DO you remember when people (moaning Minnie journalists mostly) were complaining there was just too much news? It started with the EU referendum, then it was the Trump victory, followed by a General Election.
With all that going on it was difficult for mid-size stories to get a look in. Now everything has calmed down, one would have thought Secrets of the Masons (BBC2, Monday, 9pm) would have been a bigger deal than it was. After all, as narrator Bill Paterson told us, this was the first time cameras had been allowed to enter Scottish lodges. Were the Masons “the hidden hand” that has shaped Scotland? And what is all that business with the rolled up trouser leg?
All would be revealed, we were promised. In the event, the Masons were prepared to flash a bit of ankle but not the whole leg. We never found out, for example, why women were barred, other than, in the view of one member, there are times men need to be with men and women with women (as with changing rooms, so with the Masons). When it came time to see the top secret bit, what goes on in an initiation ceremony, the cameras were ushered out.
The moral of this story is that nothing breeds suspicion and speculation like secrecy. The curtain had been drawn aside only to reveal a lot of men of a certain age dressing up and engaging in ritual. A bit like the Scouts, with aprons. Then again, if they really had secrets to hide they would want to appear dull, wouldn’t they?
Here is some good news to warm your hands on. The Durrells (ITV, Sunday, 8pm) are back. No one faffs around quite so amusingly as Mrs Durrell (Keeley Hawes). As the series opened she was fretting about son Leslie (the lumpy one) having three girlfriends at the one time. “They’re people,” she said to other son Larry (the handsome one). “He’s not good with people. It’s his first ballet class all over again.” Meanwhile, youngest son Gerald (him wot wrote the books) had acquired two flamingoes.
You have to watch The Durrells like a hawk. For the most part it is simply great fun, but every now and then the writers like to sneak in a hint of an issue, like the fact there was no X-ray machine on the island. We’ll let it go this time, but it’s Sunday night for pity’s sake. Reality can wait till morning.
A documentary about the appalling events of March 1988 in Belfast was always going to be a disturbing watch. Film-maker Vanessa Engle began The Funeral Murders (BBC2, Monday, 11.15pm) by setting the scene, describing Northern Ireland in the 1980s as a place where “Protestants and Catholics had been locked in conflict for over 20 years.” The fact that the audience had to be told this was a jaw dropper in itself.
With painstaking sensitivity, Engle told a difficult story straight and true. The extended footage was astonishing, but it was the details, and above all the interviews with relatives, that rattled the soul. Like the widow who had kept the clothes cut off her dead husband because they were a comfort, and the father who said his son had given his life for a cause. Was that any consolation for losing him, asked Engle. “Not really,”came the reply.
Every now and then the editor of this magazine will rave about a programme and say we should spread the news. Irritatingly, he is always right. Such is the case with the drama Here and Now (Sky Atlantic)., which stars Holly Hunter and Tim Robbins as the impeccably liberal parents of three adopted children (from Vietnam, Liberia, and Colombia) and one biological daughter.
It’s a weird one, but in a good way. Most episodes play out like a cleverly written exploration of family life and Trump’s America. But then something happens to turn viewers’ assumptions on their head. It is almost as if, and hang on to your berets here, the programme makers think the audience is intelligent and wants to be stretched. We’re only half way through though, and if there isn’t a big pay off to match the build up the verdict might change. In which case I’m not to be blamed. Just saying.
Like all good things, the latest series of Shetland (BBC1, Tuesday, 9pm) came to an end. DI Jimmy Perez looked even more scunnered than usual. No wonder. In the course of his investigation into a series of murders, things were said between him and co-dad Duncan that can never be unsaid. Dougie Henshall and Mark Bonnar acted their little woollen socks off, sparking so much electricity in one scene I thought they were going to set the curtains alight.
How are you doing with Mum (BBC2, Tuesday, 10pm) as the final episode approaches? It is still touch and go (or touch and scarper) between lovely Michael and gentle Cathy, but that hug bodes well. Doesn’t it?
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