Parminder Nagra breathes life into a dull crime drama
The makers of DI Ray (ITV) have spent a long time on their lead character. She is a British-asian detective, played by Parminder Nagra. The “Asian” bit seems to preoccupy her colleagues far more than her. She is drafted onto the murder squad as a token hire because her bosses have classed their latest case as a “culturally specific homicide” (ie the victim is Asian, so it must be some sort of honour killing). Ray is asked what languages she speaks. “I got a C in GCSE Spanish,” she shrugs. Being brown-skinned also affects her in tiny ways: being mixed up with another Asian woman who looks nothing like her; being mistaken for a shelf-stacker while she’s buying wine in the supermarket.
It is a smart portrayal of the assumptions and stereotypes that come with the territory, and feels authentic. It was written by Maya Sondhi (Line of Duty’s PC Maneet Bindra), who has drawn from her own experiences. Unfortunately, Sondhi spent so much time working on the issues that she clean forgot about the plot.
The story is deathly boring. A man is found dead in a car on a deserted industrial estate, and everyone assumes it’s an honour killing because he was dating a girl from a different religion, but actually it was something to do with business rivals or organised crime. There’s some tedious lengthy
business about alibis and petrol station CCTV footage.
The executive producer is Line of Duty’s Jed Mercurio. Perhaps he used up all his trademark plot twists in Trigger Point, because his fingerprints were nowhere to be seen on this one. Nothing happens of any note, and the tension is non-existent.
Ray’s team-members are onedimensional – there to say something mildly culturally insensitive every once in a while – and her boss (Gemma Whelan) is awful. But the show’s one saving grace is Nagra, who found fame 20 years ago in Bend It Like Beckham
and went on to a career in the US and a long stint on ER. She comfortably inhabits the role of DI Ray, making her feel like a proper, well-rounded person (special mention must go to whoever is in charge of costumes, because they’ve given Ray some nice coats).
It’s refreshing too to have a detective drama in which the detective isn’t a depressive with a drink problem and a disastrous home life. Ray is a good character who could have a long television life, but she deserves better scripts and plots than this.
I’m pretty sure that this time last year I’d never heard the term “perimenopause”. Now it’s everywhere. Forgotten the name of that actor who was in that thing you once watched? It’s the perimenopause! Irritated with your husband when he doesn’t load the dishwasher properly? It’s your hormones!
Anyway, it’s a good thing. Health issues shouldn’t be an embarrassing secret, and women should be encouraged to discuss their symptoms with friends, family members and the GP. Much of the credit for this change should go to Davina Mccall, who made a documentary on the subject last year and spoke openly about her own experiences. Now Channel 4 has commissioned an equally informative follow-up, Davina Mccall: Sex, Mind and the Menopause.
Save for the woman lamenting her non-existent libido – “even Brad Pitt wouldn’t get it going” – there wasn’t much sex in the programme; that was probably added to the title just to make it sound more interesting. Instead, we got statistics. Mccall even pedalled around town with a billboard listing the findings of a Channel 4 survey. Almost half of the 4,000 45-55-yearolds surveyed said menopause symptoms affected their ability to do their job. One in 10 had quit their job as a result. Seventy per cent reported suffering from “brain fog”.
Mccall was her usual empathetic self while listening to women sharing their experiences. One was a teacher who claimed she was sacked after the menopause caused changes in her behaviour, turning her from a “chilled out, calm and happy” person to intolerant and argumentative. Another was a senior manager in the City who was so alarmed by her brain fog symptoms that she mistook them for early onset dementia.
Most interesting, though, were the findings of two US neuroscientists. Their studies showed that women’s brains change as oestrogen levels decrease; it would be more beneficial to begin HRT in our 40s, at the onset of perimenopausal symptoms, rather than 10 years later when the brain will no longer be as responsive to therapy. If that’s the case, it’s important information – and it felt odd to be finding it out from a Davina Mccall documentary.
DI Ray ★★★
Davina Mccall: Sex, Mind and the Menopause ★★★★