The Herald - The Herald Magazine
TV review A capital new gig for the bald maestro of mayhem
ISUPPOSE we ought to be grateful that Irvine Welsh’s first foray into television turned out to be the Edinburgh-set serial killer drama Crime (BritBox). Imagine if the Trainspotting creator had been let loose on CBeebies (“Duggee the dog and the Squirrel Club go radge at the ducks, with shocking consequences”), or River City (“Scarlett’s mysterious new boyfriend Begbie reveals his hidden side, with shocking consequences.”)
Fortunately, the bald master of mayhem has stuck to what he knows, in this case his own novel, and a pretty fine adaptation he has made of it, too.
Okay, his anti-hero, Ray Lennox, is the latest in a very long line of troubled detectives nursing wounds from the past blah, blah, blah, but he is played by Dougray Scott. Joining Scott on the capital’s meaner streets are Ken Stott, Jamie Sives (Guilt) and Angela Griffin (Coronation Street). Quite the line-up.
Lennox was assigned the case of a missing girl. Or as he put it, “We’re at war. This isnae about solving crime, it’s about eradicating scum from the face of the Earth!” What PC George Dixon would have made of it I don’t know, but the slickly rendered urban grittiness and deft comic touches worked for me.
Love and marriage, horse and carriage, Miriam Margolyes and Alan Cumming? The two possibly had the makings of a perfect partnership in the travelogue Miriam and Alan: Lost in Scotland (Channel 4, Tuesday), but it was touch and go for a while.
The duo’s vehicle of choice was a campervan. Good news: there was a toilet. Bad news: there was a toilet. Miriam, a woman of few boundaries, liked to have a toilet nearby and tell you when she wanted to use it and why. She did draw the line, mercifully, at having the cameras in with her.
First stop in the three episode bid to show each other their “Scottish bits”, was Govanhill, where Miriam’s father grew up. Then it was on to Cawdor Castle (Alan thought he might be related to the family), Fordyce (Miriam shot a drama there with Bill Paterson 41 years ago, he turned up for a reunion), and the
house in Tayside where Alan spent a desperately unhappy childhood.
Lost in Scotland was meant to be Miriam and Alan “finding themselves”, but one got the impression the pair, 80 and 56 respectively, were no strangers to introspection. It was really just two pals driving down memory lane – in Cumming’s case badly – making each other laugh, and having a couple of meaningful moments along the way. If it is good enough for Coogan and Brydon, etc.
Mary Berry: Love to Cook (BBC2, Thursday) found the former Great British Bake Off judge providing a starter to Nadiya’s Fast Flavours half an hour later. The two programmes go together well.
The only piece of egg shell in Mary’s batter was the theme of her show, which seemed to amount to “I’m old you know”.
Mary told us that she was “terribly modern” in that if she eats something new in a restaurant she whips out her phone as soon as she gets home to find out more about the ingredients. No Googling at the table, now that’s class, kidz. That’s how Thoroughly Modern Mary discovered white miso paste, to which she was now “addicted”.
Later, we found out that when she was young, people had never
heard of vegetarian cooking, never mind vegan; one ingredient in vegan scrambled egg reminded her of the powdered stuff during the war; she tried Nigerian cooking (“I love it!); and ate mochi ice cream for the first time.
Berry came at everything with her customary charm, but why the obsession with age? She is only 86 for goodness sake. What will it be next week, Mary ditching cooking over an open fire in favour of one of those new fangled ovens?
The boys were back in town for a new series of Top Gear (BBC1, Sunday). What a survivor this programme is. For a while it looked as though it would never recover from the loss of old farmer Clarkson and his blouson-jacketed, dad jeans-wearing
mates. Eventually the producers arrived at a presenting trio made up of a former cricketer (Freddie Flintoff), a motoring journalist
(Chris Harris), and the bloke who worked the door at The Phoenix Club with Peter Kay (Paddy McGuinness). The show has not looked back.
The test of any specialist programme is if you can find it entertaining despite the subject normally boring the pistons off you. Top Gear still does the business on that score.
Flintoff and McGuinness are TV naturals who are only getting better. Last Sunday, McGuiness turned in a profile of the British stunt rider Eddie Kidd, including a meet with the legend himself, that was outstanding. Not a dry eye in the house when it ended. Catch it on iPlayer if you can.