Show + tell: Paul Flynn’s top telly
In Succession, ruthless media moguls the Roy family make the Murdochs look like The Waltons
PREPARATIONS ARE underway in the Roy family penthouse for Logan’s (the evergreen Brian Cox) 80th birthday. The CEO is about to step down from the media and entertainment conglomerate he built with his bare hands – but who will he leave the business to? His physical faculties might not be quite what they once were – he urinates on the luxury carpet in the hall while sleepwalking in the opening scene – but his tongue is as sharp and blue as ever.
Cox’s Logan is a tempest of a man, the star turn in new Sky Atlantic series Succession. He has the facility to reduce his adult offspring to near-tears, despite the fact they circumnavigate the hi-spec worlds of politics, narcotic dependancies and the family empire. He is a pitball crawling in the skin of an outsized sheepdog. When the irritatingly oily middle son Kendall is plucked out for special treatment in the opening scenes, you can be pretty sure it won’t be him to win.
Will it be the eldest, Connor, who feels like he’s been assembled from the distant bones of Prince Charles? Perhaps highflying daughter Shiv, in her crisply pressed silk blouse and aspiring White House portfolio? Or errant funnyman Roman ( played by a Culkin: Kieran)? Honing into outside view are a stoned grand-nephew who brings a mildly hipster vibe to the show or Logan’s third wife, Marcy.
It won’t take long to spot the ghosts of the Murdochs buried in Succession, which feels too full of expedient punchlines and a genitally obsessed script to ring true. That’s not to say there isn’t plenty to recommend. As a scorching takedown of the super-rich, it works handsomely. The despicable actions handed down from father to child in the name of keeping the family dollar sizzling are woven into a slightly predictable set-up. The cliff-hanger at the end of the first episode will leave you craving more.
But like Billions before it, the shortcomings of Succession only serve to remind you what a global power-player the HBO network used to be when dishing up stone-cold classic drama. This is more than engaging TV drama, with some startling performances, particularly Cox’s. Whether he turns out to be global media’s Tony Soprano remains to be unveiled. Begins Thursday, 9pm, Sky Atlantic