What *was* on

Further to my last TV Review; distressed by the unremitting bleakness of the ending of Follow the Money, I turned over to see the tail end of the film ‘Denial’, all about the Trial of David Irving V Deborah Lipstadt to cheer myself up.

In it, the brilliant lawyer Anthony Julius bore an uncanny resemblance to the priest in Fleabag. Turns out both roles were played by the same actor. (Andrew Scott.) I wish they wouldn’t do that. 

(I realise that there was a spell when Timothy Spall was in practically everything, but for some reason, it seems easier to suspend one’s disbelief where Timothy Spall is concerned.)

We’ve had such a surfeit of Adrian Dunbar that I couldn’t care less whether he’s ‘H’ or not. The BBC can’t help promoting its own programmes till you’re heartily sick of them. I’ll tune in tonight though, just to see Anna Maxwell Martin, acting.

For ages, whenever an immigrant looked like a possible suspect in a Scandi-noir, you could safely assume he was there as a red herring. Because immigrants can’t be baddies and you’ll look like a racist for even suspecting him. That rule has eased off a bit, and nowadays immigrants are almost as likely to be portrayed as criminals as respectable white indigenes. That’s progress.

What's on

Are you watching Line of Duty? I’m not. I lie - I did watch the first episode of the current series but gave up when I couldn’t see past a bunch of unconvincing actors spouting mouthfuls of acronyms that I didn’t understand and couldn’t be bothered to try. It seemed wooden and silly.

But wow!  Last week a wonderfully chilling performance by the superb Anna Maxwell Martin lifted the whole thing to another level. She was magnificent. She must have observed someone in real life who could smile so disturbingly and so ominously. I do hope I never have to come into contact with someone who does that. They could destroy you with that smile.

******

What did you think of Fleabag? Did you like it? 

I enjoyed it because of the quirky dialogue and the cinematographic charm. (I do use that word even though I’m not sure of the exact meaning.) 

One quibble was that the script had the priest uttering ‘fuck’ all the time, perhaps to shock us out of our preconceived assumptions about priests. One assumes that it was a writerly device to indicate that he was up for a bit of unpriestly behaviour. I felt that the script’s reliance on that one word was somehow jarring and a little bit lazy. It turns out he was a conventional chap(lain) after all. It was very entertaining though. I like Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s strip-cartoon way of handling her drama, which is why I also liked Killing Eve.

I’m guessing that “Fleabag’ was spawned from the name Phoebe. I bet JD Salinger spawned a lot of Phoebes back along. 

*****

There isn’t much else good on at the moment, is there? I was captivated by “Follow the Money’ at first, but now it seems to be degenerating into an unsatisfactory flubbery-flabbery (like a deflating balloon) ending. We’ve got the unconvincing, uncharacteristic kind of behaviour with which promising dramas often conclude, disappointingly, as though the writers have run out of steam and as their allotted time expires they just go “that’ll do”. Anyway, we’ll find out on Saturday.

Although I like most of those BBC Four Scandi-noirs I can only remember the beginnings and middles of most of them; in other words the memorable parts. The endings are often so forgettable that one can hardly be certain whether they’ve actually ended at all. Come to think of it a lot of TV dramas are like that. Don’t you think?