GOT enough drama in
your life? Time was when
you could look forward
to a few decent dramatic
offerings in autumn before
the fancy stuff at Christmas. Now, as
Forrest Gump’s mamma never said, the
schedules are like a giant box of thespian
chocolates, and you never know what
you are going to get. With any luck it will
be a strawberry creme (Bodyguard, The
Cry), rather than a nut cluster (Strangers,
anyone? No, thought not).
Butterfly (ITV, Sunday, 9pm) is shaping
up to be the former. In the first of three
episodes we met the Duffy family: mum
Vicky, dad Stephen, big sister Lily, and
youngest boy Max.
Max was not happy as Max. All things
considered, Max reckoned he would
be much happier as a girl. Mum (Anna
Friel) thought it was just a phase; Nan
(Alison Steadman) referred to Max’s
“funny ways”; grandad thought the lad
was gay; and dad had taken the situation
so badly he had left home.
Tony Marchant’s drama set out its
stall without fuss. We saw that far from
being a phase, Max had been feeling this
way for a long time. We also got some
sense of what it meant, day to day, to feel
you are in the wrong body, the wrong
clothes, the wrong toilets. Sensitively
done so far. Now that Max has decided
he wants to be Maxine the real battles,
and the test for this drama, begin.
Informer (BBC1, Tuesday, 9pm) was a
caramel of the rip-out-your-fillings kind,
as one might expect of a drama about
counter-terrorism police and their paid
snitches. Paddy Considine, who always
looks as though he is walking around
in wet socks, played Gabe, the tough
talking old hand who was lumbered with
an inexperienced but ambitious new
female partner. It was Holly (Bel Powley)
asked, but not the one that cried out
to be answered: why was this steaming
pile of rubbish commissioned? It was
desperately unfunny stuff, the kind of
dreck that would struggle to make the
grade in on daytime TV, yet here it was
on prime time. One suspects the answer
starts and ends with O’Carroll. He who
has a hit show must be indulged and all
that.
Sanity was restored by the drama
There She Goes (BBC4, Tuesday 10pm).
David Tennant and Jessica Hynes played
the parents who spent most of their time
crisis-managing their learning disabled
daughter Rosie while her brother looked
on from the sidelines, wondering if it
would ever be his turn for attention.
Written by Shaun Pye, the father of
a disabled child, the chaos, heartbreak,
joy, and sheer bloody exhaustion on
screen had an essential ring of truth
about it. The scenes looking back to the
time before Rosie was diagnosed were
particularly poignant, with mum and dad
trying to cope, or not, with a life turned
upside down. Superb performances all
round, Tennant especially.
This Country (BBC1, Saturday,
10.30pm) was back for a one-off
special before a new series arrives. The
Cotswolds-set mockumentary about
cousins Kerry and Kurtan Mucklowe
was one of the most pleasing comedy
finds of this year, and if you haven’t
come across it yet get thee to the BBC
iPlayer pronto.
Kerry and Kurtan are played by reallife
brother and sister Charlie and Daisy
May Cooper, and the comedy walks that
fine line between love and contempt for
its characters. This jobless pair might
seem as thick as 22 planks, and their
rural existence, revolving around the bus
stop and the village green, offers nothing
in the way of excitement. But look closer
and you see that all human life is here,
wrapped up in plenty of properly daft,
snigger-along comedy.
The second series ended with the
great vacuum cleaner robbery and Kerry
having to decide whether or not to take
the rap for her no-good dad. Now the
village’s saintly vicar (Paul Chahidi) had
to deal with the inevitable emotional
fallout. Twenty-something Kerry
admitted to being a bit of a handful,
riding her bike around the local shop
and being slightly cheeky to a member
of the bowls club. Or as the vicar put
it: “Frankly, she’s behaving like the
antichrist.” Drama queens: they’re
everywhere.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here