HITS Cillian plays another Blinder
And I’ll miss my favourite hapless Detectorists, but they’re going out at the top
RIGHT, let’s get this much out of the way at the start. Anyone who has read this column at any point over the past 12 months is likely to have caught me banging on about one, other, or both of two programmes.
I know, I know. But the bottom line is that Peaky Blinders and Detectorists are by far and away the best things to have appeared on television during 2017. I’m normally no great fan of the period drama, but there is so much to like about the Blinders: the pin-sharp scripts, the clever plot twists, the attention to historical detail and, most of all, Cillian Murphy’s magnificent portrayal of cold-eyed gang boss Tommy Shelby.
Meanwhile, Detectorists – starring Mackenzie Crook and Toby Jones – is a comedy gem. When I say ‘is’, I actually mean ‘was’. Credit to all those involved, they have decided to quit when they’re ahead and no further episodes will be produced.
Anyway, I’ve written at length already this year about both programmes. So here’s a shortlist of the other ones I liked. Oh, and I’ve also added a list of the ones I hated as well...
1. IN THE DARK
BOTH in books and on screen, we are all familiar with the concept of the dysfunctional copper. He – and it is, of course, almost always a he – will invariably have a broken marriage and rocky relations with any children there might be from that union. There is also a high likelihood of alcohol dependency or gambling addiction.
Yet, in the four-part crime drama, In The Dark, Detective Inspector Helen Weeks (MyAnna Buring, below, emerged as a slightly different take on this well-worn cliché. The twist this time around was that she was pregnant and unsure whether the father was her policeman lover or, guess what, another cop who she’d had an affair with.
Yet the performances here were almost up there with the storylines. The highlight was Tim McInnerny’s turn as gangster Frank Linnell. Hard to imagine that he is the same man who played Captain Darling in Blackadder Goes Forth.
2. INSIDE NO. 9
WHEN it comes to television comedy, I have two handy rules of thumb. The first is that anything that likes to think of itself as ‘anarchic’ invariably isn’t funny and involves of lot of shouting. The other is that anything described as ‘subversive’ tends to be far too clever for its own good as well as also being unfunny.
My reckoning has always been that The League of Gentlemen belongs in the latter category, although I have mellowed towards them in recent times.
Part of the reason for this is League mainstays Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith’s superb Inside No. 9, which begins its fourth series of standalone episodes next month.
The season three finale was set at a private viewing in a pretentious art gallery. Invitees included an art lecturer (Shearsmith), a health and safety officer (Pemberton), a blind novelist (Felicity Kendall) and a ditzy reality TV star (Morgana Robinson ), above.
Before long, they were being bumped off in mysterious circumstances. Let’s just say that the
3. STORYVILLE
FOR more than a decade now, Storyville has showcased some of the world’ s finest documentary making. Recent months alone have seen in-depth specials on subjects as diverse as the Voyager space programme, rock music in North Korea and the drugs trade on the dark web.
But the most riveting instalment yet came in the form of an 80minute film called Russia’s Toughest Prison: The Condemned. It focused on an institution called Penal Colony 56 (also known as the Black Eagle), which is hidden away in the Urals in a forest bigger than the entire land mass of Germany.
The interviews with 30-something lifer Maxim Kiselev were particularly chilling; he awoke from a booze binge to discover that he’d killed six people, including a ten-year-old boy.
‘If you released me, I’ll see people living a beautiful life and I’d want the same,’ he said. ‘But I’ve never had a job. And if I got one I’d work for a couple of months, then I’d steal, get drunk and kill. If you’ve killed once, you’ll kill again.’
4. THE GRAHAM NORTON SHOW
HARD though it is to believe, there have now been more than 20 series of The Graham Norton Show. Two things are particularly noteworthy about his lengthy stint on the BBC. The first is that managing to keep a show looking fresh for all those years is quite an achievement. The second is that he makes a very, very difficult job look remarkably easy.
Against that backdrop, it is little surprise that the biggest stars of the day queue to be lampooned by him in front of a studio audience and a television viewership that runs well into the millions.
It is perfectly routine to see Hollywood A-listers like Robert De Niro and Warren Beatty sitting on the couch alongside rather lower-key personalities from this side of the pond.
The one thing they have in common, though, is that none of them can expect to escape without falling victim to Norton’s acerbic wit.
5. DECLINE AND FALL
NEXT year marks the 90th anniversary of the publication of Decline and Fall, the debut novel by Evelyn Waugh.
I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I’ve never actually got around to reading it and, after seeing this brilliant three-part adaptation by the BBC, I’ve even fewer excuses for failing to do so.
The action centres around mild-mannered Paul Pennyfeather (Jack Whitehall), who ends up teaching in a minor public school in Wales after being unfairly
kicked out of Oxford University.
Suffice to say that the students are an uncompromising bunch.
As Pennyfeather is brought in to meet a particularly difficult group of pupils on his first day, headmaster Dr Fagan (David Suchet) is anxious to keep his distance.
‘I don’t like to go in if I can help it,’ admits Dr Fagan as he deserts his new employee at the classroom door. ‘So I’ll let you introduce yourself.’
Let’s just say that it doesn’t go very well.