The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Course of true love eventually runs smooth
AYEAR ago, Peter Kay, a comic so amiable he makes Lorraine Kelly look like The Grinch, upset some viewers by not giving them the happy ending they wanted to his tale of starcrossed lovers. Outraged, they rustled up a petition insisting he have another go. The result was Peter Kay’s Car Share: The Finale (BBC1, Monday, 10pm).
Kay tried not to be a pushover. Resuming the tale just hours after supermarket worker Kayleigh’s grand walkout, he had her boss John write a song for her. She was thrilled, but John still needed time. With 20 minutes still to go, would he meet the deadline?
It was touch and go with Kay putting his characters (played by his good self and Sian Gibson) through the ride home from hell. For two people who hated change, the chaos looked like an omen. Stray off the path and BOOM, life blows the bloody doors off. As a metaphor for falling in love, it will do.
All was eventually well, but the previous ending, the one that left things unsaid and messy, was more memorable, convincing, and, well, more Kay.
Just as well it was Shakespeare wot wrote King Lear (BBC2, Monday, 9.30pm) and not Peter Kay, otherwise the tale would have ended with the old dear winning the lottery and starting a blissful new life in France.
Richard Eyre directed. One imagines he assembled the cast by demanding, Withnail-style, to be served with the finest British actors known to humanity. So up rocked Anthony Hopkins as Lear, Emma Thompson as Goneril, Jim Broadbent as the Earl of Gloucester, and several other well kent faces.
As is often the case with some of us and Shakespeare, it took a while to tune in to the language and resist the
conservationists releasing bears, meets pop singers, all-female fighting units, archaeologists, oil workers, LGBT activists and ordinary Iraqis from all walks of life. However, with sectarian violence, ISIS sleeper cells and deadly bomb attacks still a reality, Adnan asks whether the country can break its cycle of violence.
Frankie Goes to Russia (BBC2, 9pm)
Promising to ‘go behind the stereotypes and halftruths of Russian football and culture’ this two-part documentary sees comedian Frankie Boyle tour the country ahead of this month’s World Cup. He visits a sleepy seaside town preparing to host the England team, a city twinned with Glasgow that’s renowned for its football violence, joins a daredevil motorbike temptation to nod off. Patience was rewarded, though, with an adaptation that crackled like a bonfire. Lear was the same tale of ageing, family, and loyalty as it has ever been, but this time it was played out in modern London, offering the once in a lifetime chance of seeing Anthony Hopkins wandering around with all his worldly goods in a stolen supermarket trolley. At times, though, the obvious lack of cash made the piece look rather Play for Today circa 1975.
Hopkins dominated, no surprise there, but it was Emma Thompson who dazzled, playing Goneril like a cougar
football team, records a rap with a hip-hop artist and learns how to wield a sabre from the Cossacks who will be policing the football stadiums. Set against the backdrop of spy poisoning, alleged state-sponsored doping and threats of ultra hooliganism that mark the worst relations between Russia and the West since the Cold War, can the notoriously spiky Scottish comic make some new friends?
A Very English Scandal (BBC1, 9pm)
Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw star in the conclusion of Russell T Davies’ drama based on the true story of the downfall of political leader Jeremy Thorpe. Norman survives a bungled attempt on his life, and publicly accuses Jeremy of having hired the would-be killer to silence him - an act which finally
with a lion-sized appetite. This was pure licence fee TV, something the Beeb can point to next time the government comes calling for cuts, but it was also entertaining, accessible, and in the scene where (spoiler alert) Cordelia and Lear were reunited, rather moving.
So Hopkins makes a brilliant Lear. But could he play the Pavilion on a Friday night and get out alive? The acts featured in The Collins Variety Agency (BBC2, Tuesday, 9pm), a documentary about the Scots family who were the Cameron Mackintoshes of their day, soon found out if they had what it took. “If you were
brings their secret relationship into the public eye for the first time. With the world watching, the ensuing court case drags years of acrimony between the two men into the light, as a man who would be prime minister stands trial for conspiracy to murder.
The Jeremy Thorpe Scandal (BBC4, 10pm)
To tie in with the conclusion of three-part drama A Very English Scandal on BBC One tonight, veteran reporter Tom Mangold looks back at the trial of Jeremy Thorpe for conspiracy to murder, using material recorded for Panorama at the time but which was never used as it presumed a guilty verdict would be returned. Although Thorpe and his co-defendants were all acquitted, the former MP’s public reputation was damaged irreparably by the billed on a variety show in Scotland as ‘England’s favourite young comedian’, it was like a death warrant,” chuckled Michael Grade, one of several talking heads turning out to praise the theatrical agents and entrepreneurs.
Victoria Brown’s film could have been a slog, but what brought the programme and the times roaring back to life was the never before seen footage from the golden age of variety in Scotland. Of the many weird and wonderful acts that crossed the paths of the Collins, “The Human Aquarium”, a chap who swallowed fish and regurgitated them seemed the most likely to win Britain’s Got Talent.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix) is back. UKS is the comedy that shouldn’t work, being as it is the tale of a woman returning to society after being held hostage for years, but it was created by Tina Fey (30 Rock) and Robert Carlock, so it does. As we rejoin the NYC chums, Kimmy is accused of sexual harassment, Titus fakes his appearance in a show called The Capist to impress his ex, and landlady Lillian has to scatter her old man’s ashes in a place that has been turned into a swanky club for bankers, complete with a suite called “The Prostitutes Room”. Oh Kimmy, we’ve missed you.
The Split (BBC1, Tuesday, 9pm) ended as it began, as a steaming pile of designer soapiness. The story of divorce solicitors to the rich and famous was Casualty with affidavits, and if not for its talentstuffed cast, including Nicola Walker and Stephen Mangan, it would have sunk without trace.
As the final episode inched towards a close I wouldn’t say it pushed hard for a second series, but it did everything bar posting a card with a fiver inside to every address in the UK. And lo it has a second series. Viewer reaction doesn’t always count, apparently.
case, and the fact he chose not to testify at the trial left several matters unexplained.
MONDAY Springwatch 2018 (BBC2, 8pm)
Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan begin their second week at their base in the National Trust’s Sherborne Park estate in Gloucestershire by catching up on all the wildlife action that has taken place over the weekend. Iolo Williams joins them this week and there is a report of what happened when he and Michaela tested a golden eagle against a white-tailed one. Plus, Gillian Burke is just outside Leeds to see how a series of disused mines have been reclaimed as spaces for nature. There’ll be more spring updates throughout the week.