An unsettling and stylish drama to rival The Fall
We’ve all been there. Call in a pest control company, end up sleeping with the exterminator and embroiled in a deadly revenge plot. This was the opening act of three-part thriller (BBC Two), about a schoolteacher whose one-night stand sends her life spiralling out of control. I’ll never look at a Rentokil van in quite the same way again.
The titular heroine (Olivier Awardwinner Denise Gough) was trying to extricate herself from an affair with married PE teacher Philip (Edward Macliam), while also dealing with an infestation of rats (symbolism alert!) in her cellar.
She hired cocky handyman James (Tom Hughes, last seen as Prince Albert in ITV’S regal drama Victoria) to get rid of the rodents and, in a reckless moment, fell into bed with him. Cue obsession, blackmail and a queasily brutal murder.
Written by Irish playwright Conor Mcpherson, whose work usually weaves in supernatural elements, Paula did have the whiff of a ghost story. Things went bump in the night, strings swelled on the soundtrack and spooky faces appeared. There were heavy hints of hints of childhood trauma too.
The head-turningly handsome serial killer (well, I’m assuming that wasn’t James’s first murder) and stalker-ish, psychosexual mood were reminiscent of Gillan Anderson and Jamie Dornan’s cat-and-mouse crime drama The Fall – a BBC Two stablemate similarly set in Belfast which was also deemed a tad too dark and artsy for the main channel.
It was refreshingly true-to-life that Paula wasn’t an entirely likeable protagonist. Her outward confidence masked a spiky, grumpy character with a dysfunctional family. Rising star Gough did an excellent job of capturing her contradictions.
Meanwhile, in-debt drifter James had a curious domestic set-up: living with two women in a cramped flat, sleeping with them on alternate nights and fathering children with both. Polygamy or something more sinister?
Hopping between genres with a sustained sense of menace, Paula was tense, unsettling and stylish without seeming to try too hard. I’m not sure where it’s going but I’m intrigued enough to find out. Let’s just hope Mcpherson can maintain its high standard to the end, unlike some recent BBC three-parters (I’m looking at you, The Replacement).
Atombstone with “Aids” chiselled into it, while the stentorian tones of John Hurt uttered the ominous slogan “Don’t Die of Ignorance”. It’s hard to forget those Eighties TV adverts – but blimey, they worked. An entire generation of Britons grew up well-informed and always kept a packet of condoms close to hand.
Contrast this with South Africa, where there’s never been an effective public health campaign. It’s the world’s worst-affected country, where an estimated seven million people live with HIV and around 200,000 die from Aids-related illnesses each year.
In The Truth About HIV (BBC One), such sobering statistics kept on coming. Since the beginning of the epidemic, 70million have been infected around the world and 35million have died. In the UK, heterosexual infections now outnumber those in the gay community. More than 100,000 Britons live with HIV, with an estimated 18,000 undiagnosed. There are 6,000 new infections in the UK every year and millions more worldwide.
The ever-engaging Dr Chris van Tulleken – who spends so much time on TV these days, it’s a wonder he gets any doctoring done – was our expert guide in this measured and informative film, which examined the latest treatments and asked if the virus could ever be eradicated for good.
Scientists outlined its origins. To demonstrate the importance of testing, van Tulleken did a DIY one on himself. Happily, he was negative yet it made for surprisingly tense television.
It’s easy for Britons to see Aids as a disease of the past, he warned, but complacency could mean we grow ignorant of the risks.
He roped in some famous faces to help get the message across. Elton John recalled how many friends he lost to the disease, while Prince Harry talked about following in his mother’s campaigning footsteps.
Van Tulleken concluded on an optimistic note, explaining how breakthrough drugs cannot only keep the virus at bay but prevent infection altogether. The end of the epidemic could even be in sight.
Paula ★★★★
The Truth About HIV ★★★