The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
BARRYMORE: THE BODY IN THE POOL
INSIDE NO. 9
Monday, BBC Two, 10pm
All good people agree that Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith’s darkly comic anthology series is one of the best and most consistently inventive television shows of recent years. Series 5 kicks off in a football referee’s changing room before, during and after a fraught match. David Morrissey plays a consummately professional ref on the verge of retirement, with Pemberton, Shearsmith and Ralf Little as his temperamentally mismatched linesmen. Although it’s not one of the strongest episodes – it feels quite slight by Pemberton and Shearsmith’s usual standards – it still displays their impressive ability to weave comedy, drama and rounded characters into a single 30 minute narrative. They’re masters of the form: Rod Serling by way of Victoria Wood and Alan Bennett.
UNIVERSAL CREDIT: INSIDE THE WELFARE STATE
Universal Credit is the biggest and most controversial (ie catastrophic) overhaul of the welfare state in a generation. The government insists it was supposed to simplify the benefits system and encourage the unemployed back into work, but instead it has caused chaos and suffering for millions of those who rely on it to survive. It has driven claimants further into poverty; people are dying as a result. This sobering series gains access to the muchmaligned Department of Work and Pensions. We also meet sympathetic jobcentre employees and claimants, including a desperate middle-aged man who’s recently been made homeless, and a single mother of two who struggles with depression and anxiety caused by her dire situation.
Thursday, Channel 4, 9pm
In March 2001, Stuart Lubbock died at a drug-fuelled party held at Michael Barrymore’s home. The case remains unsolved. This documentary attempts to examine the full, murky story. Preview copies weren’t available at the time of writing – possibly for sensitive legal reasons – but it sounds potentially fascinating. The Lubbock case is rife with unanswered questions, as no one has ever spoken openly about what happened that night. We know Barrymore denies any involvement and that his once successful career has, for obvious reasons, never recovered. The film features contributions from members of the Lubbock family, as well as eyewitnesses, detectives and forensic pathologists. Barrymore himself appears only in archive footage.