This drama is proof that we need BBC Three
It is estimated that social services will make 11,000 decisions a year about whether disabled parents can keep their newborn babies. The fiendish complications of this stark and upsetting statistic were unpicked in Don’t Take My Baby (BBC Three), a perceptive and well-judged drama.
Jack Thorne (the seriously talented writer behind last year’s rural whodunit Glue and soon to co-write
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child for the West End stage) delivered a terrific script: issue-led, certainly, but like BBC Three’s Bafta-winning Murdered by my
Boyfriend, never allowing its foundations of scrupulous research and real-life cases to stifle its humanity.
Anna (Ruth Madeley) and partner Tom (Adam Long) had recently had their first baby, Danielle. Nothing remarkable about that and yet, as any new parent can attest, quite enough to handle in isolation. Anna, however, had a muscle-wasting disease which confined her to a wheelchair, and Tom was partially sighted.
While their love for their daughter was never in doubt, their ability to look after her was, so social worker Belinda (Wunmi Mosaku) was dispatched to assess them, first in the maternity ward and later at home. Her visits were often unannounced.
But this was never as simple as two young people pursuing a dream against a nanny state. The realities of the situation were challenging, to say the least: domestic accidents intervened, Anna’s life expectancy remained at two years, as it had all her life, and Tom’s eyesight was predicted to worsen. Belinda and her team faced an unenviable dilemma.
Director Ben Anthony, another BBC Three Bafta-winner, brought thoughtfulness and an urgency that reflected his background in documentary making. Potent images abounded, from the empty Moses basket in the bedroom to Danielle being ecstatically twirled around in Anna’s wheelchair. The young leads were thoroughly convincing, sentimentality and finger-pointing kept at bay throughout.
The happy ending was welcome – necessary, really, after the agonising hour that preceded it – but tempered with knowledge of the family’s still uncertain future. As Tom argued, “other dads with faults get to have a go, don’t they?”
When BBC Three migrates online, as looks almost inevitable, it’s hard to believe a drama addressing this sort of topic with this level of immediacy would find a home on the BBC’s sister channels, let alone a
Almost 20 years have passed since Jeremy Spake and Airport, yet too many observational documentaries remain grounded, with little to declare. Last night, bookmaker Coral was the focus of the unenlightening Britain at the
Bookies (BBC One). As with recent series such as The Billion Dollar
Chicken Shop which focused on KFC or The Met (London’s police force), it was hard not to ponder whether the subjects had some say in a largely favourable portrayal. When it comes to, “an issue that divides the nation”, such an approach felt counterproductive. A hatchet job serves no one, but an inquiring mind never goes amiss.
The crew descended on Huddersfield (the town also featured in the BBC’s recent The Bank: a Matter of
Life and Debt), where Coral’s branches are just two of 11 town-centre betting shops. Once, these were mostly independent bookies – a story of transformation neglected by Britain at
the Bookies in favour of “characters”. Characters such as Tony Kendall, the amiable manager of both shops and proud owner of a T-shirt bearing the slogan “Eat, Sleep, T’Werk, Repeat”. The banter was of the sort you’d expect to hear in any office, while visits to Coral’s London HQ brought little more than PR puff.
More interesting was the study in contrasts of Stuart and Sean. One was an addict who blew his dole money on the fixed-odds machines that provided 50 per cent of profits for betting shops; the other so much more clued-up that his continued success saw some bookies refusing his bets. Would Stuart’s continued failures have prompted the same treatment? Good egg Tony confessed to rejecting the money of a few desperate souls and responded gamely to queries about the industry’s response to public concerns. But such questions were never put to the Coral PR whom you imagine could influence official policy. These issues may be resolved next week, but you’d get long odds on me tuning into this listless affair again.