It’s A Sin – Channel 4

It’s a Sin is powerful and unflinching; a drama in the true sense of the word, with that delicious sweetness and vulnerability at its heart that’s a Russell T Davies hallmark. There’s glittering ambition, buzzy energy, naïve innocence, and fates entwined. A group of friends, really a little self-made family, are pulled together by fate, proximity, poverty and circumstance. Big characters sweep up the quieter ones in their wake; waifs and strays form an unbreakable life-long bond, and we take that plunge with them, ready for the ride of their lives.

It’s 1981 and we meet adorable little Ritchie (played by Olly Alexander) from the Isle of Wight, off to seek his fortune at university amongst the bright lights of London. His new friends are the gorgeous cross-dressing Roscoe (Omari Douglas), son of a strict Nigerian Christian family who want to pray the gay away, lovely innocent buttoned-up Colin (Callum Scott Howells) from South Wales and mother-hen Jill (Lydia West). I adore her snuggly jumpers and her warm heart. They’re all ready and set to take on whatever London throws at them, and they’ve got big plans for the future. They’re full of life and dynamic energy that looks exhausting to my middle-aged eyes, excited to take all the opportunities for fun they can find, in their studies, their work and their sex lives.

But already there’s a gate crasher at this party. Interspersed in the fantastic campy pop soundtrack there’s whispers of gay men mysteriously dying in New York. And the only outcasts in the local gay bar, so welcoming to everyone else, are the doom-mongers leafleting about a “gay cancer”. As Ritchie says incredulously “How can a disease know you’re gay?”. In the early 80s there’s nothing about AIDS in the news, there are no public health campaigns, GPs are dismissive (the elderly white male doctor as the face of authority is baffled that Jill wants information to help her friends), and conspiracy theories run rife. At this point in time it doesn’t even have a name. Sounds familiar? Having been filmed well before the Covid-19 pandemic, RTD never intended the AIDS storyline to be quite so timely, but the parallels are incredible and the tragedy is acutely painful.

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‘His Dark Materials’ – BBC1

I’ve been busy for a bit, and away from the blog, but surely it’s not Christmas already? Only look at this fantastic present the BBC have wrapped up for us! I’m desperate to open it but, filled with joy and trepidation in equal parts. The trilogy of books by Philip Pullman that make up His Dark Materials are so fascinating and such a complicated series, beloved by so many people and previously badly mishandled.

I didn’t hate the 2007 film The Golden Compass but it’s fairly clear where they went wrong, and I’m sure those pitfalls have been much fretted over by screenwriter Jack Thorne ahead of this adaptation. As a Hollywood product it understandably shied away from the religious criticism central to the storyline, trying not to offend the Catholics. It was further neutered by its Young Adult category, and worries that a close adaptation of the book would scare the children, and the shareholders. It suffered brutal rewrites and reshoots like botched cosmetic surgery, so it no longer looked anything like the original concept. Worst of all, because it was a film, it had to come in under two hours in length. Basically it was savaged in production and then, predictably, by the critics. There was no hope for the rest of the trilogy, until now. Can His Dark Materials catch a breath stuck under the collective weight of our expectations?

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'Apple Tree Yard'

Spoiler warning: this is a full review of Apple Tree Yard so if you’re spoiler conscious, please look away now!
Apple Tree Yard is an eye-catching thriller, adapted from the novel of the same name by Louise Doughty about Dr Yvonne Carmichael (award-winning Emily Watson) and dashing Mark Costley (Ben Chaplin). The pair meet by chance at the Houses of Parliament. She’s there to give a talk on her work in genetics. Why he’s there is never really explained. He bats his eyelashes at her and invites her to tour the secret chapel. That’s the magic words as within about 5 minutes of meeting they’re having sex! This is the very definition of a whirlwind romance.
This secret romance is a big deal to Yvonne. It’s all a bit grimy and sordid, but very exciting. She falls head over heels for a man she knows nothing about. It’s sort of a way to get her own back on her dodgy husband Gary (played by Mark Bonnar, an actor who seems to be in literally everything), but mainly to feel like an interesting and attractive middle-aged woman. I’d argue it’s the affair, not her Mr X as a person, that makes her feel good. It’s what it represents – the fight against aging and slowing down the inevitable invisibility as a desirable sexual woman. All this comes hot on the heels of her about to become a grandmother, and that’s surely no accident.
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'The Walking Dead: Series 7' – On the Box

This review has been published days after the first episode of Series 7 has been broadcast, so yes, it is totally filled with spoilers. Consider yourself warned!
Well, shit!
After a remarkably pathetic end to Series 6 I must admit it was hard to care about The Walking Dead in the off-season. The reveal of the new big bad guy was much delayed so that Negan was only on-screen for a few minutes and he seemed decidedly one-note. This was the guy whose name had been a whispered threat running through the last series?! And his weapon of choice is a baseball bat?! Humph!
And then we knew who dunnit, but didn’t know who he’d dunnit to, thanks to the totally shitty ‘blood on the lens’ effect. Such an obvious manipulative tactic to keep the audience interested. I’d have been really angry if I could have mustered the effort. Newsflash! This is series 6 into 7. If by now the writers and production team haven’t realised by now the audience is interested and loyal, and there’s zero chance of getting canned by Fox, then they’re far thicker than we ever imagined.
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New Comedy for October 2016 – Seeing the Future

The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting colder, and suddenly there’s a bunch of new comedy series on tv. Here’s your guide to great things returning this week, and one show that we can really do without…

YonderlandSeries 1 Episode 2 ©Ollie Upton / BSkyB
The Council of Yonderland baffles Debbie once again

Yonderland (Sky 1) Sunday 16th October 6pm
Written by and starring the cast of Horrible Histories, this show now returning for Series 3 is unrestrained by facts or learning and transplanted to a fantasy land on Sky1. Nice and normal Brummie housewife Debbie Maddox (Martha Howe-Douglas) is the saviour of this strange and silly land. She tries to impose some order on the chaos (fighting inept demons, going on mystical quests, dealing with the totally insane ruling council) while keeping her unbelievable double life secret from her husband Pete (Dan Renton-Skinner – brilliant in everything). If you’ve not seen the first two series, treat yourself because they’re all on Sky Catch Up right now. It’s the kind of show you need to watch recorded as Series 1 especially would make you laugh so loud and hard that you’d miss the next punchline and have to rewind it.
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'Inside Porton Down' – On the Box

Well that was a deeply disturbing hour of television.
BBC’s amiable Rent-a-Doc Michael Mosley was given unprecedented access to the UK’s most secret and controversial weapons facility. Porton Down in Wiltshire was established in WWI as a response to the gas attacks the Germans launched in the trenches. Scientists based there had to work very quickly to develop gas masks for the troops and began testing ways to launch similar gas attacks against the Germans. Because the best defence is a good offence, and a cataclysmic scaling up of hostilities always ends well.
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