Reckoning Time

On December 30, 2023 By tvforkeepsIn Boiling Point, Caroline Aherne, Doctor Who, French and Saunders, Russell T.Davies, The Guardian, The Long Shadow, The Reckoning, Time, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Yet again, I have left too long between blogs, so this one will serve to catch up with (some of) the TV I have watched since my last blog on the subject and complete the shortlist for my 2023 best 10 before the end of the year.

The autumn brought four dramas of significance for consideration. By a strange coincidence, Monday nights at 9pm saw simultaneous transmissions of difficult dramatisations of the crimes of two British predatory monsters of the 1970s. BBC1 had its long-awaited dramatic confrontation with the legacy of the Jimmy Savile scandal in the form of the 4-part The Reckoning. I guess this was something the Corporation felt it had to do, but I suspect many viewers tuned in to see how they negotiated the multiple pitfalls the project entailed rather than to learn anything new about the Savile scandal itself. I certainly did and that was enough to keep me watching, though ultimately I wondered what it had achieved beyond the exorcism of collective guilt. The makers clearly were desperate to avoid “humanising” Savile in any way at all and achieved that end, though at the expense of giving Steve Coogan anything really interesting to work with. His performance was excellent in the circumstances, but ultimately was as much an impression as it was acting, which is probably the reason he was chosen to do it.

Over on ITV, the seven-part The Long Shadow revisited the crimes of the Yorkshire Ripper and solved the problem of not humanising Peter Sutcliffe by barely showing him at all. Instead, he was an unseen menace and the drama concentrated on the effect of his monstrous crimes on his victims, their families and the few who survived his attacks, and on the multiple failures of the police investigation, especially how DCS George Oldfield (David Morrisey) became so obsessed with the hoax tape that vital leads which could have caught the murderer earlier were not followed up. As a result, the series worked extremely well in terms of dramatic tension and period reconstruction and negotiated the potential pitfalls of its subject matter deftly. The recreation of the feel of the 1970s was one of the most impressive I have seen in a drama and the cast was uniformly excellent. It makes my shortlist, but The Reckoning doesn’t.

Two years ago, Stephen Graham starred in Jimmy McGovern’s Time (BBC1) and the film Boiling Point. This year, he was back in the four-part TV continuation of Boiling Point, while Time was back for a second season, though this time without him. One of the key features of the film of Boiling Point was that it was shot in one continuous take, which gave it a breathless intensity. Director Philip Barantini manged to recreate that intensity for the series, though with some conventional editing this time. We also saw the characters outside the confines of the restaurant they work at and their storylines piled personal pressures on all of them to add to that of the workplace. It was mostly pretty hectic, though with some occasional still moments for welcome contrast. The hour-long episodes simply flew by, which is always a good sign, and the cast was uniformly top notch, led by Vinette Robinson, with a reduced but telling presence from Graham and a welcome appearance from Cathy Tyson.

The second season of Time was written by McGovern and Helen Black and set in a women’s prison. With three main characters, each with their own complex storyline, it didn’t have quite the same impact as the first season, but was still a compelling piece of work. Ultimately, it didn’t quite have enough to make my shortlist, but Boiling Point does.

More recently I have caught up with some favourites on streaming services, most notably the final series of Top Boy, which was excellent and provided a fitting finale to an outstanding series, though without improving on what had gone before, and the fifth series of Fargo, which represents a return to previous form after the disappointment of season four, though at the time of writing the series remains unfinished, so neither qualifies for my shortlist.

The return of Doctor Who is always interesting, especially so this time with the return of David Tennant and Catherine Tate, the best Doctor/companion combination of the modern era, for three specials as an interim between the Whittaker and Gatwa eras, a development presumably designed by returning showrunner Russell T. Davies to keep the traditional fan base on board in a time of radical change for the show. The third special ended not with the expected regeneration scene, but the new twist of a “bi-generation” which left both the old and new doctor in simultaneous existence and, crucially, both with their own TARDIS. Although Tennant’s doctor was shown “in retirement” critics were not slow to wonder aloud if this device was introduced to give the option of bringing him back (again!) if Gatwa’s incarnation is not a success. I have a different concern about it: I worry that it will be a future plot device to get the Doctor out of a seemingly impossible situation by having an earlier one arrive in his/her/their own TARDIS in the nick of time. This could get very tiresome, much as the “I went back in time and made an adjustment” get-out did. Incidentally, have you noticed how often companions fret about their families waiting for them back home, but the Doctor never says “don’t worry, we’ll be going back to precisely the time when you left them when this adventure is over”. Ncuti Gatwa’s first full episode was a bit silly, especially the musical number, but it was a Christmas Day special, so not something by which the new era should be judged.

The return of the Doctor with Davies in charge was marked by an Imagine special which did a thorough job of examining and assessing Davies’ highly impressive writing and producing career to date. Over Christmas, we got two more similar documentaries, both about significant female comic talents who emerged in the 1990s. On Christmas Day, BBC2 gave us a full evening devoted to the career of the late Caroline Aherne, the centrepiece of which was an Arena special on her life and work (illustrated either side by some brilliantly chosen examples of her best shows, mostly Christmas themed). The Arena itself perfectly encapsulated why she was so significant and so well-loved by all her associates, but was also frustratingly incomplete. There was no mention of her turbulent marriage to the rock musician Peter Hook (and she was, indeed, credited as Caroline Hook in the earliest episodes of The Mrs Merton Show). More frustratingly, there was also no mention of the single series of the sitcom Mrs Merton and Malcolm, which she created with Craig Cash. I regard this as one of the great “lost” comedies of British television. Time Out described it as “possibly the most disturbing show on British television” and the general response was one of misunderstanding and rejection. But whether you like it or not, there is no getting away from its significance to the Caroline Aherne story and its omission from consideration keeps the otherwise excellent Arena special off my shortlist.

The second special, on BBC1 the day after Boxing Day, was another Imagine in which Alan Yentob considered the careers of French and Saunders, both as a double act and in their individual projects. With an extended length, this was another thorough and enjoyable trawl though a wealth of outstanding material. Watching both specials gave me a great sense of the significance of the talents under considerations. Outstanding talent gets an Imagine special on BBC1. Genius gets an Arena special on BBC2.

And so back to my shortlist for the best of 2023. Having left it late to finish compiling my list I have been able to look, as I always do, at the major listings which appear at this time of the year and see where my own favourites feature. The most significant countdown is that produced by The Guardian, which reveals the top picks of their top 50 on a daily basis in the run-up to Christmas, with links to their original reviews. A number of my picks featured at various stages of the countdown, but my very favourite thing had not turned up when we got to the top three. I was pleased it would surely feature so high, maybe even at the top, but three, two and one were revealed and it was not there! Not in the top 50 at all! What had gone wrong? I revisited the Guardian’s original review, by Lucy Mangan, who had given it five stars and described it as “masterly and profoundly moving”. For comparison, I checked a couple of other picks on my shortlist, which had featured on the Guardian list at numbers 34 and 24 and followed the links to positive, but four star reviews from Mangan and Rebecca Nicholson. Time, which I considered above, made number 23 on the Guardian list, but again only got four stars from Mangan. So how does that work? Was the Guardian’s top 50 list written by AI with a faulty algorithm? I’ve lost all respect.

Anyway, my shortlist for 2023 now stands, barring any last-minute revelations, at 12 titles:

Happy Valley

His Dark Materials

The US and the Holocaust

Three Minutes – a Lengthening

Best Interests

There She Goes

The Piano

Colin From Accounts

Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland

Afterglow

The Long Shadow

Boiling Point

My top ten for 2023 will be revealed just before midnight on New Year’s Eve.

The BBC Blog

On November 24, 2022November 27, 2022 By tvforkeepsIn BBC, BBC Archive, BBC News, Doctor Who, Hugo Blick, Into the Waste Land, Proms, The EnglishLeave a comment

The BBC has been a massive part of my life. I worked for it for ten years and then closely with it for a further twenty-nine, but it already held a strong place in my affections before I joined it and has continued to do so in my retirement. Its output has dominated my lifetime’s TV viewing, both for professional reasons and through personal choice (65% of my list of favourite British TV dramas are BBC productions and 90% of my list of British sitcoms). Former BBC employees have often been highly critical of the Corporation, not ever through any sort of animosity, but because they know that it is capable of reaching (and setting) the highest standards and are disappointed if it ever falls short. As it celebrates its centenary (which is actually the centenary of the radio service as well as the organisation as a whole, but TV is my main concern here) I was certainly looking forward to seeing how it would mark the occasion, especially through the use of archival materials, but felt that the very best way of doing so would be to produce some great new landmarks to add to the list of 100 which my former BFI colleagues have compiled here.

And, happily, that is what it has done. In my last blog I expressed the opinion that Sherwood was the best British drama series for a decade. Well, that accolade only lasted about 6 months! I did not use the term “a decade” lightly but was specifically thinking back to the last series which I would place higher, which is Hugo Blick’s The Shadow Line (BBC, 2011), number 6 in my Top Ten British drama series (see blog, February 2021). And whose work has now taken over the title of “best drama series for a decade”? Why, none other than the same Hugo Blick, back with his best series since, er, The Shadow Line.

It seemed very odd that the BBC should produce a western – not exactly a genre for which it is well known – but it seems perfectly natural that Blick himself should essay the form. You could argue that many of the essential themes and elements of his previous series – the blurred line between good and evil, the nature of trust, the stunning vistas, the dramatic stand-offs and shoot-outs, the search for revenge and uncovering a truth – make them surrogate westerns. And in The English (BBC2 currently and i-Player) they are all there in their natural setting.

All the other Blick hallmarks are there, too: a convoluted plot with a number of mysteries at its heart; characters coming to terms with their past and their destiny; the reflective dialogue scenes, interspersed with dramatic set-pieces; a female lead character; memorable supporting characters performed by outstanding actors (with a couple of juicy parts here for Blick stalwarts Stephen Rea and Rafe Spall); an ambiguous narrative which makes you both think and feel at once. It is also a great homage to the western genre, with numerous visual references to the classics, and the ending was perfect in showing how, as Stephen Rea’s sheriff predicts, the myth of the west (which those classics represent) replaced whatever may have been “the truth”. I was particularly delighted with the use of footage from the BFI’s Mitchell and Kenyon collection to make that point. Of course, it goes straight onto my shortlist and will be in my end-of-year top ten (well, I have already said Sherwood will be there, so how could it not be?).

One BBC drama which was certainly produced with the centenary in mind was the Doctor Who special The Power of the Doctor (BBC1), which marked the end of the Chibnall/Whittaker era and featured a number of previous incarnations of the Doctor, as well as his favourite adversaries. It was enjoyable, if a bit of a mish-mash, but was, of course, most memorable for the surprise regeneration of the Doctor as David Tennant. This re-unites him (for a few specials at least) with Russell T.Davies and one can’t help but feel that Davies thought a direct transition from the first female Doctor to the first black one would be too much for the more “traditional” fanbase and is thus keeping their loyalty by bringing back a favourite first. The revelation that we are getting an old doctor back came at just before 9pm on Sunday 23^rd October. At almost precisely the same time, the BBC News app notification sounded on my i-phone to inform me that we wouldn’t be getting an old Prime Minister back, Boris Johnson having just pulled out of the contest for Tory leader, which I guess is what you call a win-win situation.

Turning to documentaries about the centenary and going back to my own time at the BBC, when I was the TV Archive Selector in the 1980s, I well remember getting regular visits from the legendary war correspondent Frank Gillard, who had been charged, in his retirement, by the Corporation with conducting confidential interviews with key BBC personnel and others, for use at an unspecified future date, but certainly with the centenary firmly in mind. He would pull up outside the South Block of the BBC Film and Videotape Library in Windmill Road, Brentford and together we would unload cans of 16mm film from the back of his Vauxhall estate and take them to “the cage”, a lockable and highly restricted cell in the safety film vault where the naughty programmes which nobody was allowed to see, like Yesterday’s Men, Dance of the Seven Veils or Brimstone and Treacle, were kept. The interviewees had been told that their contributions would not be allowed to be seen or used until after their deaths, in order that they should feel free to speak candidly. Several of them had already been used for documentaries about aspects of broadcasting history and I was, of course, keen to see how they would feature in the centenary programmes.

A number of the interviews turned up in John Bridcut’s How the BBC Began (BBC2), a two-part, three-hour survey of the Corporation’s first fifty years, presented thematically rather than chronologically. Bridcut had clearly been working on the documentary for some time and had himself conducted interviews with many of the key people who were still alive (though a lot of them, sadly, no more). As with his music documentaries, his approach to his subjects is empathetic rather than interrogative and he sometimes likes to film them listening to or watching archival recordings. As a result, the documentary was impressionistic rather than comprehensive, but contained plenty of interesting and enjoyable material.

For a more critical approach we would have to go back to David Dimbleby’s three-part Days That Shook the BBC (BBC2, August), though commentators were quick to point out that, being steeped in the culture of the BBC through both his own and his father’s careers, he was not necessarily the impartial observer he claimed to be. Where the Bridcut documentary focussed on the BBC’s first 50 years, Dimbleby’s was almost entirely concerned with the more recent 50, so together they form a diptych and it is little surprise that the former was about pioneering and innovation while the latter considered controversy and conflict.

Dimbleby, in the best BBC tradition, turned out to be a detached observer of the various issues he considered and was at times a very harsh critic, especially over the BBC’s handling of the Jimmy Savile case, both in terms of how he was allowed to get away with his crimes and how they were (or, more importantly, were not) reported after his death. This was truly a case of the disappointment at the failure to maintain the highest standards which I mentioned above and, coming from a BBC insider, carried more weight than the entirety of the Netflix series Jimmy Savile – a British Horror Story from earlier in the year, which was a good explanation of the phenomenon for an international audience, but not much more.

Among those interviewed by Dimbleby for his series was Emily Maitlis, who, along with the likes of Andrew Marr and Jon Sopel, left the BBC this year to pursue their own journalistic projects which are more akin to newspaper journalism in terms of the scope it gives them for expression of opinion. Nothing wrong with that at all and they are all doing good work, largely thanks to their BBC training. What I would reject though is the criticism of the BBC, whether implicit or, in Maitlis’ case, openly stated, over questions of “balance”, “impartiality” or, the perjorative phrase most commonly used nowadays, “false equivalence”. In a time when there is so much digital manipulation of opinion, we need a strong example of unbiased news coverage more than ever and that is what the BBC is specifically and statutorily there to provide. It may not always get to “the truth” of an issue but it is vital that it exists. This was brought home to me by the cartoon below, which I found on social media.

It is funny and makes a great point, but, thinking further about it, I came to the conclusion that “the idiots” must be given a say. If not, they will not be short of platforms for their ideas and will be able to say, with justification, that they have been censored by the mainstream media, which will give them further strength. Better to acknowledge their existence and challenge them openly. In a year which has seen so much political turmoil, I think BBC News has provided a true public service.

Still with documentary, the beginning of the BBC was not the only moment of great cultural significance in 1922, which also saw the publication of the “greatest poem of the 20^thcentury”, T.S.Eliot’s The Waste Land (a personal favourite, though I actually think Prufrock is even better), so it was highly fitting that this other centenary should be marked under the banner of the BBC’s most influential arts series, Arena. And a terrific piece Into the Waste Land (BBC2) was – given plenty of time for an in-depth consideration of the poem’s complexity, with recently discovered letters throwing new light on its meaning, interviews with erudite academic talking heads and an archival recording of the man himself reading his own words. Another documentary for the shortlist.

But it has not just been the programmes specially prepared for the occasion which have resonated in this BBC centenary year. It has sometimes seemed that events have conspired to emphasise the Corporation’s history and its centrality to our culture and our national life. One such was that warm summer night in late June when Paul McCartney took to the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury. Just turned 80, he put on a stunning show featuring his music from the past six decades. It was BBC history, but only by nostalgic association – and, of course, it was brought to us by the BBC.

If I had to name just one thing which the BBC does, which I regard as the most essential and the most praiseworthy, I think I would have to say The Proms. The Corporation has run this fantastic music festival, a true national institution, since 1927, broadcasting all the concerts on radio and many on television, and its own orchestras feature prominently. This year saw the return of a full Proms programme after the interruptions of the pandemic years and the crowds flocked back. Tickets for the best concerts were hard to get, but I secured one for John Eliot Gardiner’s performance of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis on September 7^th. It was superb and I was delighted to have been present at the festival in BBC centenary year and made a mental note to watch the Last Night on the coming Saturday. But the next day, something happened which ended the season early and which, more than anything else, provided the historic resonance I mentioned above.

The BBC’s hundred-year history has been closely associated with the monarchy. It was the Queen’s coronation in 1953 (the year I was born), which helped establish the BBC television service as a central part of national life and the symbiosis continued throughout her long reign. Her death on September 8^th and the commemorative events of the subsequent weeks, as well as the accession of the new King, saw the BBC at its best. True, they had been preparing for it for a long time, but nevertheless there were important choices to be made about the extent and tone of the coverage and they got it pretty much spot-on. The day of her funeral was impeccably observed, the coverage was superb and the presence of the ageing David Dimbleby, who has been so closely connected with so many royal occasions, as commentator for the final ceremony at Windsor, was perfect. It truly felt like the end-of-an-era moment which it was. Certainly the TV broadcast of the year.

And, of course, the occasion demanded the extensive use of archive material from the entire history of the BBC, given that the Queen had been born in 1926. Together with the documentaries and the repeats of classic dramas which I mentioned in my previous blog, as well as the re-positioning of BBC4 as an archive channel, this meant that the archive has been utilised this year more than ever before. It is also now more accessible and appreciated than it has ever been, as you can judge from this Guardian piece. I have always been proud of the small contribution I made towards the creation of the BBC Archive and pieces like this, as well as the centenary celebrations, have only served to reinforce that feeling. The BBC may be facing an uncertain future, but its past is secure.

Time for a Break?

On March 28, 2020 By tvforkeepsIn Avenue 5, call the midwife, curb your enthusiasm, Doctor Who, Home, Inside Number 9, question time, Star Trek Picard, strictly come dancing, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Well, it’s been a while since my last blog and I’m now in self-isolation with my media and I haven’t yet begun my shortlist for 2020, but none of those things is what the title of this blog refers to. What I want to address is the seemingly endless stream of returning series which struggle hard to justify their continuing existing, as well as a few which have come back refreshed after some time away.

Let’s start with Doctor Who (BBC One). After the first three episodes of the latest series, I was about to give up on it. The storylines were getting repetitive and well trusted ways of getting out of problems, like going back in time and changing things were being deployed. I had nothing against Jodie Whitaker’s doctor, but talk of who would come after her was already beginning to surface – it seems that any actor in this role needs to indicate they are leaving only just after they start, probably as a way of insuring that they are still considered for other roles. Indeed, I did give up watching, only to be lured back by the revelation about another Doctor and I did find the concluding Cybermen episodes highly engaging.

But the whole experience did prompt me to wonder if it may be time for the show to take another lengthy break and, in turn, to think about which other long-running (and specifically BBC) programmes this may apply to. In terms of Doctor Who, I’m not sure it needs to be away for as long as it was during the 1989-2005 hiatus, but that was a very fortunate circumstance as it gave people who were essentially fans of the show the time to establish themselves as TV writers and to re-invent the show as something fresh and vital. But that is viewing it with hindsight and I’m far from sure whether such a repeat scenario could be deliberately attempted, but it is certainly worth considering calling a halt after Whitaker’s third (and probably final) season. I do also worry that the idea that there may be so many other “unknown” Doctors around will be simply become over-used as another fallback plot device in future.

Part of the function of the BBC is to represent the nation to itself and continuity is an important aspect to this. Certain calendar appointments seem set for as long as the Corporation exists and are part of our national fabric: Trooping the Colour, the Royal British Legion Festival of Remembrance, The Last Night of the Proms, Carols from Kings, Jools Holland’s Hootenanny. I’ve long thought that they could play tapes from earlier years for any of these and nobody would notice. Being a devotee of the Proms, I would probably spot the wrong Last Night, but I honestly don’t think I would be able to do so in the other cases.

Regularly returning series also give us a feeling of comfort and security as the seasons change and underpin national togetherness (though much less now than they did when there were fewer channels and platforms) and the early months of the new year has seen the return of a number of overly familiar series. Soap operas are designed to be there forever as an accompaniment to (and a distraction from) our own lives – the plot possibilities are very wide, but their inevitable repetition simply mirrors the repetitiveness of life itself. Returning series, however, need constant refreshment and, if they become too repetitive, they risk overstaying their welcome or, even worse if they are dramas, becoming soap operas. They also take up valuable broadcast slots which could be occupied by more innovative material, which is still a major consideration for a public service broadcaster.

So, the BBC needs to be aware of what is becoming stale and throw it out – though not necessarily for ever. Here are my top current candidates for the axe:

Strictly Come Dancing: It has become something of a mantra for the BBC, especially in times when its function and funding model are challenged, to point to Strictly as a great example of how a public service broadcaster can innovate in the area of popular entertainment formats. And, of course, the argument is absolutely correct – but unfortunately, it is now almost two decades out of date. Like all great successes, it has just gone on for far too long and, by continuing to occupy key Saturday and Sunday night slots, is actually denying the possibility of the next great entertainment innovation emerging.

Casualty/Call the Midwife (for which read any one of the eternally returning familiars like Silent Witness, Last Tango in Halifax etc etc). Casualty long since became a regular returning series and morphed into a full-blown soap. Of all the current crop, Call the Midwife, despite its historic setting, seems the most likely to follow suit. Time to call a halt before it does.

Question Time – formerly a vital part of our democratic process, it became, especially during Brexit, a shouting match with virtually no intellectual debate at all. This was because the BBC required a politically balanced audience as well as panel and the only way to get participants was from party organisations themselves, who packed it with loyal claques. As a result, all debate was reduced to slogans, cheered by half the audience and booed by the other half. It was unwatchable and was heading for oblivion until coronavirus arrived, which both got rid of the audience and seemed to impose a more restrained approach on the panellists, who actually began to think about their answers. How it responds when this crisis is over will be key. Any attempt to return to the old ways should be resisted and, if it does, then it should go.

Of course, it’s not just the BBC. Cold Feet was back on ITV – I tuned into new series just in case (or out of habit). I had guessed the next line twice before the first ad break. When that happens, it means you have got so far inside the writer’s head that he cannot come up with anything new to surprise you – familiarity has well and truly bred contempt. Having already taken a break between 2003 and 2016 and returned refreshed, it looks like time is now up.

This problem applies to genres, as well. Deadwood Fell didn’t look like a drama which should be on Channel 4 on a Friday night. It had ITV on a Monday written all over it and had confirmed it within the first half hour. Spotting what to give up early has become an essential survival trick in the overstuffed world of modern TV drama. If the broadcasters won’t give you a break, you just have to take one for yourself.

So, have I actually seen anything so far this year, now three months old, which I have liked? Is there anything yet on the shortlist?

Well, there is certainly one emphatic “yes” in answer to that question and, appropriately enough, it is something returning triumphantly after a substantial layoff, much as Doctor Who did in 2005. It is also from the “other” most famous TV sci-fi franchise. Star Trek: Picard, just finished on Amazon, was a brilliant re-boot of The Next Generation, presented as a ten-part story (in other words, like an extended movie rather than the classic series format). Production values matched the latest big-budget sci-fi potential, while the story gripped from first to last and the performances were impeccable. Nostalgia was given its space but did not get in the way of the developing narrative. And, philosophically, it had much more to say about artificial intelligence and humanity than any number of seasons of Westworld. The final scene between Picard and Data was just beautiful.

Also returning to its very best after a few years off has been Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm (Sky Comedy) – always a major favourite of mine (indeed, my number 1 US sitcom on the list I made a few months back), this season, its 10^th, has seen a return to the basics which made it so in the first place. Which, I guess, doesn’t really make it qualify for shortlist status, but does mean I have had a fantastic number of laughs out of it.

Also, as always, worth mentioning is Inside no 9 (BBC2), back for its fifth series, though not quite as impactfully as it was the same time last year with its fourth. It seems curmudgeonly to criticise something which delivers so regularly, and there were three Number 9 classics in this year’s bunch (The Referee’s a Wanker, Love’s Great Adventure and Thinking Out Loud) but, having included it in last year’s top ten, it would have had to improve on that season (almost impossible) to get in again this year.

Home (Channel 4), on the other hand, was only on its second season and impressed me enough to warrant a shortlist place. The genius of Rufus Jones’ sitcom is that the obvious central situation – the travails of a Syrian asylum-seeker in Britain – does not overwhelm the narrative. Indeed, in this season it became just a part of a traditional-seeming family sitcom, in which every character is rounded and has an engaging story. It can be very moving, but also devastatingly funny, and moves effortlessly beween those two states.

Anything else? Well, the Trip to Greece (Sky One) has been a predictably enjoyable continuation of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon’s jaunts. Armando Iannucci’s Avenue 5 (Sky Atlantic) is clever and impressively made, but the laughs come at a rate of about two per episode and it really should have been a movie rather than a series.

OK, I think that brings me up-to-date. Just two for the shortlist in the first quarter of the year! Good grief, how I miss football!

Loose Ends

On December 9, 2018February 3, 2019 By tvforkeepsIn Black Earth Rising, Doctor Who, Homecoming, Inside Number 9, Killing Eve, Uncategorized, Vic & Bob's Big Night Out, Wanderlust2 Comments

Unknown

OK, the tree is up, presents are starting to accumulate underneath it and Hanna is getting excited. In other news, the rush of publication of advance editions of Radio Times that characterises early December means that we now know what will be on for the rest of this year. So, now is a good time to take stock of where I am with my shortlist for the best of 2018, to revisit the titles I mentioned in my blog of 17^thSeptember and to add a couple of things that have grabbed my attention in recent weeks. I can then enjoy reading all the other “best of year” lists and pay attention to the most promising upcoming highlights before settling on my own final top ten just before the year ends.

Back in September, I had six promising drama series on the go at the same time and expected a couple of them to make my shortlist. That happened, but it didn’t entirely turn out as I expected. To deal with them in reverse order, as it were, I gave up on Trust Unknown-2 after four episodes – after a very promising start, it seemed to be drawing the story out to intolerable lengths: maybe I’ll give the Ridley Scott movie a go instead. Bodyguard gripped to the end but was ultimately just too improbable and manipulative for my taste (and how was the dead man’s button ever a problem when his hand was taped to the device?). No Offence was its usual wonderful self, but I don’t think the third season represented any kind of advance on the previous two, so it doesn’t make it to the shortlist for that reason.

Which leaves two titles I was expecting to make the shortlist and one I wasn’t. I certainly did expect to be shortlisting Killing Eve on the evidence of its opening episodes – it was sharp, witty and innovative. Unfortunately, Phoebe Waller-Bridge did not write it all and Unknown the standard of some of the later episodes did not reach her level. Also, it settled into a regular, episodic and repetitive game of cat-and-mouse, which would have been fine if it had come up with a satisfactory ending but leaving things open for a second season was precisely not what I wanted (in that respect it reminded me of The Fall). I won’t be following it further.

I was also expecting Hugo Blick’s Black Earth Rising to make my shortlist and it does so, though not without a few reservations. In comparison to his previous series which I loved, it seemed short on the explosive set-pieces and visual elan I was expecting, though Unknown maybe that is just because his style is established and no longer such a revelation. Nevertheless, it still resonates with me and definitely needs to be revisited. It was also remarkable for treating a period of recent African history at length and with little concession to western ignorance, while at the same time providing a lot of great roles to black acting talent.

On the other hand, I had not expected Wanderlust to end up on my list, but the fifth episode, an extended therapy session for the main character, played by Toni Collette, Unknown-3 shifted it from an interesting and engaging comedy-drama about sex and relationships to something with considerably more depth, so it is there. Once Bodyguard was over, I carried on watching whatever drama tuned up in the BBC1 Sunday night 21.00 slot – The Cry was highly involving and well-constructed over 4 episodes, but The Little Drummer Girl fell between two stools of Le Carre adaptations, with neither the Bond-ish glamour of The Night Manager or the claustrophobic intensity of the Smiley series, and I gave up after two episodes (I like to think I’m getting good at spotting the duds early and subsequent feedback seems to confirm a wise choice in this case).

Also, in my September blog, I noted the imminent arrival of the exciting new phase in the Doctor Who saga. I have certainly enjoyed the beginning of the Chibnall/Whittaker era – the “team” of assistants works very well and the introduction of a female doctor has been successful simply by not appearing particularly revolutionary. Actually, the change of gender of the doctor is an even more modern development than it would have been five years ago. Basically, the Doctor is now transgender (Whittaker’s Doctor is constantly saying “when I was a man”) and it has been the more recent advances in transgender rights, rather than feminism, which has paved the way for this change and Unknown-2 made it so seamless. Even the move to Sunday night has worked better than I predicted, but I still prefer stories which take more than one episode and miss both the cliff-hangers and the pre-credit sequences, which seem to have been dispensed with. The most significant thing about Chibnall’s approach for me, though, is how it looks back to Sydney Newman’s original 1963 conception of the series as a vehicle for historical education (before Verity Lambert introduced the Daleks in the second story and set it firmly on the sci-fi path). In particular, the episode about Rosa Parks has to be the purest manifestation of Newman’s original vision the series has achieved in its 55-year history. The episode did have sci-fi elements, including an agent sent from the future to alter history, but programmed not to kill (nods to both Terminator 1 and 2 there!), but it did not flinch from a fine examination of the historical context of the civil rights movement, which was a great lesson for the character of Ryan as well as the young Doctor Who audience of today. I am thus including that particular episode in my shortlist for the best of the year.

Another single episode which very much caught my imagination was the brilliant Inside No 9 Halloween live special. I wasn’t taken in, as many were, by the “loss of sound”, but wrongly assumed it was a way of deliberately withholding information vital for the story. Of course, the story itself turned out to be a red herring, but there is no second-guessing Pemberton and Shearsmith. The 4^thseason, shown in January, is already on my shortlist, so the special only serves to cement its place.

Meanwhile, on Amazon, I have just finished watching Homecoming, which is superb. It is based on a podcast and boasts an excellent cast, well-led by Julia Roberts, but it is the direction by Sam Esmail (creator of Mr Robot) which makes it stand out. It is a mystery thriller with a Hitchcockian edge, set in a sinister present-day rehabilitation facility and a future timeline in which the Julia Roberts’ character, Heidi Bergman, cannot recall Unknown what had happened and the crisis point is approached gradually from both directions. The future scenes are shot in a restrictive, claustrophobic frame, while the full-frame scenes include split screen sequences and, together, the shooting styles represent a very clever way of advancing the narrative. The series contains what has to be my “TV moment of the year” (big spoiler alert here, if you haven’t seen it!): at the moment when the future Heidi realises the truth of what happened the restricted screen expands into full widescreen – which sounds trite when I write about it but is a stunning effect when you watch it. The ending of Homecoming is also very satisfying but is not the ending – you have to sit through the entire and lengthy end credits (which I always do) to get to an extra scene which sets up a second season. Very neat! (makers of Killing Eve etc. take note!). It’s the best thing on Amazon since…well, since Mr Robot, and a must for the shortlist.

I have rarely blogged about news – mainly because I take my time composing these pieces, whereas news blogging needs to be immediate, for obvious reasons. However, I would like to add some news to my shortlist. Channel 4 News has had a particularly good year and the standout story was the full week of headline grabbing and headline making investigative reports into the Cambridge Analytica sandal, back in March. Great undercover reporting and excellent follow-up pieces leading each night’s bulletin.

Unknown-1

So, to recap, I now have a shortlist of 17 for the best of 2018: Inside No 9, Kiri, Save Me, Mum, Damned, Homeland, The Funeral Murders, Channel 4 News coverage of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, A Very English Scandal, Mother’s Day, American Vandal 2, 22 July, There She Goes, Black Earth Rising, Wanderlust, Doctor Who: Rosa and Homecoming. It would be neat to get the shortlist up to 20, from which to choose my top 10 before the end of the year, but looking through all those copies of Radio Times, I’m not sure that will happen. There is a new Jimmy McGovern on tonight, though, and you never can tell with Christmas schedules. I also have a few things “on the go” at the moment, including Kidding (Sky Atlantic), The Sinner and Vic & Bob’s Big Night Out (both BBC4 – and, yes, I know The Sinner is on Netflix, but I’m watching it on BBC4). I also realise that the last mentioned is a throwback to the show which introduced Reeves and Mortimer to TV almost 30 years ago, so I feel I can’t in all good conscience include it on my shortlist for 2018, but its simple stupidity makes me cry uncontrollably with laughter, so I may just have to.

images

Anyway, have a Happy Christmas everybody, enjoy loads of great viewing and I’ll be back before the year is through.

A Dramatic Improvement

On September 17, 2018 By tvforkeepsIn Black Earth Rising, Bodyguard, Doctor Who, Hang Ups, Hugo Blick, Killing Eve, Mother's Day, No Offence, television drama, Trust, Wanderlust1 Comment

Unknown

Well, I’ve been banging on in my last few blogs about the lack of decent TV, especially drama, during the summer, and that situation has now been reversed in such a radical way that I am struggling to keep up with all the new-season series that have attracted my interest. At the moment, there is a drama series I am watching on broadcast TV every night of the week except Friday (a night traditionally reserved for comedy anyway), and the things I am anticipating on streaming platforms are still yet to arrive (I’m particularly looking forward to American Vandal 2 on Netflix). There’s even been some decent comedy around, too.

But before the deluge of series arrived, there was that rarity, a single drama of great note which, in earlier days, would have been part of a strand like Play for Today or Screen Two, but nowadays is fitted into a vacant 9 o’clock slot as a filler until a series come along to take that position. Mother’s Day (BBC2) looked back 25 years at the public and personal fallout from the IRA bombing of Warrington, in which two boys died, but also looked back to a simpler style of TV drama – commitment to veracity and social values; Unknown-5 unfussy visuals; characters whose opinions and motivations evolve gradually; subtle yet powerful acting performances (Anna Maxwell-Martin, Daniel Mays, Vicky McClure). It ensured that all voices from the era of the Troubles were heard and understood, much as the Vanessa Engle documentary I highlighted from earlier in the year, The Funeral Murders, did. Indeed, the two pieces form a valuable diptych and, though they address issues from 25 and 30 years ago, have a similar contemporary resonance in reinforcing why the Irish border is the most important aspect of the Brexit process. Mother’s Day becomes the 9^thprogramme on my running shortlist for the best of 2018.

I only add drama series to that shortlist when they have completed their run, so none of the current batch yet qualifies, though I expect one or two of them may and I will return Unknown-2 to any that do at that point. First to arrive, and now nearing completion, was Jed Mercurio’s Bodyguard (BBC1, Sundays), an accomplished thriller (as one would expect from that source) which has been a big success and even had the confidence to kill off one of its lead characters halfway through and thus wrong-foot the audience, as it seemed to have been developing a compelling conflict-of-loyalty theme which is now redundant. It is manipulative and at times stretches credibility, but I’m hooked on it.

I also think I may be hooked on Wanderlust (BBC1, Tuesdays) despite signs of it settling in for the long term as early as the second episode. The initial premise – a happily married couple, Joy and Alan (Toni Collette and Steven Mackintosh) are bored with each other sexually, take opportunities elsewhere, confess to each other and decide to continue their affairs – was explored deftly, amusingly and with great style. The developments in the second episode – the reactivation of the couple’s love life and the reaction of those involved in their affairs – were predictable but nicely handled in the Unknown-3 performances and the direction. The expansion of the narrative into the relationships of other characters (the couple’s friends, colleagues and children; Joy’s clients in her work as a therapist) is also highly engaging, but I did start to worry that it is beginning to stray into Cold Feet territory, potentially replicating the longevity and eventual repetitiveness of that series, so I’m not sure of the need to stay with it, but I probably will because: a) it’s as easy to watch as Cold Feet; and b) I’m still watching Cold Feet!

The series I have been most eagerly anticipating (indeed, I’ve been looking forward to it Unknown-1 since it was announced some three years ago) arrived on BBC2 last Monday. Black Earth Rising is the latest piece from my favourite television auteur, Hugo Blick (actually there aren’t many writer/director/producers around – Poliakoff is another, but they are few on the ground). If it turns out to be anywhere near as good as The Shadow Line (2011) or The Honourable Woman (2014), and early indications are that it will, then it will be an automatic choice for my top 10, but I will return to it later. So far it has contained Blick’s trademark expository scene-setting and has certain similarities to The Honourable Woman, but neither of these are particular drawbacks for me – it’s just great to be back in his intelligent and stylish world.

I approached Trust (BBC2, Wednesdays), the Danny Boyle version of the Getty story, with great interest. I spent a large part of my career working in a building called the J. Paul Getty Jnr Conservation Centre, and met the BFI’s benefactor on many occasions, as well as being a guest at some of the wonderful country house cricket matches at his home in Oxfordshire (and regularly sitting in the stand he built at Lord’s). So, I was keen to see the dramatisation of the most notorious period of his life. He is portrayed in this version by Michael Esper, but all eyes are, of course, on Donald Sutherland as Getty senior, the creator of the family’s fabulous wealth, and he gives a riveting performance which dominates the whole production.

Unknown-4

So far, all the series I have described have been new ones, but Thursday’s unmissable drama is the very welcome return of Paul Abbott’s No Offence on Channel 4. This continues at the constant breakneck pace to which we have become accustomed. The characters are all strong ones and need no introduction, so grabbing our attention was never going to be a problem – but, just to be sure, killing off one of the lead characters before the first ad break of the new season was a stunning way to do just that.

images

Completing the every-night-except-Friday cycle, Saturday saw the start of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s intriguing and captivating Killing Eve (BBC1), an unconventional thriller with a wicked sense of humour. I didn’t actually watch it on Saturday – just as Fridays are for Unknown comedy, so Saturdays are for sport, especially during the football season. It is not a night for drama, apart from the one exception to that rule, which I will come to below. Anyway, now that the first episode has aired, the whole thing is available on BBC i-player, which is how I will watch it in any spare moments between all the other fine series listed above.

All of which leads me to ask: instead of throwing them all at us now, why could we not have had some of these during the barren summer? Trust would have been perfect for the summer and, like Killing Eve, the BBC is making the whole series immediately available on the i-player, so probably doesn’t see it as a regular ratings-grabber. Judging from all the trailers we are getting, especially from the BBC, there seems to be plenty more interesting stuff on the way, too, including, of course, the new season of Doctor Who. This is highly anticipated for the bold and exciting choice of Jodie Whitaker as the new Doctor, as well as for the debut of Chris Chibnall as show-runner, but, as if this was not enough novelty to deal with, the BBC has made the disastrous decision to move it to Jodie-Whittaker-Doctor-Who-Feature Sunday evening. Moving it away from its traditional Saturday home has been tried before and it failed miserably, though maybe in the era of catch-up services it will not matter so much. I worry that the bold experiment of a female Doctor, already tied to the success or otherwise of a new and potentially uncertain show-runner, will be fatally compromised by this blunder – or maybe it is a way of giving the traditionalists something else to focus on, rather than the gender of the lead actor, thus diverting attention from the biggest change and providing something easily rectified. We shall see.

As for the comedies I mentioned, it is great to have Upstart Crow (BBC2) back and going from strength to strength, but the most striking new piece has been Hang Ups (Channel 4), co-written by and starring Stephen Mangan and based on Lisa Kudrow’s US series Web Therapy. Mangan is the on-line therapist with more problems than his clients and most of the action is shot on various devices (laptops, phones) as the characters use them to communicate with each other. It moves at a frantic pace and has a large cast of characters, played by a wonderful array of guest stars including Charles Dance, David Tennant and Richard E.Grant, each giving it their all in brief cameos, as well as a regular cast including Katherine Parkinson and Jessica Hynes. Not quite shortlist quality, but certainly one to return to.

images

Ten TV Programmes that “Made Me”

On August 6, 2018 By tvforkeepsIn BBC, Doctor Who, Heimat, Match of the Day, Michael Apted, Monty Python's Flying Circus, Peabody Awards, Pennies from Heaven, Peppa Pig, Royle Family, Seven Up, The Leftovers, Uncategorized, World at WarLeave a comment

A few weeks ago, I was tagged to take part in one of those Facebook games where you have to create a cultural list over 10 days. It may be favourite books, it may be films or other things. In this case it was the TV programmes which “made me” – which I interpreted as being those with the greatest influence on my life, rather than my all-time top ten. I chose to take a chronological approach, spreading the choices fairly evenly across the decades, and explained my choice in each case. I am reproducing my posts below as I wrote them, partly because they make a reasonably coherent narrative, but mainly because there is so little currently on TV that I want to blog about, so I might as well re-cycle something I’ve already written. My first blog on this site, 11 months ago, was about last year’s “glorious summer” of great TV shows. This summer, by contrast, is a drought, both literally and televisually, so let me take you back through time instead…..

Day 1

MV5BMDg3N2U5NDAtYzVmMy00NmQ3LThmNDktOGQ0ZTNmYjg5M2JjXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMDgyNjA5MA@@._V1_

It’s November 23rd 1963 and the 10-year-old me is really at a loose end. Somebody important was shot in America yesterday and all my favourite Friday night programmes, even Bootsie and Snudge, were cancelled! Things aren’t much better today, but there’s a new programme starting at teatime which looks intriguing, so I’ll give it a go. That new programme, Doctor Who, expanded my imagination like nothing on television had done before. There was mystery and menace in every dark corner of the monochrome screen. I was hooked for the rest of the sixties, through the Hartnell and Troughton years (I still think Troughton is the best Doctor, though Capaldi came close). I rather drifted away from it after that, but then it became a professional concern when, as the BBC’s TV Archivist, I became involved in the search for missing episodes in the 1980s (with some success, including some of the earliest dalek episodes). And, of course, I’ve been a fan since it was revived by Russell T.Davies earlier this century. It is one of three titles on my list first transmitted in 1963/4 which have been with me throughout my life and are still going strong. I will post about the second one tomorrow but leave the third (which is very dear to me) until the end of my list.

Day 2

images

Today’s choice is my TV equivalent of comfort food – a programme which I have watched (and occasionally fallen asleep in front of) most Saturday nights since I first caught the football bug in the mid-sixties (and that’s “soccer” to my American friends!). It’s a bug I have never shaken off – in fact, the infection becomes more severe with every passing year. Through it all, MOTD has been a constant – the familiar theme tune, the presenters (Kenneth, David, Jimmy, Des and Gary), the commentators (Motty), the pundits (Hansen, Shearer) the “goal of the month” competition. The quality of the coverage has developed, but the format stays much the same. It’s officially the longest running football programme in the world. My favourite period? – probably the seventies, when it was the closing part of the legendary BBC1 Saturday night schedule. My favourite edition? – has to be the one when the Bees led the show thanks to an FA Cup upset over Premier League opposition. I just can’t wait until we reach the Premier League (as we will) and feature every week!

Day 3

images-1

Today, “It’sssss…….” – the big one! The one programme which I would say “made me” more than any other. If I was doing this by importance rather than chronologically, this would be top. Just as so much of our language contains phrases and sayings that originate in Shakespeare, so barely a day goes by without my regular discourse containing something that can be traced back to Python, whether in conversation or commenting on Facebook. You may have noticed – maybe not. But it doesn’t stop there. My entire world outlook is influenced by this show – my general air of flippancy, of not taking anything too seriously, of always immediately looking for the funny side of any situation, the cheerful atheism, the always looking on the bright side. It hit me at exactly the right time, between reaching the end of my school days and going on to university. I was never one for going on street demos, but I did take part in a mass “silly walk” through the streets of Oxford. I had been a big TV comedy fan throughout the sixties, especially things like Not Only, But Also, but this was on a whole new level. At times, I laughed so much it was painful, and so much of it still gives that reaction. The first season was a revelation from the start, but the gradual development of the stream of consciousness style throughout that run is what made it so compelling. If I have a favourite sketch it may be the argument, which is pure poetry, as well as being one of the many Cleese/Palin highlights. So, time’s up….No it isn’t!

Day 4

safe_image.php

So, it’s late 1973 and I am into the final year of my degree in Modern History – there are some wonderful lectures by the great historian AJP Taylor on the Second World War. But then a mammoth TV documentary series arrives which presents the same serious history in a way that is so much more compelling and direct than any book or lecture could be. I’d like to tell you that, in that moment, I resolved to spend a life’s career working in film and television archives, but it wouldn’t be true. Nevertheless, the seed was sown and after I had embarked on that course some five years later, I never lost any opportunity to cite TheWorld at War as an inspiration. It remains the beacon in terms of the use of archive material – research, selection, correct presentation and attribution – something which became a bit of a professional obsession to me, to the extent that I would bore my fellow Peabody jurors to tears over it in later years. It was the work of many fine historians, writers and producers, but the guiding hand was that of a TV hero of mine – Jeremy Isaacs, who ran the programme department of Thames TV, one of our major commercial broadcasters, as though it were a PSB and then invented the ethos of Channel 4. I was fortunate to be the organiser of a 75th birthday tribute to him at the National Film Theatre in 2007 and spent many fascinating hours with him selecting and editing the clips for that event. The pitch-perfect narration by Olivier, the haunting score by Carl Davis – everything is right about TheWorld at War.

Day 5

safe_image-1.php

There had to be a Dennis Potter on my list. Yes, The Singing Detective is his masterpiece, but Pennies from Heaven is arguably the greater leap of imagination as to what could be done with a TV drama series and it does mean more to me personally. It was transmitted just a couple of weeks after I joined the BBC in 1978. I had immediately begun to take a closer interest than previously in the BBC’s output (after all, this was the material I was now handling every day) and a new Potter was a big event. I was mesmerised and immensely proud that I now worked for an organisation which could produce such a thing. I was pretty obsessed with exploring the art of film at the time, to the exclusion of most else, but here was a studio-based TV drama which could engage me, entertain me and make me think just as much, if not more, than the greatest cinema. The use of popular songs of the thirties, mimed by the actors to express the characters’ thoughts and hopes or as an ironic commentary on the narrative was revolutionary and never bettered. Thought for today: “Though things may not look bright, they’ll all turn out alright, if I keep painting the clouds with sunshine”.

Day 6

safe_image-2.php

I’ll say it up front. For me, this is the greatest TV drama series of them all. Some people will tell you it is a film – made on 35mm by a film director, Edgar Reitz – and, indeed, I first saw it in a cinema. But it was co-produced by TV companies, WDR and SFB of (then) West Germany and is clearly designed for television presentation in 11 parts of irregular length – the shortest under an hour, the longest almost two and a half – and, in that respect, it anticipates by 30 years the sort of thing now being produced for streaming platforms. Reitz went on to make 2 sequel series, a prequel and some spin-offs, but none of them matched the ambition and historical sweep of the original. Telling the story of a village in the Hunsruck from 1918 to the early 1980s, it is basically German history in the turbulent 20th century in microcosm, seen through the eyes of a number of ordinary families. There are elements of soap opera about it, which is partly what makes it so effective. Who will survive the war? How much did ordinary Germans know (or care) about the crimes of the Nazis? How did technological advances like radio, telephones, motorways and TV affect their lives? The trivial is given the same attention as the momentous, and the weight of memory accumulates. Some characters are played by several actors, others by the same one through the whole series, but you get closely involved with them all.

Day 7

hqdefault

Having reached the period of my life when the assessment of the significance of television programmes was my professional concern, it becomes harder to isolate individual titles which had a particular effect on my attitudes, not because there are too few, but because there are too many. I choose The Royle Family because it pioneered the metamorphosis of the sitcom into the half-hour comedy/drama. It dispensed with the studio audience and the laughter track, even though it hardly ever left the single set – the front room of a Manchester terraced house – and relied on the brilliance of its writing and characterisation to capture you, to make you laugh, and sometimes to make you cry. Many of the programmes I most treasure from the last two decades owe it a debt – from Getting On and the work of Stefan Golaszewski to Fleabagand Detectorists. At a time when TV drama was reaching a new plateau by becoming cinematic, these programmes (and their US equivalents from Louie to One Mississippi), by virtue of their duration, expanded the dramatic and comedic possibilities of a purely televisual form. And, of course, the Royles constantly referenced TV itself because watching TV was what they were doing most of the time, just like those of us watching them. Post-modernism, my arse!

Day 8

fullsizeoutput_4d

Today’s choice is for my daughter Hanna as well as myself. One of the joys of having a daughter with learning disabilities is the extended childhood, with the result that I have been watching programmes for kids for much longer than most parents – not only that, but many of the same things again, again, again – so that I have come to appreciate how well-crafted and subtle the best of them are. I have reached the stage when I am keenly anticipating the next offering from that crazy genius Andrew Davenport, but my two favourites have to be Charlie and Lola and Peppa Pig. I chose Peppa because, whereas Charlie and Lola has wonderful visuals and music, Peppa has the better humour, which is firmly aimed at the kids but with the occasional wink towards the adult audience. It doesn’t moralise – just presents family and school life though animated animals. There’s even the occasional political satire, such as the school’s International Day, when Madame Gazelle (brilliant name) gets the children to dress up as different nationalities to promote peace and harmony, but they end up arguing over access to the sandpit. The voiceover artists include the Welsh contingent from Absolutely, Morwenna Banks and John Sparkes, plus the familiar tones of Brian Blessed, Andy Hamilton and others. And if I were to be asked which TV character I most identify with it would have to be Daddy Pig – a genial everyman constantly out of his depth and something of a British equivalent to Homer Simpson. I didn’t expect such a programme to become a big part of my life at this stage, but ultimately everybody loves jumping up and down in muddy puddles.

Day 9

safe_image-5.php

So, there I was, six or seven years from the end of my career in television archiving/curation and drifting along happily towards retirement, doing much the same as I had for the last 25 years, when something wonderful happened. I was invited to join the Peabody Board of Jurors. Not only did this involve engaging with American TV in much, much greater depth than I had before, but also enhancing my critical approach in order to participate in the rigorous and exhilarating board discussions. It also coincided with an explosion of creativity in US output, both drama and documentary, driven by cable and online platforms. So, I got to see masses of marvellous programmes, many of which I either followed thereafter or caught up with in full, and The Leftovers has to be my favourite of them all. In the same way as another favourite recent drama, the French series Les Revenants, The Leftovers uses a supernatural event to explore questions of grief, love, relationships, spirituality and the search for meaning in a meaningless universe. It appeals to atheists like me and believers alike because there are no answers but lots of questions, asked in the most strikingly imaginative and dramatic way possible. Max Richter’s score is outstanding and the acting and direction uniformly brilliant. The ending, appropriately after three series, is overwhelming and open to multiple interpretation, but I choose to let the mystery be.

Day 10

This is the only thing I could have as my final choice. It reaches back to where I started (Seven Up was transmitted in 1964), but it justifies its place at the end of my chronology because it also represents the future – 63 Up is due to air next spring and I really can’t wait. To say this is a programme that “made” me doesn’t quite get it: it is me, just as it is countless others of my generation. Like a short-period comet, it returns every seven years and each return is more momentous than the last. I can find points of identification with every one of the participants, and they are only three years younger than me, so seeing their lives develop in parallel with my own and against the backdrop of the same social, political and technological changes, and regularly looking back on how they got to where they are, is an incredibly moving experience. Leaving seven years between each catch-up is a stroke of genius, because they can get back to normal lives away from the media spotlight (though their fame has impacted in some ways on some of them). We know there has been the first death among the group since the last visit, so it may start to get a little painful, but Michael Apted is the perfect intermediary – I wish him extreme longevity, so that he can go on making the series. I am very proud to have been part of the Peabody Board which gave the series an institutional award (the same year, coincidentally, that my first choice, DoctorWho, was similarly honoured). The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that this is British television’s greatest achievement.

So, there you have it – three dramas, two comedies, two docs, two children’s programmes and one sports show to sum up TV’s influence on my life.

The Queen regenerates!

On January 20, 2018 By tvforkeepsIn Dallas, Doctor Who, The Crown, UncategorizedLeave a comment

Crown2

I’ve just finished watching season 2 of The Crown on Netflix and will certainly be back for more when it next returns. One of its many merits is the performance of Claire Foy as the young Queen Elizabeth II. Foy does not particularly resemble the Queen, but this did not matter because she was so convincing in the character. However, when the series returns, she will no longer be there – Olivia Colman will have taken over the role, in order that the ageing process is convincingly portrayed. Colman also does not particularly resemble the Queen, though I’m sure this will not matter either and that she will also be very convincing in the character. The problem is not that neither actress looks like the Queen – the problem is that they do not look like each other.

There is a long history in film and television of actors taking over roles in which we have previously seen a different performer – whether because there is a need for the character to age significantly as part of the narrative or for other reasons. There are some well-established rules for this process and I was reminded of them when I recently caught up with A Quiet Passion, Terence Davies’ excellent biopic of the American poet Emily Dickinson. The main rules are: 1. ensure you introduce the character the first time she/he appears played by a different actor; 2. make reference to the passage of time. Davies’ script thYQQWNMKV is a masterclass in how to follow these rules. The first time Cynthia Nixon appears (replacing Emma Bell, who plays the young Dickinson), she is being introduced by her sister and is then asked about her schooldays (“but that was many years ago”). Job done – though, just to be clear, Davies has already shown us the one actress digitally morph into the other while posing for a photograph and he further emphasises the point in the closing credits by showing a portrait of Nixon as Dickinson which morphs back into one of Bell and then into the only known daguerreotype of Dickinson, showing the strong resemblance between Bell and the real Dickinson.

But these rules would not work in The Crown: firstly, the Queen “needs no introduction”; secondly, it looks as though very little narrative time will have passed between the end of season 2 and the beginning of season 3. Given that several other key members of the cast will also be changing (strong rumours already of Helena Bonham-Carter replacing Vanessa Kirby as Princess Margaret), I suspect they will simply get on with it and expect the viewer to accept the changes without demur. There are plenty of precedents for this also – remember when Donna Reed replaced Barbara Bel Geddes as Miss Ellie in Dallas (Lorimar, 1978-91) for one season and they then brought Bel Geddes back? They didn’t even attempt to explain the completely different hairstyles! But Dallas was a notorious show for playing loose with the conventional rules of narrative and I’ll be coming back to it later.

So, in a series which covers a lengthy narrative timespan, is it best to change actors or use makeup to heimat portray a character’s ageing? I guess the answer is “whatever works”. The outstanding 1984 German series Heimat, which follows life in a Hunsruck village through the 20^th century, used both approaches. Most of the characters were portrayed by different actors at different points in their lives, mostly very convincingly, though the adult Hermann was about 6 inches shorter than his lanky teenage self! However, the only two characters who appear in every episode, Maria and Karl, were played by the same actors throughout, with the help of some impressive make-up and padding. It is a shame that the only true British equivalent of this series, Peter Moffat’s The Village (BBC, 2013-14), did not get further than two excellent seasons. The nearest completed thing we have is probably Peter or friends Flannery’s Our Friends in the North (BBC, 1996), in which the lives of four friends were followed from the sixties to the nineties, with the same actors – breakthrough roles for Christopher Eccleston, Daniel Craig, Gina McKee and Mark Strong – employed throughout.

Mention of Christopher Eccleston brings me neatly to the show which copes most radically with changing actors in the leading role: Doctor Who. (Mind you, Daniel Craig also ended up in a role which regularly changes its impersonator) The idea of regeneration came about when the first Doctor, William Hartnell, needed to be replaced in 1966 and has since become a unique and staple feature of the show. It is an elegant solution to the problem of replacing a leading actor, but is unique to Doctor Who – probably even copyrighted. I think it unlikely we will see a regeneration scene in The Crown, involving Claire Foy and Olivia Colman – a shame, because it would not only look wonderful but, assuming the third season starts (as rumoured) with the aftermath of the JFK assassination, would be an interesting contemporary Jodie-Whittaker-Doctor-Who-Feature reference, given that the very first Doctor Who was transmitted the day after the events in Dallas (the city, not the show). To take this ludicrous suggestion even further, we have known since the Doctor Who Christmas special (much earlier, really) that the Doctor can even change sex (or, to be more precise, that they can change the sex of the actor portraying him/her), so, if traditionally male roles can now be played by women, why not have a future incarnation of the Queen on The Crown played by a man? I think Eddie Izzard would be good.

Stop this blog now, it’s getting TOO SILLY! Or is it? Yes, the above remarks were made in a spirit of levity but do contain a germ of sense, which is this: the title character of The Crown does regenerate, because the title character is not the Queen (she was the title character of Peter Morgan’s earlier work The Queen – the one with Helen Mirren) – the title character is the crown, or rather its personification, the monarch. And that character certainly does regenerate (and sometimes change gender), usually at the very moment of death, which is a crucial part of its mystery and its constitutional importance. It is significant that the series began before the death of George VI and also regularly references the abdication crisis of 1936, so that the importance of this transition can be recognised. Indeed, the central theme of The Crown is the conflict between the lives of the human characters and the rules, both written and unwritten, by which the constitution works and the monarchy is bound. It is when it is addressing these issues that Morgan’s writing is at its best, rather than when political and world events intervene.

Crown3

Which begs the further question – will The Crown finish when it gets close to being up-to-date (assuming it gets that far) or could it just go on and on and on? (in which case further regenerations may be necessary) Netflix are certainly onto a winning (though expensive) formula – the royal family as television soap opera. All the elements are there: difficult sibling relationships in every generation, often featuring one acting “responsibly” (usually the monarch or heir) while the younger ones bring chaos and embarrassment – from Edward and Bertie (where that relationship was reversed), through Elizabeth and Margaret, Charles and Andrew (porn-star girlfriend, wayward wife) plus Edward (I do hope Morgan includes It’s a Royal Knockout!), to William and Harry; problematic marriages and clandestine affairs from the ones currently being portrayed to the even more public scandals of Charles and Diana, Andrew and Fergie and who-knows-what to come; struggles for control of the “family business”, with the remaining older generation such as the Queen Mother and Lord Mountbatten always trying to interfere, not to mention the troublesome Windsors.

Hmmm….sibling rivalries, troublesome marriages and affairs, struggles for control of the business, awkward relations – remind you of anything? Of course! The Crown is becoming Dallas regenerated – more so than Dallas itself was when it returned (briefly) a few years back and even echoing the abrupt changes of cast. Replace the Queen Mother with Miss Ellie, the Buckingham Palace garden parties with the Southfork barbecue and the crown itself with JR’s stetson and the comparison fits. And now that an actress from an American soap is joining the cast of the real royal family, the connection is complete. Will Meghan end up playing herself on Netflix in ten years’ time?

dallas

TV for Keeps

Category: Doctor Who

Reckoning Time

The BBC Blog

Time for a Break?

Loose Ends

A Dramatic Improvement

Ten TV Programmes that “Made Me”

The Queen regenerates!