This week John Byrne takes in a JK Rowling adaptation, some Sunday night comfort viewing and an irresistible Italian hill town.
Reviewed: The Casual Vacancy (Sundays, BBC One); Mr Selfridge (Sundays, UTV Ireland); Italy Unpacked (Friday, BBC 2)
To a large extent, the Sunday night TV audience is pretty much a captive one. Never mind just Ireland, all across Europe people are winding down at the end of the weekend, getting kids and school things together, making lunches, or just chilling ahead of the return to the working week.
Okay, loads of people work all kinds of hours, but traffic chaos proves that Monday-to-Friday 9-5-ish working hours are still the norm. So Sunday should be the most demanding night of them all for telly-watchers.
Since 2015 came along a few weeks ago, the main hitters have been Dermot Bannon's Room to Improve on RTÉ One, BBC One's Call the Midwife and ITV's Mr Selfridge – more on the latter later. The former stands out like a sore thumb up against the other two period dramas, but that's certainly not causing the home improvement show any problems, given that last Sunday's edition pulled in over half-a-million viewers.
There were three new series of note starting on Sunday, with The Casual Vacancy on BBC One generating the most interest, not least because this is an adaptation of Harry Potter author JK Rowling's book of the same name, her first for adults. I have no idea if it's faithful to the novel, but I certainly enjoyed this opening instalment.
The story is based in the fictional English village of Pagford, which appears all charm and cobblestoned streets, but is really a picture-postcard battlefield for various groups and individuals, mostly along class lines. It's not quite Blue Collar meets Blue Velvet, but the point is made: things are not what they seem on the surface, and there's a huge socio-economic divide.
The biggest and earliest dispute in the village to get a mention concerns the local community centre, which a clearly devious parish council leader Howard Mollison (Michael Gambon - best known to Harry Potter fans as Dumbledore) and his wife, Shirley (Julia McKenzie) want to sell off to hotel developers.
Appalled by this blatant attempt to keep the riff-raff out of Pagford, fellow councillor Barry Fairbrother (Rory Kinnear – who you might recall from the superb Channel 4 drama Southcliffe) rallies the meeting to vote down the proposal. Unfortunately, not too much later Fairbrother's dead as a result of an aneurysm.
After that, there's little deviation from the anger and apathy of the poorer residents to the anger and antipathy of the middle-classes. Viewers were introduced to a pile of characters, and really all we got in the end was the set-up, with the ghost of Barry Fairbrother providing a closing monologue about people harbouring secrets.
Much depends on next week's middle episode of this three-parter, but the cast is very good, the characters are pretty solid and the action is pure class warfare. That's quite a lot for a normally gentle Sunday night. Just as well I forgot to watch I Survived a Zombie Apocalypse (Sunday, BBC 3). Oh well, here's to catching the repeat and we'll give it the once-over next week.
Chugging along very pleasantly for a third season now, Mr Selfridge (Sunday, UTV Ireland) serves a similar purpose to Call the Midwife in that it's a period piece that doesn't require much more than watching and admiring how the various subplots rolls along. It's an effortless slide out of the weekend and leaves a very pleasant aftertaste. It's almost like a comfort food.
Former Entourage star Jeremy Piven, of course, is the main attraction as the eponymous shop-owner, but this show's fan base is buoyed by a very strong cast of characters that was lessened by two in this latest episode.
We've already lost Rose Selfridge and Lady Mae Loxley in between the last and current seasons, and now they've been joined by the extremely likeable couple Agnes and Henri Leclair (played by Aisling Loftus and Grégory Fitoussi). Henri's been suffering from PTS since his return from WWI and Agnes decides to hang in her notice to a very reluctant Harry Selfridge, so herself and Henri can move somewhere quieter to aid in his recovery.
Overall, the episode focused on marriages as Kitty was devastated to learn that her husband hid the fact that he had gotten her attackers drunk in the hours preceding her assault, while Rosalie began to see the less attractive side of her spouse.
Loads more happened – including Harry finally telling Nancy Webb that he's falling in love with her - and, quite frankly, I can't understand why Downton Abbey is so much more popular, when Mr Selfridge is so much more fun, if equally undemanding.
If there's one thing that you never have to wait long for on telly, especially from the BBC, it's some programme focussing on Italy, a land I'm convinced the Beeb would've invented if it didn't already exist.
And so it was that art historian Andrew Graham-Dixon and chef Giorgio Locatelli returned for another run of their culture and cuisine show Italy Unpacked (Friday, BBC 2). This time they were heading for the eastern side of the peninsula.
Andrew and Giorgio have an ongoing, effortless bromance that makes this show really work, as each is both an expert in their field and fascinated by the other's specialist knowledge. As a viewer you really do feel like the invisible and silent third pal on their journeys.
They started in Matera, one of the many hill towns in Italy, but also one of the most magnificent. Based in the southern region of Basilicata, right at Italy's heel, it's a Unesco World Heritage Site (isn't all of Italy?) that's undergone a transformation in recent years after generations of poverty and migration.
With dwellings that date back to Palaeolithic times, it's a fascinating place and Graham-Dixon's knowledge was priceless as the pair rooted around from cave to church in this wondrous setting. Film fans might know that this is where Mel Gibson shot much of his controversial The Passion of the Christ.
The lads also visited Lecce and its wonderful cathedral, while food included a delicious-looking (and quite ancient) lamb hotpot and a trip to a traditional cheese maker, whose working environment and methods seem to have been the same for generations, stretching back centuries.
You'd wonder if they just make this stuff up for tourists, eh?
John Byrne
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
On the Box - Weekly TV Review
Dengan url
http://entertainmentopoke.blogspot.com/2015/02/on-box-weekly-tv-review.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
On the Box - Weekly TV Review
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar