Drama’s in brood health
BACK on our screens tonight for its sixth series is SHETLAND (BBC1, 9pm). I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s delighted. Seven million people typically tune in for this gritty, windswept crime drama, starring Douglas Henshall as DI Jimmy Perez.And let’s face it, seven million people can’t be wrong.
Not unless they’re the seven million who also watch Gordon, Gino and Fred.
The Ann Cleeves books on which Shetland is based have always sold like hot cakes (although, having said that, when was the last time you bought a cake and told the shopkeeper: “Kindly warm this up for me, there’s a good chap.”?)
And this BBC adaptation has done a fine job of capturing those novels’ brooding intensity. I’m a sucker for brooding intensity.
As this penultimate series starts, Perez is struggling to come to terms with his mother’s death. But the shooting of a local lawyer leaves him little time to grieve.
Elsewhere this evening, Channel 4 has a new property programme, EXTRAORDINARY EXTENSIONS (9pm), hosted by rapper Tinie Tempah.
“Most of us live in other people’s vision of a home,” explains Tinie, a keen developer and designer since his early 20s, “unless you’ve built it yourself – or, like a new breed of property pioneer, released your inner architect to build a bespoke extension…”
The first project he visits is in Hampshire, where primary school teacher Amy and her husband Simon, a professional gambler, are spending £1 million (I guess those teachers must have finally been given a nice pay rise) on converting three derelict buildings and linking these with a big modern glass thingummy.
Project number two then takes Tinie to Herefordshire, where retired couple Linda and Alan are giving a 17th century cottage “a 21st century shake-up”.
Tinie is a fine presenter and a breath of fresh air, but disappointingly he seems reluctant to remind us of his other great talent. “Extraordinary extensions? You’re blowing half your pensions!” you long for him to cry.
In other news, I notice that STV in Scotland is the only part of the ITV network not to be showing BEVERLEY AND JORDAN: DESTINATION WEDDING (8pm), a new five-part series in which former Coronation Street actress Beverley Callard and Radio 1’s Jordan North, who became good pals on I’m A Celebrity, set out on a trip to Spain to prepare for the renewal of Bev’s wedding vows.
This means that if you live in the STV region, you won’t have to spend 30 minutes of your time thinking: “Sorry, are we meant to know what on earth this show is for..?” while scratching your head in befuddlement.