Barbie wannabe BotoxMummore than mad – she’s bad
THERE’S only one thing about Botox Mad Mum, Prime, Monday, to recommend it: it’s a backhanded antidote to Christmas spending madness.
However crassly commercial this season can seem, there’s little that’s more hollow and plastic than this scenario.
One of those elective human Barbie wannabes, the subject of this series is a woman so addicted to cosmetic surgery that she gifted her daughter a future breast enhancement for her seventh birthday. The wretched world view she’s inculcating into her daughters is pretty close to abuse. Plus she is very, very irritating to watch and listen to. This is one of those shows that makes the viewer celebrate commonplace sanity and perspective – which is close to therapy at this time of year.
Meanwhile, The Affair, SoHo, is growing irritating in its own special – but infinitely more watchable – way. Let’s all agree this liaison between depressed waitress Alison and writer’sblocked author Noah is still doomed. He’s married with four kids – the oldest a seriously unpleasant narcissist – and a power wife, and beholden to his successful, rich novelist father-inlaw. She’s a drug-dealer who is still not over the death of her son.
Alas, as of this week, they’ve passed the point of no return, Noah confessing to his wife and understandably being banished The Sound of Music, Prime, tonight, 7pm. Half a century after its debut, this remains not just a classic, but an institution. from the home; Alison telling her husband she’s off, leaving the poor blameless man distraught. And in flash-forwards, we can see someone ends up missing or dead, as detectives are seen interviewing the couple in the near-future. Notwithstanding that there’s a short list of awful people one would like to see disappeared from this scenario, it’s hard to tell what’s more maddening – the fact that this relationship seems so utterly pointless to pursue, or that we still don’t know what the crime is going to be. Worse – though this is good news – there’s a second series to come, so even when this ends, we may not know the answers.
What makes The Affair so compelling is the sheer melodrama of it. The encounter between Alison and her rampantly passive-aggressive mother-in-law (Mare Winningham) was excruciatingly vicious. Under Alison’s interrogation, Mom confesses that she’s secretly mortgaged the family ranch to the nines so her sons will not get the fortunes they’ve been counting on – but she retaliates by blaming Alison for her son’s drowning, and castigating her for the affair, knowledge of which she’s been saving for just such a rainy day as this.
And not everyone here is horrible. The scenes with the local GP are just about enough to restore one’s faith in the goodness of mankind. But not quite. Having ended up on many ‘‘album of the year’’ lists, the third long player by this Philadelphia group was a slow burner for me, though it gradually seeped into my listening and took hold. But then, these are songs that are in no hurry, brevity not being a major concern for The War On Drugs. Written and produced by frontman Adam Granduciel, it plays out like a fever dream – these oddly captivating songs are underpinned by a hazy psychedelia that suggest a fog he cannot escape from. Dense without feeling overcrowded, skittery programmed percussion and unexpected adornments of baritone sax are augmented by Granduciel’s irresistible, freewheeling guitar playing that never tries too hard to please. The mash of influences ranges from melodic 80s soft rock and country, to the spirit of classic songwriters. Indeed, the singer’s Dylan-esque inflections feature often, not least on the gorgeous Eyes to the Wind, which is laced with a darkly redemptive quality. Red Eyes is a powerhouse of a song that kicks the chair from under you. It all adds up to a distinctly American album that’s worth spending time with.