Nicole’s up for slap and tickle
IT was Red Nose Day on Friday, but it could be Black Eye Day every day for Celeste and Perry on Big Little Lies.
The odious creep slaps his wife around like he’s tenderising steak.
Yet the chemistry between Nicole Kidman and Alexander Skarsgard is electric. He hits her, she slaps him back, she undoes his belt.
And then they’re at it up against the bedroom wardrobe for a spot of the old wham bam, um, was that it?
“Sometimes I think he likes to fight because it leads to sex,” she later confides to Madeline. “Sometimes I think I like it too…”
It is the most shocking – and compelling – relationship on TV, built on a mash-up of lust, aggression and fear.
It’s just a small part of this cleverly constructed US drama about wealthy West Coast families and their schoolrun feuds. Think Desperate Housewives meets Monterey Murders.
As the head of Otter Tree Elementary puts it: “I coined the term ‘helicopter parent’, but these gems, they’re f***ing kamikazes.”
And kamikaze missions tend to end badly. We know someone gets topped, but we still don’t know who. Reese Witherspoon sparkles as Madeline, a grade Email me at: garry.bushell@ dailystar.co.uk or write c/o Daily Star Sunday, 10 Lower Thames Street, London EC3R 6EN one busybody always on the look-out for fresh peeves. “I love my grudges,” she says. “I tend to them like little pets.”
She’s obsessed with ex-husband Nathan, who traded her in for a younger model. She bangs on about him so much it convinces Ed, her current husband, that she still loves him.
But Madeline’s number one target is Renata, who has committed the cardinal sin of being a “career mom”.
A fallout between Renata’s daughter Amabella and Ziggy, the six-year-old son of single mum Jane, gives Madeline a fresh battle. When Amabella accuses Ziggy of strangling her, it sparks infighting of Labour Party proportions.
Renata refuses to invite Ziggy to Amabella’s party, so Madeline uses her popular daughter Chloe to subvert it.
Chloe then tries to make the peace, Ziggy kisses Amabella on the lips and suddenly they’re talking “sex assault”.
It’s yet another twist in a well-crafted HBO/SkyAtlantic tale that’s a welcome escape from schedules crammed with over-wrought and under-written soaps and bland cooking shows. Marvel’s Iron Fist, right, (Netflix)…Reese Witherspoon, Big Little Lies (SkyAt)… Billions (SkyAt). Vera, left – dreary, dearie…Travel Man – as half-baked as a Mary Berry pie… Down The Mighty River – up Sh*tey Creek…Red Nose Day – Chronic Relief.
IS Vera part of a bizarre hat share scheme with Bill & Ben? Is the crime-busting bag-lady actually Sarah Millican in disguise?
Who’d win a shouting contest between Steve Backshall, Gregg Wallace and Davina?
Why does no-one in Walford mention that Kath looks Botox-ed to the gills? HORNWORT played a part in the latest Vera. That’s a plant, and not to be confused with horn warts as seen on Embarrassing Bodies. Mel Giedroyc. Walford Gazette headlines. BBC bigwigs demanding special treatment – make better programmes and you wouldn’t need it. Marathon editions of The Voice. Why? Why not create a credible show for young bands who write their own material? RED Nose Day? Oh dear. Something is wrong when the stand-up is sadder than the appeal films. REASONS to be cheerful: Game of Thrones returns in July, the new Fargo season is imminent. American Gods looks promising.
And the latest series of The Americans has started in the States, a show about devious Russians out to undermine US democracy. Tsk, who’d have thought it?