This dingy Europudding is so dreadful it’s almost good
There is often a gulf between what broadcasters say they’re doing, and what we can see with our own eyes. Channel 4 is the home of distinctive British content, according to its chief executive, who is battling the threat of privatisation. How then to explain Close to Me, a stone-cold Europudding that was filmed in St Leonards-on-sea but is aching to be Nordic noir?
No wonder its leading lady is confused. Connie Nielsen plays Jo, whom we meet lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs. She is put into an induced coma and wakes to find that she has amnesia which covers, very specifically, the last 13 months of her life. Her husband, Rob (Christopher Eccleston, who must be wondering how he got himself into this), is overly solicitous and a bit creepy. Did he push her down the stairs after discovering she was having an affair? Was the affair with her daughter’s boyfriend or the sexy gardener? Why is there always a sexy gardener?
There are plenty of other questions. What has Eccleston done to his hair? Why does everyone in this type of show live in a house from Grand Designs? Is it – please tell me it isn’t – all an allegory for the menopause?
But the main question is surely: what is this doing on Channel 4 at all? It’s one of those shlocky psychological thrillers (adapted from a bestselling novel) that would be perfectly suited to Channel 5. It’s made by a production company called the Nordic Entertainment Group and someone clearly has an eye on flogging it abroad.
That accounts for the presence of Nielsen – a Danish actress more usually seen in Hollywood blockbusters, and perhaps best remembered as Joaquin Phoenix’s sister in Gladiator – and the chilly Scandinavian vibes. Perhaps European audiences also like their dramas to feature flat voice-overs, with Nielsen narrating some truly terrible inner monologues. Just in case we didn’t get that the character is Danish, Jo has a Danish dictionary on her desk (she’s a translator, you see) and at one point actually holds a conversation with – I kid you not – an ornamental Little Mermaid.
As for the direction and the dialogue – holy moly. When someone mentions the sexy gardener and his habit of forking the topsoil with his shirt off, a bottle of milk in Jo’s hand suddenly spurts all over the floor. “Are we close, you and me?” Jo later asks him. “Well, I have handled your lobelia,” he replies. We’re into so-bad-it’s-goodterritory. Same time, next week?
Hitherto a Christmas treat, Worzel Gummidge (BBC One) returned this year for a Bonfire Night special. Sorry to say, but it was poorer for not having a festive twinkle. Previous episodes have been among the most charming family offerings in years, but the prospect of Worzel’s cousin going up in flames wasn’t quite the heartwarming sort of tale we’ve come to expect.
Siblings John and Susan (Thierry Wickens and India Brown) are still living in Scatterbrook with the Braithwaites. Susan looks much as she always did, but Wickens has shot up in size since we last saw him, a difference so noticeable that Mackenzie Crook (star, writer and director) felt the need to insert a joke about it from Worzel: “Have you shrunk?” Gags were a bit thin on the ground otherwise.
There is still a gentle beauty to the show: the lovely opening titles, the folksy music, and the countryside scenes. Toby Jones stole the show in no fewer than six roles of butcher, baker, alderman, mayor, postmaster and publican, and the warmth of the relationship between Mr and Mrs Braithwaite remains a delight. But the story was neither here nor there.
It concerned Worzel’s cousin, Guy Forks – not a spelling mistake, his arms were made of garden forks – and was a slight tale in which the guy and the scarecrow swapped roles. Obviously, that was a more hazardous undertaking for Worzel, what with Bonfire Night coming up. Forks was played by Paul Kaye, unrecognisable under the papier-mâché head.
Crook wrote his way out of the fact that Forks would end up being incinerated by having him enjoy being set alight, plus the vague idea that he somehow regenerates every year (well, if it’s good enough for James Bond…). Being a 17th-century chap, he wasn’t aware of the repercussions of burning plastic waste, but the kids were there to deliver a 21st-century lecture.
There is little point in comparing this show and the old Jon Pertwee series because they’re so different in tone, but I do miss Una Stubbs’s Aunt Sally. The hatchet-faced new version is the stuff of nightmares.
Close to Me ★
Worzel Gummidge ★★★