BBC Question Time and Victoria Wood with Chris Evans

BBC Question Time from Huddersfield on BBC One (23rd June 2011)

As always, David Dimbley's high-brow panel show depends upon its guests and audience questions. This week the panel included Tory backbencher John Redwood, economist-turned-Labour MP Rachel Reeves, Lib Dem Transport Minister Norman Baker, David Mitchell and – increasingly inexplicably – Fern Britton. Oh, and Dimbleby's lurid green tie, always something to watch for in itself. Redwood got off to a shaky start, but once into his stride became a remarkably calm and patient panellist in an increasingly heated debate (Thatcher got some praise, which in the north was never going to get a positive response). Reeves had a habit of addressing her answers directly to one person – her gaze unwavering and unblinking, terrifyingly like an automaton. But the three politicians kept up a lively and interesting debate through the hour, but Mitchell and Britton...well, someone must have thought it was going to be a good idea for them to appear on BBC Question Time. Comedians on this show usually just throw out digs at politicians and do a bit of low-level rabble-rousing, but Mitchell – who could be expected to make sensible points – was lost without a script and toed a disappointingly careful line. Britton, meanwhile, worried that she sounded 'wishy-washy'. She was right to worry.

Victoria Wood and Chris Evans on Radio 2 (24th June 2011)

This should have been great. Chris Evans interviewing Victoria Wood (CBE) on his Radio 2 Breakfast Show really should have been great. Wood's funny, and Evans is experienced as an interviewer usually able to get on well with guests. But today, he sounded out of his depth, despite his usual boyish enthusiasm for life and his guest. Wood sounded like she didn't want to be there, and was talking to someone who just didn't get her. “Why would you start writing a play?” Evans yapped, joyously. “Well, first of all, because someone asks you to. I don't think you would otherwise” Wood replied (woodenly – sorry for the pun). He asked if she had been the first to write funny songs, leading Wood to patiently explain about a few people who'd been doing the same thing earlier (like the wonderful Jake Thackray). They ended awkwardly with a discussion about how she treated interviewers, but the worst moment was when Evans asked if she'd ever work with Richard Stilgoe. She told him that he'd not understood her at all if he thought she'd enjoy doing that...

I leave you with Victoria Wood and Jake Thackray: The Ballad of Barry and Freda and Pass Milord the Rooster Juice.

Single Father [Episode Four] on BBC One

When the BBC continuity announcer described an emotional climax for David Tennant's single father, she wasn't lying.

Not to say that the previous three episodes of the BBC's Single Father had been less than emotional, but this final one rather went for it. Fair enough, if you've got David Tennant onboard, you'd want to use him, right? Helped on by various chemical imbalances, pregnancies, alcohol and that interfering sister Anna (Neve McIntosh), the series rolled on to its relatively cheerful ending last night.

The competition between Matt (Warren Brown) and Dave (David Tennant) may have fizzled out disappointingly, but the competition between Dave and Stuart (Rupert Graves) is racked up a few notches for this concluding episode. As relationships go, that's probably where Single Father suddenly really hits the mark; a fiercely polite tug-of-love between two fathers. It just needs them to be the same age to have an extra kick; is Graves too grey-haired to have been at college with Rita (the underused Laura Fraser)?

On the relationship front, the final episode ties up one of the niggling worries in my mind over Single Father. There's a small moment in which we can finally get some idea about why on earth Mark Heap's Robin married Anna – look at that cheeky little grin, that puckering up that serves as both apology and forgiveness. Heap may have only had brief moments through Single Father, but they've often been the best bits; finely observed and neatly judged, Heap is highly watchable and a tad underused.

It's just a shame that, as ever, Single Father seems to have neglected plausible storyline in favour of hitting its audience where it hurts. If Heap and Fraser are underused, Dave's eldest daughter, Tanya (Sophie Kennedy Clark), is probably overused in this episode – especially in the almost entirely unnecessary (and fairly implausible) event with Brown's Matt. Sure, it leads her into a violent outburst that lets the proverbial cat out of the bag in a loud manner, which needed to happen. But there are no doubt easier (read: more plausible) ways of doing so, without resorting to plot devices that smack of Jacobean tragedy. That incident aside, Brown is finally allowed to shine in this final episode, which is good, and gives a glimpse of what he can do given chance.

So those Single Father plot threads are fairly neatly wound up (don't ask what Matt decides to do with himself after not finding and confronting Dave). Lucy's happily chosen a father (for now) while even Dave and Anna are managing to get along. Which just leaves us with the main plot – you know, Sarah (Suranne Jones) and Dave? Alas, that's where it falls apart a bit. Never mind the chunk of plot missing during which Dave decided to go ahead with the paternity test she suggested last week – what's going on with the bump she has herself? Are we expected to believe that she was as manipulative as Rita in not telling Dave that she was going to get herself pregnant (and that he fell for it again!), decided to leave Dave afterwards, and then was persuaded to change her mind once again simply because Dave looked imploring and told her he reckoned it could work? Forgive me for sounding incredulous. I mean, sure, women look for good father material in their partners, but two consecutive women wanting Dave's children despite needing persuading that a relationship with him is a good idea? No wonder he's ended up as a single father.

To be honest, if you're watching Single Father for support in a similar situation, you're probably better checking out the links on the show's page on the BBC website.

Image curtesy of the BBC.

This episode of Single Father may still be available to view via BBC iPlayer here.

Single Father [Episode Three] on BBC One

Given the choice, would you have David Tennant or Warren Brown? Or Rupert Graves, for that matter?

The BBC's newest David Tennant-drama, Single Father, has become a tug-of-love between those three men, albeit with varying prizes. Stuart (Graves) wants to look after Lucy, so does Dave (Tennant). Dave wants Sarah (Suranne Jones), so does Matt (Brown). The competition with Stuart may exist primarily in Dave's head, but the competition with Matt is very real. It's real because Dave's making Sarah doing the same sort of thing she did when she went to see Stuart without telling Dave. Oh, and they're actually having an affair.

Single father Dave's increasingly getting left behind in the middle of whirlwind of changes, which seems to be leaving him with just the one child. Still, she's easier to handle than the five he had at the start of Single Father. Hey, legally, only Tanya is his as things stand.

Somehow Dave's relationship with Sarah has been kept under wraps – despite Evie's witnessing them in the act – even as other relationships fall apart. At the same time, the layers of Rita's (Laura Fraser) family are being peeled away; turns out her mum's not really her mum after all. More dirty washing for public consumption?

So all that remains to be seen is how Dave and Sarah work their new relationship out, how long it'll be before Lucy moves in with the creepy, French-speaking Quinlan girls and whether or not Matt is going to go on the warpath over Sarah. Oh, and someone ought to find out where Mark Heap's Robin has gone with that dog...

On the plus side, my question about how photographer Dave has been earning money has finally been answered – ie. he isn't. It's probably about time the complete lack of work plus supporting a large family caught up with him.

Image courtesy of the BBC

Single Father may still be available to view via BBC iPlayer here.

Single Father [Episode 2] on BBC One

Now – two weeks in – Single Father is getting a bit seedy and distasteful. David Tennant is still valiantly plugging away at being a single father for the BBC, but the family seems to be splintering around him and suddenly the whole thing has become a digging-up of dead Rita's past life.

Thank goodness the grief-fest of the first episode is over, and we can get on with examining the situation writer Mick Ford was originally interested in: a single father raising several children. Dave is doing a better job than last week, with the help of various other family members (including Tanya's mother, his ex-wife). He does less well at fighting off Rita's sister, Anna (Neve McIntosh) who seems both childless and determined to take her sister's children for herself. Her brother-in-law (Mark Heap) can only watch and apologise as she goes off on another rant about Dave not being up to fatherhood. In fairness to Heap, he's got the disgruntled look of a man not quite able to interrupt down perfectly, and at other times brightens up scenes wonderfully (see him and Tennant discuss a possible father of Rita's daughter...lovely).

Except we can't really get through the heavy-handed emotion into Ford's proposed situation. Single Father still insists on giving misleading flashbacks, that aren't really flashbacks at all because some details have changed – it happened last week when Rita died and Dave said different things depending on which occasion you were watching it. Again this week, the flashbacks don't quite match the events (that kiss, say) as seen first time around. As for the sentimental soundtrack occasionally layered over shots of David Tennant brooding...

But worse is the way that Single Father insists on doing Rita's dirty washing in public. Alright, we get that Dave wasn't her first lover (by a long way), but does it need rubbing in so much? The (remarkably easy) search for Lucy's real father also obscures the story and makes it seem more about a search for a natural father than about Tennant's Dave raising his brood. It's a search that diverts Dave (and us as an audience) away from problems like his son's smashed ankle (surely a cause for concern?), his youngest daughter's illness (Evie), and the way that his eldest (Tanya) has suddenly become far less reliable as a babysitter/employee. These are the issues that tie in with that original single father idea.

Also tying in with that idea is Dave's growing relationship with Rita's friend and Evie's schoolteacher, Sarah (Suranne Jones). That got a lot steamier recently, and I suspect Evie's lessons are going to get more interesting soon...”Miss, are you my new mommy?”

Single Father may still be available via BBC iPlayer here.

Picture courtesy of the BBC.

Single Father [Episode 1] on BBC One

Single Father, Sunday night's much-publicised return to the UK small screen for David Tennant, certainly packs an emotional punch. But then what could we expect from a four-part series about a man whose wife is suddenly killed within the first four minutes?

It may be useful to introduce the family of the single father (Dave, played by David Tennant, who is a photographer) so that, without the distraction of trying to work out who they are, you can get on with appreciating the difficulties Dave has – and maybe cry along with him. Dave's married to Rita (Laura Fraser), with three children: Paul (11), Ewan (9) and Evie (5). Then there's Lucy, fifteen, Rita's daughter (not Dave's), and Tanya, eighteen, Dave's daughter (not Rita's). Got that? Then there's his sister-in-law Anna (Neve McIntosh), hurrying in to mark territory after her sister's death, followed by Rita's family (Mark Heap and Isla Blair). Right, now that's out of the way, we can get on with appreciating David Tennant's moving masterclass in grief.

That said, you'll have to overlook the juddering narrative as well. Single Father starts admirably in the midst of things (like I say, Fraser's Rita gets killed pretty sharpish) with a beautifully-pitched and attractively-shot first three and a half minutes. Then we go back a day, which is all well and good; Single Father manages to avoid making the whole thing seem like a situation that's too good to be true and will soon end – the accident's a shock to everyone. But then, for some reason, the BBC seems to think that, just fifteen minutes later, we'll have forgotten what happened and need to see it again (with ever-so-slightly different dialogue). The tense inevitability of the first time round has gone, replaced with a tedious certainty that Rita is not long for this happy life. Which rather spoils the fine work put in by Tennant and Fraser (with Suranne Jones and Warren Brown) up to that point.

As if that weren't enough, the next ten weeks are skipped out altogether. While I appreciate we don't need to see the immediate few hours in detail, I can't help thinking the interesting bits of the premise (a single father, remember?) occur in those first few days/weeks. If, as writer Mick Ford claims, the focus is on a man dealing with the kids once their mother is dead, then surely this is when it's at the most raw? Surely this is the time for Dave's struggles with getting the right lunchboxes and getting swimming trunks washed in time? Two and a half months later – call me a sadist if you like – just isn't as interesting.

But you can't take away from Tennant the fact that he knows where to hit his audience emotionally. It's worth watching out as well for Mark Heap's quietly assured turn as the brother-in-law.

Single Father may still be available to watch via BBC iPlayer here.
Picture courtesy of the BBC.

Dive: Lindey's Story on BBC Two

With British teen pregnancy on the rise, there's an increasing scrutiny on exactly what it is we're telling kids about all that stuff. Sex education lessons seem to be starting younger and younger, but it also seems that the mums are getting younger and younger. Dominic Savage's two-part drama, Dive, indicates that the problem doesn't lie so much with the kids' education as with their attitude.

Co-written by Savage and Simon Stephens (Punk Rock, Herons, Pornography), Dive opens up a group of teenagers who know how sex works – they've had the lessons, seen (and laughed at) the videos, got the T-shirt and avoided parents' questions. There's a brilliantly subtle moment to watch out for, when the biology class pair off to practice putting condoms on ominously-entitled 'demonstrators'. Main character Lindsey (Aisling Loftus) contemplates hers for a moment – over her shoulder, and just out of focus, her friend (Chanel Cresswell) slips one on in seconds and proudly announces “Perfect”. Someone's done this before...

So, they know what they're doing. It's their casual, carefree attitude that's the problem. Watch as Robert (Jack O'Connell) dashes off into the sea, telling his (girl)friend to leave her clothes on the beach – pregnant and likely to catch her death of cold. And not long before that, he'd been diving into a pool with just boxers on...what an irresponsible young man, no wonder he got her pregnant. Call me old-fashioned, but teenagers having a quickie up against a tree with someone they've just met doesn't seem to indicate that sex education is encouraging responsible or safe sex.

We're probably going to see an increasing amount of drama with some focus on the 2012 Olympics in the next two years. This is one that's been put together really well, with some beautiful shots and a careful balance between Lindsey's dreams of representing Britain at the Olympics (as a diver...obviously) and her life at home – watch out for Gina McKee, sensitive as ever, and Joseph Mawle as the resented-yet-caring step-father, to say nothing of Ewen Bremner's sweet turn as Lindsey's dad. There's plenty of 'mood' all round, with lots of lingering shots of diving bodies, sparkling lights and brooding teens, all with gently sentimental music layered over it.

We'll have to wait for Robert's side of it in the next episode, but somehow I don't think a baby is quite the Olympic legacy either of these two wants.

This episode might still be available to view here.

Small Island on BBC One

Jamaica is a small island. Britain's not much bigger, thinking about it.

The discovery of that fact by two Jamaican immigrants of post-war Britain is the crux of this two-part BBC drama adapted from Andrea Levy's novel. What they also have to learn is something those of us that have lived here for a while could have told them from the start: Britain ain't all that great.

In their defence, Hortense and Gilbert (Naomie Harris and David Oyelowo), have come over as part of the SS Empire Windrush migration from a Jamaica that still recognises imperial Britain as the 'mother country' and have been told countless stories about how wonderful (though cold) the place is. Electric lights in every room! Visits to the King in Buckingham Palace! Yeah...

So partly we're watching the gradual demolition of dreams in the dreary London boarding house and streets of the late 40s/early 50s. Partly, we're trying to ignore the Desperate Housewives-style voice-over that trots of proverb-sounding bits of trite wisdom (stuff that's okay on DH because none of that show can be taken seriously anyway). Luckily, Harris and Oyelowo don't let it get too mawkish, and their early innocence is touching and plausible. They aren't exactly naïve, just unworldly and unprepared for the reality of a post-war 'mother country' that – as Gilbert says – doesn't know where her children live.

My church in Wolverhampton has several members who were onboard the SS Empire Windrush, and I think it's this familiarity with the cadence of the Jamaican accent that made me wince whenever one of the Jamaican accents here went off towards America or somewhere else. Shaun Parkes – a fine black British actor (better known for playing British-Ugandan characters) – carries it off well, but Oyelowo occasionally sounds like a caricature Jamaican. Harris has moments where she could be from America's east coast (which is odd because her mum's Jamaican) – were there no genuine Jamaican actors the BBC could call on?

The ingratitude and blatant racism of the locals is also marked, and sits rather uncomfortably with an audience reminded again and again that the male 'darkies' here are all men who served in the RAF against Nazi Germany and are now full British citizens like their paler associates. That doesn't seem to matter to the cockney postmen who subject Gilbert to a 'noble savage' moment on his knees.

But what's interesting is that, while Small Island lays stress on racial difference, the sexual discrimination of 40s/50s Britain (and Jamaica) is left largely untouched. It's all very well to pull on our heartstrings about the poor RAF men derided as monkeys by their new Royal Mail colleagues, but what of the wife they've left in the boarding house with no idea how to cope in this strange, cold land? It's a classic case of bullying when the disgraced Gilbert comes home to treat his wife to an angry outburst that she can't possibly understand, having not seen his day at work. Time and again, these Jamaican men complain of being oppressed or looked down upon, while treating their women in a strikingly similar way.

It's not all gloom though. Landlady Queenie (Ruth Wilson) gets to have her fun with the RAF and is an extremely progressive female figure. She sleeps with who she wants, she has economic independence, and she bosses her husband, Bernard (Benedict Cumberbatch), around threatening to throw him out in favour of her Carribean lodgers. Well, good for her. Sort of. It would be if she hadn't fallen for completely the wrong man.

Michael Roberts (Ashley Walters) – the Jamaican airman prone to copping off with married white women – doesn't do any favours for the stereotype of black men. As the father of Queenie's illegitimate child he lends some weight to white reservations about hiring black men in places that employ white women. What's worse is that the two thoroughly decent men (Bernard and Gilbert) are always left to pick up the pieces that he leaves behind. Gilbert is often mistaken for him, to his and everyone else's confusion/dismay – as Gilbert says, he's not the only black man in England, but everyone else seems to forget that. While Gilbert takes the reproachful looks on suspicion of impregnating Queenie (adultery twice over), the real father is swanning off to Canada, leaving the woman who has never really loved anyone else.

So we can learn that neither island is the idyll we may have thought it, and that you've got to work at your dreams if you want them to come about. It's not always comfortable for a white audience to hear the sorts of things said to the Jamaican people; there's a smug air of adult to child throughout, and sometimes a genuine fear of physical contact in case the black skin rubs off. But there's also the reminder that without such immigrants Britain wouldn't have made it through WWII never mind the ten years that followed.

We as a nation (a multi-ethnic nation, all of us that appreciate the freedoms won in the 1939-45 war) should be grateful to the passengers of the SS Empire Windrush and those that followed.

Waking the Dead VIII - Magdalene 26

How long do BBC scriptwriters spend on re-reading and tweaking their scripts? Really.

Now, I've never really seen the appeal of Waking the Dead (aside from the suits that Spencer used to wear a few seasons ago, and Sue Johnstone's chemistry with Trevor Eve). My mum likes it. I watched this one because my friend (whose opinion in these things I trust) recommended it. He shares a birthday with my mum, so must be trustworthy.

I ask my earlier question because this two-parter – the opening of Season Eight – felt lazy and slapdash. After seven Seasons, you'd think they'd have got the hang of it. There are problems riddling this script, like the maggots that riddle the corpse found hanging from a ceiling in this poor woman's house. Incidentally, who was that bloke? That's one plot strand left dangling, along with any attempt at explaining the car crash that leaves Lisa Hogg's naked character running through the woods with no memory.

I'm pretty confident that I remember seeing perhaps the first ever Waking the Dead – or at least, one in which the team were moving into new offices, being introduced to each other and a lot of time was spent explaining what constituted a 'cold case' and why the dead often needed waking. That sort of thing saved a lot of time when New Tricks needed to do some similar background work. That episode also saw the arrival of French DS Stella (Felicite De Jeu), a handy person who – like the audience – didn't know exactly what was going and needed everything explaining. I point this out because at the start of Season Eight, the team seem to be moving into new offices...ones identical to the ones they've been using up 'til now. Despite the initial set-up where Johnstone struggles to locate her office, it's not followed up. There are apparently no more office issues worth mentioning, and everything flows smoothly. Very smoothly. Too smoothly, in fact. These guys are far too efficient to be plausible. Their forensic checks – conducted by their one forensic scientist (Tara Fitzgerald) – seem to be over in the blink of an eye. Handy, in a crime drama that focusses on DNA and old crime scenes.

Without wanting to give too much away...for a show about coppers whose Modus Operandi (is it inappropriate to use that in reference to the Police?) centres on DNA, is it not a bit of a cop-out to throw in identical twins? Is this a gimmicky attempt to keep the show fresh and interesting? Throwing in the one thing likely to confuse DNA testing...there aren't many things that should hold up an investigation along those lines, apart from not having enough evidence (and that does not exciting TV make). The problem could be that we as an audience are shown the wrong twin's set of memories, meaning that one twin magically appears partway through, and we've been following the wrong one. Maybe the twin sister thing just seems silly, but then it's fine when Wilky Collins does it in The Woman in White.

Then there's Stella. Again, I don't want to give anything away, but the poor girl deserves better. I don't just mean from her colleagues who fail to appreciate her until she's on a hospital bed. Her story is disgustingly rushed and hustled to a conclusion that is completely unnecessary and smacks of an actress' expedient writing out of a series because of contractual issues.

Being no expert on Turkish Mafia-type gang culture or Arab oil fields, I hesitate to label the villains of this piece as stereotypes, or even as bad villains. But they do seem to be exactly everything you'd expect from nasty Turkish immigrants who really shouldn't be trusted (especially with white women). On a similar note, why is the only priest in 1960s Soho an Irishman? It's confusing when the other two characters seen then have just fled Ireland, to Soho, and our only clue that this has happened is said priest (whose Irishness makes it hard to believe they've gone anywhere).

Maybe Waking the Dead is something you only watch for Trevor Eve being rude, and not for a story. Is he rude enough to just bully a Turkish gangster into doing what he wants, though? And is all the shooting really necessary? Won't anybody back in Turkey be a bit annoyed about that – and how will that boss be found if the people that can identify him have been killed?

So many problems jumping up. Don't think about it too much, just watch Boyd and Grace (Eve and Johnstone).

The BNP - the Bogeymen of politics?

Everyone loves a scapegoat. I love scapegoats. We all love scapegoats...or at least, love to hate them. Originally, a scapegoat was a goat chosen from among the Israelite herd (way back in the days of Exodus), that was then symbolically laden with the sins of the people and cast out into the wilderness...naturally taking all the sin and blame away with it, the poor creature.
It's good to have someone take the blame; it's good to channel anger and have some tangible focus for blame. That avoids vague, directionless hatred, and lets us all know who to aim our quietly muttered declarations of vengeance at. Basically, when things go badly, we like to know exactly whose neck (metaphorically) we should grab and throttle.

Right now, we ('we' being the ignorant masses of the British public) like bankers to be scapegoats. The recession (etc.) is all their fault, and so we'd like them to suffer for it, please. Being as they're the only ones qualified, it would be great if they could also sort out the whole sorry mess while they're at it ('it' being swinging from the metaphorical nooses we've strung up for them), please...pretty please?
When teenagers are rowdy, we like their parents or teachers to be scapegoats, though they (the parents and teachers) have a nasty habit of blaming society. Which is clearly wrong, because that's us, and we haven't done anything wrong.
Sometimes, we like foreign immigrants to be the scapegoats. They've come over and taken our jobs, they work for longer, for less pay! The call centres have all shipped out to India! The car factories are heading for the cheap labour force of Eastern Europe – meanwhile, the Eastern Europeans (mainly Poles) take over our building sites and plumbing business. This is their fault for having a strong work ethic and large families to feed, not our fault for being lazy and taking for granted that we in the West have relatively easy lives – having never lost major wars or suffered massive natural disaster or a dictatorial tyranny. In fact, Britain has been able to take it relatively easy since the early 1800s, really, what with an Empire, a worldwide language and an ally in the new World Policeman, America.

Some people who believe that the foreign immigrants changing Britain should leave are the British National Party. They want Britain to stay the way it is...or was, in the bygone, glory days of 1948. Remember those? The post-War debt, loss of international prestige and loss of a generation of brave men and women willing to sacrifice their lives in the defence of democracy? No, me neither, but leader Nick Griffin (born 1959) seems to think he does. Funny, as he's looking very good for a man old enough to remember that year. Apparently, there was a conscious decision by the 'liberal elites' (I think he means the Labour party) to change British society and include people who were civically, but not ethnically, British. There was me thinking the Caribbean and African influx was due to our astounding lack of workforce after a devastating World War, and the desire of men from such places to earn some money for their large, hungry families living in countries soon to take the first steps of their own toward democracy. No, it was because the liberal elite didn't like Britain as it was (the Britain that had elected them into power, rather than re-elect Churchill's Tories, why wouldn't Labour like that?).

Thing is, the BNP have built themselves a bit of a reputation as fascists, as racist bigots who approve of violence and murder to rid Britain of its ethnic minorities. That simply isn't a true reflection of them. They aren't the political bogeymen we (remember who 'we' are in this case) want them to be.

Recently, they've gained seats in the European Parliament, which is a worry for the people I'm tempted to call liberals. I don't really mean liberals, of course; I mean moderates. By which I mean the people in power (well, the Tories, Lib Dems and Labour, anyway). The political elite, if you like. The people that are adamant we, the voting public, have to unite and defeat the BNP, bar them from office etc. Even if we don't vote Labour, Labour want us to make sure we vote against the BNP. It's as though the BNP were some kind of anarchist threat to ordered society. But are they? It's funny – in a worried, laughing-in-the-face-of-probable-danger way – that when Peter Hain wrote to encourage people to vote against the BNP, even if not for Labour, someone replied saying:

'Labour are in the process of passing a law that will allow discrimination on
the basis of race and sex, have invaded two countries, encouraged a politicised
and violent police force, systematically eroded the right and ability to
protest, and given thousands of civil servants the power to spy on citizens.'

When you look at history like that, it becomes increasingly difficult to tell who the moderates are, and who are the radicals that we should absolutely oppose.

I used to think the danger was in taking the BNP seriously, that giving them air time – even attention – was exactly what they wanted and so, like a troublesome child, exactly the thing to not give them. Then they got elected to the European Parliament. Suddenly, they're a bit more serious.
What's worse is people's response to them. When delivering a press conference speech after winning a seat as an MEP, Griffin was hustled by protesters, who pelted him with eggs and forced him to move on. The man was speaking calmly but triumphantly to a crowd of journalists, who were asking him questions that he was answering – as a politician answerable to the people and the press should do – but was attacked violently, and made to leave by his minders. He got into a car, avoiding the angry mob, and quietly drove away while they kicked his retreating car and yelled what sounded like 'Fascist scum off our streets'. So, an elected politician not allowed to express his views, nor answer press questions, by a loud mob...who are the violent bigots here, again?
Even more worrying than that is an interview Griffin recently had on BBC One's The Andrew Marr Show (transcript here), in which Marr somehow manages to make the man sound reasonable. Griffin doesn't sound like a racist, and actually makes a good point about the way that we define who we class as British (when he says that while Dame Kelly Holmes may not be ethnically English she is still British).

What worries me most about this interview though, comes a little later. Now, normally, when people draw comparisons between the Nazis and someone more recent, I groan a little inside. That's because such comparisons usually involve a misunderstanding of either a) the Nazis, b) the people being compared to them, or c) both. So I hesitate to compare the BNP to the Nazi Party, and modern, recession-hit Britain to Germany of the 1930s. Cash-strapped 1930s Germany which was rapidly losing confidence in its ruling political elites, and was looking for a scapegoat...
Hitler's party provided them with several – most famously the Jews, but also the liberal politicians, the Communists, the anti-social (tramps and the work-shy (chavs?)), the homosexuals, the gypsies, the British, the Treaty of Versailles and so on. The Nazis promised to a frustrated people that they would solve all of these scapegoat issues and make the people and nation great again. But before that, they'd been laughed at as a minor rabble of extremists on the fringe of politics, people who should be ignored in the hope that they would go away, deprived of attention like troublesome children. Then they were elected to the Reichstag.

In the twenties, the Nazis had tried to seize power by force, and had failed, Afterwards, they changed their focus and aimed for power legally (which they eventually achieved). In order to appeal to more voters, they tapped into what people wanted to hear, and toned down their extremism. They started sounding reasonable. Their earlier ideas were phased out or put on the backburner for a decade or more. By 1933, they were a very credible alternative to the governing elite, and were even deserving of power according to their electoral success. They'd become moderate, credible, legally elected politicians.

Much of the Griffin-Marr interview indicates that the BNP too have toned their ideas down. Griffin claims that an all-white Britain isn't 'do-able', and the BNP's failure to support England's football side when black players take to the pitch is an attitude of eight years ago. It sounds like they've decided to appeal to voters by becoming reasonable. The media and the political Left have made him the victim of a smear campaign, claiming his dogs are called Ann and Frank, for example. When physically attacked, Griffin didn't use his bodyguards to retaliate. He went quickly and quietly to his car, and retreated, leaving the mob to look like the violent, bigoted ones. Suddenly, with the election of two members as MEPs, the BNP have moderate, credible, legally elected politicians.

The Biblical Israelites used their scapegoats as a means of removing their own sin; the goat took their problems away with it. Germans of the 1930s hoped the Nazis could do something similar – ie. remove their problems for them. In both cases, it was the failings and weaknesses of the people themselves that needed to be removed, be that Israelite sin or a German incredulity that they could have lost the Great War fairly without being stabbed in the back by the liberal politicians, Jews, Marxists etc. Scapegoats are only used when a society is itself flawed, when the people aren't willing to admit that the problem lies with them. This leaves us with the question: what problems are we in modern Britain avoiding, and using for a scapegoat the BNP?

I'm not praising the BNP, nor Labour, nor any other political group or movement. We all like a scapegoat, but the BNP simply aren't the political bogeymen we want them to be.

Personal Affairs on BBC Three (Episodes 1 & 2)

This is a man's world. “It's like the sexual revolution happened to someone else”, as Archie Panjabi's aggressively progressive senior partner tells timid temp Sid (wide-eyed Ruth Negga) when she arrives at the bank in which Personal Affairs is based.

Sid has managed to get herself installed as a temp amongst the PAs at City business Hartmann Payne, as part of a cunning revenge plan formulated by her boyfriend (Al Weaver – disguised, for some reason, as an Orthodox Jew). Apparently, his mother blames senior VP Rock Van Gelder (Robert Gant) for her massive losses in the risky world of high-risk finance. The disappearance in Episode One of Rock's PA, Grace (Olivia Grant), throws the other girls into a tizzy as they try to balance their Private Investigator-style activity with demanding roles as PAs in a busy, successful business. Then there's the private life of each to consider! Lucy (Laura Aikman) has become pregnant and is looking for promotion when a junior associate post becomes open. Midge (Annabel Scholey) has given up her daughter for adoption eight years back and has now started to question that decision when the father – supposedly a suicide case eight years ago – crops up as the apparent reason for Grace's disappearance. Nicole (Maimie McCoy) is perhaps the most stable of the lot, rejecting all men as control-seeking bastards whom she won't allow to rule her. Instead, she has casual sex with them, and forgets about them, while being very arch and superior about everything.

And that may be the crucial thing about Personal Affairs. Sex. Or possibly gender and sex. All the PAs seem to be defined by their sexual relations (be it pregnancies or Midge 'accidentally shagging' men she doesn't like). The office has a clear gender divide: the men are in charge, the women treated as lackeys. The proverbial glass ceiling is mentioned frequently. Female partner Archie Panjabi is more macho than your average bloke, and the PAs are beneath her notice. She's disappointed/angered by their inability to follow her lead and act like men in the male workplace, and disgusted by the outfits they wear to appeal to the masculine eyes that rove about so much in that workplace.

As she says, the idea of a sexual revolution seems not to have arrived at Hartmann Payne. Now, I've always struggled to see any reason why women wouldn't be treated on an equal footing with men – indeed, taken it for granted that this is as it ought to be. So the offices of Hartmann Payne seem horribly archaic, backward. It feels like the fifties when Gant's languid Texan compares his PA to the wicket fence around his ranch – he likes his fence to be pretty, so tells her she should dress appealingly. In fact, it's all rather like fifties-based Mad Men (which felt like What Women Want without Mel Gibson and the mind-reading), but British and interesting.

What none of these men seem to realise is how much they rely on their PAs – Sid is right to alter Rock's analogy by describing herself as the ranch's foundations, not the fence; he rattles her, his ranch will collapse. In a way, I can almost understand the sneering prejudice...almost. To follow (what I shall call) the Wimbledon Argument, women are paid less than men because – essentially – they do less. Their Wimbledon prize cheques are smaller because they play three sets, not five. However, to counter the Wimbledon Argument, they've still won Wimbledon, just like the men. The PAs do just as much work as their bosses (even their boss's job, in Lucy's case), but their work is much less public. They seem to exist as a pretty face and body when needed, a typist when required, silent and out of the way when not. But there's no way any of the bosses could cope without them.

Some of the man-bashing is perhaps a bit unnecessary, but the point holds that, here at least, women are under-appreciated. A bit like Boy Meets Girl, the gender of the writer is obvious in the gender portrayal onscreen. The decent men that we just know are out there somewhere are conspicuous by their absence in Personal Affairs. Even friendly, co-conspirator Simon (Darren Boyd) is quietly determined to 'help' Sid out of what he describes as an obsession with maintaining her virginity, and therefore her childishness.

This is a man's world, but it wouldn't be nothing without a woman on the Earth.

Occupation on BBC One

With the recent announcement of another inquiry into the build-up, waging, and fall-out of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the BBC's drama Occupation is very timely.

From the off, it shows a modern, highly-trained and professional army disastrously misused against a military force that looks civilian and co-exists alongside civilians. The potential for mishaps is huge, as a gang of British squaddies soon discovers. James Nesbitt's Sgt. Mike Swift is the one labelled a hero, dashing through the streets carrying a young, injured girl. But he's also the first to learn just how limited is the British capacity to help the local populace. He almost looks like he expects to be taking her to a modern, state-of-the-art British (private) hospital...his face falls as he learns the girl's operation will never happen, because Basra's hospital has neither the equipment nor the surgeons.

Luckily for him, he does get to meet pretty Dr. Aliyah (Lubna Azabal), who – somehow – manages to come over to Britain with the headline-grabbing girl and get her fixed up in a plush-looking hospital. She also gets a rather nice apartment, which is apparently not a permanent arrangement, but looks it. She is Swift's eye in the storm that is Iraq. In fact, she becomes rather more than that, briefly, and Mrs. Swift (Monica Dolan) is understandably not impressed (though how she finds out about the brief snog is anyone's guess). Clearly, like a sailor, Swift has a woman in both ports – a foreign lover and a domestic wife, different types of women for different settings.

That different setting is highlighted again and again in Occupation. Britain is cool, safe (even the London bombings feel remote), secure and exists in greys, blues and whites. Iraq is hot, rife with danger, almost lawless and exists in red, browns, beige and the black of the military contractors. Our squaddies (Nesbitt, among others) seem bored in their home lives, Stephen Graham's Danny being the most keen for more action. Seeing the way his dementia-afflicted mum mistakes a hulking black man for her short, stocky white son, it's hardly surprising. He's soon off with ex-Marine Lester (Nonso Anozie, a suave fridge-shaped bulk of towering Size – with the capital 'S') running a private security firm in Basra.

They've recruited fellow ex-squaddie Lee Hibbs, played brilliantly by Warren Brown. Personally, I've always been a fan of Nesbitt, but on this occasion, Brown may have pipped him to my Favourite Actor slot. Once his medical record sees him discharged from the Army, Hibbs tries a bit of Bouncing, before joining Danny and Lester in Basra, but flips when his local mate is – a bit predictably – killed by Shi'ia militiamen within the Iraqi police. Men Hibbs himself trained in his squaddie days. It's on his return to the country that Brown gets to run through the other half of human emotion he hasn't yet covered (having already shown euphoria, joy, anger, anguish and chirpy ladish cheerfullness back home) when he finds his mate's family and then gets kidnapped.

If you only know Warren Brown as the barman in Grownups, taking his top off at every (invented) opportunity, you have to watch Occupation. Brown deserves not to be underestimated as a first-class actor.

Ashes to Ashes II Episode Eight on BBC One

An explosive, gun-toting, shoot-'em-up of a finale to the second Season of Ashes to Ashes. It was all rather violent, really. So that was nice.

Finally, the mysterious Operation Rose is revealed – and seems much more low-key than expected. So much for the corruption running all the way up to the top of the Met, and the deep-rooted rot that needed purging. So much for the Masons, as well. Where were they after Episode Two? Aside from Ray's (Dean Andrews) throwaway suggestion this week, they've gone. No doubt the Operation is bad for the Met, but hardly seems worth all the fuss there's been up until now.

Speaking of operations, the Alex (Keeley Hawes) in 2008 is now fighting off an infection with the aid of 'superantibiotics', more than 50ml of which will apparently be enough to finish her off completely. Is there really such a thing as a 'superantibiotic'? I know we've superbugs now, but 'superantibiotic' sounds a bit far.

Not as far as the rescue (and redemption) of Episode Seven's traitor in Fenchurch East CID, DC Chris Skelton (Marshall Lancaster). The minor plot snags leading to his redemption and readmission into the fold can probably be overlooked as necessary to the story – both that of the episode and of the CID team. But the moment when he's rescued from almost certain death at the hands of a bent copper...? It's a beautiful moment, but beautifully silly in the way it's reached.

What it helps lead to is the sincerely beautiful, almost angelic final time we see the CID team, while a bleeding Alex lies on the ground (victim of a remarkably stray bullet – remarkable because the gun in question was clearly pointing far above her head). They fade away into white light, staring on as they recede back into the subconscious, or wherever it is they're from.

Or, perhaps, they're fading to where Alex is from. Who knows? Who can tell any more? With Summers (Adrian Dunbar) dead, the only link between the eighties and 2008 has gone, and suddenly, when you might be forgiven for expecting a Sam Tyler-style revival, boredom, and eventual decision to return to the 'coma'...the whole thing gets flipped around...again! Life on Mars was happy to toy with the idea that Tyler (John Simm) was actually from 1973 and had imagined the future – suddenly, it looks like something similar might be true of Alex Drake. Unless she's just deeply unwilling to let go of Gene Hunt.

Then of course, there's Gene Hunt. Philip Glenister. The lynchpin around which the series revolves, and the keystone around which the entire spin-off has been constructed. Interesting as Alex is – and brilliantly as Hawes plays her, especially this week – Glenister's Hunt is what Ashes to Ashes is about. It's his world; he's the constant. His policing, unconventional by today's standards, is old-fashioned and hardy, and effective. He is cantankerous, bigoted, alcohol-addicted, crass and insensitive, with a craggy face. Oh, and he does Jackanory.

That climax may be violent and noisy, but once again, this season finale allows the silences of Hawes and (especially) Glenister to speak volumes and shout out their characters. Season Three? Yes, please.

Ashes to Ashes II Episode Seven on BBC One

Ignore this week's drug story. Ignore Dorian Lough's building site foreman with the greasy hair. Ignore the Polish man in the pit of concrete. Don't, whatever you do, don't ignore the close of this Ashes to Ashes episode.

You can ignore the criminal goings-on outside of CID this week, because what they provide this week is an examination of Gene Hunt's (Philip Glenister) team itself. Their racism and their bigotry, perhaps most of all their humanity. What Lough's Lafferty does help to reveal is the mole within the team – the person that has been leaking information out of Fenchurch CID for some time. The atmosphere of distrust spreads outward from the Manc Lion himself, and infects each of the team. The final – distressing – revelation is the episode's second chance to leave a character standing in tearful shock as the world slowly rearranges around them, former events and possible future ones reorganizing into a whole new pattern. Disconcerting.

The first time that happens is on the return of Martin Summers (Adrian Dunbar) – Mr. 'I Can Help You, Alex'. Having brought the exact nature of Alex's (Keeley Hawes) eighties' world into question, he blows a new hole in any theory yet developed about it – not to mention into his younger self's head. Poor Gwilym Lee (the second man in the pit of concrete), his uncanny resemblance to Dunbar doesn't save his character from itself. Alex is also left reeling, but at least she's still standing.

As of now, Gene Hunt is Judge, Jury and Executioner for his team. Anyone steps out of line: he's the solution. Anyone has a problem: he's the solution. Anything at all: he's the solution. His sentence on the team's mole is eye-wateringly good – to say nothing of said mole's reaction (Hunt clearly knows the shame – and his own disappointment – is the worst punishment possible here). While in Life on Mars, Hunt excelled at pithy one-liners and put-downs, this episode demonstrates his silences are infinitely more powerful – layered and complex, as you see the emotional currents under the frozen lake of his face.

Ashes to Ashes II Episode Six on BBC One

You'll be pleased to know that the Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes) in the twenty-first century has finally made it to an operating theatre and has had the operation on that bullet lodged in her brain. About time too. It's only taken a series and a half to get her there.

That's the important thread running behind the sixth Ashes to Ashes episode, which features a scam along the lines of the Darwin couple last year – but with more murder for Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) and CID to get their teeth into. Sam Spruell's snide Trevor Riley is a loan shark 'taking advantage of the current economic climate' and having his boys administer beatings as and when necessary. What's odd is how lightly those boys are let off by Hunt, especially after their encounter with the DCI in a dark street.

The reference to the economic climate and the life insurance scam make Ashes to Ashes seem very prescient this week, as if Luigi's (Joseph Long) reminder to Hunt that 'Debt is bad' weren't enough. Okay, so Hunt's a bit wide of the mark when he talks about flying cars in the twenty-first century, but you can forgive the odd slip from a man quite so brilliant as Hunt.

He has a lot of fun this week in a scrap yard – in the best scene of a fairly routine episode. It's certainly a novel interrogation technique he has, and – with the interviewee being entirely innocent (of the crime he's being asked about) – you've got to wonder about ends and means, once again.

Frankly, it's a disappointing sixth episode. Here's hoping next week the game is picked back up.

Ashes to Ashes II Episode Five on BBC One

The first rule of time-travel – as every sci-fi fan knows – is: Don't mess up anything that affects the future.

Okay, so we don't know if the eighties world of Ashes to Ashes is in DI Drake's head (Keeley Hawes) or if it's actually the past, but she really ought to have learnt her lesson from Sam Tyler's exploits (John Simm). Why has she not yet learnt that going round people's houses and acting as though she's known them for years – despite their persistent failure to have the foggiest clue who she might be – is a sure-fire way to creep those people out? In fact, I'm increasingly going off the idea that Ashes to Ashes is inside anyone's head at all, because there's no way Drake would know what her in-laws were like this early in her (strictly speaking 'future', yet also 'estranged') husband's life.


Remember that fantastically ambivalent opening sequence to Life on Mars? The parent show was founded on the question of whether Tyler was mad, in a coma or back in time, but Ashes to Ashes is looking more and more like some kind of Purgatory and not any of those three. Unless it's Limbo. For the first time this week, I found myself comparing it to Lost, and I'm not sure how comfortable I am with that.


Discomfort is a theme of Episode Five, actually – and I don't just mean the lads' reaction to a transsexual cockney gangster. No, what's discomforting (apart from the slightly creepy opening with Orville the Duck: Ashes to Ashes making kids' TV disturbing again (like Life on Mars did)) is the latent, ever-so-slight paedophilia floating about and Drake's unfair attacks on a boy who hasn't committed a crime nor done anything to Drake herself (yet). The fourteen-year old lad (Perry Millward) is her future husband, and the mystical, long-gone father of Molly (amusingly, the name of his cat). I've often wondered where Molly's dad was, and now we know: he left when she was six months old, and is apparently a two-timing good-for-nothing. Mind you, Drake doesn't exactly get the most out of her attempt to improve his character before he meets his future wife. When she should really just leave him alone, she ends up creeping him out with an uncanny 'female intuition' (read: knowledge about him that a Police officer of the eighties wouldn't know) and setting him up to be intimidated by (and freaked out by) any Alex-like woman he meets in the future...like Alex, for example. The first thing she says to him is the rant she has probably been saving since he left her, which utterly bewilders the poor kid. Get a grip, Drake – no wonder he left you, if he was traumatised by you when he was barely a teenager. Yes, it might not be the real past, but who knows? She could have shot herself in the foot, just with a very slow bullet.


If it is Purgatory – not the real eighties – this week we finally meet the man in charge. Mr. 'I can help you, Alex'. The man who's been sending the roses and creepy phone calls. He knows stuff. Like the fact that he and Drake are the only ones from the 'real world', and that she has just arrived in hospital in 2008. In such a plot-thick episode, his warning about the oncoming Operation Rose is kept on the quiet, but it's there. Watch for it.

More important is Gene Hunt (Philip Glenister) being brilliant. More gruffness, more human heart, more violence, more tender moments with Drake, more verbal filth and more perfect resolution to a tricky problem. Damn you, Gene Hunt.

Ashes to Ashes II Episode Four on BBC One

Operation Let's Round Off The Police Corruption Story Early In The Series (or Operation LROTPCSEITS, for short) this week. The episode opens with DCI Hunt (Glenister) and DI Drake (Hawes) slinking off together – to much sniggering – to carry out Operation Burnt Ring: the bugging of SuperMac's (Allam) office. At the end, a dying officer warns them about the oncoming Operation Rose (which may or may not be connected to the mysterious roses and phone calls Drake keeps receiving).

This week shows Allam's SuperMac as the nasty piece he's become – while highlighting the terrors of having the Police against you when his men ransack Drake's flat – as well as the decent, honourable man he once was. Hunt demolishes him with some stern words (“You've done some bad, bad things, Mac”) and a little shove – amazing, considering Hunt's normal technique – and the result is yet more superlative acting from Allam.

Now, I for one am no fan of dogs. Least of all barky ones with lots of teeth. So Hunt's method of removing the threat of the Rottweiler guarding the house of virgin-collector Jarivs (John Bowe) had me in stitches. It's classic no-nonsense Hunt, as well as a victory for dog-haters everywhere. Shaz is characteristically unimpressed, but we've come to expect that.

What's more distressing than doggy-death is that Ray (Dean Andrews) seems to have completely forgotten his Mason loyalties, and utterly fails to warn fellow Mason SuperMac about the approaching danger of Hunt and Drake (though why either of them thought he was a good person to confide in escapes me). It means that the Masonic story seems to have been put to bed in Episode Four...with half a series to go. So, that Operation Rose has got some time to bubble away (sorry, Allam's quasi-Shakespeare quote's still rumbling round my head), and it's bound to go higher than SuperMac.

Ashes to Ashes II Episode Three on BBC One

It must be pretty unnerving to have children's TV character Morph attempting to do the old electric shock to your heart trick.

No wonder DI Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes) spends so much of Episode Three being spaced out and flummoxed. The hunt for Episode One's cop-killer ends a little prematurely, and there's a creepy anti-vivisectionist (David Bradley) who knows far more than an ordinary man from 1982 ought. He doesn't seem to be the mystery medical man who leaves Drake flowers and cryptic messages every now and then, but for a minute it looks like he might be.

It's animal rights this week, with David Bradley as a hunger-striking animal rights activist pulling the strings of a terror campaign from behind bars. Once again, there's the old clash of techniques on display – Drake wants to talk to prisoners and analyse them, meanwhile DCI Hunt (Philip Glenister) prefers to batter information out of them. Rory Kinnear pops up as a shrink for Drake to talk to, and is unrecognisable from his characters in the new James Bond films or the National Theatre's Revenger's Tragedy last year. To be honest, it's a fairly classic story of trying to stop the bad men hurting people, with our favourite eighties coppers using their mix of modern and eighties policing to hunt down the criminals who theoretically have a decent cause to be fighting, but are a bit mental with it.

What's worth watching out for this week is the little things, the small moments that fit Episode Three into the grander scheme of Ashes to Ashes Series Two. Especially the music – as ever – and Roger Allam. Also on the acting front, Glenister – now wearing Hunt like a second skin – is gradually peeling back the layers of this man week by week; it's like watching him pick at a fascinating scab, and I mean that as a compliment. Though the series has been low on car chases so far, the music for Hunt's reckless driving is still fantastic. This week he may only be driving down a street, but Eye of the Tiger is a perfect song for the Quattro belting to the scene of an arson attack.

The music's also pretty good when Super Mac is in Hunt's office. There's a chilling note to both that and Allam's demeanour when he innocently mentions facts that threaten Hunt – or will if Super Mac doesn't get his way. Rarely is an actor so in tune with his background music. There's a curiously upbeat song to end this episode on, which is really at odds with the news that we've just had delivered, but beautifully so. If nothing else, this show excels with its soundtrack.

Ashes to Ashes II Episode Two on BBC One

All of a sudden, Ashes to Ashes is getting a bit like C4's Red Riding; why does the Police force of the eighties seem to be coming in for such stick these days?

This week, the culture clash central to the whole '21st-century-copper-back-in-time' thing brings our favourite CID team into contact with a gypsy camp, and a dead drug dealer. The dealer doesn't start off dead, but he gets that way pretty quickly, thanks to some imaginative driving by DCI Gene Hunt (Glenister). So – rather like the Life on Mars episode when he was investigated for murder – Hunt is in trouble pretty early on. Luckily for him, his mate Detective Superintendent 'Super Mac' Mackintosh (Roger Allam) is on hand to smooth everything over.

This series is getting more and more layers piled up on top of each other, and it's getting better and better to watch. The camera work is – once again – lovely (especially the scene when Hunt phones his predecessor). We're seeing a more human side of the grizzly beast we call Hunt in this series, and it's very welcome. This week he's a genuinely warm and pleasant man – at times. Some of the time he's a violent, priggish brute of a man, but that's what's so good about Gene Hunt. But most importantly, he gets involved with that corruption that's rotting the Met from the inside. It's a rot that goes deep, very deep, much deeper into the CID than might have been expected. The difference with Red Riding is that Ashes to Ashes gets to show much more of the corruption from the inside, not from the angle of outsider investigating officers or journalists.

Ashes to Ashes is very good at dropping clues that get picked up later, and this week it was good to see some clues from last week fleshed out; there's definitely a cult thing going on with Super Mac and the 'all square' blokes he keeps releasing from Hunt's Interview Room. The mystery man following Alex Drake (Keeley Hawes) crops up briefly again, but we're no clearer on exactly what he wants. Fun can also be had playing 'Spot the Diana References' in this episode. I lost count of the number of times the word 'Princess' was used in connection to a car veering off the road and killing someone inside.

Drake is banging her head against a brick wall this week, trying to get to the bottom of last week's armed showdown and handle the death at the gypsy camp. On the bright side, the real world crash team are only two minutes away by the end of this week's episode – hopefully, they'll arrive before Drake goes completely potty in 1982. It'd be a shame to see her leave, in a way, because she's getting closer to Hunt and they finally seem to have a mission together this week.

But will they, or won't they? That's the question left over from Series One that still needs resolving.

When performers respond to reviews - RashDash and 'Never Enough'

It's always interesting when someone you've reviewed talks to you about said review. Partly, it's the knowledge that, actually, the stuff we people write does get read...that's reassuring. But partly, it's the knowledge that someone has read what you've said and thought about it – probably because it applies so much to them.

Now, I've been in trouble over reviews in the past (when a company objected to their work being referred to as 'physical theatre'), but today I found it seems to have happened on a bigger scale than before. What makes this amusing – rather like the last time this happened – is that the company in question seems to have misunderstood the review in question. In fairness, that makes it sound like I've not been clear enough, but performers don't usually have problems with 'getting' what I say.

One of the companies performing at this year's NSDF claim that I wrote their worst review...which surprised me because I thought mine was pretty positive. In fact, I really enjoyed their show, rather like I enjoyed the show they'd entered the year before. The fact that RashDash Theatre Company is from my own University is irrelevant. Still, if my review was the worst thing written about them, they must have done pretty well on the whole – and let's not overlook their joint award for most popular show at the Festival.

But it's interesting that the company of Never Enough should take such objection to what I wrote.
My first comment about the company itself is:

'what is worth noting – and commending – is the fact that RashDash have been
selected for NSDF in a second consecutive year.'

I draw special attention to the word 'commending'.

RashDash might then have taken issue with my point that their energetic show borrows from different dance styles. Possibly. But at no point have I said that it's a bad thing, as I think it's quite a good thing.

Then, a few lines later:

'This is a company that has invested time and effort in perfecting their
physical technique; they gel together beautifully, moving fluidly and easily
around each other'.

I'm struggling to see how this is their worst review, when some people really didn't like Never Enough.

Apparently, they don't like the idea that I've claimed their acting wasn't very good. This response to the review surprised me, as I was pretty sure I hadn't said it; there's not much to fault in their acting. So, I re-read said review.

'as is so often the case, these dancers aren't so hot on acting. None of the
trio can quite hold their own when delivering monologues [...] It's not that
Graham's description of his dream house isn't interesting, it just pales away
when compared with the drive and passion of his dance work.'

By which I mean that their dance work is better than their acting. That doesn't mean their acting is bad. It's just not their strongest point.

'it's a testament to the strength of the ensemble that no individual is able to
stand out.'

is also no bad thing.

But thinking about it, I gather the cast aren't keen on being referred to as 'dancers', for some reason. I don't know why, as all three excel in that field, and much of their work has a distinctly 'dancey' feel to it. Maybe they objected to my comparing their show – loosely – to the BBC's Mistresses in the way it balanced several stories at once. Once again, that's no bad thing; it's what I love about Mistresses.

Still, Never Enough is being performed again at the University of Hull tonight and tomorrow – so I'm told. Hopefully, when I turn up, they won't throw me the seemingly angry looks they threw me at NSDF. Personally, I look forward to seeing how they've changed the show in the month or so since NSDF.

Ashes to Ashes II Episode One on BBC One

The eighties are back, and they've brought their soundtrack with them. It's been so long since Life of Mars and the first Ashes to Ashes season that I'd forgotten how thumpingly good the soundtrack to these shows has always been. Episode one of the second Ashes to Ashes treats us to an early car dash through eighties London with some cracking eighties pop to ease – or punch – us back into the decade after the show's absence. The more incidental music is pretty creepy this week, unlike the upbeat eighties stuff, and part of me hopes that carries on because it just proves that Ashes to Ashes is a teeny bit darker than Life on Mars.

What the team behind both Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes haven't forgotten is that their shows thrive on keeping us guessing and trying piece together the links they dangle in front of us. Half of the charm of Life on Mars was trying to work out if Sam Tyler (John Simm) was mad, in a coma or back in time. That's why it was so solid as a two-season show; any longer and the conceit would have worn thin.

The first episode of the second season jumps right back in with a few things to keep us guessing early on. Having wrapped up the whole issue with Alex Drake's parents in season one, Ashes to Ashes needs a new set of intrigues, and finds them in a medical man with a habit of sending Drake (Keeley Hawes) flowers. Roses, as it happens. He takes quite a shine to her, it seems, and knows she's not a real eighties girl.

So keen does he seem that he goes so far as to kidnap the poor woman and take her to his improvised operating theatre. The rescue effort distracts from the episode's main story, which is all about bent coppers in Soho. That's 'bent' as in corrupt, not as in gay. It seems one of the men paid to clean up the streets has died while indulging in a 'perk of the job'...all very seedy. As we've seen lately in C4's Red Riding, the grassroots of the Police force in the eighties rarely come out looking good, and – again – it seems the rot spreads even beyond the roots of the force.

What Ashes to Ashes has over Life on Mars, is its ability to tackle feminism and gender. It lacks the charm of the coma question, but gains immensely in having sent a woman to the past, instead of another man. In a year when Thatcher was leading the country in arguably our last imperial war and Princess Diana was still on TV screens, Ashes to Ashes has great potential to focus on a fair few modern female role models. This episode has Thatcher, Diana and Princess Margaret, as well as a male stripper to combat the 'objectification of women' it gives us with the Soho clubs. Actually, that stripper scene is pretty funny. Ashes to Ashes can handle its politics with a definite sense of humour, tongue very much in cheek.

There are three things about Ashes to Ashes that make me smile. One: the soundtrack is stupidly good; upbeat and apt, while being catchy and always enhancing what's on screen. Two: each episode's story is littered with moments of Drake thinking about or being reminded of the modern day and the series' final flowering is no doubt being seeded early on. Three (and this is the big one): Gene Hunt. The man is the best justification for eking a little more life out of the Life on Mars concept, and once again he dominates his time on screen. It's an unbelievably good thing to see Philip Glenister back in a good show, after the Cbeebies-does-Torchwood fiasco that was ITV's Demons. The gruff Manc DCI is back, and thank goodness for that.