THERE is a back to the Sixties vibe going on in Glasgow at the moment. No, the council is not knocking down the remaining tenements and shipping folk out to Billy Connolly’s “deserts wi’ windaes” housing schemes, and the only people walking round with flowers in their hair are those who have spent the night sleeping in one of the many lovely bedding displays local parks have to offer. It happens. I hear.
We have been down memory lane to mark a certain football victory, as covered in Glasgow 1967: The Lisbon Lions (BBC1 Scotland, Wednesday, 9pm). I say “we”, and John MacLaverty’s film certainly portrayed the city as celebrating as one, but one wonders if that was the case. It was a rare omission in an otherwise solid look at the footballers and the fans who made history when Celtic became the first British team to win the European Cup. From the team’s working class roots to the fans’ wide-eyed wonder as they headed abroad, many for the first time, the story is a gift to a documentary maker, and MacLaverty, aided by plenty of previously unseen footage, did it proud.
The Trial: a Murder in the Family (Channel 4, Sunday-Thursday) was a fascinating and gripping bid to take viewers where no docu-drama had gone before: into the jury room. The case, a husband accused of strangling his wife, was fictional, and the defendant and witnesses were actors. Otherwise, the judge, the barristers, and the jury of 12 were pukka. While the evidence itself was far-fetched, what came across as genuine was how fickle juries can be. One member, praising herself for having great instincts, said she was like “Inspector Clouseau”.
It is difficult to launch a new comedy. Even shows that go on to become classics, such as Only Fools and Horses, can have a sticky start. Inbetweeners creator Damon Beesley must be hoping this is the case with White Gold (BBC2, Wednesday, 10pm), because on first look it is the sitcom equivalent of a £20 engagement ring. The trouble is the characters, three double-glazing salesmen in 1980s Essex, are so horrible. Perhaps Beesley is hoping that if he piles in enough pop tunes from the period (they were all here, from Gloria to Abracadabra) that no one will notice and the trio will, in time, grow on the viewer. Aye, like moss on a uPVC conservatory.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix) had no such teething troubles. Created by Tina Fey and Robert Carlock, this comedy about a young woman kidnapped and held in a bunker for years, was a hit from the off. Yes, you did read that plot summary right. UKS is a prime example of a show that really ought not to be funny, but by virtue of great characters, slick writing, and faint echoes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, it defies the odds. Now back for a third series, Kimmy’s ingenue act is growing a tad tired (it has been two years now since she moved to New York), but the show still makes me smile more than anything else on TV, and the sight of Kimmy’s best friend Titus doing a Beyonce and “lemonading” his boyfriend’s car was a treat.
Now, dearest reader. You know me. I could not be any more sisterly towards the sisterhood if I changed my surname to Sledge. But Loose Women (ITV, Monday, 12.30pm) has me stumped. What in the name of the wee woman are these chicks on? Monday’s show ranged from Pippa’s wedding, whether Cher should dress her age, ugly babies, the reinvention of some Z-list pop star, and, just to show they could do serious, too, a discussion on child sex abuse.
Four women, sitting around a table, talking a right load of mashed bananas. At one point, in a shameless bid to curry favour with the whooping audience in the studio and the presumably weeping one at home, Coleen Nolan, one of the panel, said being a housewife was the hardest job on the planet. Eh? Harder than UN secretary general, brain surgeon, Donald Trump’s press spokesman? Jane Moore, another panellist, confessed during the wedding discussion (captioned “Would you rather be a princess than a Pippa?”) that she was so worried about her wrinkly knees that she hadn’t had them “out” for years. Somewhere up there Victoria Wood was smiling.
It reminded me of an old French and Saunders sketch about two women’s magazine editors coming up with ever more mundane ideas for features, like how to knit your own lung, when one of them stops, realises what she is doing, and screams: “BUT IT’S ALL SO TRIVIAL!” And it was. But God bless you ladies for keeping on keeping on, as they said in the Sixties.
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