The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Castro, perfect soul and not enough laughs
EVERYTHING: THE REAL THING STORY
Friday, BBC Four, 9pm
In 1976, the Real Thing became the first all-black British band to top the charts. You to Me Are Everything, a shimmering bauble of Philly soul perfection, came straight outta Liverpool. They were authentic, effortless; that charmingly cocky moniker was perfect. Other hits followed, but the Real Thing, a talented vocal group who also wrote their own socially conscious songs, struggled to escape from their teeny-bop image. This excellent documentary gives them their due. The group’s problems were compounded by falsetto pin-up Ray Stone’s mental health and drug issues. His bandmates pay tribute to that troubled soul man with palpable warmth, candour and sadness. It’s a deserved, if overdue, profile.
CUBA: CASTRO VS THE WORLD
Tuesday, BBC Two, 9pm
This absorbing two-part series attempts to explain how, during the Cold War, the tiny island of Cuba successfully challenged sabre-rattling superpowers. Fidel Castro’s relationship with the Soviet Union was at the heart of his mission to spread Marxist revolution across the continents, but the alliance was often strained to breaking point. While the surface narrative in episode one is familiar – the failure of the Bay of Pigs invasion followed by the world-threatening Cuban missile crisis – it’s fleshed out by insightful contributions from an array of elderly men who were directly involved in the struggle. A cleareyed and authoritative essay, it’s yet another feather in the cap for acclaimed documentarian Norma Percy (The Death of Yugoslavia).
SEMI-DETACHED
Thursday, BBC Two, 10.05pm
I’m all for tragicomedy when done well, but this new sitcom is utterly depressing. Lee Mack plays against type as a needy, desperate middle-aged man struggling to adjust to fatherhood with a partner 20 years his junior. It plays out in real time, presumably in an attempt to ramp up comic tension. Instead, it merely cultivates an air of queasy housebound claustrophobia which is inimical to farce. Small-scale, realtime domestic sitcoms such as Friday Night Dinner and The Royle Family succeeded because the characters are all essentially likeable. Comedy characters don’t have to be good people, of course, but this pathetic shower are exhausting. It’s frenetically charmless and squanders the talents of a fine supporting cast.
SQUEAMISH ABOUT…
Thursday, BBC Two, 10.30pm
In this new series of comedy shorts, Matt Berry narrates incongruous nonsense over obscure archive footage. He does so in the guise of social historian Michael Squeamish, ie the same character Berry always plays. I’m usually quite partial to his absurdly-enunciated whimsy, but this is weak sauce. It’s not enough to just place clips out of context, you have to write some good gags too. Series creator Arthur Mathews (aka the Father Ted cocreator who isn’t a raging transphobe) should know better. Toast of London, the sitcom he co-wrote with Berry, was often very funny, but they’re on autopilot here. Comedians such as Peter Serafinowicz and Rhys Thomas have mined similar territory with far superior results.