Brief Encounters

It's 1982, and on television, that means two things: lurid clothes and furnishings and 'Now that's what I call music 1' on the soundtrack.  We're in Sheffield, so 'Full Monty' territory, and what follows is in the mould of those feelgood British staples.  Money is tight, and where it isn't, life is boring, and these circumstances bring together four women who sell Ann Summers sex products at tupperware-style parties.  The local ladies think vibrators are blenders, while the husbands and partners are threatened or bemused by this liberated behaviour.

Challenging?  No.  Forgettable?  Yes, especially as it hasn't obvious expansion room for further series.  Performed (ahem) with gusto by a decent cast, but set to inspire a summer flirtation rather than a full-on holiday romance.

Tommy Cooper: Not Like That, Like This

We approached Tommy Cooper with a feeling of dread.  It seems to be both a star vehicle for, and a pet project of, David Threlfall (in a false nose), and at two hours on a Bank Holiday Monday a bit of a vanity project.

As it turns out it was far better than it had a right to be.  Tommy Cooper's story isn't that well known - arguably he isn't that well known himself these days - and the story we were given of a love triangle over 15 years, tolerated by both the mistress, Cooper's wife, and the mistress's husband was very good.    In this respect it was a bit like the BBC's Hattie from 2008, where Hattie herself was in the love triangle, and her husband John Le Mesurier had to put up with it. 

As with Hattie, and all of the other films of this type (The Curse of Steptoe, Eric & Ernie) one major pitfall is how bad the performances of the supporting cast as other dead celebrities are, and how crass it is when they're introduced, given that the actors are rarely spitting images of who they're playing.  Tommy Cooper managed to avoid this by and large, with good performances by Bob Golding as Eric Morecambe, and Paul Ritter as Eric Sykes, and even Jordan Metcalfe as Les Dennis, but there were a couple of dodgy bits when they were introduced: 

Cooper walks into a bar: "Hello Eric, Hello Eric!"
Barman: "Alright Tommy.  What are you having, Mr Morecambe?  Mr Sykes?"

Overall though, the script by Simon Nye was very good, matched by the performances of Threlfall, Amanda Redman as his wife, Helen McCrory as the mistress, and Gregor Fisher as his agent.  So good in fact that it made you understand why they would put up with a miserly alcoholic who was always late.

The problem with dramas like this is that you always wonder if they'd have been better off filling the schedules with a documentary instead - I doubt a drama about Mel Smith could be as good as the tribute to him shown over Christmas for example - but in this case the acting and the writing dragged it through. 

The Field of Blood *spoilers*

Monday's conclusion, unsurprisingly, didn't quite live up to last week's opener.  Like comic book heroines before her, Paddy only had one hour to save the world... well, solve the crime.  She did so admirably, but we're not sure the end justified the means.  Most of the hour was spent with her running around annoying her seniors (cliche #1), being told she was unattractive (TWNH), being told she was beautiful by colleague who wanted to sleep with her (cliche #2), putting herself in dangerous situations without telling anyone (cliche #3) and having her out-of-line a*se saved by colleague who was terminally ill (cliche #4).

With all of the above happening, it wasn't easy to work out what had happened and why.  Paddy's young cousin Calum had apparently killed little Brian because he was forced to by a disturbed lad (Danny?) who had previously killed his own half-brother... I think.  The scene in the prison, where Calum tells Paddy and his father what happened, hits all the right notes but nonetheless leaves us wondering if a child would commit such an abhorrent act - there is no suggestion that he was willing to comply - on the threatening say-so of a teenager, and then fail to crumple under pressure from his family, police, social workers etc. to tell all.  Paddy accuses the 'real' killer of trying to make Calum just like him, which seems a slim motive, unless we're once again at tellyland's catch-all motive of 'they did it because they're mad'.

And whoever killed Paddy's colleague Heather Allen (Danny or his devoted grocer dad Naismith), couldn't have thought she was Paddy, despite her using Heather's name, because they'd both met Paddy and she looked nothing like her.  It may have been dark and she may not have had her splendid 80s bouffant blonde hair on show, but... wouldn't you check you had the right victim before you bagged and bludgeoned them?  We kept being told that Heather was gorgeous and slim, while the shorter Paddy was the 'fat tart', so seemingly men don't look at the mantelpiece when they're smothering the fire, either....


As far as Paddy is concerned, a little less would be a lot more.  The story focused on her to the detriment of the central, horrific act of child murder.  We haven't read the book, so we can't say if this takes its lead from the original, but issues like marriage versus career and the demands of Catholicism on its followers are touched on but not fully explored, so why not background them and get on with the story?  We also take back the wish for more of the supporting cast.  David Morrissey got to give Paddy her dream job (cliche #5) and Peter Capaldi recited poetry in a drunken drawl that was barely understandable and very maudlin.


Would we watch more?  In an optimistic mood, maybe.

The Field of Blood

Based on a novel by Denise Mina, a belated showing of this Scottish production, and in the late slot post-ten o’clock news.  The nine o’clock crowd would presumably be outraged at the depiction of early-80s Glasgow in all its sexist, racist and generally un-pc glory.  Sort of ‘Life on Mars’ north of the border, with added bite.  Direct references to her weight and her sex life glance off young Paddy Meehan like everyday banter rather than have her calling for a tribunal.  Not, we must make clear, that Jayd Johnson, playing Paddy, is in the least overweight.  No, she is fat only in the televisual sense, i.e. not at all and you pick up that she’s meant to be only by characters making constant reference to it.  Ms Johnson is likeable and ably supported by the likes of Peter Capaldi, David Morrissey, Bronagh Gallagher (loved her at the RC last week) and Jonas Armstrong.

The plot so far is simple: Paddy’s young cousin is suspected of killing a toddler, in a case redolent of James Bulger.  Paddy recognises the suspect and confides in a journalist colleague, who then writes up the story, thereby rendering Paddy persona non grata among her own family.  Here is the only TWNH, since they don’t ask Paddy to explain, nor give her a chance to.  To clear her name, as well as her cousin’s, and also to establish herself as a journalist rather than ‘copy boy’, she sets out to find the real killer, using the name of her perfidious colleague.  

So far, so good.  Interesting soundtrack avoiding the obvious 80s tracks, and a real feel of a dingy, post-industrial but pre-make-over Glasgow.  We're hoping for a decent conclusion next week, with a bit more of the supporting cast, please!