Born to search for a trace of their selves
LONG-LOST Family plucks our heart strings like a world-class harpist. The special (ITV, Monday and Tuesday) cranked up the tears with moving stories of foundling babies. David Mcbride was abandoned at two weeks old in a parked car on a Belfast driveway. Six years later, newborn Helenward was deposited in a phone box in Dundalk, 52 miles south, on the other side of the Irish border.
Both had been left in red tartan bags, Helen with a bottle of warm milk by her side.the children were adopted by loving couples, one Protestant, the other Catholic. But the mystery of their real families haunted them for decades.they didn’t know who their birth parents were, or even their dates of birth.
Incredibly, through DNA testing, the producers discovered that David and Helen were siblings. Diligent research established that their married father had been a band leader from Dublin with 14 other children.their mother was a single woman – younger by 16 years – from a small village in County Kerry.
When the pair met for the first time, they sobbed and cuddled, not wanting to let go.they could barely speak.the parents are dead now, but they’d found each other, along with family members they didn’t know they had.
“I know who I am now,” said Helen. David concurred, saying “I can move on with my life.”
Presenters Davina Mccall and Nicky Campbell handle this tough job with sensitivity. They’re uniquely qualified. He was adopted at four days; she was abandoned by her mother.
We can forgive ITV’S compulsory pregnant pauses.although I did wonder why there had been a six-year pregnant pause for their parents. Had they taken precautions, or should we expect more abandoned siblings next series?
Then we heard of Simon Jeffery, who’d been left in a pub in Greenhithe, Kent, in a corned beef box; and Fi Beazer, who discovered her father had been living with her mother and his wife! Beat that Corrie! It was genuinely moving, gripping like Homer Simpson on a donut.
Foreign imports have brightened up TV during these troubled times, a cut above BBC offerings like televised stone skimming and Life Drawing Live. Israeli espionage saga (Netflix) pitches undercover Israeli officers against Palestinian rebels. In a more ambiguous third season, the heroic Doron ended up perpetuating the circle of violence and a promising young Arab boxer was tragically drawn to terror.thrilling gear.
Then there is
(Thursday, Sky Atlantic), a British crime drama that hits like Kovalev. Stylish direction and vaulting ambition sets this brutal cinematic saga above bog-standard Mockney yarns. It is shot beautifully, the fight scenes are convincingly choreographed and Sope Dirisu impresses as ex-soldier Elliott, now an undercover cop.
This is modern London so Albanian yobs, Russian hoods, Iranian smugglers, Welsh travellers and Pakistani racketeers abound. Sean Wallace (Joe Cole) is out to avenge the murder of his London-irish crime boss father.the story, riddled with deceit and double-cross, paints a disturbing picture of organised crime on a corporate international level.
Criticisms? It’s too often too dark, the dialogue isn’t as strong as the direction and Cole can’t quite carry off the role. It also lacks a sense of place.we can guess where we’re supposed to be, but you don’t feel the location like you did with The Sopranos.
They’re been re-running Frank Ross Is Out on the excellent Talking Pictures TV. You knew where you were with that. Some argue that
(BBC One, Monday) and (BBC One, Sunday) prove that the Corporation can still deliver. I liked the former’s young actors at first, but what mumbling drips their characters turned out to be.
Killing Eve may be a narrative mess but at least the murders are still inventive. On Sunday,villanelle tried and failed to kill Dasha on a golf course with a driving iron. Schoolgirl error. She should have used a pitching wedge.
which finished its auditions last weekend, increasingly suggests Britain has no talent whatsoever. Or more likely that ITV doesn’t know where to find it.
It’s not a talent show in the traditional sense.the best acts are imported pros; the worst seem to have wandered in from Bedlam. Sob stories count more than ability, and the judges are far too puffed up.at least the New Faces panel knew what they were doing. Cowell’s clots have no critical faculties whatsoever.
Neither do BBC comedy bosses.
(BBC Two, Monday) is their latest car crash, a mixed bag of fashionable comics offering bite-size DIY skits. Rachel Parris lip-synced to Blur’s Parklife while husband Marcus Brigstocke took on Robbie Williams’s Let Me Entertain You. If only he could.this stuff is done far better on Youtube.
With graduate humour consistently under-performing, why not re-invest in down-to-earth comedians? Chattering class snobs have sniped at comics from the variety circuit and holiday camps for decades, but when one of them manages to break through, the nation takes them to their hearts.
Step forward (ITV, Wednesday). Brad (left) is a terrific all-rounder – a comic, an actor, a singer, a quiz show host, and, in pantomime, a marvellous ad-libber. Let’s look for more like him and bother less with self-amusing right-on bores.
● David Stephenson is away