Drama of the year... as it’ll be repeats after this
IT’S only April, and already I have the strong feeling that when it comes to gripping drama, BBC1’s The Nest will be unbeatable. Of course, this in part will be down to the shutdown of all new productions, and I think subconsciously we all know that the supply of fresh material will dry up fairly soon, before wallto-wall repeats kick in. Things have got so bad I understand no one in Midsomer will be murdered at all in 2020.
The Nest came to an end with episodes on Sunday and Monday and, as most of us suspected, troubled teen Kaya was a good egg at heart. It turned out her frankly odious mother was threatening her own sister with a knife and as 11-year-old Kaya grabbed it from her hand, she accidentally stabbed and killed her aunt. This was the most implausible part of the story, because it’s hard to see how the child ever would have been sentenced for the killing when there was no intent, but we’ll let that one go.
Also as suspected, and equally implausibly, the wrong embryo was implanted at a foreign fertility clinic, so nether Kaya nor the wealthy couple for whom she was acting as a surroMack gate had any genetic connection to the baby.
There ensued a legal battle over who would keep the baby, and all was neatly resolved. Kaya decided that she had other things she wanted to do with her life and triumphantly reclaimed control of it, casting her mother out of her life for good. Even though Dan’s business empire collapsed after he was linked to money laundering for a drugs gang, he and Emily were granted custody of the baby with a view to full adoption if they proved they were fit parents.
The final shot, with Kaya on the roof of a tower block scanning Glasgow at dusk, while London Grammar’s Caught In The Middle played in the background, was as empowering a piece of TV I’ve seen, as a young woman finally escaped the shackles of the past and could look to the future. It was moving and magnificent.
Writer Nicole Taylor was blessed in the performers assembled to tell her story. Martin Compston, best known for Line Of Duty, has never been better, and there was great support from Sophie Rundle (Peaky
Blinders, Bodyguard) as his wife – but the showstopper was Mirren as Kaya, in a breakout performance that propelled her to the forefront of her generation. We will see and hear a lot more of her.
Talking of great performances, there is no actor alive who so accurately can mimic real-life figures like Michael Sheen. Previously, he has vividly portrayed football manager Brian Clough (The Damned
United), Tony Blair (The Crown),
David Frost (Frost/Nixon) and Kenneth Williams (Fantabulosa!). He so nimbly inhabited each of these characters, all disbelief immediately was suspended, but playing
Chris Tarrant in the UTV drama Quiz was his finest moment yet. The story of the coughing major who cheated his way to the top prize on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? was presented as something of a jolly romp, but it was hard to take your eyes off Sheen. He had Tarrant’s every tic, every mannerism, every vocal inflection, down not just to a T but to every letter from A to Z, to the point of spookiness. The Bafta judges will be busy next year.
If Virgin Media’s The Unteachables reminded me of anything, it was Educating Yorkshire. Just like English teacher Mr Burton in that series, the teachers at the Cork Life Centre were inspirational as they tried to encourage students for whom normal school simply wasn’t working. We met Leo, who had an addiction problem, and who quit his old school after the mock exams. Head teacher Don O’Leary gave Leo the reassurance he needed to return to education and even enjoy it. Emily, who was only 13, was detached and disruptive, but with care and understanding, she too found subjects she actually liked, and cast aside the brittle shell. It seems a shame that so many are off school right now and hopefully it won’t mean they feel alienated and abandoned when they return. If they do, though, I have no doubt there are many just as inspirational teachers all over the country ready and willing to help. On Tuesday, the final of Home Of
The Year, as always, saw a winner I disagreed with. Ethna Dorman’s 19th-century carriage house took the top prize and while it oozed charm, and had a heart-warming story of moving on with life after bereavement behind it, I still was rooting for Saoirse Fitzgerald and her renovated lighthouse cottage in Youghal. For me, it had everything – cosy and chic décor, generous amounts of natural light and views to kill for, but it didn’t even make it to the top three.
I’ve enjoyed this series, and judges Hugh Wallace, Deirdre Whelan and Peter Crowley make an interesting trio (with Whelan usually the mediator when Wallace and Crowley spark off each other) but honest to God, as soon as everything reopens, they really should go to Specsavers.