High stakes, deadly game
It always seemed to me that the professional wrestling scene, a bit like the Tooth Fairy, was one of those things functional people left behind as soon as they realised it was ‘‘all a fake’’.
And yet, somehow in the last decade or so, I’ve had to re-evaluate just what prowrestling is and what it represents.
Maybe it was the terrific Mickey Rourke vehicle The Wrestler (available on Neon) that tipped a few of us off to the fact that pro-wrestling, whatever its failings, deserves to be given respect, at least as a piece of physical theatre. Even if very few of the hollering hordes in the cheap seats at a Wrestlemania event might use those exact words.
Yes, the storylines, the names, the personalities and costumes are all as dodgy as a chocolate teapot. But, the athleticism, the injuries, the exploitation, the feuds and resentments that simmer underneath any entertainment franchise where the stakes are high and the audiences are fickle, are very real indeed.
So I’m officially an unlikely fan of Dark Side of the Ring, which is a Vice TV production currently available to stream on Neon.
Across two seasons, the show walks a very fine line between admitting that the matches are scripted, the wrestlers are performing in character and that the whole thing is a charade, and taking commendably seriously the stories that emerge from a business that is rife with drug abuse, alcoholism, rampant narcissism and some of the most ramshackle personalities who ever banked a fortune for pulling on Spandex and pretending to beat the living bejeebers out of someone, who may very well be their best friend once the show is over.
Episode 1, on the strained and tragic romance – for show at first, and then genuine – between Randy ‘‘Macho Man’’ Savage and his manager ‘‘Miss Elizabeth’’ is a perfect introduction to this unique and compelling show. But, don’t just take my word for it. Dark Side of the Ring is sitting at a full 100 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes right now.
Of the 1900 tons of cocaine produced in Colombia every year, about 30 tons travel over the borders of the United Kingdom. Of that, a few hundred grams or so make it up the noses of Chanel, Amber, Troi and Louis. The stars of the three-part
Cocaine: Living with the Cartels (which will debut on Three at 9.30pm tomorrow) are four shiny young things from around England. They are all employed, functional, confident and happy enough in their choice of recreational drug.
Which seems fair enough, when as many as one-in-seven British adults admit to cocaine use.
But the point of Living with the Cartels is not your standard lace-curtain twitching expose of something that everyone knows is happening anyway. The show ups the stakes by taking the foursome to Colombia, to see for themselves the conditions, risks and appalling abuse that goes into the production of the drug.
Once in Medellin, the former stronghold of Pablo Escobar, who was largely responsible for the supply routes and European cocaine markets that still exist today, the show takes in an interview with a cartel assassin, a visit to a drug factory and a lot of very dire warnings as to what will happen to anyone they talk to, whose identity is then revealed.
Living with the Cartels won’t change anyone’s mind about drug policy. To some, it’ll make a compelling argument for decriminalisation.
To others, it’ll be more proof that ‘‘soft on drugs’’ doesn’t work. At least we can all agree that the current system is broken.