The Herald - The Herald Magazine
TV review When following the science leads to delivery of justice
ALISON ROWAT
THE other night I was listening to the World Service (radio, telly; it’s like GCHQ here some days), when an old chestnut of a debate came on: why are people, particularly women, so drawn to tales of violent crime? There was no definitive answer, something about dealing with fears in a safe way, blah-di-blah.
I’ll bet the last thing the men and women who appeared in
did for pleasure was read about crime. For them, the grisly business was all too real. As ever with this series, you needed a strong stomach.
In this week’s case, a 15-year-old boy had been fatally stabbed in a Coventry park. Forensics officers and detectives searched the area but found no weapon. “I imagine they’ve taken it as a souvenir,” said one investigator. This, and the absence of what would have been other clues, made it clear that the suspects had “a level of forensic awareness”. As gained from TV, no doubt.
As the officers spoke about their business they were a picture of professional calm. The tone overall was measured. Then you saw the victim’s jacket being examined. It was soaked with blood. Stickers pointed out where the stab wounds were. There were 18 in total.
Despite the attackers trying to leave no traces, it was forensics that sealed the deal on a conviction. The killers turned out to be around the same age as the victim. A tragedy, for some more than others.
Wartime Britain: Keep Calm and Carry On (Channel 5, Wednesday) took viewers back to the home front of the Second World War, where rationing was in full flow. Among the small but important privations, tea was restricted and biscuit factories were given over to making munitions.
The format was familar: archive footage, talking head historians, modern family given a taste of wartime life (powdered eggs and all). Indeed, it was so reminiscent of the “Back in Time For...” BBC series you wondered why they had bothered.
But when the narrator, James Bolam, talked of “today’s crisis”, though without mentioning Covid, the jig was up. The message here, delicately delivered, was count your blessings. While you have to wear a mask in the supermarket, at least you can buy a 240 pack of Yorkshire Tea Bags and your own bodyweight in custard creams when you feel like it.
Set in the City and the world of international banking, Devils
swaggered on to the screen, all Porsches, good suits and impenetrable accents. Massimo, once a poor boy from a fishing village in Italy, was the hotshot financier tipped for promotion, but some stuffy English snob (his great grandfather had been governor of the Bank of England … all together … whoo-oo!) was blocking the way.
The broadest of brushes had been used to create the characters, with dialogue to match. “Someone’s trying to destroy me,” said Massimo, eyes narrowing as he looked into a troubled future.
Devils was a case of never mind the whiff of Parmigiano-Reggiano, get a load of the fabulous lifestyle. Check out that flat, see how sophisticated folk dine – at 11pm! All very silly, but it had devilishly handsome Patrick Dempsey on peak smouldering form as a banker-in-chief. It also had half the brains of Industry, the recent, similarly themed BBC drama, but the clothes were much nicer.
It must be terrifying to launch a new comedy into the world. There it is, the little ship on which sails your dreams, heading off to the perilous seas of critical scorn and viewer apathy. Only a few make it home again. Fewer land a second series.
Jim Smith and Chris Forbes, the writersstars of
need have no such worries. This mockumentary about a Perthshire farmer began life as a series of shorts and sketches on iPlayer and elsewhere, and the ground work showed in a strong main channel debut.
Smith played Jim MacDonald, not so much old MacDonald as middle-aged MacDonald.
Jim still lives with his mother, introduced as
“farm matriarch”
Mary (Ann Louise
Ross). The Batman to Jim’s Robin, the Rodney to his Del Boy (if Del
Boy and Rodney were fae Perthshire) was Donnie (Chris Forbes, aka the dopey country copper in Scot Squad). Like all the best sitcom characters, Jim was one of life’s losers. Unfortunately for him, he was just smart enough to know it.
There were no big laughs but plenty of smiles to be had from first episode. As an introduction it knitted together nicely. Imagine Father Ted where everyone is on double tranquilisers and you won’t be
disappointed. had brother and sister Kevin and Debbie Webster swathed in coats and scarves and fighting for their lives after Ray had locked them in the bistro freezer. I would have taken it more seriously had the breaks not featured ads for home heating grants.
What’s the story?
Pele.
As in the world’s greatest living footballer?
The very same.
Tell me more.
A new documentary, Pele, arrives on Netflix this week charting his compelling story and how a burning need for perfection led to godlike status – he was jointly named FIFA’s Player of the Century in 2000. The film promises unprecedented interview access to the Brazilian footballing star – full name Edson Arantes do Nascimento – alongside archive footage and interviews with his former team-mates, including Zagallo, Jairzinho and Rivellino.
Anything else?
Directed by David Tryhorn and Ben Nicholas, it looks back at the 12-year period between 1958 and 1970 when Pele – the only man to win three World Cup titles as a player – rose to international superstardom, a meteoric ascent that coincided with a radical yet turbulent era in Brazil’s history.
Any Scottish links?
It is being executive produced by Kevin Macdonald.
The Scotland internationalist and Fulham midfielder?
No, that’s Kevin McDonald. I mean the Academy Awardwinning filmmaker from Glasgow known for The Last King of Scotland and State of Play.
When can I watch?
Pele begins streaming on Netflix this Tuesday.
SUSAN SWARBRICK
ALISON ROWAT
WE don’t know exactly when it is coming, but it is on the way. “It” would be the new series of Line of Duty, a television event on a par with the moon landings, or the big reveal to the question of who shot JR?
An exaggeration, but such was the way series five of Jed Mercurio’s police procedural had the country by the lapels (more than nine million watched the final episode), and so starved are we of a decent Sunday night drama during lockdown, that series six cannot come soon enough. Why, it’s almost an act of public service to get it on the screen asap.
The word on the street from registered informants (okay, the Radio Times) is of a late March transmission date, which gives us a few weeks to fill. If we must wait for one Mercurio drama, why not while away the time with another?
is created and written by Chris Brandon, but Mercurio is an executive producer, and the four part series is made by HTM Television, a production company co-owned by Mercurio and Hat Trick Productions, makers of Have I Got News for You and Outnumbered.
Filmed and set in Northern Ireland, Bloodlands stars James Nesbitt (Cold Feet, The Missing) as DCI Tom Brannick. The detective is investigating the kidnapping of a former senior member of the IRA whose car has been found dumped in the harbour. Brannick, a veteran of policing during the Troubles, is soon led back into the past and an unsolved case that is painfully close to home.
With its zippy pace, slick editing, heart-pumping background music and “trust no one” air, Bloodlands has echoes of a certain other drama in which a copper from Northern Ireland features prominently.
Yet it goes its own way too, with Brandon injecting some bleakly funny lines into the dialogue.