THREE years on from Donald Trump becoming President and television is still figuring out how to handle him. Alec Baldwin’s impersonations on Saturday Night Live and The Good Fight aside, no-one has laid a glove on The Donald. Setting out to change that is the drama Chimerica (Channel 4, Wednesday, 9pm).
Adapted by Lucy Kirkwood from her award-winning play, Chimerica opened in Tiananmen Square in 1989, just before the troops massacred their fellow citizens. Young photojournalist Lee Berger was one of a handful of photographers on the spot to get a shot of “tank man”, the protester who stood in the middle of the road playing chicken with an armoured vehicle. Years later, Berger (Alessandro Nivola) is still living off the fame. His luck is about to run out however. Some pesky internet kid – wearing a hat, natch – has caught Berger doctoring a photo from Syria.
Lee has let the side down, his furious editor tells him, just when the mainstream media is under attack as never before. Disgraced, Lee finds a mission for himself and reporting partner Mel (Cherry Jones): they are going to find tank man, and if in doing so they can establish a connection between China and America (Chimerica) that ropes in Trump, then all to the better.
By episode end the tale was shaping up nicely, with clips of The Donald rumbling ominously in the background, like Krakatoa.
Chimerica featured lots of meeja types in need of a chill pill or a session in front of Martin Clunes: My Travels and Other Animals (STV, Thursday, 8.30pm). The Doc Martin star is part of that posse of celebrities continually travelling the globe in search of adventure. There are only around five of them, Miriam Margolyes to the fore, but they make Air Miles Andy look like Stay at Home Stan.
Clunes’ beat takes in people who love animals as much as he does, which is a lot. His first visit in this “best of” compilation was to a chap who lives with a pack of wolves in Devon. Sean’s role, apart from paying the bills, was to act as mediator during chow time. If there was a beef between two wolves over a carcass, Sean sorted it out. Interesting work if you can get it. Clunes was in seventh heaven as one of the real deal wolves licked his face. One wouldn’t have thought he could have been any happier, but then he and his horse Chester, met Monty Roberts, the horse whisperer. Roberts showed Clunes how to “talk” to Chester and within minutes the relationship between man and horse was transformed. A magical sight.
Adding to the deluge of documentaries on the new BBC Scotland channel was Mother Tuckers: Drag Queens of Glasgow (BBC Scotland, Tuesday, 10pm). According to its makers, the “home of the hard man” was now “leading the way in embracing its fabulous, taboo-breaking rainbow generation”. Now there is a pitch if ever I heard one. There was not much new or surprising here, and the script read like it had been written in five minutes, but in Stephen Murphy, aka Barbra la bush, the filmmakers had a central character who was warm, funny, and informed with a poignant back story to boot. If you have one of those in your documentary make-up bag, you’re laughing.
Ghosts (BBC1, Monday, 9.30pm) was that old-fashioned thing: a comedy half hour that set out to make the viewer laugh like a wean again. It’s depressing how many do not.
From the gang who made Horrible Histories, Ghosts is the story of a gaggle of ghouls whose residence in a ramshackle old house is disturbed by the arrival of new owners. The ghosts come from all eras and include a caveman, a scout master with an arrow through his neck, a politician with no trousers on, and a woman called Fanny. For the record, there is never an instance in which the name Fanny is not funny. Go on, try shouting it without smiling (if you’re reading this on public transport, maybe wait till later). As cleverly done as it is joyously silly, Ghosts is a treat, especially if you were a fan of the late, lamented Rentaghost.
Woody Guthrie: Three Chords and the Truth (BBC4, Friday, 9pm) contained some genuine surprises. Even those familiar with the “Dust Bowl Balladeer” who inspired Seeger, Dylan, Baez and all those cats would have had their eyebrows raised. Guthrie travelled far in his life, physically and politically. One of the film’s very well informed contributors, Billy Bragg, confessed to finding Guthrie’s early use of racist imagery and language shocking.
He was to make up for that ignorance later on, memorably taking on a property developer over his alleged policy of barring black tenants from renting his flats. The developer’s name? Fred Trump. Daddy to the very same. The circle of life, folks, the circle of life.
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