Undercover (BBC1) | iPlayer
Marcella (ITV) | ITV Hub
Workers or Shirkers? Ian Hislop’s Victorian Benefits (BBC2) | iPlayer
The first episode of Undercover, scripted by Peter Moffat, was determined to be harrowing. Sophie Okonedo, as lawyer Maya, sped down a Louisiana highway in a bid to halt the execution of a condemned man (Dennis Haysbert) she had been fighting to save. The execution is horrifically botched, leaving the prisoner in a vegetative state that could only be described as the US penal system meets Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.
Back in London, Maya’s affluent black family life may have confused some viewers (so it’s not the law that black actors are permitted only to portray drug dealers on British TV?). Initially, the only mystery about Maya’s husband, Nick (Adrian Lester), is that he doesn’t appear to have a job (unless swimming in lidos is a job?). Then Nick is shown removing his wedding ring before visiting his dying father, and sobbing alone in his car. It transpires that, unknown to former activist Maya, he met her while working under cover, and 20 years later the “powers that be” want him to dissuade her from accepting the job of director of public prosecutions.
Far-fetched? Maybe, though similar incidents have happened in real life (bungled executions; undercover policemen starting families). Besides, it isn’t Undercover’s job to be a documentary, it’s a drama (in six parts), and an absorbing one – Okonedo and Lester are both superb at conveying their separate hells of vocational conflict and festering lies. Undercover promises to be an elegant and intelligent production – a short scene where a row of black hands hung silently through bars on death row spoke more eloquently about the US race divide than any amount of earnest speeches.
The old saying goes: if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all. In this spirit, may I praise Anna Friel for her lovely hair in the opening of Marcella? Otherwise, what in the name of Scandi-noir happened here? Marcella was written by the Hans Rosenfeldt and is supposed to be the British version of The Bridge. Instead, it was as though the first episode drove off a bridge, taking all hope of originality and credibility with it.
It opened with Friel’s Marcella sitting inexplicably bloodstained in the bath, presumably willing viewers to gasp: “What’s going on here?” as opposed to what I thought: “Have I inadvertently tuned in to the first series of Damages?” From there, if I’d started a drinking game, downing shots for every cop drama cliche, by now I’d be a hopeless alcoholic, drying out in the Priory.
Marcella’s marriage is falling apart, she’s obsessed with an unsolved serial killer case from years ago, she’s maverick, abrasive and difficult to work with… and so on. I think we all know the drill by now.
Friel spent the first episode looking either demented, sour or mildly quizzical in an “Anyone seen my house keys?” kind of way. More intriguingly, there’s a subplot about a property firm, featuring Sinéad Cusack as a businesswoman who emits all the warmth and humanity of a dead shark with a dolphin caught between its teeth. Otherwise, for the sake of Rosenfeldt’s reputation, let’s hope that things improve.
Ian Hislop must have been ecstatic when, during the filming of his documentary Workers or Shirkers? Ian Hislop’s Victorian Benefits, the then work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith (filmed in December last year) started welling up about a 19-year-old woman with “no hope”, who reminded him of his daughter. Compelling though it was to witness Duncan Smith’s stagey, sub-alien blubbing (“Why does this saltwater leak from my eyes?”), this documentary would have been interesting enough without it. Focusing on key socio-political characters and events, Hislop examined attitudes towards the “deserving and undeserving poor”, which have proved remarkably persistent since Victorian times. As Hislop put it, the “still divisive dilemma – that some people do need help, but others frankly are taking the piss”.
The documentary took us from the “sanctimony and cruelty” of the workhouses, all the way through to present-day “poverty porn”, with Hislop at one point taking to the streets with collection buckets for the “Deserving” and “Undeserving” poor (with unexpected results). While it’s understandable that Hislop would have been most excited by the “Weeping of Iain”, his cuppa with the good-natured “White Dee” of Benefits Street (“Poverty can happen to anybody”), was also not without charm.
Maybe it’s because I’m a former music journalist, but Vinyl, the series set in the 1970s rock industry, has become my guilty pleasure for all the wrong reasons. With Martin Scorsese, Mick Jagger and Terence Winter (The Sopranos/Boardwalk Empire) on board, Vinyl was supposed to be a guaranteed smash (Mad Men with added loon pants). However, while it looks good, in a Scorsese-by-numbers kind of way, it has been risible in epic style. Which may be what happens when you bring together three celebrated entities on one project – great meetings but bad art.
Bobby Cannavale (who plays druggy record mogul Richie Finestra) was wonderful in Boardwalk Empire, so it pains me to see him overacting as a biz grotesque. The makers of Vinyl need to realise that a decent soundtrack is not a panacea for dud scenes and bad dialogue. And while it feels a bit odd to complain about the “quality of drug taking in an international drama”, I’m starting to wonder if any character in Vinyl is going to be able to snort a line of cocaine without reacting as though they’ve been shot up the nose with a crossbow.
Another problem is the ill-advised depiction of real-life stars – which have so far included a Dick Van Dyke-David Bowie, a Ken doll-Andy Warhol and a Lego-Elvis Presley.
When Jagger’s son, James, was cast, there were dark rumours of nepotism (no, never – I simply won’t believe it!). However, Jagger Jr’s portrayal of a lead singer as gormless, annoying, arrogant and talentless is, in my experience of most musicians, relatively realistic, so credit where it’s due. Elsewhere, only Ray Romano, as neurotic music executive Zak, comes out of Vinyl with his head held higher than his polyester lapels. Granted, I “wasn’t there” during the period in which Vinyl is set, but arguably if this music biz panto was the truth, then nobody else would want to have been either.
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