TV reviews: Mint, Balamory, Half Man, Criminal Record
Gangsters in Glasgow. It’s a story as old as television time. Indeed, if Mr Baird had known how often the box would trot out the same old tales, he might have issued an apology in advance. As it is, from Taggart to River City, the cliche has stuck like gum on a pavement.
New drama Mint (BBC One, Monday) defies any such categorisation. Yes, it’s shot in Glasgow and Grangemouth. Agreed, it centres on warring crime families. Granted, there will be blood. But Charlotte Regan’s take on Romeo and Juliet is much more than that.
It’s woven with magic, for a start. When we meet Shannon (Emma Laird), she is staring into the past at her younger self, who is saying: “I might have kids, but I might not, ‘cos gran says they ruin your life.” With that, older Shannon floats up in the air as if powered by an invisible jetpack.
Almost every scene is fizzing with invention. In another work, the characters might come second to the creative whirl, but not with the acting talent here. Sam Riley plays Dylan, the gang boss planning big changes, with Laura Fraser as his wife, Cat, and Lindsay Duncan as the mother-in-law from hell.
Of the next generation, it is Shannon, rather than her student brother, who is more involved with the family business. She knows what’s what, or thinks she does. When the charming guy she meets by chance turns out to be a member of a rival gang, her mother warns her off. “Anyone but him,” she hisses.
What’s the story in Balamory, wouldn’t you like to know?
Now there’s a question. A lot has changed in Scotland and the wider world in the 21 years since the colourful, Tobermory-set children’s show shut up shop. There’s a big orange man in the White House, for instance, everyone’s nuts about an Australian pup called Bluey, and Scotland is seeing red about ferries.
Mercifully, none of this has had an impact on Balamory (CBeebies, Monday-Friday),
back for two new series. New faces include inventor Ava Potts (daughter of Archie) and Dr Ollie, a vet. Back for more are transport mogul Edie McCredie, shop owner Penny Pocket, PC Plum, and the most important character of all, Miss Hoolie, the nursery teacher.
Whatever wellness routine Julie Wilson Nimmo has been using for the past two decades, she should copyright it. Either that, or a portrait in the attic, is responsible for her looking younger now than when she first opened those nursery doors and told us what the weather would be (the forecast was invariably wrong).
The character has had a few tweaks - out go the midi skirt and brogues, in come fashionably baggy trousers and trainers. The highlighted hair is more Byres Road than Balamory, and she has ditched the Alice band in favour of an au naturel look or a bobble hat.
Otherwise, all is the same. Every day starts with a task - help PC Plum with the song he wants to play at the ceilidh, or find new stories because the Balamory Story Bus is going to be a day late (as revealed exclusively in the not-yet-digital Balamory Times). Everyone in Balamory helps solve the problem by day’s end.
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All good, traditional stuff that sets a fine example for youngsters about helping each other and being nice. But don’t most shows for the under-5s do this? Think of Aunt Lucy’s advice to Paddington: "If we're kind and polite, the world will be right". Or Bluey’s mantra, “Be kind to others”. In a crowded market, and at a time when children can swipe before they write, what is the unique selling point of Balamory?
Balamory’s strength, then and now, lies in the characters, and one in particular. There are no animated superheroes here, just ordinary humans doing their best. Whether the retro style overall will delight nostalgic adults while leaving children bored stiff, time and tides will tell.
Now for something so completely different, I’m not even going to attempt a link. Half Man (BBC, from Friday) arrived in a meteor shower of publicity, as befits the follow-up to global hit Baby Reindeer. But hey, no pressure on Richard Gadd, who created, wrote, executive produced and stars in the six-part series.
Reviewers were told that Gadd’s show contained “very strong and discriminatory language, scenes of violence and underage teen sexual abuse”. The story of two dysfunctional boys who grow up to be even more dysfunctional men, Half Man is indeed a work of extremes, containing much that is outstanding, and a fair bit that should not have made it out of the edit room.
It opens at a wedding in Scotland before cutting to a classroom where a nervy lad, Niall (Mitchell Robertson), is being bullied. There is worse to come. His mother has invited her girlfriend’s son, Ruben (Stuart Campbell), to stay. Enough to say he would not be many people’s idea of an ideal roommate.
Ruben and Niall are opposites in almost every way: Niall, the slight, sensitive, aspiring writer, and Ruben, the charming brute. Yet over time, and tests of loyalty, the two come to be as close as brothers. Like many a fraternal combo from Cain and Abel to the Peaky Blinders boys, they both love and hate each other. It’s complicated.
Each episode is bookended by what is happening back at the wedding, where Ruben (now played by Gadd) has turned up, much to the alarm of Niall (Jamie Bell). Gadd gives good cliffhanger endings, drawing the audience ever further into his complex tale. He makes it impossible to walk away from the drama, even when what is on screen is unwatchable.
Gadd went fully “method” in creating the character of Ruben, and he makes a terrifying sight, a real raging bull, packed with muscle, snorting and pawing the ground before he unleashes spectacular violence on his latest victim.
The trouble with having a big bad wolf around is that they are subject to the law of diminishing returns. If you’ve seen them dramatically appear once, etc. Ruben pops up so often he reminded me of the cartoon Bully character in Bullseye, mooing his way onto the screen. It’s too much, like the violence. The scenes where Ruben loses it are grotesquely long.
As are the speeches that Niall and Ruben deliver to each other. Great for the actors’ showreels, but a snooze to watch. They also contain some pretty ripe lines, including “You might be the painter, but I’m the rolling hills!” Eh?). People generally don’t talk like that, in or out of a drama.
Again, Gadd knows this, as when Niall tells Ruben, “You sound different, you talk different.” To which Ruben replies, “I’ve done a lot of reading”. There’s a lot of such telling rather than showing. Another bugbear is the women characters, each more thinly drawn than the next. This is a man’s world, and Gadd never lets us forget it.
Half Man is told over six, one-hour episodes, with the story spanning 25 years. From episode four on, it treads water, despite the increasingly soapy twists. For those four episodes, however, it is hands down one of the most impressive works to emerge from Scotland in years. The acting from the lead four is outstanding, particularly from the youngsters. From first sight to closing scenes, Bell reminds you of what a truly gifted performer he is.
Shot in and around Glasgow, the film looks terrific, and the attention to period detail is superb. Even the supermarket carrier bags are of the time. Overall, Gadd has set the bar high for what comes next in Scottish drama.
What is inescapable, however, is the excess. This should have been a movie, preferably one where someone cried “enough” when required. Enough violence, enough speeches, enough making the characters so irredeemably horrible, just enough. That might have made the difference between a good piece of television and a great one.
So many releases this week, there’s hardly any space to mention the return of the excellent Criminal Record (Apple TV). Peter Capaldi and Cush Jumbo play two Met detectives, Daniel Hegarty and June Lenker, who have zero in common except a desire to catch bad guys - by any means necessary in the case of Capaldi’s character. Is Hegarty as dodgy as he seems, and if so, will Lenker be the one to turn him in? This sharply written drama is anything but routine.
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