From Paul O’Grady’s For the Love of Dogs to Designing the Hebrides and an Australian comedy, there is something for everyone this week.
Paul O’Grady: For the Love of Dogs – Thursday, STV, 8.30pm
When Paul O’Grady passed away recently at the untimely age of 67, the multitude of tributes spoke volumes. This was no mere showbiz personality. He was beloved, unique, a naturally funny and thoroughly decent human being whose kindness was informed by his lifelong loathing of social injustice. I can’t, off the top of my head, think of another acerbic working-class socialist drag queen who became – and he always understandably blanched at this mantle – a national treasure. We’ll miss him. Hence why this final series of For the Love of Dogs, recorded not long before he died, will be a bittersweet viewing experience. A reliably lovely show hosted by a reliably lovely man. RIP.
Designing the Hebrides – Monday, BBC Scotland, 10pm/Wednesday, BBC Two, 8pm
The talented interior designer Banjo Beale (great name, great guy) fronts this charming new series in which he gets his own business off the ground. Beale, who was born in Australia, has lived on the Isle of Mull for the last eight years. In episode one, the BBC’s Interior Design Masters winner is tasked with transforming a traditional family-run Tobermory fish shop while making sure to retain its tasteful heritage. Along the way he seeks advice from his husband Ro and a supportive team of merrily toiling artisan recruits. “This is my first big commercial job here on Mull,” he declares. “If I don’t get it right there will be no more.” SPOILER: There will be more.
Colin from Accounts – Tuesday, BBC Two, 10pm
Written by and starring husband-and-wife team Patrick Brammall and Harriet Dyer, this likeable, dry-witted Australian comedy revolves around Gordon and Ashley, a rather dysfunctional and seemingly mismatched couple who ‘meet cute’ when Gordon accidentally hits an adorable little dog with his car. As you would expect, Brammall and Dyer share a natural chemistry, they bounce off each other nicely. Fumbling awkwardness can sometimes be an irritating comic conceit, but Colin from Accounts uses it as a starting point for some satisfying silliness and sharp lines. This is not your standard rom-com. And just in case you’re wondering, the meaning behind that title is explained towards the end of episode one.
Rain Dogs – Tuesday, BBC One, 10.40pm
In episode two of this excellent black comedy-drama about a group of misfits barely scraping by, we spend some time with single mum Costello (Daisy May Cooper) as she goes through the motions of her unloved day job in a Soho peep show. Costello prefers making a bit of money from posing as a cleaner for a sleazy yet harmless old alcoholic artist played by Adrian Edmondson. We also discover that she’s a talented writer. Rain Dogs is a refreshingly blunt and bitterly funny attack on the ways in which people living on the breadline are cruelly disregarded by right-wingers and patronised by shallow middle-class liberals. Both groups misunderstand the likes of Costello and her surrogate family.
Stacey Dooley: Ready for War? – Wednesday, BBC Three, 9pm
Dooley’s latest investigative report follows a group of young Ukrainian civilians as they arrive in the UK for five weeks of intensive army training. They will be taught how to kill and how to survive in the war against Russia. “This isn’t training on the off chance that one day they may end up in a warzone,” says Dooley, “this is them seriously preparing themselves to be on that frontline in five weeks’ time.” Her interviewees include a welder who is prepared to give his life in order for his child to grow up in a free country, and a florist who has family members already fighting on the frontline. As always, Dooley asks all the right questions and listens.
Unreported World – Friday, Channel 4, 7.30pm
Lebanon is currently in the grip of a catastrophic banking crisis. The so-called ‘Switzerland of the Middle East’ crashed back in 2019. Over a million Lebanese people have been locked out of their bank accounts; if they’re lucky, they can withdraw a few hundred pounds a month. The latest series of Channel 4’s long-running foreign affairs strand kicks off with the story of an utterly desperate couple who are planning to rob a bank. It’s the only way to get hold of their savings. Your roving reporter Krishnan Guru-Murthy illustrates just how dire things are. Lebanon’s government is paralysed and its banks resemble fortresses. The people are angry, revolution is in the air.
Late Night Lycett – Friday, Channel 4, 10pm
Two weeks ago, Joe Lycett signed off the first episode of his latest comedy vehicle with these poignant words: “This one’s for Paul O’Grady”. It was no mere showbiz platitude; Late Night Lycett is infused with O’Grady’s recently departed spirit. He would’ve loved the daft chaos and pointed subversion of this thoroughly inclusive hoot of alternative light entertainment hosted by a vocally left-wing gay comedian gleefully needling bores and bigots. It’s a live show, so God only knows what Friday’s episode will involve, but this much I can guarantee: it won’t be drab. The sly, unflappable Lycett was born to do this, he’s finally found a TV format to suit his talents.
FILM of THE WEEK
Misery – Wednesday, Film4, 11.10pm
This gripping adaptation of Stephen King’s bestseller stars James Caan as the author of a popular series of Victorian romance novels, and a deservedly Oscar-winning Kathy Bates as his self-proclaimed “number one fan”. When he crashes his car in a remote part of snowy Colorado, she comes to his rescue. Alas, his guardian angel turns out to be a psychopath who isn’t best pleased with the dénouement of the latest Misery novel, so she demands that the injured and bedridden author rewrite it to her satisfaction. The ensuing tension, suspense and shocking violence are worthy of Hitchcock at his most macabre. You’ll never look at a cute ceramic penguin in the same way again.
LAST WEEK’S TV
Magpie Murders – Saturday April 1, BBC One
The great Lesley Manville stars in this meta-textual murder mystery as a literary editor whose comfortable life is capsized when one of her most successful authors delivers an unfinished manuscript. Why is the last chapter missing? The ailing and preternaturally cantankerous author has apparently taken his own life. Magpie Murders is admirably ambitious for a mainstream show of this nature. A la The Singing Detective, writer Anthony Horowitz weaves the melancholy period exploits of a fictional sleuth into his present-day narrative. However, it’s all a bit too arch for its own good. I welcome the cleverness and irony, but I don’t find it particularly engaging as a piece of entertainment. It feels so far like a theoretical exercise.
Highland Cops – Sunday April 2, BBC Scotland
This resolutely solemn frontline series follows Police Scotland’s Highlands and Islands Division as they go about their daily crime and emergency-solving business in an otherwise beautiful part of the world. It began with an investigation into suspected deer poaching, the seizure of some illegal drugs being sent through the post, a nocturnal detour into the apparently widespread problem of antisocial drivers in their souped-up cars, and the rigorous yet ultimately fruitless search for a missing survival expert. That last case lingered as the closing credits rolled, there was no uplifting coda: the poor man still hasn’t been found. Highland Cops is a solidly-crafted addition to an unstoppable TV genre. It fulfils its duty.
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