A dogged bid to save a cherished British brand
The British bulldog is in crisis. It can’t breathe, suffers from bacterial infections, and has gammy legs. On the plus side, it has lost its instinct to snarl and clamp its wide jaws on things. Because the breed is a symbol of Britishness, this gives us all something to think about. It used to symbolise fierce indomitability. Now, if we choose to be literal, it’s a symbol of things not being what they used to be.
What can be done, asked Catherine Tate in Saving the British Bulldog (BBC One), a calm, unblinking interrogation of what it can mean to be “man’s best friend”. The owner of a chihuahua named Twinkle, Tate professed herself more dog fan than people person. And people – those who vaunt a bulldog’s looks over its health – are part of the problem. “There are a lot of health problems associated with any dog,” said one bulldog loyalist defensively. So why wasn’t Tate fronting a documentary about chihuahuas?
The bulldog narrative is pretty grim. The more it was identified with Britishness, the more breeders exaggerated its brachycephalic characters (its short head, in short). The product is now a cartoon, a meme, a brand-enhancing opportunity for advertisers. They’re all called things like Reg, Duke, Buster and, obviously, Winston (apparently there are some females too). The problem is its life expectancy is a third shorter than other dogs. And with such a small gene pool, it is being bred towards extinction.
Tate took to her brief with an impressive commitment to travel up and down the land and report on the latest research. In between each visit to a specialist or scientist, she would do an update on her feelings, which veered between hope and gloom. Does this sound familiar? I’ve no wish to belabour its national symbolism, but the healthiest bulldog breed is known as the Leavitt.
The Leavitt bulldog, which springs about gamely and doesn’t sound like a mechanical digger when out of puff, has bits and pieces of bull mastiff, bull terrier and American bulldog (that is, a lot of bull). Tate set off to a bulldog get-together to find out how owners would feel about this adulteration of bulldog DNA, but couldn’t get anyone to answer the question. But the message is as clear as Lord Kitchener’s finger: Britain needs you to let this national brand live and breathe.
In The Assassination of Gianni Versace (BBC Two), scriptwriter Tom Rob Smith has set himself quite a task to keep up interest in a story short of redemptive good cheer. The first episode went off like a glorious gaudy firework. The second delved into the less riveting anxieties of the Versace siblings. Seven more episodes of Gianni and Donatella squabbling might be quite a trial. So in this cheerless parable of sunlight and darkness, a lot rests on the shoulders of the itinerant psychopath Andrew Cunanan, played by the extraordinary Darren Criss.
Last time around we watched him in action as a creepy S&M escort whose specialism was suffocating closeted elderly clients with duct-tape. (Don’t shoot the messenger: I merely report the facts.) The third episode took a holiday from the Versaces to deliver to a well-shaped, self-contained episode from Cunanan’s serial-killing back story. In the words of Blue Peter, it was a case of “here’s a murder I did earlier. Two, in fact.”
The victim was Lee Miglin, a real estate tycoon prone to furtive gay encounters but still devoted to his wife Marilyn, a shopping-network perfume saleswoman. Deftly portrayed by guest actors Mike Farrell and Judith Light, theirs was a lavender marriage based on loving friendship and rigid denial. The denial continued for the unshocked wife even after her husband’s body was found taped and stabbed in the garage. The murder, she ferociously insisted, must be reported as a random robbery gone wrong.
This was a story about appearances. While Marilyn was fixated on keeping up hers (and her dead husband’s), Cunanan was all for exposing ugly realities under polished surfaces. Miglin was ruthlessly taunted for romanticising their sexual transaction. Then his killer ripped off his mask and announced his true identity: “Here I am,” he boasted. “This is me.”
Watching Cunanan enact rituals of sexual humiliation is not a pleasant experience. Later, he also chucked in another more pragmatic, cold-blooded execution on the run. As Cunanan, Darren Criss is horribly convincing, though I’m starting to doubt if he can convince me to spend six more episodes in his company. There are still two more murders to sit through. Come back, Gianni and Donatella. All is forgiven.
Saving the British Bulldog
The Assassination of Gianni Versace