Friday Five: More TV Shows

I was doing posts about ISO TV, but feel slightly fraudulent calling it that in Australia, where almost everything is back to normal operations - apart from theatre and festivals. So let's just go with TV shows; here are another five that I have been watching.

5 TV Shows Recently Watched:

1. Belgravia (ITV) It's not a patch on Sanditon, but it has some pretty bonnets, sly asides and wildly anachronistic character developments. The nineteenth-century drama focuses on illegitimate children, inherited wealth and social climbing as one would expect from Julian Fellowes, writer of Downton Abbey. The cast includes Tamsin Greig, Philip Glenister, Tara Fitzgerald, Paul Ritter, Harriet Walter, Saskia Revves and Tom Wilkinson, who are all marvellous, even if they barely get to flex their acting muscles.
2. Between Two Worlds (Seven Network) The monochromatic colour palette (almost everything is a shade of blue or grey) is matched only by the complete lack of inflection in the acting and dialogue. The premise should have been interesting - a man who has a heart transplant starts to imagine he has inherited characteristics of his donor - but the simultaneously tawdry production and deadpan delivery cannot raise a pulse. Models are all very well but their acting is more of the cardboard cutout variety.  Hermione Norris, what were you thinking?
3. Roadkill (BBC) Hugh Laurie seems to be cornering the market in nasty bastards. This political drama written by David Hare has a touch of Yes, Minister crossed with The New Statesman, but the comedy is replaced with cold hard pragmatism. Hugh Laurie plays Peter Laurence, a government minister on the rise until a past scandal threatens to bring him down. Helen McCrory and Saskia Reeves also star. The four-part thriller was filmed last year and, if COVID and finances permit, is perfectly poised for a second season. 



Julia Davis and Catherine Shepherd in Sally4Ever



4. Sally4Ever (Sky Atlantic/ HBO) Inevitably this will be compared with Fleabag because it is written by a woman  (Julia Davis) and features 'normal' women (Catherine Shepherd; Julia Davis) dealing with life and having sex. I long for the days when this isn't such a unique premise and the gender balance is more equal in terms of writers and actors getting decent work. In the meantime, this is a good benchmark. The seven thirty-minute episodes cause the viewer cringing discomfort and cathartic guffaws of laughter. It's black comedy at its best. 
5. The Good Fight, Season Four (CBS All Access) It begins with Diane (Christine Baranski) in an alternate reality where Hilary won, the #MeToo movement has never happened and Harvey Weinstein is still a good guy. After she wakes up it continues with military whistleblowers and an investigation into the death of Jeffrey Epstein. It's well-written and topical, with characters we grow to love (Cush Jumbo as Lucca Quinn; Sarah Steele as Marissa Gold; Nyambi Nyambi as Jay DiPersia; Michael Boatman as Julius Cain) and it combines stand-alone stories with a continuous thread. It's like a cross between Boston Legal and The West Wing, and I enjoy the glitzy American courtroom drama with powerful women not just doing the filing and answering the phone. Only seven of the scheduled ten episodes were fully completed before production was halted due to the COIVD-19 pandemic, and it feels unfinished with a tantalising mystery still in the air and Lucca has left the series. I feel a bit bereft. 

More of this sort of thing: Cush Jumbo, Christine Baranski and Audra McDonald in The Good Fight

Friday Five: Nicest Man in Britain

Last week I watched a couple of documentaries, one presented by David Attenborough and one by Michael Palin - both were excellent; both informing and entertaining. I know Michael Palin has frequently been described as 'the nicest man in Britain' but I think it must be a pretty close run thing between him and David.

I began to wonder what makes someone 'nice'. The Concise Oxford Dictionary has it that one must be 'pleasant in manner; good-natured; kind'. I remembered a conversation with my Dad once about 'kindness' as a quality in fiction. He contended that in real life one never admired someone's kind quality as one did in literature. I begged to differ, and I still do. I've never held with that theory that nice guys finish last.

Perhaps when we were young and foolish, we preferred the wild and reckless to the polite and generous, but try watching Casablanca now and I'll bet you've changed your mind about what you would do at the end if you were Ilsa Lund.

For my own stipulations, the nicest man in Britain must not only be nice, a man, and British (which discounts Rolf Harris, who might otherwise have been a contender), but also to have achieved some sort of fame in their chosen field (random friends and relations don't count).

5 Nicest Men in Britain:

1. Michael Palin (CBE)
2. Sir David Attenborough
3. Sir Steve Redgrave
4. Hugh Laurie (OBE)
5. Jamie Oliver (MBE)

Other challengers for the compassionate crown include: Griff Rhys Jones; Trevor McDonald (OBE); Harold Dennis 'Dickie' Bird (OBE); Edward Michael 'Bear' Grylls; David Beckham (OBE); Martin Bell (OBE); Colin Jackson (CBE). Of course, that's just my opinion. What's yours?