about what they’ve been through.

Anthony started filming in the immediate aftermath of the fire. Over the last year he’s gathered a phalanx of testimonies. Without recourse to hand-holding narration, he encapsulated the terror, anger, confusion, chaos and injustice of a tragedy in which 72 people died.

Grenfell Tower is situated in a deprived part of one of Britain’s wealthiest boroughs, Kensington and Chelsea, which boasts the highest gap between rich and poor in the country. The local council have been blamed for failing, as a cost-cutting measure, to install the tower with fire-resistant cladding. For years, residents have been complaining about lacklustre refurbishment. One man was told, when he spoke to senior management, “If I was getting it for nothing, I wouldn’t mind.”

With clear-eyed precision, Anthony and his interviewees made the shameful, powerful, angering point that the easily preventable Grenfell fire was a towering symbol of so-called second-class citizens being neglected and ignored. It encapsulated the repulsive inequality that courses like a virus through the veins of our society.

 

Anthony met people who lost everything in the fire, people who still haven’t been adequately rehoused. He also spoke to a local Labour councillor who was appalled that his colleagues didn’t gather immediately to formulate a disaster plan.

During their onscreen interviews, Kensington and Chelsea Council leader Elizabeth Campbell and her colleague Kim Taylor-Smith came across as patronising and dismissive; they clearly can’t relate to the profound concerns of their constituents or the wider issue of economic disparity.

The only positive aspect of this tragedy was the life-affirming way in which the local multiracial community banded together to help those affected, but that civic pride altruism only served to highlight the lax incompetence of the authorities.

Amidst a wave of escalating tension, the preternaturally uncompassionate Theresa May visited the area two days after the fire, but failed to address residents before being quickly bundled into an armoured car. The class divide in microcosm.

The NHS estimates that 11,000 people have been psychologically affected by the Grenfell fire. Ben Anthony’s vital film was an important step towards letting them, and every overlooked community living in social housing, speak out on a national level. We can’t ignore this anymore.

A similarly direct companion piece, BEFORE GRENFELL: A HIDDEN HISTORY provided further context by explaining how, over the last 150 years, Kensington and Chelsea became so staggeringly divided in terms of wealth.

In a nutshell: Victorian property developers built homes for wealthy Londoners blind to the poverty in their neighbouring areas. Nothing has changed since.

The entire point of these commemorations was summed up by a local resident, featured in the second programme, who said, “Grenfell is the culmination of the disrespect, the neglect and the way we were never listened to. Grenfell would’ve never happened if there was even just some respect for our voice.”

TV Review: THE JAZZ AMBASSADORS + CUNK ON BRITAIN

This article was originally published in The Courier on 5th May 2018.

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

THE JAZZ AMBASSADORS: Friday, BBC Four

CUNK ON BRITAIN: Tuesday, BBC Two

In 1956, during the Cold War stalemate, Eisenhower’s government figured that their best chance of beating the Soviets would be to establish a positive consensus about America around the globe.

Via the newly established United States Information Agency, they set about selling the benefits of a prosperous capitalist society, while playing down inconvenient truths such as racial segregation in the south.

This was an era when even a widely beloved African-American star such as Louis Armstrong couldn’t perform in his home town of New Orleans, as racially integrated concerts were verboten; Armstrong’s band included two white musicians.

Nevertheless, the government decided to enlist the nation’s greatest jazz musicians as cultural envoys tasked with putting an upbeat spin on the black experience by playing diplomatic concerts in the newly liberated nations of Asia and Africa.

It was thought that a friendly dose of hot jazz would encourage them to embrace American values and abandon any pesky notions of turning Communist.

This was propaganda versus propaganda: during the Cold War, the Soviets repeatedly highlighted the injustice of racial segregation as a prime example of America’s hypocrisy and moral repugnancy. Without acknowledging their guilt outright, the American government knew their enemy had a point.

The story of how Armstrong, Dizzy Gillespie, Duke Ellington, Benny Goodman and Dave Brubeck tried to rescue the world from the brink of Armageddon was told in the enlightening feature-length documentary THE JAZZ AMBASSADORS.

This remarkable collision of entertainment and foreign policy was instigated by African-American congressman Adam Clayton Powell, an unsung hero who convinced Eisenhower that America’s global standing would be radically improved if they tackled racism head on.

Naturally, the musicians he enlisted, while happy to spread positive American vibes, weren’t prepared to ignore the noxious shadow of Jim Crow. “I wasn’t going over there to apologise for America’s racist policies,” declared the politically active Dizzy Gillespie.

Armstrong renounced his role as an Uncle Sam ambassador following the Little Rock crisis, when nine black students were prevented from entering a racially segregated school. “The government can go to Hell!” he roared in the press. Duke Ellington later wrote an article proclaiming that racism in America was losing the Cold War.

This wasn’t the sort of PR that Eisenhower expected when he greenlit the program.

However, Armstrong did manage to stop the Congolese civil war for 24 hours when he arrived to play a concert. You couldn’t ask for a more potent symbol of the miraculous power of music than that.

When Benny Goodman and his mixed-race band eventually toured Russia in 1961, they conducted illicit private jams with local musicians under the noses of an oblivious KGB. Jazz – 1; The Man – 0.

This fascinating saga of weaponised music expressing the complex spirit of America was told through a sharp prism of informed talking heads and terrific archive footage. It was a powerful statement on behalf of the unifying textures of extraordinary, freedom-fuelled art.

Funny in small doses as part of Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe, gormless roving reporter Philomena Cunk wears out her one-dimensional welcome over the space of half an hour.

The spoof historical travelogue series CUNK ON BRITAIN occasionally came up with some good gags (and some absolute clunkers), but they were overshadowed by the repetitive strain of a limited comic palette. Malapropisms and faux-dim misunderstandings only work within a more varied context.

Diane Morgan, who plays Cunk, is an inherently funny performer; her delivery and facial expressions are wonderful. She deserves better.  

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?

TV Review: THE BUTTON + HOME FROM HOME + WANNABE

This article was originally published in The Courier on 21st April 2018.

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

THE BUTTON: Friday, BBC One

HOME FROM HOME: Friday, BBC One

WANNABE: Friday, BBC One

In the competitive realm of TV game shows, the simplest formats reign supreme. The only exception to this rule was the inscrutable 3-2-1, which managed to survive for ten years despite no one ever knowing what the hell was going on.

The canny minds behind cult Dave hit Taskmaster know a good, simple idea when they find one, as they proved yet again with their new BBC bauble THE BUTTON.

A literal manifestation of fun for all the family, it involves five broods from around the UK undertaking various challenges at exactly the same time from the comfort of their own living rooms. The winning family earns a large cash prize, the losers get nothing.

They receive their instructions from a shiny plastic box crowned with a mushroom-shaped button. When the button – or rather, The Button; he’s a character voiced by comedian and series co-creator Alex Horne - turns red they must spring into action. Once they’ve completed the round, they press The Button again. The quickest family to do so wins.

That’s all there is to it, but it makes for cheerful, undemanding viewing.

Challenges in the first episode included building a free-standing tower from cans, books and pillows that was taller than the tallest person in the household (this led to the depressing spectacle of one contestant shrieking, “We don’t have any books!”), bouncing a ping pong ball into a cup, reciting the entire alphabet backwards without saying any of the vowels, and stuffing a mound of huge inflatables into their homes.

This harmless bit of fun benefits from a refreshing lack of cynicism. Horne never mocks the contestants, and even when they get to watch and sometimes laugh at their rivals in action, it’s all done in a spirit of friendly competition.

Pre-watershed game shows are notoriously hard to get right – the grim animatronic spectre of Don’t Scare The Hare still looms large – but the BBC have probably got a hit on their hands here. You can guarantee that children up and down the land will be urging their parents to apply.

It will also lead inevitably to the TV-eating-itself weirdness of the families from Gogglebox watching the families from The Button. We’re through the looking glass, people.

BBC One’s new Friday night schedule continued with a pair of debuting sitcoms. The first, HOME FROM HOME is a class-based comedy set in a Lake District holiday park.

The presence of Johnny Vegas suggests that it might have some bite and bitter pathos. It doesn’t. It’s a gentle gust of nothing in particular. Despite offering Vegas another opportunity to riff on his lovable sad-sack persona, the mild scripts by Coronation Street writers Simon Crowther and Chris Fewtrell are beneath him.

The supporting cast, which includes Emilia Fox as a snooty neighbour and Susan Calman as a conspiracy theorist, also do what they can, but Home From Home is a featherweight waste of their talents. It’s means no harm, but it doesn’t raise so much as a titter or indulgent smile. Still, lovely scenery.

It’s slightly better than WANNABE, however, which follows a selfish, deluded and bitter ex-member of a forgotten girl band who decides to make an unbidden comeback.

Although competently performed by Nicholas ‘Nathan Barley’ Burns and co-writer Lily Brazier, this mean-spirited confection leans far too heavily on Gervais-esque tics and his worn-out themes. It’s the pointless David Brent film starring a middle-class mum. No one needs this.

TV Review: THE CITY & THE CITY + KISS ME FIRST

This article was originally published in The Courier on 7th April 2018.

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

THE CITY & THE CITY: Friday, BBC Two

KISS ME FIRST: Monday, Channel 4

If you’ve ever wondered what a cross between Blade Runner and DCI Banks might look like, then look no further than THE CITY & THE CITY, a four-part adaptation of the weird fiction novel by fantasy author China Mieville.

Reeking of cheap cigars and pound shop leather, a hirsute David Morrissey stars as extreme crime specialist Inspector Borlu from the fictional European city of Beszel. This dystopian police state occupies the same geographical space as the affluent city of Ul Qoma, but they’re divided by a sort of temporal wall which must never be breached. Citizens are trained from birth to automatically ignore – or un-see – everything in their neighbouring city.

Episode one did a halfway decent job of building this imaginative world, but it was so preoccupied with establishing the central concept it forgot to introduce a compelling storyline.

I’m all in favour of television that demands our undivided attention, and The City & The City deserves some credit for refusing to explain itself in instantly digestible terms, but once you’ve got to grips with its overarching thrust, all you’re left with is a semi-parodic police procedural where ideas and surface style take precedence over emotional depth. There’s a gaping hole where its heart should be.

The retro-futurist art direction is undeniably impressive. Beszel, a blatant avatar for East Berlin and Brexit Britain, is steeped in off-kilter Cold War iconography and analogue grime. It’s been brought to life with careful attention to detail. If only they’d spent as much time on everything else, the stuff that really matters.

Bring on your sombre socio-political allegory by all means – when living in an urban climate of fear and paranoia, human beings tend to employ wilful ignorance as a selfish survival mechanism – but don’t forget to say something more substantial than “Hmm, do you see?!”

Judging The City & The City on the basis of one episode is difficult, and perhaps that’s testament to its lack of compromise. It’s an ambitious piece of sci-fi, a bluntly allegorical statement about the far-reaching perils of ignoring the societal injustice that exists all around us, but so far I’m finding it difficult to care about the characters and their plight.

I haven’t read the novel, it possibly has more depth. This adaptation may well reveal those depths as it unfolds, but first impressions count. I don’t think I can summon the willpower to withstand three more hours of a standard-issue troubled cop with a standard-issue dead (or possibly missing) love interest moping his way through an uninviting conspiracy thriller.

Another adaptation of a science-fiction novel, KISS ME FIRST is more arresting than The City & The City. The latter is waterlogged with arch, self-conscious loftiness, whereas the former – so far at least – explores its theme of post-adolescent alienation with a relatively subtler touch.

Judiciously scheduled to coincide with the release of Spielberg’s nominally similar Ready Player One, it focuses on Leila, a shy, sheltered, lonely young woman who only feels alive when she’s immersed in a virtual reality video game.

One day she unwittingly gains access to a secret off-map section of this world, where she meets a mysterious gang of similarly dysfunctional (if unrealistically good-looking) outcasts who’ve been monitoring her from afar. Gradually, their fantasy selves intersect with real life to intriguing and sinister effect.

Unlike episode one of The City & The City, this intriguing drama appears to have some soul. The photo-realistic computer-generated scenes are more than mere exercises in gimmicky style, they’re seamlessly blended and integral to the plot.   

This is, potentially, a thoughtful and timely series about the quadruple-edged benefits of building an online community of remote access friends; loneliness, 21^st century style.

It’s been adapted by Bryan Elsley, co-creator of risible youth drama Skins, so I’ve lowered my expectations accordingly. Everyone deserves a second chance, however. I hope it lives up to its promise.

TV Review: COME HOME + INDIAN SUMMER SCHOOL

This article was originally published in The Courier on 31st March 2018.

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

COME HOME: Tuesday, BBC One

INDIAN SUMMER SCHOOL: Thursday, Channel 4

Society, with its infinite capacity for fairness and equality, has always decreed that a woman who leaves her family is guilty of a worse crime than a man who does the same.

Regardless of her personal circumstances, a mother is expected to feather the nest at all costs. Life, as all non-idiots know, is more complicated than that. The quietly devastating drama COME HOME confronts this stigma, this uncomfortably emotive issue, with commendable nuance and compassion.

Christopher Eccleston and Paula Malcomson star as Greg and Marie, a working-class couple with three children. One day, Marie walks out on them. They’re stunned and heartbroken. Why did she leave? Marie can only tell Greg that she felt suffocated, which only adds to his forlorn confusion. She didn’t leave him for someone else, she now lives alone in a house nearby.

Greg is still in love with her. As far as he’s concerned, her actions are a mystifying betrayal. She’s abandoned him and his beloved children. It’s not as black and white as that, of course. We’ll find out more about Marie’s motives as the series unfolds.

Episode one was told from Greg’s perspective, as he struggled to rebuild his life eleven months after Marie’s departure. A burgeoning romance with a work acquaintance spiralled out of control when her abusive ex-partner bulldozered into their lives. Behind her vivacious exterior, Greg’s new girlfriend is an emotionally scarred soul who fails to bond with his understandably sceptical children. She’s a vulnerable, tragic figure.

Eccleston, mercifully back in his serious drama comfort zone after an embarrassing “funny granddad” detour in The A Word, delivers a painfully raw performance as a man drowning in heartbreak and loneliness. His Belfast accent (Come Home was made with support from BBC Northern Ireland) is utterly convincing, it never distracts.

James Nesbitt must be spitting feathers, Eccleston has effortlessly stolen his troubled Irish everyman shoes.

The desperately sad, discomfiting scene in which Greg begged Marie to come home was beautifully played by Eccleston and Malcomson. We didn’t see much of her last week, but in later episodes Malcomson handles her difficult and complex role faultlessly. She’s superb.

Writer Danny Brocklehurst is a protégé of Jimmy McGovern, and it shows. Like McGovern, he spins engrossing gut-punching yarns populated by flawed characters unravelling in a jagged moral maze.

This is a drama we can all relate to in one way or another. We’ve all struggled to come to terms with the end of a relationship. We’ve all suffered from loss and regret. We’ve all, like Greg, listened to Lou Reed’s aching Pale Blue Eyes, or something similar, in the empty dead of night.

As hifalutin as this sounds, Come Home is a wise and moving meditation on the fragile mess of the human condition. It’s produced by RED, the company behind the similarly outstanding Happy Valley. If they keep this up, they’ll have to build a fortified annex for their BAFTA storage.

In the new documentary series INDIAN SUMMER SCHOOL, five underperforming British schoolboys volunteer to take their failed GCSE exams again in India’s Doon School, one of the world’s most prestigious seats of learning.

It’s a sympathetic culture clash experiment, refreshingly free of editorial judgement, about undisciplined yet decent kids dealing with a strange new world of rigid conformity. These boys genuinely want to improve their prospects, even if at the moment they’re emotionally unqualified to do so. I hope the experience pays off for them.