The Serpent – BBC1

It’s January, it’s snowing and we’re all in lockdown. There’s vaccine hope on the horizon but it’s not coming quickly enough for people who now consider a 10 minute walk to Greggs for a steak bake the social highlight of their week. It’s me, I’m exactly that person. I would rather be anywhere else but here. So yes, yes, I know there’s a predatory serial killer lurking – no whodunnit here as we’re introduced to him at the very start – but 1970s Bangkok is still exactly the sort of place I want to be transported to on chilly January evenings. The Serpent gives us an instantly cool, highly intoxicating location, filled with swinging parties, youthful adventurers, dazzling yellow sunshine and a market so real you can almost smell the food. This is an immersive atmosphere to wallow in, ignoring the slide into disappointment that 2021 will inevitably bring.

Charles Sobhraj (Tahar Rahim) is super cool, very fashionable and stylish but his look is also giving me strong Dennis Nilsen vibes. He’s clearly notorious, and yet I’ve never heard of him. I bet a large part of the BBC audience hasn’t heard of him either. His performance is very cold and guarded; a dead-eyed predator ready to strike. He’s a precious gem dealer, working on the wrong side of the law and he’s quick to make the moves on Williem and Helena, a Dutch couple who he invites to his Bangkok apartment. There’s a big show of hospitality, but we see he wants to make use of them for gem smuggling back to Europe. Jenna Coleman is his beautiful French girlfriend Marie-Andrée, also called Monique. While she’s slightly removed from Charlie’s nefarious schemes, she’s certainly complicit and doesn’t raise a hand to help even though guests are getting mysteriously sick under her roof. She has this sort of saintly quality to her, queen of Sobbhraj’s emerging empire, silently conferring her blessings on these terrible crimes. Later we see Helena and Williem sick, poisoned by Sobhraj who has been crushing pills into their food and drink. Is this retribution because the didn’t want to get involved in smuggling, or is this a game for him, picking off people he considers more privileged than him?

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Streaming Not Screaming: What to Watch in Lockdown

It’s an unprecedented global pandemic and suddenly everyone’s a critic. Everyone, and I mean truly everyone has been giving unsolicited advice. Not just on how the earth is healing and humans are the virus (fuck off Extinction Rebellion), dangerous drugs that will kill you, not save you (fuck off Donald Trump), or nonsense symptom checkers that have no basis in fact (fuck all the way off thickos on Facebook). People everywhere are desperate to tell you what you should be watching while you’re stuck at home. I mean, let’s be real, no one has ever read Stylist magazine for culture. And you don’t see me advising on nail polish trends for the season (but it’s black, it’s always black) so stay in your lane Stylist! The person you need in a time of crisis is a socially awkward anxious organiser who has been running this precise scenario in her head for years, and has concluded the only logical thing to do is get really comfy and claim control of the TV remote.

Now, finally, you have the time! Binge away! But don’t binge the news; that’s something you need to limit for your own sanity and peace of mind. And by all means if you have the great American novel in you (or any nationality will do), and you have the motivation, go for it! But don’t feel pressured to be productive. Everything is wild and your whole year has gone tits-up in just a few days. You need time to process what’s happened, and find the mental resilience to get through through the day. Dump those haters who make you feel guilty for being a bit unproductive. Do what makes you feel good. But please, for the love of God, keep any and all coronavirus poetry to yourself.

Read On…

‘Top Gear’ – BBC1

Sunday night found Top Gear in a suitably reflective mood. A stalwart BBC TV show ostensibly about cars, but increasingly documenting the fragile male ego, it seems only right that in this day and age it takes a moment for quite contemplation. Probably standing in the corner of the classroom wearing a dunces cap. There’s something rotten in the state of Dudemark and the BBC needs to fix it pronto, or this internationally successful juggernaut will eventually fail its MOT and be hauled off to the scrapyard.

The new presenting team would be forgiven for thinking they might be stuck with a poisoned chalice here. Neither Chris Evans nor Matt Le Blanc had enough star power or quite the right character to carry the show. Neither of them were Jeremy Clarkson, which for some parts of the audience is a unforgivable error, but for me (and punched producers everywhere) it’s a big plus. It’s 2019 and pub bores are taking over everywhere. Let’s keep them off our entertainment shows unless they are Al Murray.

We meet the new boys in a confessional mood rare for previous incarnations of the show, inspired by nostalgia for their misspent youth. Chris, Freddie and Parry go on their first jaunt in vehicles as close to their first cars as they could find. Freddie Flintoff freely admits he was “a bit of a knobhead” – which was almost certainly encouraged by the fact he played professional cricket from such a young age and could afford a Porsche when most people start out with a Ford Fiesta. This is a neat way to introduce the new presenters as ordinary(ish) young men, whatever unlikely and rarefied jobs they went on to do.

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Just for Play-Play: the Best of Catch-Up TV

Join me for a catch up on the best of catch-up…
Can Science Make Me Perfect? iPlayer until 16 July

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Alice and James Cameron’s Avatar Alice

The annual talk of an ideal summer beach body never really takes the argument to a logical conclusion:

Thankfully Alice Roberts, Professor of Public Engagement in Science at the University of Birmingham, is here to build the perfect female form – part science, part sci-fi and all nightmares. With doctors, sculptors and SFX experts she rebuilds her own body from scratch, and fixes the flaws that natural selection has embedded in our collective DNA. Her intentions are the best; making giving birth safer, solving the problems of our bad backs and giving us excellent sight and hearing. She unveils the life-size model in London’s Science Museum to gasps of amazement, but certainly not delight. Part elf, part bird and part kangaroo I think I’ll stick to human 1.0. Thanks all the same Alice.
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'Somebody Feed Phil' – Netflix

Phil is friendly. Phil is kind. Phil is funny. But those qualities count for very little over at foodie magazine Eater where Somebody Feed Phil, the Netflix travel documentary eating its way around the globe was cruelly slated as “too cute”, “annoying” and having “no discernible point of view”. Conde Nast Traveler is much kinder, praising the positivity and optimism wrapped up in each delicious bite. So, which one is it? Sweet or sour?
This new to Netflix series is fronted by a gangly beaming Phil Rosenthal, a television writer and producer, best known as the creator of Everybody Loves Raymond. He had a similar show called I’ll Have What Phil’s Having on PBS in America, but this is the first time an international audience has seen his culinary adventures.
And what a road trip he’s on. In six hour-long episodes he covers Ho Chi Minh City (aka Saigon) Bangkok, Tel Aviv, Lisbon, New Orleans and Mexico City. I’m immediately jealous of his experiences and his air miles. He begins in the exotic east, but this isn’t just an American on a gap year, as he’s keen to promote food closer to home too, understanding that not everyone can afford international travel. Each episode also runs the full gamut of food available for the budget conscious backpackers and the money-is-no-object crowd. We seem him try street food out in the road on plastic chairs, befriend old ladies in shopping mall cafes, try all sorts of strange things in cafeterias off the beaten track and other hole-in-the-wall cafes where you’d need a local guide just to find the place.
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'Joanna Lumley's India'

Another jaunty ITV travelogue for those of us going no futher than the park this summer presented by Joanna Lumley (don’t be fooled by the rocks that I’ve got, I’m still J-Lum from the block), grande dame of the small screen and the lady who the word mellifluous was coined for. This is a three part whistle-stop documentary on ITV and J-Lum (I’m going to use it until it catches on) is keen to play up the family connection. She was born in Srinagar, Kashmir, in the last days of the Raj and her family ties go back several generations. One might think she’s rather brave trading on being directly related to the old colonial empire. Thinking about it, that apostrophe in the title might be a little insensitive.
But don’t worry – this is not a programme designed for much thought or reflection. “Gosh!” and “Fabulous!” she enthuses every few minutes about everything. To her credit it certainly doesn’t seem forced and her sparky interest is very infectious. She talks with her hands in rhapsodies about everything – Morgana Robinson’s impression of her on The Agency is entirely accurate. Amusingly the Radio Times insists she’s toned it down a bit this time!
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I Have Been Watching …A Live TV Show

This  week the force of nature that is my daughter announced she had (free) tickets for a recording of the new series Harry Hill’s Tea Time (as yet un-aired).
Harry defected from ITV to Sky  and now he he has this new spoof cookery/interview with a celeb show with elements of TV Burp and references to You’ve Been Framed.

Girl applied for priority tickets to see it made and to her surprise got them. Excitedly we headed off to Osterley Park. Now, we live east of East London. This destination was west of West London. So to me it might as well have been Australia.
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'Billy Connolly's Tracks Across America' – On the Box

Lesser known states in America have the negative nickname ‘fly-over states’ – the places that you only see from a plane window. Essentially, not much to see and not worth stopping by. Americanophile Billy Connolly wants us to know them better as he travels around the edge of the USA. Chicago to New York, the (very) long way around. 6,000 miles by train taking in 26 states. An epic trip but ITV have packed it all into just three episodes. The mood is quite a laid-back travel documentary but it must have been planned and edited to within an inch of its life. (Los Angeles appears on the route map but isn’t actually visited, which seems a shame.)
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'Terry and Mason's Great Food Trip' – On the Box

Sir Terry Wogan is living the good life, and he knows it. He’s worked his way up the tv and radio schedules to the lofty status of national treasure and jolly decent chap. He’s the sort of presenter it’s absolutely categorically impossible to dislike, with his warm tones, his charming manner and his often repeated jokes. He’s perfect for happy little interviews with the general public and asking tradesmen and restauranteurs “What is it that you do?”. Over the years he’s perfected his jovial, warm, interested style. He’s happy for you to know he’s on easy street and in this series he doesn’t even have to worry about the driving. Mason McQueen (sadly not called June) is a London cabbie and adventurer, thanks to A Cabbie Abroad which was shown on BBC2 last year. He’s not afraid to leave the confines of the M25 and, like Terry, seems genuinely interested in meeting people and learning about their trade.
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'Stephen Fry in Central America' – On the Box

Stephen Fry in Central America (ITV)

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Photo: ITV

Repeat warning: Haven’t we seen this somewhere very recently? Yes, yes we have.  It was Dara and Ed’s Great Big Adventure (BBC2) in which Dara O Briain and Ed Byrne drove the length of Central America in the footsteps of pioneering journalists who braved the then wild Pan American Highway. And sadly for Stephen Fry, the Irish comics did it better – they had more fun and seemingly a better connection with the people they met. Fry straddled a gulf between sincere and aloof. He was at a massive protest march in Mexico City marking the disappearance and probable massacre of 43 students and he found it very moving. He was genuinely upset, but this was undermined by a lack of explanation, or follow up with the protestors or anyone involved. All we got were his thoughts and observations as an outsider. It wasn’t enough. Two minutes later and we were back on the road again and Mexico City was forgotten. It was a real shame as you can’t fault Fry for a lack of curiosity.
I’m looking forward to watching Sue Perkins on Kolkata. She was a revelation on the Mekong River – a travel guide who wanted to give you an insight longer than a few scribbles on the back of a postcard. She had conflicting feelings towards the countries she travelled through and the aspirations of the people she met, and wasn’t afraid to make that clear on camera. There was a depth and breadth to her travels that maybe 60 minutes without adverts on the BBC could offer but ITV couldn’t.