Success has many fathers true enough. How often do you see a new programme punted as “Line of Duty meets …”? Sometimes it’s because the two shows share a production company, or the writer wants to inject excitement into a routine offering.
So a new interior design show might be “Line of Duty meets Changing Rooms”, a new religious programme “Line of Duty meets Songs of Praise”. Malpractice (STV, Sunday) inevitably arrives with the tag “Line of Duty meets Casualty”.
Malpractice does indeed hail from the same stable as Jed Mercurio’s police procedural and yes, it goes at quite the lick. The story of a doctor being investigated over a patient’s death also involves tense interview scenes (no long bleeeeeep alas). There is more of a whiff of mystery shrouding Grace Ofori-Attah’s five-part drama, though.
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Niamh Algar plays Lucinda Edwards, a battle-hardened emergency department doctor. Nothing fazes her, but when a young overdose victim arrives what should have been a straightforward case ends in tragedy. To what extent this is the good doc’s fault is just one of many questions the viewer will have. What is making Lucinda zone out under stress? Who is persistent caller “Rose”? What’s the deal about Lucinda taking time off during the pandemic? Will the answers live up to the promise of a thrilling, if a tad overblown, opening episode? Call in tomorrow night to Line of Duty meets Edge of Darkness (maybe).
Confession time. Did you inhale all four episodes of Guilt (BBC Scotland, Tuesday/BBC2, Thursday) on iPlayer or are we going old-school, one week at a time? I vote the latter. It’s not that we shall never see its likes again. I’m sure there is plenty of quality stuff coming our way once I’m a Celeb (of which more later) is over. Ever the optimist.
The third series began at a pace that should satisfy those who felt Neil Forsyth’s comedy-drama was carrying some flab last time. The boys (Mark Bonnar’s Max and Jamie Sives’ Jake) are back together, and back in Scotland, which helps, and some old favourites are joined by promising new characters.
Forsyth has said this will be the last series, and it feels like it, in a good way. He’s brought the brothers as low as they can go. Now skint, in danger, and still bound together more by resentment than love, time is running out for Max to find the absolution he craves. What a gift Guilt has been for Scottish drama.
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Filmmaker Magnus Gertten has spent years studying footage of a ship carrying survivors of Nazi concentration camps to Sweden at the end of the Second World War. He has traced many of the passengers’ pasts and futures, and any one of them could have sparked a great documentary. He had to choose one, though, and it is hard to think he could have done better than the story behind Nelly and Nadine: Ravensbruck, 1944 (BBC4, Tuesday).
Sylvie Bianchi knew her grandmother Nelly, an opera singer, had been in the camps. In one she made a friend, Nadine, and after the war they moved to Venezuela. Bequeathed a trunk of Nelly’s writings and films, much of the material covering her time in the camps, Sylvie shied away from investigating further, so unbearable was the thought of learning the details of Nelly’s suffering. The film follows Sylvie as she discovers the whole, astonishing story - one that Nelly and Nadine had wanted to tell themselves but no publisher would touch.
This beautifully observed documentary is packed with moving moments and surprises. Just when you think the tale is done, there’s more. A superb film, and one that gives voice to so many others who did not get to tell their story.
Lots of well kent faces in I'm a Celebrity …. South Africa (STV, Monday-Friday), which was nice, and not so nice. When did we all get so old? How did that happen? It’s one thing seeing your own coupon in the mirror every morning, and another to learn Happy Mondays’ Shaun Ryder has had his hip replaced (on Tuesday night it popped out).
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From Carol Vorderman and Paul Burrell to Myleene Klass and Gillian McKeith the gang came together again, doing trials, getting hungry, bickering about keeping the toilet clean (McKeith back on familiar territory), while Ant and Dec took care of the between segments banter. The patter wasn’t up to the usual standard though, with one particular quip, about Janice Dickinson’s face, bordering on the unkind. Distasteful as always were the eating trials. I switched over till they were done, and I bet I wasn’t the only one.
After a week’s absence to pay our respects to the great Logan Roy, the Succession line of the week competition (still no prizes) is back. And the winner is … Connor complaining that Logan’s wife wanted to have the Dundee-born media mogul buried “in a kilt like a ******* Bay City Roller”. Is it wrong to be looking forward to a funeral?
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