Clear, informative and – literally – heartstopping TV
At a time when Covid-19 has denied families the right to visit their loved ones in hospital, it has been galling to see celebrity TV presenters given access-all-areas to the wards for a spot of light investigative reporting. Ross Kemp did it for ITV a couple of months back. The ubiquitous Stacey Dooley was at it last week, hovering over a baby being resuscitated at a maternity unit.
Thank goodness for the Van Tulleken twins, Chris and Xand, who are accomplished television presenters but also actual doctors whose presence in hospital is a help rather than a hindrance. Chris is an infectious diseases doctor at University College London Hospitals and Xand works in public health, and both are wellpractised at delivering information in an accessible way. In Surviving the Virus: My Brother and Me (BBC One), they went back to the front line of care. The film followed staff who are treating desperately ill patients, but also looked at the longer-term effects of the disease which have received scant coverage until now.
Xand himself had contracted the virus – suffering the common symptoms of fever, a cough, loss of taste and smell – and appeared to recover. But afterwards he began experiencing abnormal heart rhythm and in a grim couldn’t-make-it-up moment he was brought into the A&E department where Chris was working, to have his heart restarted with an electric shock.
The toll on him was not just physical but mental. It was alarming to see this usually energetic character (familiar to parents and children as the zanier half of the pairing in CBBC’S Operation Ouch!) suffering from anxiety, appearing worn out and angry – a state of affairs not helped by being in lockdown, living alone and unable to see family or friends.
But there were people having it far worse, including the widowed father who suffered a post-covid stroke and was desperate to get back to his two young children. Or the restaurant owner who was not expected to live but who eventually pulled through; doctors allowed his family to come into the hospital and see him, believing that their presence could be the one thing that helped his recovery.
It was a clear, compassionate and helpful film. But the main takeaway was that doctors still do not fully understand this virus. One of Chris’s colleagues admitted: “How do I feel about a second wave? I just feel scared.”
The title of Harlots (BBC Two) is a good one. The show does what it says on the tin. If you were shocked by the sight of naked bottoms and frequent references to parts of the female anatomy, well, you can’t say you weren’t warned.
This is a bawdy period drama about rival 18th-century brothel madams and their girls. One of these madams is the earthy Mrs Wells (Samantha Morton), who is about to auction off her youngest daughter’s virginity to the highest bidder. Watching this show from a 21st-century perspective requires some mental contortions.
The startling fact delivered at the beginning is that in 1760s London, one in five women made a living from selling sex. The story is drawn from Harris’s List, a sort of Harden’s Guide to prostitutes, and based on research by the historian Hallie Rubenhold. The women have agency and independence – and this is a drama written, directed and produced by an all-female team – but what are we to make of a mother taking sealed bids on her teenage daughter, as if she’s flogging a wellappointed flat with all mod cons?
Nevertheless, Mrs Wells is the sympathetic figure at the heart of this show. The other madam is Mrs Quigley (Lesley Manville), a bewigged Cruella de Vil who runs a more upmarket establishment in which the girls play the harp and discuss arts and culture.
Harlots hasn’t been made by the BBC, but bought in to presumably fill the Covid schedules. It was originally shown on the US streaming site Hulu and the now-defunct ITV Encore back in 2017 when the star attraction was Jessica Brown Findlay, recently released from her role as Lady Sybil in Downton Abbey. Brown Findlay plays Charlotte, who supplies her services exclusively to a foppish baronet Sir George Howard (Hugh Skinner). All the men in Harlots, with the exception of Mrs Wells’s saintly partner (Danny Sapani), are vile or stupid, and Sir George manages to be both. Skinner has fun in the role, but this series really belongs to Morton, who ensures that what could have been a titillating romp has toughness and heart.
Surviving the Virus: My Brother and Me ★★★★
Harlots ★★★★