Never get bolshie with a Russian rock fan
IMonday & Tuesday - BBC1, 9pm T goes without saying that a signicant proportion of what appears on television is complete and utter dross. I think that we can all agree on that. What younger generations might not realise, though, is that there is actually a lot less rubbish on our screens than there used to be.
Even the bad stuff is of a higher quality nowadays than was the case in previous decades. Regardless of how many nostalgia fests are shown about how great Seventies TV was, those of us who saw it at the time remember it rather differently.
For every gem like Porridge or Fawlty Towers, there were a dozen stinkers like Are You Being Served? or Love Thy Neighbour.
The Eighties were slightly better. Even so, the only two shows from back then that I’d even dream of re-watching now would be Minder and Only Fools And Horses. I’m not sure I can even remember too many other programmes from that decade.
Right throughout those years, one of the things missing was the sort of must-see show that would make a social outcast out of anyone who had missed it. The big stuff in terms of popular culture were the latest Hollywood blockbuster or the new release by, say, Michael Jackson or Madonna.
No longer is television the poor relation, though. The success of series like The Sopranos, The Wire and the brilliant Six Feet Under – all produced by HBO – led the way in turning the small screen into a big deal.
We’ve more recently seen widespread popular acclaim for a number of shows produced on this side of the Atlantic, most notably The Night Manager.
Now comes McMafia, which is described by the BBC as an eight-part ‘groundbreaking international thriller’ inspired by journalist Misha Glenny’s non-fiction book of the same name.
The title suggests it is set in the Glaswegian underworld, but the settings – which have so far included Mumbai, Moscow and Tel Aviv – are rather more exotic than that.
No, it instead refers to organised crime networks spreading their tentacles in the same way that McDonald’s conquered the global fast food market.
The central character is Alex Godman (James Norton), a seemingly respectable banker raised in England in a family of exiled Russian mobsters.
Things are going well for Alex as the action starts. He has set up his own investment company and studiously avoided getting
any of his questionable relatives or their associates involved.
But Alex’s very dodgy uncle Boris (David Dencik) is keen to get him back into the family fold and arranges for him to meet the kindly-looking Semiyon Kleiman (David Strathairn), a businessman keen to launder £100m.
Suffice to say that Alex sticks to his principles at first and turns down the offer.
But he is forced to reconsider when false rumours spread about his Russian links and investors start backing out as a result.
Meanwhile, Uncle Boris crosses the wrong people back in Russia and ends up with a caviar knife in the neck for his troubles.
Perhaps the most striking figure in McMafia, though, is Alex’s father Dimitri (Aleksey Serebryakov). Stuck overseas against his will, Dimitri is homesick, angry and – most of all – perpetually drunk.
This is probably because he travels nowhere without a mineral water bottle that is presumably filled with his country’s national beverage. Although, to be fair, it seldom seems to stay full for long.
It seems clear that Dimitri Godman has been responsible for some fairly unpleasant deeds in the past.
The gravest offence we actually saw was when he upset fellow residents at his swish London apartment block by blaring out Status Quo at earsplitting volume on his sound system.
The fact that he was comatose after yet another booze binge is no excuse for such a heinous crime, of course.
But I’d imagine the residents’ committee had the good sense to let him off with a light warning.