THAT WAS THE BOX – April 2015 (Week Five) | TV Reviews


Read the latest TV reviews - 24 HOURS IN THE PAST (BBC1) 2015
 

24 HOURS IN THE PAST‘ (BBC1 – BBC IPLAYER)
 

I’m not quite sure what the purpose of this programme is. We all know that our Victorian forefathers had terrible lives, so I’m wondering if the BBC are pitching this as some sort of rival to ‘I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here‘, and quite frankly, I think it might work. The premise was that a bunch of celebrities – Zoe Lucker, Anne Widdecombe, Miquita Oliver, Alistair McGowan, Tyger Drew Honey and Colin Jackson – have to live for 24 hours doing the most horrid work and living like Victorian people in a museum town just outside Birmingham. As would be expected, they had to give up all modern technology, and wear second-hand clothes that people had probably died in (I made that bit up) but the Victorians did have to work and sleep in the same clothes, and our celebs were no different.
 

One of the first jobs was sorting through horse dung to find dog’s poo because apparently dog’s doings were used for tanning. And for some reason, Zoe Lucker thought they were talking about fake tan. Seriously? I don’t think smearing your face with dog shit would even take on in Essex. Although the colour Arg has been lately, I’m not sure. They also had to live in two rooms and use a shared outside privy – which had to be emptied by the men who had to work as night soil collectors. Tyger (who appears to have done something strange to his face) is a feisty young man and fails to appreciate that back in the 1840s, if you were too lippy to your employer, you would more than likely either be horsewhipped or at the least sacked. Of course, this didn’t happen. He had his wages docked, and that was about it.
 

One thing the programme did do was make me appreciate all the trade unionists and reformers who helped change worker’s rights. Back then, a worker had no rights whatsoever, although, scarily, that people took work when they could find it, with no guarantees, is very similar to today’s zero hours contracts. And of course, back then, women were paid less than men, for doing the same job. So that hasn’t changed.
 

Next week, the celebs will be working in service, and don’t expect nice ‘Downton Abbey‘ type employers, I reckon they’re going to be treated like dirt.
 

And I’m being serious, I reckon this would make a great reality TV show. It’s more gripping than ‘I’m a Celeb‘, because most of us only have to go back a few generations to find someone in our family who lived like this. I doubt many of our ancestors had to complete Bushtucker Trials.

 

Find the latest TV reviews here - PETER KAYS CAR SHARE (BBC1)
 

PETER KAY’S CAR SHARE‘ (BBC1 – BBC IPLAYER)
 

The title put me off this. I admit, I didn’t do my research, and I had visions of it starring Peter Kay as Peter Kay, with a variety of people sharing a car with him, while he reminisced about Spangles and Tenpole Tudor or whatever. But it’s a proper sitcom, with Kay playing John, a rather dour young man who is forced by his supermarket employers to car share with Kayleigh, a bubbly colleague. In episode one, over the space of half an hour, filmed largely in the car, John and Kayleigh’s relationship blossomed, and they went from awkward silences, punctuated by Kayleigh’s singing and attempts at conversation, to the end when they were actually sharing banter.
 

I forgot how funny Peter Kay actually is. Although John sounds pretty much like Brian Potter, and he’s miserable on the surface, I think underneath there is a soft centre and I got the feeling that as annoying as he found Kayleigh and her chattering, he also found her charming, and by the end of episode one, he decided he didn’t want to car share with anyone else. I chose not to download all the episodes on iPlayer and instead watch it the old-fashioned way, so I’m only up to episode two; but their relationship has come on in leaps and bounds. My only criticism was the fantasy sequences at the end of the episodes, when Kayleigh imagined she was Anastasia and Cyndi Lauper. But the scene where Kayleigh approached the man about dogging, had me howling with laughter.
 

Car Share (I’m leaving off the Peter Kay bit) was a gentle comedy, with relatable characters. The conversation between John and Kayleigh reminded me a lot of myself and one of my friends whenever I’m in his car, and this made me appreciate it more. What with this and ‘Nurse‘, the year is shaping up to be a great year for comedy.

 

Read our latest TV Review on BBC2's THE GAME
 

THE GAME‘ (BBC2 – BBC IPLAYER)
 

Spy dramas can be a bit hit and miss for me. They can either be gripping like ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy‘, or can be a total snooze-fest like ‘Legacy‘. But ‘The Game‘ was somewhere between the two. Set in the early 1970s, like TTSS, it was based within MI5 at the height of the Cold War, with an ensemble of characters, and it is hard to work out who is to be trusted. For me, the biggest problem was the star of the Show. Our hero is called Joe Lambe, and he’s a young MI5 officer who just a year beforehand, almost defected to the other side due to his love affair with a Polish woman, who was captured and killed in front of him. While Lambe is undoubtedly beautiful – Tom Hughes who plays him looks like the love child of Benedict Cumberbatch and Eddie Redmayne, with a sexy Scouse accent to boot – I find him far too modern. It’s like he’s been teleported back from the modern-day to the 1970s, like Sam Tyler, in ‘Life on Mars‘. Behind his dead-eyed stare, it’s hard to decipher what he’s thinking or feeling, which I suppose is vital in a spy. But it was as though he was trying a little too hard to be mean and moody.
 

For me the stand-out performance was from Paul Ritter, as Bobby, Joe’s rather strange superior officer, who clearly has a weird relationship with his mother (Sister Monica Joan from ‘Call the Midwife‘) and is so shifty, it’s difficult to tell if he could indeed be the mole they suspect to be operating from ‘The Fray‘ (‘The Circus‘ has already been taken). Although my money is on Emily, the mousy, little assistant. Bobby’s character has depth, which is more than can be said for Joe, who just comes across as window dressing.
 

Once the drama had settled a little, it became fairly routine, with Joe working alongside DI Fenchurch from Special Branch, who gives the whole operation an every-man approach, and I guess acts as our conscience. He finds the cold approach to witnesses and suspects hard to fathom, as people are used as collateral damage to get to the bigger prize – the mysterious apple-eating man who orchestrated the murder of Joe’s Polish lady love, and is now in England bumping off people who are trying to expose the truth behind Operation Glass.
 

Lambe and Fenchuch remind me a little of Sherlock and Dr Watson, and it was indeed funny to see Jonathan Aris, who plays Anderson in ‘Sherlock‘, playing a rather nice chap called Alan Montag, who works alongside his wife Susan (played by Victoria Hamilton, but is the sort of spunky role Anna Chancellor would have played ten years ago) and they seem devoted to each other, although of course this could all change.
 

The first episode of ‘The Game‘ felt rather like an unravelled jumper, and one had to one put all the threads back together to make sense of it. But maybe after episode two, things will start to make more sense. I will report back!!

 

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