The Herald - The Herald Magazine
TV preview A documentary that is as moving as it is surprising
sense of self-worth, she is one of the reasons why the film ends on a note of hope that might have been thought impossible given the subject matter.
There is a Netflix show called Dream Home Makeover where viewers can follow projects from floor plan to final karate chop of the cushions.
Yes, karate chopping cushions is A Thing, as is taping walls and floors to try out the best spots for furniture.
There’s one constant when it comes to the television: couples tend to disagree about how big
the television screen should be. While one half thinks super size screens are vulgar and make the place look like a bar, the other reckons go massive or go home. Hence the two sets of tape on the wall.
When it comes to art on screen, humongus is best. Art programmes, from portrait painting competitions to mass tutorials, have flourished in the time of coronavirus. One show early to the party was
which I am glad to see is still going strong.
Great Art has a no-frills format with art historian Tim Marlow selecting an exhibition, discussing the highlights with experts, and filling us in on the painter’s life and times. Nothing fancy, no gimmicks, but it works.
Next week Marlow’s starting point is the Vermeer and Music show at the National Gallery in London. Look and come close to weeping as we watch crowds milling around, blissfully oblivious to the fact there will one day be something called social distancing.
A big screen television comes into its own as Marlow looks in detail at particular works. A treat here is having Tracy Chevalier give us the benefit of her expertise on Vermeer, gained during research for her novel, Girl with a Pearl Earring.
One aspect of Vermeer’s life picked up on is the fact he was father to 15 children, 11 of whom survived infancy. Since he and his family lived with his mother-in-law in a cramped home, you can only marvel anew at the serenity conveyed in his paintings.
And there was you thinking working from home was a pain. For Vermer, the experts agree, painting was a refuge.
It would be centuries until Vermeer’s genius was recognised, far too late to save him from a hard life. He died, at the age of 43, almost penniless.
It’s the final of The Great British Bake Off (Channel 4, Tuesday). Hollywood handshakes all round for defying the odds and Covid-19 to make it back to the screen. Despite the restrictions, or maybe because of the special circumstances, this has been a vintage year for the Great British Bake Off with more than a few excellent bakers giving it their all.
At the time of writing, Peter from Edinburgh was still in with a shout. I tipped him to win in the first week, but he has had a few ups and downs since then (those mini cheesecakes for a start).
If he triumphs the sticky buns are on me; if he doesn’t we’ll say no more about it.
Rising Damp (BritBox, from Thu)
While some sitcoms don’t stand the test of time and fade into insignificance, others will probably live forever. Rising Damp certainly falls into the latter category. Created and written by Eric Chappell, who based it on his 1971 stage play The Banana Box, it features career-best performances from its cast – Leonard Rossiter as miserly landlord Rigsby, and Frances de la Tour, Richard Beckinsale and Don Warrington as his tenants, fey spinster Miss Jones, naive student Alan and the educated Philip, whose confidence and race make Rigsby hilariously uncomfortable. Beautifully scripted and acted, it’s a classic series and if you’ve never seen it, a chance to view all four seasons should be grabbed with both hands.
Dolly Parton’s Christmas on the Square
(Netflix, from Sun)
Last November, Dolly
Parton released Heartstrings, an anthology series telling the stories behind some of her most popular songs. Now she and Netflix have collaborated again, this time on a festive-themed production that offers a twist on the familiar plot of A Christmas Carol. Christine Baranski stars as Regina Fuller, a mean-spirited, wealthy woman who, after her father’s death, returns to her hometown to sell off his properties to developers - a move that will leave many families homeless.
However, Regina’s cold heart could be thawed by the arrival of an old flame, moving stories from the locals and the appearance of an angel with some valuable advice. Parton herself plays the otherworldly spirit; Jennifer Lewis and Treat Williams also appear.
No Man’s Land (StarzPlay, from Sun)
Felix Moati, James Purefoy, Melanie Thierry and James
Krishna Floyd star in a new eight-part thriller that offers a fresh perspective on the Syrian civil war. It gives viewers a sense of the kind of people caught up in the conflict while shining a light on the tragic fate of so many trapped in the country. Antoine is a young Frenchman searching for his estranged, presumed dead sister. Antoine’s investigation into her fate leads him to a unit of female Kurdish fighters whose actions are a real thorn in the side of ISIS. He joins forces with them – but will gaining a new sense of the conflict lead him any closer to uncovering what has happened to his sibling?
Hillbilly Elegy (Netflix, from Tue)
When it comes to Oscars, Glenn Close and Amy Adams are always the bridesmaids but never – so far, at least – the bride. While Close has seven nominations and no win, Adams has been in the running six times but always gone home empty handed. Now they’re joining forces in director Ron Howard’s drama, which is based on the memoir of venture capitalist-turned-author JD Vance. Gabriel Basso plays young Vance, an ex-Marine who, while studying at Yale, must return home to deal with a family emergency.
His mother Bev (Adams), who’s struggling with addiction, and grandmother (Close) live in the remote Appalachian region, and Vance is about to learn the kind of lessons his Ivy League college could never teach him.
THE Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, above, was the castaway on Desert Island Discs this week (Radio 4, Sunday/Friday). “I’m hoping your choices are entirely your own,” host Lauren Laverne quipped near the beginning of the interview.
In the circumstances, the answer is, probably. No selfrespecting spin doctor would have let him away with choosing the England anthem Three Lions. That’s not going to help north of the border.
Instead, Starmer (or do we say Sir Keir? Does he insist on the Sir?) went chasing the northern soul and indie kid vote with his choices of Dobie Gray’s Out on the Floor and Orange Juice’s Falling and Laughing. Oh, there was some Jim Reeves and Beethoven too.
Laverne gave him a mildly hard time over the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s findings of anti-semitism in the Labour party.
Mostly, though, the Labour leader played the straightest of bats. “If we didn’t tackle antiSemitism we don’t deserve to win,” he pointed out.
As a former director of public prosecutions, you couldn’t say that he had lived a dull life, but in conversation you couldn’t argue that he was scintillating company either.
Actually, though, in the circumstances that might not be a bad thing. For years now politics has been full of largerthan-life characters, mostly buffoons who have casually coarsened political life. There’s one in Number 10 even as we speak. Maybe a little dutiful dullness might be a good thing. And anyone who loves Orange Juice can’t be all bad.
Mark Radcliffe presents the best of the year, including Laura Marling.
TEDDY JAMIESON
LYNN + LUCY
Saturday, BBC2, 10.55pm
AIRING as part of BBC Two’s season of new British films, this gritty drama set in the Essex bad lands marks the debut of AngloMoroccan director Fyzal Boulifa and centres on the relationship between the two women of the title, friends since school and now living opposite each other on the outskirts of Harlow.
Lynn (Roxanne Scrimshaw) married her high school sweetheart Paul (Shaq B Grant) and had a daughter, Lola (Tia Nelson), who’s now 10.
Lynn has only ever been a stay-at-home mother, a fact she views with a mixture of pride and guilt.
But with Paul now invalided out of the army after an accident she needs to find a job, which leads to her sweeping the floor of the hair salon now owned by Janelle (Jennifer Lee Moon), a hated ex-schoolmate.
Lucy (Nichola Burley) has always been the party girl, tumbling through a series of relationships and never settling down until now – the film opens with Lynn and Paul attending the christening of baby Harrison, Lucy’s son with boyfriend Clark (Samson CoxVinell).
For Lynn it marks a new chapter in their relationship, but Lucy still has her doubts about motherhood.
“I don’t know if I can love him,” she says of her son.
Her words assume an even darker meaning when events take a turn for the tragic. After a row between Lucy and Clark following a drunken night out with Lynn, her baby dies.
Candles and toys are left outside Lucy’s front door and Lynn types ‘Sudden Infant Death Syndrome’ into a search engine. But when Clark is arrested, the community turns on Lucy, now sleeping on Lynn’s sofa.
As tongues start to wag, new
HIS HOUSE Netflix
Now streaming
THE feature debut from former commercials director Remi Weekes, His House was partfunded by the BBC and comes to Netflix fresh from a well-received world premiere at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.
A punchy and beguiling film, it starts out as a piece of gritty cinéma vérité, detours sharply into haunted house territory and then for its third act braids together flashback sequences and scenes of brilliantlyexecuted staginess that make you feel at points as if you’re watching a live streamed theatre performance.
Oh, and it also has Matt
Smith in it as Mark, a lanyardtoting case worker employed by whichever arm of the British state is responsible for housing refugees.
In one sense, the house of the title – a grim and run-down dwelling in a low-rise London council estate – is Mark’s.
It’s him that bestows it on refugees Bol (Sope Dirisu) and
Rial (Wunmi Mosaku) when they’re finally removed from the detention centre in which they’ve been languishing.
Originally from war-affected South Sudan they arrived in the UK via a perilous Channel crossing which claimed the life of their daughter, Nyagak (Malaika Abigaba).
Bol tries to blend in by going to the pub and joining in with football songs. Rial simply tries to find the local GP surgery and, when she becomes lost, finds her accent and appearance being mocked by a gang of black kids who tell her to go back to Africa.
It’s a neat touch from Weekes as he undercuts the usual narrative of white prejudice.
Pretty soon Bol starts to unravel as the malign presence which Rial has already felt begins to impinge on his sanity.
He hears things, sees his dead daughter, has visions of gaping holes in the walls from which he pulls seaweed-choked rope. Rial blames a male witch, a malevolent spirit, which has travelled from Sudan with them. Perhaps that ‘His’ of the title refers to this entity.
Or perhaps it’s guilt at not saving his daughter, or the pressure of loss and dislocation which are causing Bol’s strange behaviour.
As flashbacks fill in more of the backstory, further twists ensure.
A complex and accomplished film which blends genuine scares with a deft political and social message.
Unhinged (Cert 15)
Available from Monday on Amazon Prime Video/BT TV Store/iTunes/Sky Store/ TalkTalk TV Store and on DVD £15.99/Blu-ray £17.99) Self-employed hairstylist Rachel (Caren Pistorius) sleeps through her morning alarm and quickly dresses for an appointment with her most important client.
En route, she is supposed to drop off son Kyle (Gabriel Bateman) at school but with gridlock predicted for the morning commute, he’s going to be late. Again.
Rachel’s frustration boils over at a traffic light and there is an ugly altercation with a stranger called Tom (Russell Crowe). Her rudeness is a spark to the tinder box of his primal rage.
Red mist descends and Tom terrorises Rachel and Kyle on rain-slicked roads.
Television news reports document Tom’s rampage as the increasingly deadly game of cat and mice ensnares Rachel’s brother Fred and her lawyer Andy.
Unhinged is a winceinducingly violent thriller punctuated by scenes of torture, which feels like a turbo-charged throwback to 1990s potboilers.
Proxima (Cert 12)
Filmed inside real-life European Space Agency facilities, writer-director Alice Winocour’s intimate human drama explores the pressures on one mother who must juggle responsibilities to her young daughter as she prepares for an out-of-this-world expedition.
Sarah (Eva Green) is the only woman chosen for a year-long space mission code-named Proxima alongside astronauts Mike Shannon (Matt Dillon) and Anton Ochievski (Aleksey Fateev).
Training begins in Cologne, where Sarah lives with her precocious young daughter Stella (Zelie Boulant
Lemesle), close to her astrophysicist ex-husband Thomas (Lars Eidinger).
The physical and psychological impact of the training regime weighs heavily on Sarah, straining the relationship with her only child.
As preparations for the mission move to Russia and Kazakhstan, Sarah prepares to blast off into space and leave behind the person she loves the most.
Train To Busan Presents: Peninsula (Cert 15)
Military man Jung-seok (Gang Dong-won) escapes a deadly virus in South Korea by boat with his sister (Jang So-yeon), her husband Chul-min (Kim Do-yoon) and son Donghwan (Moon Woo-jin).
One of the passengers exhibits symptoms and in the ensuing carnage, Jungseok loses his nearest and dearest. Four years later, Jung-seok is a shadow of his former self, living in despair in Hong Kong.
He is offered a chance at redemption – and a sizable payday – by undertaking a dangerous mission: to retrieve an abandoned truck in the middle of Seoul and drive it to the docks.
Accompanied by a small team Jung-seok heads to the capital and meets fierce resistance from a militia called Unit 631. A gun-toting mother, Min-Jung, and her resourceful children become entangled in Jung-seok’s fight for survival as the undead swarm, hungry for human flesh.