Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Making friends down under
MIRIAM MARGOLYES: ALMOST AUSTRALIAN UNREPORTED WORLD
BBC2, 9pm
MIRIAM is made of tough stuff, so it’s quite sweet to see how emotional she is when she meets an endangered koala and its joey.
She’s in Brisbane, on the final leg of her Aussie experience, where the owners of a wildlife research centre tell her the joey will be named Miriam.
“Just the idea of having a wild
Channel 4, 7.30pm
Marcel “brother of Louis” Theroux heads to Japan in this deeply unsettling yet fascinating film about schoolgirl pin-ups.
He wants to know, is it a quirk of Japanese culture or something more sinister that young girls perform in the country’s Junior Idols to audiences consisting mainly of middle-aged men?
He meets sweet 11-year-old Yune, who loves rabbits, colouring books and Ariana Grande.
Her mum is asking her if she’s creature named for you is an unexpected joy,” says the 79-year-old, moved to tears.
In this final part, Miriam is exploring the country’s nickname of the Lucky Country, but do Australians believe they are lucky?
In the Gulf of Carpentaria, she visits the Mcarthur River Mine, where she meets a group of miners.
She challenges them on some of the negative aspects of mining, but is asked what her house is made of, done her homework as they head off to Yune’s small concert.
She will perform while older men do their best to take close-up photos.
There are awkward questions to be asked. Marcel asks Yune’s mother: “Are you comfortable with that?” She replies: “People come for her singing voice.”
But this seems hard to believe when afterwards, as fans queue for photos and autographs, one man asks Yune: “Can you handcuff me?”
These schoolgirls are hoping for a path to mainstream success, but Marcel wants to know how vulnerable they really are. which gives her food for thought.
In Borroloola, she hears a wonderful story from one of its biggest landholders.
The man’s father bet his life savings on a couple of horse races and used his winnings to buy the plot that is bigger than some small European countries.
However, less than a month ago, the entire place was flattened by a cyclone. Elsewhere, Miriam joins a group of School Strikers protesting climate change, where 15-year-old Gina explains why she believes Australia is unlucky.
But on the Gold Coast, a surfing education experience leaves Miriam feeling more positive. Once she’s back home, is she any closer to finding answers? Either way, the journey has made its mark. She says: “Australia will always be beyond my comprehension.”