Beauty soap in disguise can’t hide the wrinkles

Age Before Beauty BBC1, Tuesday The Real Marigold Hotel BBC1, Wednesday Succession Sky Atlantic, Thursday

THERE are two kinds of prime-time drama. There’s the meaty, philosophical sort, wordy and provocative, and then there are soaps masquerading as serious drama. Age Before Beauty, the latest offering from the BBC, very much falls into the latter camp – and when I say camp, I mean really, really camp. Bel is the retired fortysomething former owner of a Manchester beauty salon now run by her sisters. Well, that’s not entirely true, because one sister, in particular, an only slightly animated pillar of Botox called Leanne, actually is running the place into the ground.

Leanne’s husband Teddy is the company accountant and he begs Bel to come back to work after her twins fly the nest to attend university in Leeds. Bel devotes so much time and energy to reviving the business she neglects her kitchen fitter husband of 25 years, Wesley, who does what men in all soap situations do, and falls into bed with a young client. This all was so familiar, all so predictable, I was beginning to think the BBC had lost its senses commissioning it – or at the very least did so as a favour to writer Debbie Horsfield, who made such a success of the Poldark remake it felt it owed her one – until around 40 minutes in, when it took a surprising twist.

Lorelei, the woman who ordered the kitchen, was persuaded to do so by her friend Dante – and Dante in turn was being manipulated by Teddy. Why? Well, it seems Teddy has loved Bel for 30 years and had his eye wiped by Wesley, and now has set about wrecking the marriage so he finally can have Bel all to himself. Of course, it was preposterous (right down to the name Lorelei, the legendary siren of Germanic myth who lured men to their doom – not that Wesley looked like he was complaining) but the fact it flickered into life, even late in the day, offered enough promise to give it a second go.

The acting is uneven (even Sue Johnston, so brilliant in Brookside and The Royle Family, doesn’t quite convince as a matriarchal, nymphomaniacal cougar), but the lead performances – Polly Walker as Bel, James Murray as Wesley and Robson Green as Teddy – have enough pep to carry the rest. It remains to be seen if it does what it says on the tin but on the basis of the first episode, it just about passed the patch test without irritation.

There was much gentler drama in the latest series of The Real Marigold Hotel, in which a new set of celebrity pensioners headed off to India to see if they could retire there. This year’s crew are Grand National winning jockey Bob Champion; Boris Johnson’s dad, Stanley, last seen in Ant and Dec’s jungle; actresses Susan George and Stephanie Beacham (herself the veteran of the campest North of England series ever made, Connie); Ian and Janette Tough, better known to a generation as The Krankies; former EastEnders star Peter Dean, who played Ian Beale’s dad Pete, who was married to Kaff; comedian Syd Little, minus Large; and former news anchor and breakfast television presenter Selina Scott.

Scott proved the most intriguing of the bunch. Once glacially beautiful and with perfect received pronunciation tones, she has softened with age, and even lets her natural Yorkshire accent come through occasionally. There was something oddly wistful about her as she admitted that, mere days into the month-long trip, she already was slightly overwhelmed by being surrounded by others all the time, when she prefers the solitary life.

The biggest surprise was that Jimmy Krankie (that’s Janette’s stage alter ego, if you’ve been living under a rock since the Crackerjack days – CRACKERJAACK!) resisted the urge to shout ‘fandabidozi’, even when confronted with all the beauty India has to offer. It can only be a matter of time.

Time was on the mind too of Kendall Roy (the excellently twitchy Jeremy Strong) in Sky Atlantic’s glossy new HBO import, Succession. Kendall was expecting to inherit the family media empire as his father Logan (Brian Cox in wonderfully crotchety form) turned 80 but Pops had other ideas and decided not only to stay on for a few more years but also to turn the company into a family trust and award two voting shares to his third wife, effectively giving her a controlling say.

On learning this, Kendall kept his emotions in check in public before heading into the bathroom and trashing it – and stuffing a towel half way down his neck and screaming like the spoilt child he clearly is. Already, it is clear that of his three siblings, only the eldest, Connor (played by Alan Ruck, familiar to most of us as Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off all these years ago), is potentially a decent human being. The other two, sister Siobhan (Sarah Snook) and brother Roman (Kieran Culkin, quite dazzlingly impish) already seem as irredeemably awful as Kendall.

At the end of the episode, in the interests of drama, Logan had the decency to have a brain haemorrhage and what follows surely will be an internecine sibling battle for control. It’s tremendous fun – and while you might think it is based on Rupert Murdoch and his family, well, I couldn’t possibly comment.

All nine episodes already are on Sky Catch Up, so there goes my Bank Holiday Monday.

It might be set in the boardrooms of Wall Street, and not the Northern Quarter of Manchester but, just like Age Before Beauty,

Succession is a glorified soap, cliffhangers and all – and hurrah for that.