Hilda Ogden in a headscarf? No, it’s La Lumley in Lacroix, dahling!
Cameramen are a heartless bunch. They followed Joanna Lumley into a lavish shopping mall in Tehran, to see her purchase a silk headscarf, the most expensive on display. ‘Christian Lacroix, sweetie,’ murmured La Lumley.
Women in Iran, even Western visitors, must cover their heads by law. The penalties for disobedience are harsh. Joanna, with this diaphanous wisp of gold thread around her bonce, was making the best of it.
The cruel crew told her she looked like Coronation Street charwoman Hilda Ogden. For the rest of the trip she had just the hint of a sulk.
Joanna is so polite, of course, that it’s practically impossible to tell whether she’s truly peeved or just mildly miffed. She has that oldfashioned and perfectly english knack of conveying disapproval by saying the opposite of whatever she’s thinking.
motoring across the Iranian desert in the third part of her Silk Road Adventure (ITV), on her way to Kashan, birthplace of the biblical Three Wise men, she took a gulp from a bottle of warm, pulpy fruit juice thickened with rancid lumps of coconut.
‘Very nice,’ she declared, though she looked like Patsy in ab Fab, swigging from a bottle of Bolly only to discover it’s Blue nun. most of this hour was filled with happier surprises. We rarely see Iran on TV, except in snatches of mobile phone footage shot at anti-government demos. access to Western documentary crews is almost always denied: some Grand Pooh-Bah in Tehran must be a secret fan of Joanna in The new avengers.
She took full advantage, visiting the crumbling ruins of Persepolis, the Shah’s palace with its mosaic ceiling of sapphires and rubies (‘It’s like being in a jewel box,’ she gasped) and the vast square at Isfahan, a city that 400 years ago was bigger than London.
It was a reminder that Iran is one of the oldest civilisations on earth: ‘Once the centre of the known world,’ Joanna mused, ‘it feels like a hidden state.’
Viewers have endured so many superficial, snide travelogues this year, fronted by comedians who are too full of themselves to reveal much about the countries they visit. romesh ranganathan has been the worst offender. This was refreshingly different.
Little about the Swedish crime thriller Alex (C4), though, was different from anything we’ve seen countless times before.
From the opening shots of a grim industrial landscape, blighted with graffiti and peopled with drug addicts, this was familiar Scandi-noir territory.
a grinding synthesiser soundtrack was punctuated by drums, battering away like a persistent headache. We met a corrupt cop, humanised by his affection for his disabled teenage son, and the cop’s new partner — a lesbian trying to live up to the expectations of her policeman father.
The villain is a chilling psychopath in a prison cell, who passes the time by smashing the fingers of informers with a hammer.
Similar characters have cropped up before, in serials such as the gritty Spiral from Paris and the nihilistic 13 Commandments, made in Belgium. The first few times we encountered them were sensational, but repetition risks making their lives look formulaic.
The story perked up with a Starsky-&-Hutch-style chase which saw idealistic detective Frida Kanto (rakel Warmlander) throwing herself off buildings to land on car roofs.
But the best twist came at the end, as dirty cop alex Leko (Dragomir mrsic) discovered the true cost of turning his back on corruption. Gangsters took his wife hostage and forced him to watch a mock execution. now it’s livening up.
ALL-STAR TREAT OF THE WEEK: Whether it’s the glamorous locations, kitsch sets or superb performances, Trust (BBC2) is unfolding as the best drama of the year. Donald Sutherland as billionaire J. Paul Getty is mesmerising. I’m hooked.