Mummy’s boy may be in for a killing
THERE was something very old-fashioned about Gold Digger (BBC One, Tuesday), and not in a good way. It tried to be a TV spin of Mrs Robinson – cue music – but instead gave us Fifty Shades meets Mills & Boon. There was even a foggy sex scene in a shower cubicle. Please...the relief was that we could barely see anything. Note to BBC: we can’t cope with such a steamy evening on a school night.
It all started randomly enough.a woman of a certain age, in some crisis, had gone innocently to the British Museum looking for old relics (unless that particular glass case in the museum was a secret pick-up area). In the end, she found someone who was much younger (Ben Barnes) and quite persistent.actress Julia Ormond had been aged up for the role by several years.why not just cast a 60-yearold actress? Many do exist.
Inevitably they both got drunk and he was taken back to her expensive hotel room where he realised that his “career” as a copywriter could be put on hold.why work for a living when you can just hang around the mummies in the British Museum? But credit where it is due.this is the first copywriter character in a TV role for some years.yes, they’re vastly under-represented on TV but one was bound to turn up sooner or later. Ironically, they say very little.
Ormond did fight against her better instincts however. “I’m 60, and you’re bloody young!” she shouted at him, as she drew herself closer to him. But why bother feeling guilty? She had apparently just received her decree nisi after what seemed like a messy marriage.
Mind you, it was difficult to care for any character in a drama where everyone is damaged. Even the security guy at her hotel had attitude. Ormond’s three precocious offspring appeared to be the children from hell. I’d divorce them too for a clean break altogether.
As we left episode one, our protagonists were getting married in Devon while Ormond’s horrible lawyer-son was looking like a serial killer.who knows what will happen next?we have to arrive back at the point where a wedding dress was caught in a car door. I know, what poetry.
The drama will only be redeemed if the mad lawyer son and his misguided mother kill the young pretender after the dim copywriter gets his hand on her cash.
And if you’re looking for a sympathetic male character your efforts will be in vain. Luckily, we don’t take this personally.
Thought you knew everything about
Ant and Dec? You may even feel you know too much. Surely, that’s not possible. Over the past 18 months we’ve become much better acquainted with Ant Mcpartlin (the “one on the left” as you look at the telly). His inability to navigate a roundabout in a motor car brought him sensationally to the nation’s attention when all he wanted to do was take his dog for a walk. Life since then has been anything but that. He did finally give his pooch a stroll around the rec in Ant And Dec’s DNA Journey (ITV, Sunday & Monday). It was the only canine moment in this scientific spin on Who Do You Think You Are? You had to be quite a fan to get through almost three hours without going, “Why am I watching all this?” Still, there was a reward or two. In the first instalment, I had enormous sympathy for Ant when he found he was related to half an Irish village.that’s all a recovering alcoholic needs.as it was, he had received that news
I’M sure
Gary Lineker’s heart was in the right place when he agreed to tell his grandfather’s harrowing Second World War story in My Grandad’s War Only one thing. He was preaching to the wellinformed. There is a trend for older celebrities to tell stories through their descendents. Stop it! Commissioning editors need to find younger celebs who know nothing about the war – it won’t be difficult – and send them on a voyage of discovery. Who, under the age of 30, would watch this show, however well conceived or produced? before his spell in rehab. So we saw him clutching the bottom half of a pint of Guinness as he celebrated the news.
For much of the three hours we watched them sitting in the back of a van,ant on the left, and Dec on the right.why not switch around?we can take it you know. OK, maybe not. Dec and Ant would never catch on. If that was not enough, they were both interviewed individually in segments where they were encouraged to emote, big time. Neither disappointed. It’s been a troubling time for them, after all.
Success, fame and fortune are very burdensome. If you would like to save the three hours needed to consume Ant And Dec: The Movie, I can help you. You guessed it: they’re related to each other.
Finally, you couldn’t help but chuckle your way through (Sky One, Tuesday). One was in the SAS and the other was once in pop band One Direction. It was an interview show in a 4x4 modelled on Carpool Karaoke but minus the music. It actually should have been an extended episode of Tattoo Fixers. But well done Liam for spotting the “Gee-raffe”. David Attenborough can rest easy.