Fleshing out serious family misfortunes
F(ITV, Mondaythursday) is the first drama hit of the year. Stripped over four nights, this slow-burn thriller was a triumph in subtle writing, deft performance and superb photography.
Blessed by good weather, the seaside location, somewhere near Eastbourne, looked stunning as a middle-class family did their worst to slowly tear away at each other’s lives.to contend with members of your own kin is one thing, but you never bank on the delights of a potential killer living next door who has a distracting line in jam tarts and patchwork quilts...
As such Imelda Staunton turned in one of her best TV performances, encouraged by a lovely script as she undermined and needled one family member after another. And then when threatened by Mark (Stephen Rea) she joined with the others to make his life hardly worth living. He was probably relieved to find himself hoisted over that balcony.
The special part about this drama was disguising evil. Did Mark really want to kill Francesca Annis’s Vivien? Did Mary secretly hatevivien despite appearing to love her neighbour dearly? And will personal training and the life of a gigolo combine to become the new career choice of the age? All will be answered hopefully in a second series. It’s far from finished.
And who wasn’t completely transfixed, and slightly queasy, during The Truth About Takeaways (BBC One, Thursday)? It could only have been improved if it had gone out on a Friday or Saturday evening around 5.30pm – that’s the point at which a true takeaway hound reaches for their phone and clicks on an app.
The stats said it all in this show.we eat three million takeaways a day, which costs about £850million. Good lord, we’re hungry. Couldn’t we power the National Grid in some way with all this concentrated energy, otherwise it seems like an incredible waste. OK, people are being employed, but to what end other than to have their taxes spent on bariatric ambulances? At least Channel 5 can make eye-popping TV programmes about them. Presenter Nikki Fox did a good job at being not too delighted with her brief while preserving enough indignation for those who can’t help themselves. One young guinea pig, Alice, just loved the experiment too.
She gushed: “I’m excited to have chips.” She should get out more – though not to KFC. By the way, if you’re keen to know the “healthiest” takeaway, it’s fried chicken and chips. Pile in.what harm can it do? Well, it will hit your “working memory”.you won’t even remember having it.
Endeavour (ITV, Sunday) was finally released from the evil clutches of Violetta. Of course we all knew she was a complete wrong-un. Or why would they have put her in the show in the first place? Company for lovelorn Endeavour? The episode had it all – a gunfight, a fistfight, some tuneless whistling, a bromance spat and a potential vampire on the loose along a towpath.well done
STEPHENSON’S ROCKET
(BBC1, Sunday) is finally ready to draw its pension. It was due four years ago, but someone had the good grace (or a brainstorm) to postpone the inevitable. It’s a shame. It used to be such a lovely show. Anne Reid wasn’t so grumpy, and Nicola Walker had the prospect of making the farm a going concern. Now, it’s another show. So much so, Derek Jacobi is planning to escape the house by getting a job in a supermarket. He could barely make it across the car park. And don’t get me started on child acting and swearing.
Very poor. writer Russell Lewis.what worried me most was having the full detective team descending on Venice, handguns at the ready, but without access to a European Arrest Warrant. How was anything achieved? Thankfully, both suspects were finishing off the case on a note of operatic symbolism. Quite what, who can say.
Thursday, who helpfully took himself off to Venice too, dispatched his quarry spectacularly into the Venetian waters, which is one way to escape Italy’s coronarovirus outbreak.
We all, of course, wondered if one or other of this crack team would perish in Italy.thankfully, we were spared. It’s way too soon for this show to take retirement. In writing, acting, direction, and setting, it still knocks the spots off most crime dramas. Carry on!
WHICH, of course, the Royals continue to do in the wonderfully uplifting The Windsors (C4, Tuesday). We can thank Jeffrey Epstein for the alarming use of the word “nonce” in the first few minutes as Harry Enfield’s caustic Prince Charles put the boot in as his brother moaned about a hit to his income stream. The other royal issue of the day – whatever Harry and Meghan say on Instagram – was lampooned with relish too, as Meghan took personal responsibility for changing the dangerous attitudes to the growing of avocados, while Harry found himself teetotal and loving yoga.as a royal couple they have proudly invented their very own world of woke, soon to be a theme park.
The writers and producers of this show must be quietly rubbing their hands.whatever can happen next? Well, you couldn’t make it up.
A fine, go-anywhere satire. I’m sure some in the Palace who are spared lampooning are sometimes entertained. Without appearing to be so, of course.