The Herald - The Herald Magazine
TV review Watching out for the detectives, and the new Brucie
ALISON ROWAT
WHAT does Britain need? I mean, apart from a superfast vaccine roll out, finding £2 trillion down the back of the sofa to pay off the debts, and a Canary Islands climate? The answer, apparently, is a new Bruce Forsyth. No, it was not on my list either.
According to Her Majesty’s press (Sunday division), the BBC and
ITV think they have found “the new Brucie” in Bradley Walsh and are tussling to secure his services exclusively.
Like me, you are perhaps only familiar with Mr Walsh’s oeuvre via The Chaser, the very moreish teatime quiz show, but apparently he is all over the schedules like a rash. Sure enough, there he was again in
The format was simple: father and son travel across a continent – previously America, this time Europe – in a motorhome, with the youngster challenging dad to do daredevil things along the way, such as canal jumping or velodrome cycling. Think the Generation Game on wheels.
Dad was usually useless, but he was a likeably cheeky chappy from Essex, there were some poptastic tunes from the likes of the Rolling Stones and Queen (the rights alone must cost a fortune), the pair had the kind of toasty relationship any parent would want with their child, and I did laugh when that starter pistol went off. All of this in a short and sweet half an hour package.
Slick work. Even so, Bradley as the new Brucie, Mr Saturday Night Telly? Better than Michael McIntyre but not quite Ant and Dec yet, I would say. Give it time, though.
Something else supposedly popular at this time of year is a fresh start, as explored in Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild (Channel 5, Tuesday).
Fogle’s first subject was Denni, who had traded life in Hollywood as a director and filmmaker for a farm in his native Iceland. Denni seemed to have it all – peace, nature, electricity, heating and hot water – but Fogle kept fretting that he must be lonely, especially when he found out he had three daughters living elsewhere with their mothers.
Sidse Babett Knudsen in political drama Borgen
What’s the story?
Telly revivals.
Do you mean repeats?
No, I’m talking about shows thought to have gone the way of the dodo that are now making a comeback.
I’ll need more information.
I give you Exhibit A: Sex and the City. We bade farewell to the TV series in 2004. Then came two dreadful movies, the second a tone-deaf bastion of unapologetic white privilege.
Imagine the surprise, then, when it was announced that HBO Max is to reprise it on the small screen with a new title, And Just Like That... Stars Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis will return – Kim Cattrall is choosing to sit this one out.
And the good news?
Exhibit B: Netflix is breathing fresh life into Danish political drama Borgen, which wrapped in 2013 after three series.
Sidse Babett Knudsen will reprise her role as Birgitte Nyborg Christensen, the first female Prime Minister of Denmark. Filming is underway, with new episodes expected to air in 2022.
Any others?
A revival of Dexter, the dark drama about a mild-mannered blood-spatter analyst/serial killer, is in the works.
Other TV shows are being reimagined with a new cast, including the teen drama, Gossip Girl, and the 1990s sitcom Fresh Prince of Bel Air, which will undergo a dramatic retelling.
When can I watch?
Coming to a streaming service soon.
SUSAN SWARBRICK
ALISON ROWAT
IT was 23 February, 2009, and Cerrie Burnell remembers the story in the Evening Standard well. “Dozens of parents,” she read, “have complained to the BBC that a disabled television presenter is scaring their children.”
That presenter was Burnell. I wish I could say it is the worst, most shocking thing you will hear in
but Burnell is just getting started.
Born in 1979 without the lower part of her right arm, the writer and actor had never faced such blatant prejudice until she appeared on television. But she knew many others had, so she set about exploring that history, which turns out to be her history, too.
Burnell begins her story pre-industrial revolution, when disabled people were largely looked after, if they were looked after, by family. Then the mass migration from the countryside to the city began in search of work. The able-bodied won the competition for jobs, leaving disabled people to be sent to the workhouse along with the rest of the poor.
After a while, official thinking changed. Disabled people would be moved en masse to the countryside and kept away from public view. Out of sight out of mind. Many of them were sectioned and had no choice about it. Then came another change of mind. Instead of separating disabled people from society, why not rehabilitate or “fix” them, whatever it took? One woman tells Burnell how her childhood was spent in hospital having her bones broken and reset, over and over.
Thankfully, thinking changed again, and this time it was disabled people pushing for reform. So begins the long fight for independent living and civil rights. This section of Burnell’s film is as heartening as the earlier section of the film is depressing. As one contributor
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (BritBox, from Thu)
Forget Benedict Cumberbatch (whose Sherlock series is also being made available to stream this week) and cast Basil Rathbone from your mind -- for many fans of Arthur Conan Doyle, the actor who delivered the definitive performance as his most famous creation is Jeremy Brett. He played Holmes over the course of 10 years; the first of those is being made available for our viewing pleasure. There are 13 episodes in all, featuring adaptations of such famous tales as A Scandal in Bohemia, The Speckled Band and The Final Problem. Brett is simply superb in the lead, but he’s ably supported by David Burke as Dr Watson; guest stars include John Thaw, Robert Hardy, Natasha Richardson, Joss Ackland and Peter Vaughan.
Disenchantment (Netflix, available now)
No matter what he does, Matt Groening will forever be known as the man who created The Simpsons. Although his other projects have been overshadowed by that animated juggernaut, the likes of Futurama and this medieval misadventure have been pretty impressive too. Now Disenchantment is returning for its third series, which sees hard-drinking Princess Bean continue to grow into her power as she follows her destiny. She and her friends Elfo and Luci also explore new worlds, but learn valuable lessons along the way. Abbi Jacobson,
Eric Andre and Nat Faxon play the leads, while Matt Berry, Noel Fielding, Rich Fulcher and Lucy Montgomery are also among the impressive vocal cast.
Losing Alice (Apple TV+, from Fri)
Apple’s latest major drama is a gripping eight-part tale from Israel. Ayelet Zurer heads the cast as 48-yearold movie director Alice, who feels pointless and
Disenchantment
aimless after raising her family. While at a low ebb and during a train journey, she encounters Sophie (Lihi Kornowski), a femme fatale and screenwriter half her age, and develops an obsession with her. Eventually, Alice foregoes her moral integrity to achieve power, relevance and success. It’s a sort of a female musing on Faust, exploring such issues as jealousy, guilt and the fear of ageing, as well as the complex relationships women have with each other. It’s a potential classic.
White Tiger (Netflix, from Fri)
In 2008, Aravind Adiga won the 40th Booker Prize award for White Tiger, his debut novel. It’s taken a while for it to be adapted for the screen, but better late than never. It focuses on the life of Balram Halwai, who rises to success from humble beginnings in modern-day India. Balram is cunning and ambitious, so realises early on that he can use his position as a driver for two locals who’ve recently returned from America to his advantage. He makes himself indispensable, but finds out the hard way that loyalty counts for nothing. On the verge of losing everything, Balram must reinvent himself if he’s to become the wealthy entrepreneur he believes is his destiny. Darkly humorous, the film features a charming central performance from Adarsh Gourav in the lead role.
BARRY DIDCOCK’S FILM PICKS
Page 58
“WE’RE not sanctifying him,” Mark Radcliffe said of David Bowie about an hour into his programme on Sunday morning, “we’re appreciating him.”
Really? On the fifth anniversary of his death, Bowie Five Years on, which covered much of BBC radio last weekend, felt like a sanctification at times. Not that I was complaining. A day dedicated to the man and his music on the fifth anniversary of his death seemed like a gift.
Bowie himself turned up a couple of times, picking the tunes on 6 Music (a repeat of a 1979 show) and in David Bowie: Verbatim on Radio 4’s Archive on 4 slot on Saturday. Bowie’s was one of the few voices heard all weekend that actually dared question his own choices. Speaking about his quest to give up drugs in the mid-1970s he pointed out: “I ended up in Berlin the smack capital of Europe …” At the heart of the Bowie love-in was the simulcast of the programme Bowie Dancing Out in Space on both Radio 4 and 6 Music on Sunday night. Presented by Stuart Maconie, it offered no central thesis but reflected and refracted various elements of Bowie’s story through celebrity fans, ranging from Grayson Perry to author Deborah Levy, all of whom were in his debt.
At one point Ricky Gervais was doing his best to explain why Bowie mattered as Sweet Thing/Candidate from Diamond Dogs played in the background. Eventually Gervais faded out and the music carried on, proving Bowie’s worth more eloquently than any of the words we might say about him ever could.
Bodies,
Radio 4, Monday to Friday, 1.45pm, Professor Alice Roberts begins a new series on the science of anatomy.
Listen Out For:
TEDDY JAMIESON
INTERVIEW WITH THE VAMPIRE
Friday, BBC One, 11.10pm
BEFORE Stephenie Meyer’s eroticallycharged Twilight novels and the subsequent film franchise there was Anne Rice’s erotically-charged Vampire Chronicles, the first of which, Interview With The Vampire, was published in 1976. Two decades on, Irish director Neil Jordan returned to the stylish gothic horror genre in which he had made his name with
The Company Of Wolves and turned out this 1994 adaptation. Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Banderas and Christian Slater feature, as do a young Thandie Newton and an even younger Kirsten Dunst. She was only 12 at the time of release.
Cruise, very much playing against type at this point, is Lestat, an 18th century French nobleman and the oldest in a trio of vampires which also includes Louis (Pitt), a former Louisiana plantation owner, and Claudia (Dunst), daughter of a New Orleans plague victim.
Lestat turns Louis after his wife and daughter die and he slips into a life of dissolution, and he turns Claudia after Louis feeds off her when he finds her sitting by her mother’s dead body. Fast forward to 1870 and the three have relocated to Paris, then on the cusp of great social and political upheaval, where they meet vampires Armand (Banderas) and Santiago (regular Jordan collaborator Stephen Rea). Another jump forward will find Louis, cursed and tormented, travelling solo.
Slater plays journalist Daniel Molloy, whose interrogation of Louis in modern-day San Francisco gives the film its neat framing mechanism: this really is an interview with a vampire, and Jordan sets the scene in a long opening sequence which swoops in over a night-time cityscape to the bare third story corner room in which the pony-tailed
and icy surroundings. That being said, swapping skis for skates might just be his biggest challenge yet.
DENISE VAN OUTEN
Actress and presenter Denise van Outen, 46, is no stranger to performing in front of large audiences, however, the ice is set to add an entirely new element to proceedings.
RUFUS HOUND
“At no point in my life did I ever want to do ice skating or be an ice dancer”. It’s safe to say that comedian Rufus Hound,
41, is not entirely enthralled or prepared for life on the ice.
COLIN JACKSON
Welsh hurdler and world record holder Colin Jackson, 53, is channelling all his sporting prowess into this new on-ice challenge.
JASON DONOVAN
Actor and singer Jason Donovan, 52, finds himself swapping equators this time around for his on-ice debut. “I’m a surfer, I’m a skateboarder, I’m a bike rider, I’m a skier. I love adrenaline.” Dancing on Ice, STV, tomorrow, 6pm